D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[Ancalagon]

Epic necromantic rant!

Does this mean that I have to read all 1527 posts? I had plans today....

 

[Charles Rampant]

Does this mean that I have to read all 1527 posts? I had plans today....

You only need to read the ones that are constructive and not edition-warry. Good luck finding them!

 

[Werebat]

HEY! How is this conversation still going on?

Poppa Smurf ALWAYS SAYS -- "Good discussions do NOT come about as a result of inflammatory posts!!!"

It's like the #1 rule of the Internet!

Cease your productive discussion! I SAID *CEASE* *IT*!!!

 

[Jester David]

3e sucks. Not even starting on the whole blatant meaningless padding thing, just the game itself. With its blatantly Hack&Slash / MMO grinding oriented nature (starting with creature XP only, and what it did to cantrips), skill system so ludicrous that most attempts to fix threw out as irredeemable, feat system outrageously clunky and looking like it was glued on the side as an afterthought (and with "newbie trap" options, too), the blatantly half-assed design of parts that could be good if done well - item creation system lazily dropped halfway ("Summon Creature I" thing) and creation of a new compartmentalized haystack of class features while failing to encapsulate classes all the way ("+1 to existing spellcasting class")...

I love someone describing 3e as an "MMO" when it was designed at a time when even EverQuest and UltimaOnline were in their infancy and released four years before Warcraft...

 

[TBeholder]

Epic necromantic rant!

It's better to let it walk than to hear unfocused moans.
I see people talking about "why does 5E suck?" in many threads either way - here it would be just all together and under a proper title.
Now that more people had time to try it, they have something to chime in.
Conversely, the developers had more than enough time to patch away the worst. So when it sucks, it sucks - that cannot be "oops, random turbulence" at this point.

You only need to read the ones that are constructive and not edition-warry. Good luck finding them!

There are still people naive enough to edition-war D&D?
I thought it was more and more and more obvious that the only questions are how and why a particular version sucks, not whether it does.

when it was designed at a time when even EverQuest and UltimaOnline were in their infancy and released four years before Warcraft...

Well, yes, d20 also became a major source of bad styles, but in my summary this side had to be skipped as organizational and accidental issue, rather than one directly related to game mechanics.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Between the content of your posts, your post count with an old account, and not one, but two huge flame war threads necro'd by you today, I remain suspicious of your motivations.

 

[TBeholder]

Between the content of your posts, your post count with an old account, and not one, but two huge flame war threads necro'd by you today, I remain suspicious of your motivations.

Completely selfish, of course.
Sure, dead horse pinata was fun. But since then, people had time to not only figure out that yes, the horse is well and truly dead, but also to make peace with this fact, so maybe someone will at least make glue from the carcass. Could use good glue.

Seriously, though, by now it should be clear that D&D isn't going to magically get better any time soon. Those who aren't content with that have to turn toward something else and/or homebrews. If a little reminder why it's needed and what not to do will help - good, and if not - never mind.
In theory, anyway.

 

[QuietBrowser]

While "hate" is far too strong a word, I will confess that there are some aspects of 5e that do sincerely bug me, which I can generally break up into Crunch and Fluff.

Crunch:

• The Sorcerer's Subclasses: As was stated way back on the 2nd page, the Sorcerer suffers from what sincerely looks like a lack of development, to the point I can't help but wonder if it - and maybe the Druid - mightn't have benefited from being left out of the PHB and saved for a later book so we could get more material for them. It worked for the 4e Druid and Barbarian, after all. The Wild Mage origin is seriously annoying, with a heavy dependence on the Random Number God to the point you can honestly sympathise with settings where Wild Mages tend to be hunted down by the local wizard guilds. The Dragon Blood origin isn't bad in and of itself, but does suffer from the next flaw...
• Elemental Imbalance: As others have pointed out, if you want to be any sort of elementalist-themed caster, pretty much your only option is Fire. Almost every Evocation spell in the game does Fire damage, outweighing Acid, Cold, Lightning, Thunder and Poison damage combined. This is bad enough for your Evoker Wizard, but it means that Dragon Sorcerers who want to play something other than a Red or Gold-blooded character are pretty much screwed, as your features revolve around enhanced aptitude with elemental damage types, and there's almost nothing other than Fire spells to go with.
• Return to Shared Spell-Lists: Okay, this may be a little unreasonable, but I really dug the way that each and every caster class had its own entirely unique array of spells in 4th edition. It made each class feel unique, and honestly, I can't help but be disappointed that 5e has gone back to 3e's style of Sorcerers/Warlocks/Wizards drawing from a common pool of spells with some token modifications in availability.
• Lackluster Way of Four Elements: What can I say about the Way of Four Elements fighting style for the Monk that others haven't said? There's too few options to really feel like the "elementalist monk", and those abilities are too expensive in terms of tapping into the Monk's fairly limited ki pool, so you can't even use those powers often enough to really feel empowered.
• Return of Ability Score Penalties: Seriously, ability score penalties, like race-based class restrictions, are a terrible idea that doesn't offer anything in terms of character development or character building. I've a lot of distaste for the fact Volo's Guide outright calls its monstrous adventurers "unbalanced", because that's an excuse any close-minded DM will seize on to justify not using them, but bringing back ability score penalties was an awful idea and I can only hope that this will be a once-off.
• Loss of Epic Tier: Let's face it, the "you can fight and defeat demon princes and evil gods" tier of uber-D&D is something people have longed for since the days of 1st edition - there's a reason why we had the Immortals box-set to cover ascending to the Mystaran equivalent of godhood, after all. 4th edition was the first edition to consider this and incorporate it into gameplay from the beginning, which is why Epic Tier was far better balanced than Epic Levels were in 3rd edition. And what does 5e do? Simply ignore it altogether. Disappointing.

Fluff:

• Reversion to Old Fluff in General: Really, this sums up almost every single problem I have with 5e in terms of fluff. Although I certainly can agree that rolling back to pre-Spellplague Forgotten Realms was probably the better thing to do, as I can understand why that was the setting change that most upset the fanbase, the 4th edition came up with so many brilliant ideas that have now been all swept away in a desperate battle to win back the crowd.
• Loss of the Nentir Vale: The Points of Light setting, ultimately renamed the Nentir Vale, was the core of the World Axis cosmology that 4e created, and so it really felt like a place where anything and everything was possible. It had character, but was blank enough to be whatever you wanted it to be. Reverting back to focusing everything on Forgotten Realms is a big step backwards that, honestly, rather bugs me.
• Return of the Great Wheel: While I admit that the 5e version is slightly better than old version, particularly with the tweaks to the elemental planes, the shearing of Alignment as the focus, and the retention of the Feywild & Shadowfell, I still wish they'd kept more of the World Axis cosmology. I simply found it far more enjoyable than the Great Wheel - to the point my interest in Planescape is more for Sigil itself than the rest of the multiverse. I'm particularly bugged by this because it means we've lost the Primordials, who were far more developed and interesting than the Archomentals.
• Monodimensional Gnolls: I've complained about this elsewhere, so I'll be brief - 4th edition gave gnolls a huge level of character development despite their "usually villainous" role, and 5th edition's monolithic focus on them as mindless demonspawn is a waste and an insult.
• Loss of Adamantine and Iron Dragons: I never liked the Alloy Dragons, so when 4e pushed them out of the limelight and gave us the Adamantine and Iron Dragons, complete with making the Iron Dragons the "Metallic Feral" and so better contrasting the Chromatics, I was greatly enthused. Their loss is a true shame.
• Loss of the Primal Spirits: In all honesty, I've always hated the Druid class. It just feels completely wrong - some overpowered mashup of a shapeshifting wizard and a nature cleric and a ranger. 4th edition was the first time I actually liked the Druid, and that's because there was finally a decent amount of lore focused on why druids are actually different to nature Clerics. They paled before the Warden and the Shaman in terms of enjoyability, but at least they finally felt like they had a place. So, 5e getting rid of the Primal Spirits and going back to "they're different from nature clerics just because!" is a huge step backwards to me.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

While "hate" is far too strong a word, I will confess that there are some aspects of 5e that do sincerely bug me, which I can generally break up into Crunch and Fluff.

Crunch:

• The Sorcerer's Subclasses: As was stated way back on the 2nd page, the Sorcerer suffers from what sincerely looks like a lack of development, to the point I can't help but wonder if it - and maybe the Druid - mightn't have benefited from being left out of the PHB and saved for a later book so we could get more material for them. It worked for the 4e Druid and Barbarian, after all. The Wild Mage origin is seriously annoying, with a heavy dependence on the Random Number God to the point you can honestly sympathise with settings where Wild Mages tend to be hunted down by the local wizard guilds. The Dragon Blood origin isn't bad in and of itself, but does suffer from the next flaw...
• Elemental Imbalance: As others have pointed out, if you want to be any sort of elementalist-themed caster, pretty much your only option is Fire. Almost every Evocation spell in the game does Fire damage, outweighing Acid, Cold, Lightning, Thunder and Poison damage combined. This is bad enough for your Evoker Wizard, but it means that Dragon Sorcerers who want to play something other than a Red or Gold-blooded character are pretty much screwed, as your features revolve around enhanced aptitude with elemental damage types, and there's almost nothing other than Fire spells to go with.
• Return to Shared Spell-Lists: Okay, this may be a little unreasonable, but I really dug the way that each and every caster class had its own entirely unique array of spells in 4th edition. It made each class feel unique, and honestly, I can't help but be disappointed that 5e has gone back to 3e's style of Sorcerers/Warlocks/Wizards drawing from a common pool of spells with some token modifications in availability.
• Lackluster Way of Four Elements: What can I say about the Way of Four Elements fighting style for the Monk that others haven't said? There's too few options to really feel like the "elementalist monk", and those abilities are too expensive in terms of tapping into the Monk's fairly limited ki pool, so you can't even use those powers often enough to really feel empowered.
• Return of Ability Score Penalties: Seriously, ability score penalties, like race-based class restrictions, are a terrible idea that doesn't offer anything in terms of character development or character building. I've a lot of distaste for the fact Volo's Guide outright calls its monstrous adventurers "unbalanced", because that's an excuse any close-minded DM will seize on to justify not using them, but bringing back ability score penalties was an awful idea and I can only hope that this will be a once-off.
• Loss of Epic Tier: Let's face it, the "you can fight and defeat demon princes and evil gods" tier of uber-D&D is something people have longed for since the days of 1st edition - there's a reason why we had the Immortals box-set to cover ascending to the Mystaran equivalent of godhood, after all. 4th edition was the first edition to consider this and incorporate it into gameplay from the beginning, which is why Epic Tier was far better balanced than Epic Levels were in 3rd edition. And what does 5e do? Simply ignore it altogether. Disappointing.

Fluff:

• Reversion to Old Fluff in General: Really, this sums up almost every single problem I have with 5e in terms of fluff. Although I certainly can agree that rolling back to pre-Spellplague Forgotten Realms was probably the better thing to do, as I can understand why that was the setting change that most upset the fanbase, the 4th edition came up with so many brilliant ideas that have now been all swept away in a desperate battle to win back the crowd.
• Loss of the Nentir Vale: The Points of Light setting, ultimately renamed the Nentir Vale, was the core of the World Axis cosmology that 4e created, and so it really felt like a place where anything and everything was possible. It had character, but was blank enough to be whatever you wanted it to be. Reverting back to focusing everything on Forgotten Realms is a big step backwards that, honestly, rather bugs me.
• Return of the Great Wheel: While I admit that the 5e version is slightly better than old version, particularly with the tweaks to the elemental planes, the shearing of Alignment as the focus, and the retention of the Feywild & Shadowfell, I still wish they'd kept more of the World Axis cosmology. I simply found it far more enjoyable than the Great Wheel - to the point my interest in Planescape is more for Sigil itself than the rest of the multiverse. I'm particularly bugged by this because it means we've lost the Primordials, who were far more developed and interesting than the Archomentals.
• Monodimensional Gnolls: I've complained about this elsewhere, so I'll be brief - 4th edition gave gnolls a huge level of character development despite their "usually villainous" role, and 5th edition's monolithic focus on them as mindless demonspawn is a waste and an insult.
• Loss of Adamantine and Iron Dragons: I never liked the Alloy Dragons, so when 4e pushed them out of the limelight and gave us the Adamantine and Iron Dragons, complete with making the Iron Dragons the "Metallic Feral" and so better contrasting the Chromatics, I was greatly enthused. Their loss is a true shame.
• Loss of the Primal Spirits: In all honesty, I've always hated the Druid class. It just feels completely wrong - some overpowered mashup of a shapeshifting wizard and a nature cleric and a ranger. 4th edition was the first time I actually liked the Druid, and that's because there was finally a decent amount of lore focused on why druids are actually different to nature Clerics. They paled before the Warden and the Shaman in terms of enjoyability, but at least they finally felt like they had a place. So, 5e getting rid of the Primal Spirits and going back to "they're different from nature clerics just because!" is a huge step backwards to me.

All of this.

 

[Harzel]

Epic necromantic rant!

I misread this as 'epic necromantic rat'. So now I have an idea for my next BBEG.