D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[The Crimson Binome]

It just felt weird to me that the lack of a way to play a PURE healer that never attacked at all was considered so vital when the 4e cleric was so much a reaction to 3e cleric that always ended up turning 100% of his spell slots into CLWs unless there was some real catastrophe that he needed to fix (poison, curses, etc).

A lot of it is probably conceptual. Even the 3E Healer didn't have enough spells to justify casting one every round, but when someone did need healing, the healer could maneuver into position and spend a round actually healing someone. You had to give up your turn, and worry about opportunity attacks, but it felt like you were really contributing whenever you did it.

With the minor action healing, even if it gave me more healing throughput per fight since I never had to worry about being in the right spot, it didn't feel like I was actually doing anything. Somebody would get some HP back, sure, but it didn't feel like I was the one doing it. It felt automatic. Like I used to be a portrait artist, and now my job had been replaced by a camera.

Which was great for all those people who didn't enjoy playing a healer, and felt like it was a mandatory role that somebody got stuck with, but was kind of a hollow experience for people who really enjoyed playing the healer.

Sure, there was Cure Light Wounds, once per day. As though I was back playing a level 1 character in AD&D, but that was rarely even necessary in the light of everything else that was going on. (It did have the niche of not requiring a healing surge, if I recall correctly, but we only played the game for six months so we never got around to appreciating that aspect of it.)

It just felt like this aspect of the game was designed by people who never enjoyed playing a healer in the first place. Why turn healing into a minor action, to trivialize its cost, when they could have just designed the game so it didn't need a healer at all, and left the option for a full action-spending healer that didn't contribute to the damage output of the party? Would that have been so difficult to balance?

 

[tyrlaan]

I think there's a bunch of lazy players out there that got their crutch taken away and didn't like it. Meanwhile my 5e wizard is totally running the show and the DM is making noises about some sort of E6 again...

I would say there are bunch of lazy DMs that don't want to learn how to handle the caster-martial disparity.

I like how you both rationalize the other side of your arguments as attributed to laziness. I'd argue what's most lazy is dismissing each other's arguments like that, but I think you've both demonstrated how firmly entrenched your opinions are at this point. Keep the rest of us out of your crossfire please.

With the minor action healing, even if it gave me more healing throughput per fight since I never had to worry about being in the right spot, it didn't feel like I was actually doing anything. Somebody would get some HP back, sure, but it didn't feel like I was the one doing it. It felt automatic. Like I used to be a portrait artist, and now my job had been replaced by a camera.

I understand what you have said here, but I don't understand how that's the feeling you drew from it. I mean, if you spent your minor action to heal, then you healed. How did it not feel like your character being the one that did it? I can track how you might have felt it to be too easy to heal - like the paint brush vs. a camera - but not the one doing it I can't really follow.

Which was great for all those people who didn't enjoy playing a healer, and felt like it was a mandatory role that somebody got stuck with, but was kind of a hollow experience for people who really enjoyed playing the healer.

Sure, there was Cure Light Wounds, once per day. As though I was back playing a level 1 character in AD&D, but that was rarely even necessary in the light of everything else that was going on. (It did have the niche of not requiring a healing surge, if I recall correctly, but we only played the game for six months so we never got around to appreciating that aspect of it.)

It just felt like this aspect of the game was designed by people who never enjoyed playing a healer in the first place. Why turn healing into a minor action, to trivialize its cost, when they could have just designed the game so it didn't need a healer at all, and left the option for a full action-spending healer that didn't contribute to the damage output of the party? Would that have been so difficult to balance?

I believe it very much specifically was built with people who disliked playing the healer in mind. Well, more specifically playing a healbot. I remember WotC staff precisely explaining that healers would not be hamstrung with spending their actions only healing.

So if you wanted to spend all your turns healing, yeah, I can understand possibly being underwhelmed by the 4e offerings. It wasn't their design goal. I do think the eventually provided better avenues for playing a healbot, but I do agree with you prior assessment that the core rulebook didn't give that option.

That said, if they designed a game that didn't need healing at all, there would be no place for a healer. Playing a healer when no one needs healing would kind of be like showing up to an American football game in a baseball uniform and carrying a catcher's mitt. Maybe I'm not following your proposition here, because designing for no healing needed plus a full action-spending healer doesn't sound "tough to balance", it just sounds pointless.

 

[Magistus71]

That said, if they designed a game that didn't need healing at all, there would be no place for a healer. Playing a healer when no one needs healing would kind of be like showing up to an American football game in a baseball uniform and carrying a catcher's mitt. Maybe I'm not following your proposition here, because designing for no healing needed plus a full action-spending healer doesn't sound "tough to balance", it just sounds pointless.

I would like to point out, while it can be played without a healer, it is very tough not having a cleric of some sort in the party, specially at lower levels.

 

[Hussar]

Actually, this bit of convo is kinda reminding me of something i don't like in 5e. Every problem, in our group at least, seems to get magic thrown at it. Need to scout? Whip out that invisibility spell, or bemoan it's absence. Need to talk to that NPC, better break out the stat buff spells, Guidance, or whatever. It seems to me that that's what people complain about when they talk about caster dominance. It's not that the wizard dominates, it's that casters, overall, are just so much better at two of the three pillars - exploration and interaction.

Oh, look, there's a traitor in our midst? Don't bother doing any investigation, break out the zone of truth spell and have at it. It's not something that I really enjoy and I was glad to see it gone in 4e.

I do wish that casting got toned down a LOT more. Fortunately, in our main game, our two casters are sorcerers, so, it's not like they have the versatility to really dominate. But, I do hear a lot of grousing at the table to the effect of, "Gee, if we had more casters in this party, we'd have so much easier time of all this stuff" rather than actually engaging in some sort of tactical thinking that would serve the same. I think that 3e particularly has made a lot of players very reliant on the Magic I Win button.

 

[sunshadow21]

Actually, this bit of convo is kinda reminding me of something i don't like in 5e. Every problem, in our group at least, seems to get magic thrown at it. Need to scout? Whip out that invisibility spell, or bemoan it's absence. Need to talk to that NPC, better break out the stat buff spells, Guidance, or whatever. It seems to me that that's what people complain about when they talk about caster dominance. It's not that the wizard dominates, it's that casters, overall, are just so much better at two of the three pillars - exploration and interaction.

That honestly is something that the system will have in it; 4E only seemed to get rid of it because it basically made everyone casters. DMs that let parties abuse magic to that extent will always have that problem. DMs that build worlds and run campaigns where that kind of abuse of magic is not rewarded will always have a much easier time dealing with the differences in the classes. I have seen groups where that disparity is a major problem, and I've seen groups where the players and DMs ran things in a way that it never really came up. Blaming the system is not likely going to get you very far; D&D is what it is, and magic being powerful is part of that. It's up to the DM to control the rarity of it, and therefore the problems it can cause at the table.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I understand what you have said here, but I don't understand how that's the feeling you drew from it. I mean, if you spent your minor action to heal, then you healed. How did it not feel like your character being the one that did it? I can track how you might have felt it to be too easy to heal - like the paint brush vs. a camera - but not the one doing it I can't really follow.

My dim memory says that 4E clerical healing didn't heal directly so much as allow someone else to spend a healing surge immediately. If that memory is correct, then I had the exact same feeling as Saelorn: you're not really providing healing so much as catalyzing healing.

As you say, it wasn't a design goal.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Actually, this bit of convo is kinda reminding me of something i don't like in 5e. Every problem, in our group at least, seems to get magic thrown at it. Need to scout? Whip out that invisibility spell, or bemoan it's absence. Need to talk to that NPC, better break out the stat buff spells, Guidance, or whatever. It seems to me that that's what people complain about when they talk about caster dominance. It's not that the wizard dominates, it's that casters, overall, are just so much better at two of the three pillars - exploration and interaction.

Oh, look, there's a traitor in our midst? Don't bother doing any investigation, break out the zone of truth spell and have at it. It's not something that I really enjoy and I was glad to see it gone in 4e.

I do wish that casting got toned down a LOT more. Fortunately, in our main game, our two casters are sorcerers, so, it's not like they have the versatility to really dominate. But, I do hear a lot of grousing at the table to the effect of, "Gee, if we had more casters in this party, we'd have so much easier time of all this stuff" rather than actually engaging in some sort of tactical thinking that would serve the same. I think that 3e particularly has made a lot of players very reliant on the Magic I Win button.

Two thoughts:

1.) The PHB suggests things like an all-fighter party (choose your own background) or an all-entertainer party (choose your own class). The former would be forced to de-emphasize magic solutions and could be a lot of fun as an alternate thing.

2.) Anyone who relies exclusively on Zone of Truth instead of their own brains is going to have a wakeup moment when they finger the wrong traitor because someone they trusted (he passed Zone of Truth!) turns out to have been a Rakshasa who can lie all he wants in a Zone of Truth. Or someone under Glibness, or an Enchanter who modified your memory to think you'd interviewed him in a Zone of Truth, or a Sorcerer who Subtly dispelled your zone of truth during the interview. Or more prosaically, just someone who is really good at evasive answers. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That marketplace that leads you to say: "And yet here I am, I play 5e, unlike all you people who made a choice to be so rigid that you wouldn't even play with us. Here we are. What exactly more is it you require of us? eh? We took all the crap and we're still being sports and now what? We have to shut up and pretend we like it so you can feel better?"

Yeah, cuz this is a fair reflection of what happened.....
Are you going to claim that 3E was hurting in 2002 when they started working of 3.5? 2002 has been called, by many, the "second golden age". 3.5 was a cash in on huge success. It backfired in many ways, but it does not reflect the market success of the 3E game. And funny that you count 3.5 but ignore essentials, which is generally agreed to have been an emergency recovery effort.

You also ignore the STILL booming success of PF, which amusingly goes back and forth from "being 3E" when 4E fans want to say 4E got a raw deal to "not being 3E" when 4E fans want to fudge the edition cycle numbers.



Some D&D fans have substantial Business Management experience. But whatever, we are in a place where you are expressing significant frustration. So I'll just say "the market result where you didn't get what you would have liked"

So, to paraphrase "I'm right because I spin WotC's game business to be some sort of endorsement of my position, even though nobody has any hard facts whatsoever, and you're opinion is poopy because... I say so!" lol.

I stick to plain undeniable facts, nothing else. I could drag out all the various things that were known through the years, but I really am tired of the whole debate. Clearly you feel you were 'owed' something by WotC for having the gall to print 4e, and yet I've no business having any issues with 5e. Its amusing, but only for a few minutes.

Now, I bring up 4e in these debates sometimes, but only because I am interested contrast and comparison of game systems, play styles, etc. I don't give a crud about who got their feelings hurt 7 years ago or hearing about the same old stories about how we hated this or that. Its best to stick to talking about what it is, how it works, why it works that way, and what the results are. Anything else is pretty much just an aggravation to the people who probably only want to talk about those things.

 

[MoutonRustique]

My dim memory says that 4E clerical healing didn't heal directly so much as allow someone else to spend a healing surge immediately. If that memory is correct, then I had the exact same feeling as Saelorn: you're not really providing healing so much as catalyzing healing.

As you say, it wasn't a design goal.

Yeah, 4E wasn't great at "showing" (whilst pretty excellent at telling) - so the feeling of many actions was very easy to interpret in a variety of ways.

Which can be good - if you like to make the things your own and don't care about explicit links - or very bad if you prefer the reverse...

In this sense, clerics did heal with magic spells and unlock the surge was the clerics action through and through! AND clerics only allowed others to heal themselves was a very easy (not pejorative here, talking about actual ease) interpretation to make - at the same time.

Sort of like everything about everything - nice for those that like it, bad for those that don't.

Two thoughts:

1.) The PHB suggests things like an all-fighter party (choose your own background) or an all-entertainer party (choose your own class). The former would be forced to de-emphasize magic solutions and could be a lot of fun as an alternate thing.

2.) Anyone who relies exclusively on Zone of Truth instead of their own brains is going to have a wakeup moment when they finger the wrong traitor because someone they trusted (he passed Zone of Truth!) turns out to have been a Rakshasa who can lie all he wants in a Zone of Truth. Or someone under Glibness, or an Enchanter who modified your memory to think you'd interviewed him in a Zone of Truth, or a Sorcerer who Subtly dispelled your zone of truth during the interview. Or more prosaically, just someone who is really good at evasive answers. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

I find it fairly hard to argue that having a healer in the party greatly increases its power. To the point where many feel they are "mandatory".

You could always have an "all X" party in any edition - but the game often had to face some significant modifications (either in tone, rhythm, loot accessibility/assignment, etc.)

I've not tried it, it is true - but my gut tells me that going through HotDQ with a full non-caster party will require some significant changes... (But I've not tried it, so IDK for certain.)

2) the idea isn't in relying exclusively on the spell - it's just that the feeling that having the spells makes everything a lot easier is pretty easy to get to. All the points you make also hold true for non-magical resolutions (but I get your point that using only one source, no matter how powerful, is a dangerous proposition). However, you can't argue that it isn't a very powerful tool of investigation.

But I'm kind of just arguing to be arguing it seems - so I'll this, but feel free to ignore.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Actually, this bit of convo is kinda reminding me of something i don't like in 5e. Every problem, in our group at least, seems to get magic thrown at it. Need to scout? Whip out that invisibility spell, or bemoan it's absence. Need to talk to that NPC, better break out the stat buff spells, Guidance, or whatever. It seems to me that that's what people complain about when they talk about caster dominance. It's not that the wizard dominates, it's that casters, overall, are just so much better at two of the three pillars - exploration and interaction.

Oh, look, there's a traitor in our midst? Don't bother doing any investigation, break out the zone of truth spell and have at it. It's not something that I really enjoy and I was glad to see it gone in 4e.

I do wish that casting got toned down a LOT more. Fortunately, in our main game, our two casters are sorcerers, so, it's not like they have the versatility to really dominate. But, I do hear a lot of grousing at the table to the effect of, "Gee, if we had more casters in this party, we'd have so much easier time of all this stuff" rather than actually engaging in some sort of tactical thinking that would serve the same. I think that 3e particularly has made a lot of players very reliant on the Magic I Win button.

I think a party that faces a lot of this needs to check their encounter rate. If they're having the 6-8/day, spellcasters might do this for a few challenges, but often have much more vital uses for their spell-slots later in the day.

But this also doesn't seem to be a big thing IMXP. Party scouts are those with good Perception/Stealth. Party "Faces" are those with a high Persuade/Insight. Magic is kind of second-tier - invis and charm are good backups, but their slot-cost and limitations keep them from being the go-to.

Well, maybe with the exception that magic is always the best thing to use to set off traps - mage hands and unseen servants are more disposable than hirelings, so if you know something is trapped, often the best approach is just to go at the utmost range of the longest-range spell and blow up your minion.

These things don't make great scouts, though.