D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[tyrlaan]

Than you need to find a different system. D&D has always had that kind of campaign changing magic and always will. It shows it in different ways at different times in different versions, but any campaign that lasts a decent period of time is going to have that kind of change at some point and a long campaign will have several. It's one of the biggest reasons why most campaigns end around 10th-12th level. Take that away, and it's no longer D&D and people's acceptance of it will drop accordingly. Even 4E, which still had it, despite being far better masked, had to overcome the very real argument that for many, it did not feel like D&D. It's part of the system. You can mask it all you want, you can try to mitigate it all you want, but most people who play D&D at this point do so precisely because of that type of magic, and those who want to play low magic while using this system consistently have to fight not only the system, but the perceptions of most of their players as well. The idea of low magic simply does not fit well with a system where half of the classic party are full casters.

I don't think this has to be the case, but historical trends definitely agree with you.

I do however think that many people over the years have chosen to run a low magic game in D&D for better or worse, which means they had to tackle these issues. The missing ingredient to truly handle the power disparity without a boatload of houserules/class and spell redesign would be for D&D to have some sort of power "dial". So maybe there are three "settings", low, moderate, and high magic, and when you pick one it not only adjusts magic item rarity/power (which is where the magic level is typically tweaked), but also spells/classes and monsters/traps.

I by no means suggest this is an easy design space to romp through, but it could be done

 

[Celtavian]

I don't think this has to be the case, but historical trends definitely agree with you.

I do however think that many people over the years have chosen to run a low magic game in D&D for better or worse, which means they had to tackle these issues. The missing ingredient to truly handle the power disparity without a boatload of houserules/class and spell redesign would be for D&D to have some sort of power "dial". So maybe there are three "settings", low, moderate, and high magic, and when you pick one it not only adjusts magic item rarity/power (which is where the magic level is typically tweaked), but also spells/classes and monsters/traps.

I by no means suggest this is an easy design space to romp through, but it could be done

D&D has been out for over three decades. If people wanted D&D to be low magic, it would be low magic. If they wanted a casting system like 4e, 4E would have been as popular as previous editions. Caster players don't want that. Too limiting.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That's why in my games, getting to the point where you know it's going to have that impact is part of the challenge, and that's where roleplay, skill checks, character backgrounds, and world contacts come into play. The zone of truth is massively effective at getting the confession, but you have to know the right time and place to use it in order for it to work. Invisibility can be a game saver in that key moment, but you have to know it's the key moment. Even divination spells require that you ask the right questions or look in the right place. Spells and magic can be amazingly powerful tactical tools with good party support, whether it be pinning down an enemy in combat or the rogue sneaking off to do some investigating to get that key piece of information, but it takes a really good player to use them as strategic tools.

Well, obviously things besides spells do have utility, yes. The point is more that one character, the Wizard usually, but it could be one of the other caster types, holds a whole extra special set of cards. Ones that will be crucial at the crux of the matter. Sure, you won't always have exactly the perfect spell at the perfect time, or you might have no opportunity to employ it because you didn't know the situation ahead of time, but all of those are true of other ways to do things as well. And remember, the wizard isn't deprived of a perfectly adequate toolset when it comes to skills, proficiencies, etc. So it tends to be that the plot will incorporate some point where you count on having a spell. You might count on having a skill too, but any particular character might well deliver that, so your party's go-to caster becomes rather pivotal.

That was actually my biggest frustration with rituals in 4E; they were nice, but for the majority of them, by the time you realized you needed it, it was too late to cast it, so they really didn't do much to take the place of lost spells. I suspect that 5E has more or less the same issue, being tied to the regular spells like they are. I would have preferred rituals similar to 4E but with longer durations (possibly reducing the overall effects to emphasize the duration aspect) or quick, immediate response type things (like a single action for 1 round of invisibility type of thing) to get yourself out of tight spots. By tying them to spells, it actually removes both of these potentially useful uses, spell design has to really emphasize the big and the flashy, but mostly immediate effects.

Well, one response would of course be, "gosh, you no longer have instant pre-packaged problem solvers, plan ahead!" I thought they were cool for that reason, you had to think ahead, carry enough materials to cast them, find a way to take the time required to do so, etc. It meant there was some substantial value in scouting and prep, although other aspects of the way 4e was packaged tended to obviate the whole ritual thing (IE if you simply create all winnable fights who needs to pay the cost of a ritual unless its going to be VERY specifically useful).

The big thing I've noticed with groups that stick to "magic solves everything" is that the DM never introduces consequences for always taking shortcuts. DMs that occasionally do things like using that zone of truth to reveal that what the PCs thought was the truth wasn't, and the actual truth is something that the party could have used to their advantage if they had discovered it quietly, but because of the circumstances required to effectively use the zone of truth, they lost that advantage, and may have even had it turned into a disadvantage, tend to not have major martial/caster disparity issues. Magic can resolve just about any encounter with the right amount of preparation and foreknowledge, but even a small story arc is going to be beyond the range of a single spell if written and ran even half way decently. Multiple spells could resolve a small story arc, but the setup for those spells to work together is almost certainly going to involve nonmagic activity, and magic is no longer automatically the quick and easy shortcut, so there is no reason for casters to automatically dominate anything.

Eh, the problem with 'the DM always has consequences for magic use' is it gets pretty forced rather quickly. Beyond that when you really cannot achieve the same effect or quality of effect then consequences be damned.

I think the D&D model of the wizard is just too broad. There needs to be a narrowing, such that indeed a given character is going to be amazingly good at using magic in some situations, but otherwise, he's just another joe and has to pull his weight in whatever way. So the diviner can be really amazingly good at ferreting out needed information, but he doesn't have generalist magic on top of that (or very little of it at least). He may well have significant non-magical or 'magic-related' capabilities that are more similar to what non-casters get as well, so he won't be a one-shot wonder, but it puts him much more on a par with the rogue, who's really amazing at sneaking around and ganking someone from surprise, but is otherwise just pretty much baseline competent or a little better. I really advocated for that model when they seemed to be determined to go Vancian in 5e, but the traditionalists were holding sway, Mike wanted AD&D revisited, and he pretty much got it. I'm happy that there's a bit of toning down of individual spells, but in other respects 5e casters made out amazingly well.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

People who crab about specific examples being "campaign dependent" risk looking like they're arguing just to be difficult. All specific examples are situational. That's what makes it an example and not a paradigm.

Bottom line is that if you're making a trap, you need to consider what your goals are. "Inflict moderate HP damage on whoever triggered it" is a good goal for sadistically punishing casual thieves and impudent servants prying into your private stuff; it's not a great goal for hardening yourself against a minor military expedition like a party of PCs.

Fine, and you CAN do these 'anti-caster tactics' up to a point, but pretty soon it starts to feel very forced. It also often just doesn't fit with the fiction. Orcs can dig pits, but they're rather unlikely to rig up bombs that cause tunnel collapse every time the pit is disarmed, and then some other complicated subterfuge the next time, etc. This gets especially problematic in high level games where the casters have enormous flexibility and the DM is going to be lucky if he can even come up with the most obvious sneaky ways the casters are going to engineer a bypass. So then you end up with either the universal fallback solutions (magic immunities, anti-magic zones, etc) festooned all over the place, or a patchwork of 100 caster-foiling tricks in every encounter location.

And of course, you can simply say "well, the trap is just to keep out ordinary blokes" which is fine, but it makes it atmosphere, not really a defense. There still has to BE a defense. I'm all for your evil cunning mastermind BBEGs that have loads of resources to leave some very cunning traps that account for expected magical countermeasures, but to consider that an anti-dote to the 'batman caster' is underestimating batman and doing enough of it strains credibility.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The real difficulty with 3rd edition is that it made the problem obvious at lower levels and provided no clear in system solutions for it. From what I've heard, 5E's solutions are a mixed bag, and so don't automatically impress my anymore than any of the attempts in earlier editions. Magic is still reasonably powerful, but it runs the risk of ending up like the 3rd edition cleric; a very powerful thing that most nonpower gamers or secret military strategists aren't going to really find all that interesting. Having a go to spell is nice, but when a single spell (in this case sleep from what I've read) becomes a must have for any wizard of any kind, I don't see a removal of the problem, just a shift in its manifestation.

I haven't found sleep to be that much of an issue. It simply can't hit enough creatures to make it worth that much. I mean maybe you can knock out a couple of the least powerful creatures in an encounter, though I guess if you are swarmed by a large number of kobolds or something then it might be super nice. Otherwise you either have to jack it up to so high a level to put out a significant opponent that you're better off with some other strategy, or you just can't touch the bad guy. It is certainly vastly weaker than 1e Sleep, which was the apex of that particular spell. Scaling means you may still use it, but I don't memorize it anymore (at 6th level) and have only cast it maybe 3 times.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sounds like you've got a bad case of Older Edition Itis - presuming that something works in 5e like it worked before 5e.

You could invis the thief, but you'd probably be wasting a spell slot. Invis doesn't do a hell of a lot for stealth. It gives you the opportunity to stealth (makes you unseen), but it doesn't actually make them any better on their Dexterity (Stealth) roll. In any situation where you're not sneaking up on a creature with 360-degree vision in a featureless room, invis is kind of bupkiss, since "being unseen" is also handled by rocks, low hills, corners, sneaking up behind someone, etc. If you've got invis prepared, it's better to use it after the thief makes its first sneak attack, to protect the lil' guy until the rest of the party bursts out from around the corner.

Another competitor for "stealing the thunder from skills" at 2nd level is Levitate, and there you also have the basic formula of "the spell doesn't make the skill any better" - anyone who wants to do anything other than float straight up (and perhaps come crashing down) had better have a halfway-decent Athletics roll.

Knock is more useful - it bypasses the skill roll - but it comes with one HELL of a down-side, and it doesn't even open the door, so everything else gets a chance to react before you do.

Spider Climb is probably the most useful exploration spell at that level - bypass the skill check and no significant downside - but the fact that it only works on one critter at a time means you can blow every 2nd level slot in your arsenal on it and still someone has to make an Athletics check to climb (and it's none too great for long climbs...or for getting back down...). It's useful, but it's pretty limited. It can help the scout out.

And then hooray, you helped someone else be awesome for one encounter. And there's five left...it's gonna be a long day.

Invisibility is still awesome and you would definitely want to cast it on an infiltrating rogue. It lets them hide in any unexpected place, approach from directions that are considered safe, and cannot help but make it harder to be spotted and very definitely makes it hard to be targeted. This is how it was interpreted in our AD&D games to start with, and we've always used it pretty often to decent effect.

Charm Person, this can be a quite amazingly useful spell, Sleep (when employed to say knock out a sentry, its not so good in actual combat), etc. I'm barely getting started, Alter Self has gotten me a LOT of mileage. I haven't really used Levitate, but if you need to get someone up to a spot where there's no real way to climb, its gold. I got the spider staff from Phandelver, so I have thoroughly explored Spider Climb (I can cast it at least 4x per day every day) and its a pretty good spell too. I agree, none of these spells are ridiculously powerful, but they constantly form the basis of our reckoning of how the party will overcome serious obstacles. My wizard put paid to the Phandelver dragon with a clever use of the Alarm spell for instance, very nice.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is why my personal world treats different levels of magic different ways. It solves both of these problems with remarkably little effort on my part, and without ejecting whole parts of the official game. Low level magic and even mid level magic is common enough that it's known and about, but that also means that counters, both magical and nonmagical, are also known and about. Because of this, the actual success rate of the Zone of Truth without a decent amount of prep work in advance is closer to 50% on average, and probably lower on the people that would be most likely to be it's intended targets, given that their tendencies to lie and be sneaky, both things that would make it harder to use it on them, are probably what drew the attention of the PCs in the first place. It's also not overwhelming more common than what we recognize as basic technology. It's more obviously useful than something like steam power, so it's far more likely to be seen on a day to day basis, but it's not like things like steam power or gunpowder are unknown, and magic users are not the only ones presenting shortcuts or power to those that really want either. Magic is still a neat and useful trick, and relatively easy to use, so it's still the main choice for most things, but it's far from the virtually guaranteed success that so many forum users seem to assume magic will be.

In my world, magic is a tool just like anything else; the higher level of magic you use, the more immediate effect it has, but it comes with a higher risk of consequences (both known and unknown), often requires more effort to properly setup and control the aftermath of, and more people are watching out for it and/or are prepared for it. Sure, the zone of truth may perfectly solve the immediate problem, but it could create three others, all of which the authorities expect the party to handle since they were the ones who created it. And the really high end stuff isn't readily available to just anyone; it's controlled very carefully by authorities and organizations that guard its use carefully for a wide range of reasons and usually knowing about it comes with a fair number of responsibilities to powerful NPCs. A rare lone wizard may have wish, but he isn't going to be doing anything more with it than anyone else because of the headache he'll have afterward dealing with everyone asking him about it.

I've found this to be the best compromise between the concept that everyone seems to have that magic should be this rare and powerful thing and the reality that true low magic adventures/campaigns have been few and bar between since the very beginning of the system. In some ways, I actually prefer 3rd precisely because it highlights the problems well enough that a DM that is paying attention to it from the very start should be able to mostly avoid most nasty surprises without too much difficulty. From what little I've seen of 2nd, and 5th will likely have the same issue, it's not a problem until it's a big problem, at which its probably too late to easily fix.

I'm not so worried about the highest levels, what I'm not really interested in doing is being forced to develop the whole world entirely around low level magic use. The D&D conceit is that magic is known, and certainly low level magic isn't incredibly rare. Most people have probably seen a cleric, perhaps some other sort of caster, and while they would be amazed by a spell there would be plenty of people in a village that have seen it or even been the target of it. Yet its not common enough to completely alter the normal pattern of life (IE clerics can't wipe out every disease or prevent all hunger, wizards can't stop all crime, etc). AD&D level magic made that assertion pretty difficult. You really had to assume that there were just VERY few casters of even level 1 because the spells were easy to employ and highly effective. That clashed with the basic presumptions.

High level magic? How much impact does one 20th level wizard really have on the world? Plenty if you happen to be operating in that league perhaps, but for the ordinary peasant or townsperson they're just a distant rumor. Perhaps Kings now-and-then employ magical countermeasures, but mostly you just assume you're flying under the radar and its usually true.

4e (and maybe 5e to a somewhat lesser extent) mostly works with that, but 5e still has those annoying spells that are super effective in a certain way, like Zone of Truth, that can make things MUCH easier. If you are going to assume they're constantly factored into everyone's plans, then you must assume a world rather different from D&D fiction (unless you run Eberron). In fact your campaign world sounds completely different from what D&D assumes. That's great, but I appreciated that 4e's selection of powers and rituals was carefully designed around only gradually allowing the PCs to really alter the basic world assumptions, so that if you were 15th level then strategic flying was possible, or making a zone of truth, etc. But 15th level was fictionally a pretty rare thing for people to attain, like you're probably the only guy of that level in your class in the world at any given time rare.

 

[tyrlaan]

D&D has been out for over three decades. If people wanted D&D to be low magic, it would be low magic. If they wanted a casting system like 4e, 4E would have been as popular as previous editions. Caster players don't want that. Too limiting.

Okay...

For one, I suggested support for a sliding scale of magic levels, not shunting D&D into low magic only.

For two, I played in a campaign for perhaps close to a decade that was low magic in 3e, so yeah, people do it. Which, by extension, means that at least some people would probably appreciate low magic support.

For three, are you the spokesperson for all D&D caster players? Alternatively, are you perhaps speaking from personal experience and maybe some people have different tastes?

For four, I don't understand why you got so upset/defensive over my comments in the first place. Did I say "D&D needs to be low level magic"? Did I say "magic higher than low level is bad"? How would what I mused about remotely impact anyone from playing the way you want?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, it helps that Healing Surges pretty much get everyone close to full after each session already. They could have played that angle up a little bit further.

On an encounter basis, both sides should be close to exhausting their HP by the end of the fight (if it's going to be a close fight, and there's no point of running the fight if there's no chance of failure). Maybe a party with four attackers and no healer could defeat the enemy in three rounds, but would fail if it went to four rounds; keeping that math, taking a healer instead of an extra attacker would mean that it takes four rounds for that same encounter, so the healer needs to provide enough healing that they can all survive those four round (but might fail if it goes to five or six rounds).

Ideally, a healer would provide greater stability at the cost of expediency. You could go on without one, but you'd have to play more aggressively to make up for the lack of a safety net, and it shouldn't hurt you in the long run (no downward spiral over the course of the day) as long as out-of-combat healing was plentiful.

I mean, they could have done that.

If you look at the 4e healing math that's pretty much what they did. You can have an extra striker and no healer, you will just have a more swingy experience, more blowouts and more TPKs. A modest amount more healing, roughly what a normal non-heal-centered cleric, warlord, or bard (IE one that maybe has a 'heal better' feat or a surgeless heal power, but not focused on that) will slow the fights a bit, there will be a lot less blowouts, but you'll get a lot less meltdowns too. Amp that up to a Pacifist, or add a bunch of healing features to other PCs and you probably WILL increase survivability in most cases, but the combats start to really drag out, and you're past the really sweet spot. Going any further to that extreme just turns the party into a turtle group that can't really win fights, though they will likely take a huge pounding for a couple of encounters before they finally run out of HS and die hard.

What is missing is just a pure healer in PHB1. They only designed for the optimum sweet spot in that book.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The problem is Sunshadow21, I don't want every DnD game to be set in Eberon. Which is what you're essentially talking about.

And no, not every version of DnD had this. Prior to 3e it was pretty easy to keep the setting lowish magic. Or rather it was easy to play without having magic be the first solution to every problem.

Up to about 7th level I agree. After that, you're pretty much into the super powered wizard mode. After 9th level even AD&D's attempts to curb magic users break down almost completely. My 14th level wizard was a perpetually flying, invisible, displaced, stone skinned dreadnought who feared almost nothing. Our DM at that time finally came up with an answer, an entire city filled with 1000's of beholders buried in the center of a mountain. We still went there and survived, right after we killed Demogorgon on his home plane. By that point the only non-casters around were ones that were required for plot reasons. 14th level non-casters were nasty, but thoroughly optional.