D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is a bit late to the party -- my time for forums is somewhat limited these days -- but I guess I'm confused by all this 4e p42 hype.

First of all, 5e has rules for this kind of thing:

The problem I have with the 5e version is it that it is built on a paradigm that isn't the central paradigm of the game, which is an ever increasing ability to accomplish the same task. 'Easy' doesn't MEAN anything because its not actually descriptive except in some abstract sense that never exists in any actual game (some sort of 'common man' that nobody actually plays and is a different level than all but the level 1 PC).

Its not 'unworkable', but it is inelegant and AT THE TABLE its not so intuitive. It also fails to inherently provide a guideline for people who are devising DCs. 4e DCs work better because you always know what the appropriate DC should be for the type of fiction you will present at level X, the easy, medium, and hard DCs for that level (and possibly for a range of levels up to 5 higher if for instance you want a 'major obstacle' type encounter, like a boss fight situation).

It's just that 5e's "rules for things the rules don't cover" is just "the rules." The ability check rules already cover everything. There's only one set of DCs because DCs don't scale with level outside of 4e. There's no damage listed because 5e doesn't strictly limit or scale damage the same way 4e needed to. And these rules are robust enough to tell you how to resolve anything in the game for skills or ability checks or saves. If you take the same table and change "DC" to "AC", you can see how attacks work, too. Instead of taking up a whole page, it takes up half a column. Yes, there are some things not in it, but basically everything is there.

Page 42 IS the ability check rules. There HAS to be a 'DC Chart' of some sort and every game has one. At the level of the pure mechanics of numbers and dice there's no difference between 3e, 4e, and 5e, except where your bonuses might come from and how fast they accumulate. The question is about presentation of information.

3e had a problem with bonuses going off the end of the d20. You'd have a target DC of 25 as "hard" and a bonus of +30 by level 10.

4e solved it by trying to force everybody to always use the middle of the die. The major problems with this are a) since the game was built with min/maxing in mind, if you invested everything you could and took all the "feat tax" feats, your bonuses still fall behind the target DCs by ~1 per tier of play,

This really is not true. In fact anyone with experience building/running higher level PCs will quickly tell you that the opposite is true. Its rather easy to run a 4e skill check modifier up into the +40 range, and if you TRY you can achieve values in most skills up into the +60 range. A character spending ALMOST nothing on his primary skills will still move it up at a +1/level pace. Beyond that its absurdly easy to get items and powers that let you succeed far more often. There are a plethora of 'roll again' options you can acquire, and MANY "+5 when using Skill X to things of type Y" (IE Long Jumper, Born of the Sea, etc) sorts of things.

b) it quickly left secondary stats in the dust as there weren't enough bonuses or resources to keep up everything, so if you wanted to do something that wasn't your schtick, you were not going to succeed (possibly falling off the other end of the die, depending on when you were playing).

'Secondary' skills are still useful to PCs at all levels. Not in all situations at very high level, but they're far from being as hopeless as you would make out. The DC chart has a differential spread to it in order to allow for this. At level 1 the spread between medium and hard DC is 5, at level 30 it is 10. The easy DC also has a growing spread even beyond that. So at level 30 an easy DC is 24. With a +15 for level and AT LEAST a +1 for stat growth you will still pass the easy level 30 DC on an 8, the ONE LESS NUMBER THAN THE SAME PC NEEDED AT LEVEL 1. The medium DC grows by 20 pips, your 'I have nothing put into this skill at all' PC still only loses 4 pips vs level 1. He may fall off the end of the hard DC, but this is a character that has a 12 in a stat using an untrained skill to perform a task requiring GODLIKE ability. There has to be SOME POINT IN THE SYSTEM where you cannot succeed. Beyond that by level 30 MOST characters will have acquired some sort of reroll, at least a couple points of bonus that can be applied, and/or there will be easily acquired situational bonuses (IE from leaders, etc). A level 30 with an 'off' skill should STILL be able to garner a 75% chance of actually passing a medium check, often more. Most characters will do better than that.

Nor is the choice in 4e between no bonus and a large bonus. MANY characters have training in a non-primary-stat skill. MANY characters have boosted stats and are NOT trained in corresponding skills. Many characters happen to acquire bonuses or ways to simply bypass various skill checks. So the more usual cases in 4e are that you can TRY a high level hard DC, you're just taking a big risk, or you can simply do something else (fly around the obstacle, swim, spider climb, teleport, etc).

NPC DC and bonuses scale at +1 per level. PCs were supposed to get 50% of their potential bonus from level, 25% of their potential bonus from ability score, and 25% of their potential bonus from magic, but in practice they got 45% from level, 20% from ability, 20% from magic, and 15% from feats. And that still only got you 9/10ths of the way towards breaking even.

Again, this is just inaccurate in practice. Its not even really correct in theory. The growth in the hard DC in 4e is 23 points over 30 levels. You get 15 of those from level bonus. Stat bonus growth is variable but is ALWAYS +1 minimum, and typically for 'on' stat is between +4 and +6 (depends on your ED and if you started with 18 or 20 primary). +4 gets you total of +19, leaving only 3 points that are required from other sources. Core PHB1 probably assumed that would come from the Skill Focus feat (+3 on top of training). Even in PHB1 though there are quite a few feats that grant +1 to various skill checks, and some that grant more in specific situations. Magic is very inconsistent, but you can get up to +5 in many cases if you try. Rerolls are worth +4 and you can get them if you try.

The thing I dislike about DMG p42 is that it's wrong. They errata'd the table. Twice. Once in the DMG errata (and in the table they published in DMG2), and again when they published the Rules Compendium, which gave yet another set of DCs to use for skill checks because the "add 5" rule for skills didn't work. So now there's three versions of the rule in three different books and none of them are complete or right. So, yes, DMG p42 technically aggregates the whole game onto a single, simple, extremely elegant page. Except the math is wrong.

Oh fie! The original DC chart from DMG1 varies by only a couple of points from the current RC DC chart. The level one DCs are 10/15/20, the current ones are 8/12/19. The level 30 DCs were 25/29/33, and now are 24/32/42. So you can see there's a SLIGHT change at the higher levels, reflecting the idea that linear growth at +1/2 levels was far less than what really happened, which is more like +2/3 levels for 'good' skills. The original chart also assumed this was an untrained skill/ability bonus, later charts didn't make that assumption, so the actual numbers are even closer in practice.

And DMG p42 has to exist because the math is so complicated that you have to show it to the DM in order for him to do see what the system is even doing wel enough to improvise anything with any sort of accuracy.

Ummmmm, hogwash. Its exactly as complicated as 5e's system, where you have just as many bonuses and penalties, advantage, characters with the double skill bonus, etc. The DM still has to figure out appropriate damage, etc. Its all the same thing in that sense, except again with damage 5e doesn't help you. It gives FICTIONAL damage, but there's no indication of what to use it for. Should you have a giant boulder fall in a level 1 5e encounter? Who knows? In 4e you'd say "OK, its a level 1 encounter, a high limited damage expression is 3d8+3, so something that we should find in this encounter should do about the same damage as the nastiest daily attack a level 1 fighter can put out" and you devise your fiction (IE the size of the boulder) to plausibly fit that situation (assuming you want to go with appropriate challenges, you don't HAVE to do so, its only a guideline, but note that this ties to XP directly, so if you put a 4d10+15 damage giant boulder in there then you are going to give level 15 XP for that boulder).

You roll so many dice to resolve everything (due to number of hp of enemies, skill challenges, the save system, etc.) that the dice stop being a varying factor. Call it the law of large numbers, call it central limit theory, call it regression towards the mean; I don't know what it's actually called. Fair dice being fair, the more dice you roll the more your results look like the probability distribution. In that kind of a game you end up having to be extremely careful about even a +1 or -1 modifier because it has a real, tangible effect to give a +1 or a -1 to a die you roll 50 times. So you essentially can't rely on the DM to be capable of ad hoc rulings because the system has too many moving pieces to allow for it.

Well, if this is a problem then it is such for ALL editions of D&D because in all of them you are constantly rolling dice. The dice rolling conventions of 4e and 5e are no different from any other editions. The SC system is no more than 'combat for non-combat' in essence, so if it doesn't work there then why is it OK for combat in 5e?

Beyond that the numbers of damage dice you roll in 4e aren't THAT many such that luck doesn't play a significant part. You can also get crits, which make a very big difference, etc. And finally, luck may play a modestly smaller part, perhaps. I don't think that's exactly terrible. 5e certainly has HUGE damage expressions and hit point totals too, often larger than 4e's. I mean a 5e fireball starts at 8d6.

I'm not saying that 5e solves all these problems. It doesn't. I'm just saying 4e's DMG p42 isn't something that was abandoned, nor is it something which worked particularly seamlessly.

Well, what was lost was the concept of level indicating degree of difficulty and XP award. There is no longer in 5e a mathematically elegant and simple way to know how hard a challenge is that you just follow without even trying. The big issues people have with CR reflect this too.

This is a sort of 'tongue-in-cheek' sort of thread in terms of denigrating 5e anyway IMHO. Its the sort of "OK, trot out your gripes and air them, even if its a bit exaggerated and silly", so ON THE WHOLE, I don't think there's anything drastically bad about 5e, but it did lose a bit of ground on 4e.

 

[tyrlaan]

Done what... stated your opinion in this thread as if it were objective fact? Or where you, through what you posted, infer the people disagreeing with you are wrong?

Kind of confused as to why you require clarification if you were capable of responding to my initial callout.

I'm not really interested in turning this thread into us arguing over the "quality" of our comments, so I humbly request that if you have anything you'd like to call me out on in order to justify that it's okay to do X because I did it to, please make haste so this does not derail the conversation. Very content to eat some humble pie and move on should it be warranted.

 

[Kaychsea]

For example, Savage Worlds can do all of this very easily and has about 25% of the rules of 5e. This is partly due to called shots, but mostly due to Acrobatic and Smarts tricks and the Shaken condition. The shaken condition is a wonderful catch all condition that can be used to show that an enemy has been hindered in some way as a result of a stunt.

Shaken is also the reason the only people I knew who played it stopped. In D&D called shots are used to get round the actual mechanisms of combat, which is why I've never been a fan.

Also, 4e has significantly fewer rules than 5e, but it is also much easier to improvise these actions in 4e (they are all examples from my 4e games). This is for a combination of reasons. First, in 4e, the baseline assumption is that you can do something interesting every round. Everyone knows at-will maneuvers that are better than basic attacks. This means when you improvise an action that is better than an at will attack, you don't need to be unnecessary penalized. Additionally, you have encounter and daily powers that can be used as a trade off for particularly powerful improvised actions.

But in that instance you would appear to be trading up a basic attack to be better than an at-will. The action economy in 4e requires you to manage the actions pool you have to choose from, why bother if you can make up actions as good or better than your at-wills on an ad hoc basis? Every system has its limitations.

For example, the attack at the knees can be a basic attack that if it hits, you initiate an Athletics contest to try and knock your target prone. The whirlwind can be a close burst 1 attack that requires you to give up your encounter power to perform. The creating a patch of frozen ground can merely create a zone where any creature that enters gets an OP attack that does no damage but knocks them prone. The drink in the eyes could use the Dazed condition, a powerful condition that is similar to Shaken in savage worlds because it is super versatile without being overpowered.

But as has been noted by others knocking anything down is easier in 4e. I was never fond of how easy it could be in 3e in any case, and as noted not everyone has been a fan of SW Shaken. Didn't they tone it down a couple of years ago?

My point is not that you were doing things wrong. Whatever works fine in your games is great. But for players who have a solid grasp on the math and mechanics of the game, they often find improvisation to be lacking because of the exact traps you fell into. A game with more robust rules for stunts that are balanced in the system as a whole typically leads to more and better improvisation. I am merely pointing out that I find 5es lack of robust guidelines has lead to far less improvisation in boy games I have run and games I have played in.

As you have such a solid grasp of such things, how likely would the knee biter scenario you envisage be in 4e? In 5e the giant's advantage over an appropriate level fighter/barbarian focusing on stat gain in a STR contest would be in the region of +2 to +4, + 1 to +4 for a dwarf. so not likely but nowhere near impossible as you seem to think. And in most cases less than advantage would give him.
Of course we also have the fact that because giants are huge medium sized creatures can't knock them over in RAW. So there is a rule for that (it would be a STR(Athletics) check and take up an attack if they were just large).
In games I have run there was an early lack of improvisation, but that appeared to be due to people getting used to the rules and, in some cases, losing bad habits from earlier versions. As they got used to what their characters were capable of they've been a lot more creative.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In an rpg with discrete, set abilities (which I consider all D&D versions to be), then there is always this tension between the set abilities and improvising. If the improvisation results are too good and too easy to access, then why have the set abilities? If they aren't good, then why improvise?

It's pretty easy in 4e to set some limits though.

I always give each player 2 extra powers:

1) Do Something Cool encounter power
2) Do Something Awesome daily power

They are used for for stunting and generally rely on situational setups but also just stuff that would be cool. The extra powers remind people that they can do improv moves, and I generally rule effects on the high end of regular encounter and daily powers to encourage use. It adds some spice and variety to combats and also helps with grind as everyone has an extra encounter and daily.

Another version of this if you don't like as much stunting is to give the entire party one use of Do Something Cool per encounter and one Do Something Awesome to share daily.

My 'hack' simply moves all these types of costs to 'vitality', which is equivalent to both AP and HS in some sense. So if you want to for instance take an extra action, amp up the results of your improv beyond "not quite as good as a regular power, but possibly more tactically useful RIGHT NOW", etc then you spend a point. You also have to recharge encounter powers, and ALL use of daily powers requires a point expenditure. It becomes a bit more like a point system, but you still can't just spam, and since these points are also used as your 'Healing Surges' you don't really want to burn them too often. In practice it just lets people pull something cool out of their back pocket with a bit less need for lots of "I have this feat that lets me do X once a day" and such.

 

[Imaro]

I really love how Imaro's argument went from 5e has better improvisation rules than 4e, to 5e has just as good improvisation rules, to you shouldn't be able to improvise awesome stunts and any game that allows for such stunts is bad.

Listen, I'm not trying to force a playstyle on anyone. In fact, having strong improvisational rules cannot possibly do that, as it is ultimately up to you what your PC attempts to do. Also, I am not saying game A is better than game B as a whole. After all, I wouldn't be here if I didn't prefer to play 5e. But this thread is asking about what areas 5e could have done better. In my experience, improvisation is one of those areas. A game like Savage Worlds with a stronger stunting system does it much better.

I never said 5e had better improvisation rules... I have stated from the beginning, both were about equal in my estimation. it was cries of 4e has objectively better rules that I responded to.


EDIT... Here are some quotes from me at the begining of the improv tangent of the thread...

All the examples and information @Manbearcat, @Ashkelon and a few others are claiming is superior in 4e for adjudication of tasks is there in the 5e DMG...

EDIT: And just so it's clear I'm not saying 4e was bad or worse than 5e in the improv department... I'm saying I really don't see a significant difference in the advice, examples or information given in either edition to support improv. The claim was made that 4e was better than 5e in this department, but I don't see it.

So is it fair for me to say I love how [MENTION=6774887]Ashkelon[/MENTION] keeps misrepresenting me and my posts in this thread?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But contrarily how long would a ruleset that covered these eventualities be? I used to play and run Chivalry and Sorcery when it came out. Land of the Rising Sun streamlined it somewhat, but it is clunky because it is thorough. And it still didn't cover your Giant example because it also didn't allow called strikes, largely because it had a similar philosophy with regard to hit points, but did split HP and FP.

I'm not really sure you are comparing apples with apples though, a cold spell freezing water is a reach compared to knocking a giant down by hitting it's knee? Is this WWE all of a sudden? Isn't the point of the wizard his flexibility?

And as that is my table, why are you bothered?

The funny thing is, go read the "what was your favorite thing about 4e" thread. In that thread there's a poster, JamesonCourage, who simply flat out told us that 4e was flawed because it didn't empower players due to its rules being far too loose and not covering all situations. And then literally declared that his own homebrew contains mechanics by which a player can derive the DC and resolve all other relevant questions for ANY POSSIBLE situation, objectively. He expounded over many pages as to how this was vastly superior to 4e (and I would assume he would have a roughly similar opinion of 5e for basically the same reasons, though I don't particularly remember that we touched on it, he did have similar issues with 3e too).

I only bring this up to illustrate the VAST range of possibilities and tastes in terms of what the game should provide. I think 4e's structure was ideal for many of us. Its quick, relatively concise, and provides answers geared towards the most relevant question at the table, what numbers should I use to get successful results given the PCs and level of challenge in play NOW.

It is in a sense a 'fiction generator' as opposed to a 'fiction arbitrator', and for a lot of the less plot-central aspects of a given game that's probably for the best. I don't want to have to decide how big the boulder is that I just invented because the PCs asked if the crumbling cliff has boulders, which it logically would even though it wasn't a detail I thought of yesterday when I created said cliff. In 4e the answer can be "yup, there's a boulder, drop it on the bad guys for high limited damage" and I know if its level 1 they're able to drop a small chunk of rock, and if they're level 30 they can drop a house-sized rock. So my skill becomes the skill of storytelling, creating fiction that works to go along with mechanics that work. Now, if something is central to the plot, then it can be decided ahead of time, I can do whatever. If one of the three ways to seal the Cave of Desire is to drop a huge rock on it from above, and its a level 1 scenario, then by gosh the level 1 PCs can drop said rock (maybe after jumping through the correct hoops). If it happens to do 100 damage to anyone below it, oh well, its just how the scenario plays out, they die.

5e in contrast would want you to try to invent some aspect of the world based on no criteria that is part of the game, just purely "what you feel like", so the size of the boulder could be anything, regardless of what level the PCs are. In effect it will be a size that makes the game work out the way the GM envisaged it. I'm seeing a very definite tendency in our 5e DM to play it this way. Its a bit railroady TBH. If we look for a boulder to drop on the bad guys to turn the big encounter easy, it happens to be too big to move. I mean in 4e you could just say "nope, no boulders!" too, or you COULD say "its too big to move, DC 42", but the game actively discourages that.

 

[Imaro]

Kind of confused as to why you require clarification if you were capable of responding to my initial callout.

Because I referenced two different behaviors but only associated you with one...

I'm not really interested in turning this thread into us arguing over the "quality" of our comments, so I humbly request that if you have anything you'd like to call me out on in order to justify that it's okay to do X because I did it to, please make haste so this does not derail the conversation. Very content to eat some humble pie and move on should it be warranted.

You're the one trying to call me out... you've done it a few times in the thread, like the comment I had to clarify for you, but ok... here's a few comments that exemplify both behaviors from this thread...

What is relevant though is that a +2 to some skills isn't really support of non-combat pillars.

But beyond all of this, if you fundamentally disagree that throwing a +2 bonus at someone over 20 levels or letting them pick up a couple extra feats from the generic pool is lame support of non-combat pillars, I really can’t take this conversation any further with you.

I don’t know how boost your stats, pick up some feats, or be another class (wizard) doesn’t sound like “afterthought” to you.

Personally I disagree with a need for combat and non-combat to be balanced like ends of a teeter-totter. That path leads to bored players when you’re playing in the pillars in which they have nothing to do. It’s one thing when it’s a result of a conscious choice on the part of the player. It’s another when it’s because the system gives you limited and uninspired options (or impressive jumping skills).

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with thinking someone is wrong in a discussion... (and everyone at some point in time makes objective statements but that isn't what you called me out on)... but you were the one who gave it negative connotations and attributed it specifically to me in this thread for some reason.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I like bounded accuracy and I like the way spellcasting works (spell level slot more important, flexible casting)

Advantage works great for me because and only because of the way it plays off of the bounded system.
I would happily go back to playing PF and would not use Advantage.

Obviously there are a lot of details in the mix. But an elevator speech version of my houserules would be: use PF or 5E class however you prefer. If you use a PF class ditch BAB for prof bonus and ditch PF spellcasting for 5E. If you use A 5E class ditch skill profs for a tighter version of PF skill points.

I've got my own language rules I've used across multiple editions now, I've got a weapon focus built back in, I've expanded the range of the bounding because I want more variation and room for a few more bonuses (more number range than 5E but still bounded and far less than PF), etc...

Your phrasing strongly implies you are looking for "improvements" relative to 4E. Please keep in mind that I'm coming from PF. I don't see it as strictly "improvements" either way so much as innovations. But, no offense, me personally comparing 5E to 4E would be a waste of time.

I'm not looking to persuade anyone to play 5E or stop playing any other game. I'm just answering the question from my perspective.

I'm not sure why you feel that advantage only works with 'bounded accuracy'. I think advantage works the same in 4e, if you add it in. A +1 bonus in 4e and 5e means exactly the same thing 5% more success. Bounded Accuracy is really just a sales term. In 20 levels a 4e PC will gain about +20 to everything except off skills, give or take a point. In 20 levels of 5e a PC will gain roughly +4 prof bonus, +2 ability score bonus, and +3 magic, possibly another +1 from other sources, so the rate is about 50% of 4e's rate (and 3e's and 2e's in most respects). Its just a slower pace of growth, and 5e lacks the top 10 levels that 4e has. In effect each level just means less in 5e, but the significance of bonuses is only scaled to the size of a d20, it never changes in any of these systems.

This is why I am perfectly happy to use Advantage in my own hack, because its REAL purpose is to replace ALL situational bonuses. That is to say, nothing stacks, ever, and ALL situations in my hack that give a penalty or bonus result in either advantage or disadvantage. Anything too small to warrant that is ignored. If the GM really wants to 'tweak' DCs, well he can of course, so you could incorporate other factors. The key though is, you would do it at design time, or you would at least simply do one gross adjustment, not a lot of adding of +1, and -2, and another +1, etc that happens in other games. 5e also uses advantage this way, mostly. Its a good shortcut, which is why I adopted it. In my hack there is literally no bonus math ever performed during play. Every bonus is already known, fixed to the character sheet or set beforehand as a DC, and anything that the players do to change that just adds advantage or disadvantage. So the d20 part of the game is now as simple as it can ever get.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Except that what you posted really doesn't give a DM all that much useful information.

When a player wants to hit a giant in the knee to cause it to stumble and fall prone what do you do? When a player wants to improvise a sweeping attack to hit multiple enemies, what kind of check is used?
When a player wants to use frostbolt to freeze a patch of ground causing charging goblins to slip and fall, what kind of check or attack is needed?
When a player wants to throw is drink in an enemies eyes to momentarily distract them, what kind of effect should the player be capable of producing?

Do not mistake a lack of guidance or framework as the ability to do whatever you want. In my experience, most games without a truly robust set of guidelines for improvised actions tend to lead to GMs making penalties for improvised actions overly severe, which actually makes players less likely to improvise.

And I would say: do not mistake the more complex framework as a necessarily more complete or more useful one.

In all cases above -- 4e or 5e -- you do the same thing: You determine if it's reasonable, set an appropriate DC based on the task, and ask the player to roll (or roll yourself). Then you determine the appropriate effects. The only difference is that 4e has to tell you DCs based on level, and they have to tell you damage due to how damage works in the game. If you like the 4e table, that's great. I find it kind of pointless, and the fact that they took several years to get the math right is downright infuriating. To me, the 4e table was a straight jacket, and serves primarily to make the DM's ruling predictable... which actions like those you mention above really shouldn't be. I don't want "creativity" to become "find the stage prop to abuse." Or, worse, for the improvised actions to become the rote tactic. Predictable improvisation is... I mean, no, it's not particularly different than a Barbarian's rage or Rogue's sneak attack, but improvisation rules shouldn't encourage players to be creative once.

In my experience, players improvise when one player tries something unusual and it works. The framework doesn't make that happen, the DM does. When players see improvisation work, they start to expand their creativity. And what I want to reward is creativity, not encouraging the players to swing from every chandelier or topple every bookcase or carry around a mug of ale to cast into every thug's face.

If p42 does it for your group's creativity, that's great. In my experience, it just added a whole level of, "Oh, I guess I have to look at this table and resolve everything the same way. Everything's got to be translated into a Power, I guess. Can't have things being unpredictable." It was too many rules for things that don't have them because they shouldn't​.

 

[Corpsetaker]

What I like about 5th edition is you can blend stunts and attacks together without really worrying about action economy, as long as you are in reasonable limits.