D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[Hussar]

That's all great, but it's your DMing skills coming into play, not how the game is written. In 4e, if I was designing a 5th-level adventure that included Vecna's Very Secret Diary in it (maybe it's in the same room as the MacGuffin) and I want the PC's to have a chance to open it, maybe I'll give picking the lock a hard DC...for 5th level characters. In 5e, that same diary would be a hard DC period. They've got a chance to open it, just as in 4e, but now that DC is a property of the item.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?456928-Why-does-5E-SUCK/page92#ixzz3egiF3aoO

But, at the end of the day, it's the same - the diary is hard to open. With 5e, because there is so little scaling with skills, you can afford to use the same DC all the way along. The only difference between a 5th level PC picking that lock, and a 15th level PC picking that lock is about +3 or so. IOW, you're on a treadmill, it's just that you're on the same treadmill for the entire career of your characater in 5e.

As you say later, all hard locks have the same DC. In 3e this was problematic because PC skill scaled with level. That hard lock was opened automatically by the 15th level character. In 4e, Hard was the descriptor, and the DC was set by the level. In 5e, they went with a simpler system - the difference in skill levels between a 1st level character and a 20th level character aren't really that much. Certainly not enough to overshadow the d20 roll.

I'm really not seeing a big difference here. Give bonuses but raise the DC based on level (with the option of using lower level challenges) or not give bonuses and just use a static DC (where you lose a fair degree of granularity). Six of one, half dozen of the other.

 

[Hussar]

PCs were special because they had levels, but everyone with levels worked the same way. An NPC might be a third level wizard, and there's no explanation of that beyond the PC rules, because the idea that a wizard NPC was a mechanically distinct entity was ludicrous! If an NPC had special treatment, then it was because of unique circumstances within the game world, and a PC in that same situation would be identical.

Nope. Look at your 1e and 2e Monster Manuals. Humans were given stats based on their job, not their class. A pirate used different stats from a town guard. And neither of them had classes. Also see the witch and shaman rules in the 1e DMG if you want to see how humanoid casters were handled.

And yet, it held for decades. There were no two different-yet-equal ways to stat up a particular ogre. It only possibly had one stat block, regardless of who was looking at it. Any game that rejects the notion of an objective reality is going to be highly controversial, and unappealing to a significant portion of the potential player base.

Again, nope. Look at most of the humanoids in 1e or 2e. When they talked about the chief, or lieutenants or whatnot, they would specifically tell you to use the stats of a completely different monster.

It wasn't until Castle Ravenloft that you saw NPC monsters with class levels. That was a huge change at the time.

It wasn't until 3e where they started insisting that NPC's use PC rules that you wouldn't treat NPC's as different. You might use classes for NPC's, or you might not. It was entirely up to the DM. It was standardised in 3e.

And, please, for the love of all puppies, please don't drag the canard of "it's not an RPG" into this. Good grief. Is that really necessary to your point?

 

[BryonD]

But, at the end of the day, it's the same - the diary is hard to open. With 5e, because there is so little scaling with skills, you can afford to use the same DC all the way along. The only difference between a 5th level PC picking that lock, and a 15th level PC picking that lock is about +3 or so. IOW, you're on a treadmill, it's just that you're on the same treadmill for the entire career of your characater in 5e.

As you say later, all hard locks have the same DC. In 3e this was problematic because PC skill scaled with level. That hard lock was opened automatically by the 15th level character. In 4e, Hard was the descriptor, and the DC was set by the level. In 5e, they went with a simpler system - the difference in skill levels between a 1st level character and a 20th level character aren't really that much. Certainly not enough to overshadow the d20 roll.

I'm really not seeing a big difference here. Give bonuses but raise the DC based on level (with the option of using lower level challenges) or not give bonuses and just use a static DC (where you lose a fair degree of granularity). Six of one, half dozen of the other.

In my 5E game in actual play the rogue had +7 with Thieves tools at L5. The current level is now 10 and the same rogue has +14.

Your analysis is deeply faulty.
The scaling of attacks, saves, skills, everything range rather nicely. There is one L10 PC with +0 Wisdom saves and another with +9. I love this.
The way 4E created narrative inconsistencies was a terrible bug in the system to everyone in my group.
I can respect that others saw this a a feature. But to me it is boggling to call it "problematic" that the L15 Rogue is awesome when it comes time to pick locks.

The mechanical difference between 4E and 5E here is 3 of one 9 of the other and the model quality difference is 1 / 11.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Look at most of the humanoids in 1e or 2e. When they talked about the chief, or lieutenants or whatnot, they would specifically tell you to use the stats of a completely different monster.

That's the opposite situation. It's perfectly reasonable to have two different monsters that use a similar stat block. You just can't have the same monster with different stat blocks.

Any given individual within the game will have one true Strength score, and one true HP total, etc. These numbers reflect the in-game reality of that individual.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Are you speaking from experience with 5E, or analysis of 5E rules, or are you just assuming? Where do you get this idea that a cleric is "expected" in 5E and that a party is dysfunctional without it?

I'm speaking from playing. I've been playing since the PHB was released, and I played in various iterations of the playtest. I don't claim to be the greatest 5e guru, but I know the system perfectly well in terms of the player side certainly.

I don't see it anywhere in the rules structure. On the contrary, I see healing or self-healing built into a number of classes including the Fighter, Bard, Paladin, Fiend Warlock, Abjuror Wizard, and anyone who takes the Healer and/or Inspirating Leader feats, in a way which makes it clear that "playing without a cleric should work" is a design consideration. I also see that clerical healing is pretty inefficient.

I have no idea why you would call clerical healing 'inefficient'. Quite the contrary it is quite efficient, especially if you pick the correct domain, which gives you a significant extra bonus to heals and a CD-based heal. Yes, paladins can heal somewhat, and various classes have some very limited ability to do some self healing, but a cleric offers a much larger hit point reserve that can be deployed to whomever needs it and is pretty easy to use.

I don't see it anywhere in play. You baldly assert that a group without a cleric will be underpowered, but since I habitually let my players tackle challenges which weigh as between Deadly and Deadly x10 on the DMG scale, it seems quite odd for you to be telling me that they're dysfunctional and under-powered by that lack, with drastically reduced survivability. In short, you're wrong about clerics being mandatory. They're one way to survive but not the only and best way, and they have an opportunity cost. I'm not one of those idiots who trumpets "actual game experience" over analysis, because they're actually complementary--but having run lots of extremely deadly fights against unoptimized PCs run by non-powergaming players with only moderately brilliant tactics, and having seen the players win most of these fights (due partly to luck--we've come one die roll away from disaster more times than I can easily enumerate, and as a DM I'm often flabberghasted how improbably few deaths have occurred), I am quite sanguine that cleric-less parties are perfectly viable and fun in 5E, even for non-brilliant players.

Well, I would just point out that it is tautological that a challenge which is passed without any failure by a group isn't the most deadly possible challenge! Either that or your description of your group is drastically underestimating their tactical acumen and game knowledge.

But you're not entirely wrong:

It's good to have a healer in the party, and when I build my own parties I like to have a paladin and a bard so they can heal each other if necessary, but you haven't yet elucidated the utility of the healer in 5E so I'll do it for you: a healer is for reversing high single-target damage so you can either win the fight or continue adventuring, depending on the situation, without bottlenecking on a single character's HP. Without a healer, you can't afford to lose 60 HP to a bunch of fire trolls before taking on an Adult Blue Dragon, because you don't want to take on that dragon when any PC is only 30 HP away from death. If everybody is down 30 HP each the presence of a healer becomes a non-issue since you can't continue anyway without resting first, but a healer lets you smooth out spikes. But there's an opportunity cost. During combat with the dragon, a healer can (but doesn't have to) spend his action to reverse some of that 70 HP of damage that the dragon just inflicted on you, and that may or may not be better than having another Sharpshooter dealing 50 HP right back to the dragon. Healing you lets the other party members have more time to kill the dragon; so does Polymorphing you into a tyrannosaur instead of healing you. If you can arrange to have a healer in the party without giving up anything else important (e.g. a paladin/sorc can cover tank/summoner/melee/counterspeller/healer roles easily, or a Lore bardlock could do healer/ranged damage/defense/summoner/skill monkey) it is certainly worth adding that capability to your repertoire. But everything has an opportunity cost, and playing without a cleric or even a healer is valid and can be fun and effective.

No need to explain tactical concepts to me, I've written wargames, and am pretty adept. Try challenging me to a Star Fleet Battles game some day, just don't bet on winning

I understand what you're trying to say. However self-healing doesn't help with the focusing healing where it is needed, when it is needed. A cleric, again particularly a healing build, can focus quite a LOT of healing on a character when its needed. Beyond that he can bring people back up, which self-healing cannot do, and that is the most critically useful function of all.

Yes, you can construct some bard builds that can dedicate their most valuable spell slots to healing spells. A paladin can act as somewhat of a sub for a cleric too. However, none of them competes with the real thing, not by a long shot. An 18 WIS level 1 healing cleric will heal more than 2x the HP per slot used than any bard, and close to that much more than a paladin.

You also seem to feel that a cleric is good for NOTHING ELSE, yet they have tricks like Bless and Guidance which are really large party boosters. In fact Guidance is almost broken good.

Which is why I say that a party without a cleric is neigh dysfunctional. It will fall below the expected curve. Maybe in the hands of a really superior tactical group with advanced build expertise they'll still be in good shape, but working a cleric into the party will always, always, amplify that.

5e isn't 'cleric dependent' to the degree that AD&D was, where adventuring without one was so hopeless that it was a constant joke in Fineous Fingers, but it is still true that adventuring without one is taking great unnecessary risk, and can easily put success out of reach for many ordinary groups in adventures that would be quite doable with one.

 

[BryonD]

That's the opposite situation. It's perfectly reasonable to have two different monsters that use a similar stat block. You just can't have the same monster with different stat blocks.

Any given individual within the game will have one true Strength score, and one true HP total, etc. These numbers reflect the in-game reality of that individual.

Exactly. He doesn't seem to grasp the point you are making.
Complete apples and oranges.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Role-playing games aren't like other games. For one thing, there's no winner. For another, there's no defined ending. Clearly, the traditional rules of being a game do not all apply.

Yet more reasons that PCs and NPCs might have different stats and rules applied to them.

The only universal rule that need necessarily apply to all games, including role-playing games, would be that it must be playable.

Yeah. It's a little disappointing, really, how often RPGs fail that test. Not so much unplayable from the outset (though there have been some), but falling apart in one way or another, situationally.

In RPGs, that means it's okay to make concessions in the name of playability. That's why it's okay to have simplified NPCs. It doesn't mean that it's okay to wholesale re-define all of the math and abilities for an NPC

Concessions? What's conceding? What would it even mean to 'wholesale re-define the abilities of an NPC?' Doesn't the DM already wholesale define them, in the first place?

Fourth Edition was in a unique place where PCs were so complex that even simplified NPCs would be unplayable, so they had to work out a completely separate system for them. It's not something that most other games have ever had to do. Most games just avoid the problem on the front end, by not making PCs that are so complicated.

Actually, most eds of D&D /have/ treated PCs and NPC very differently. 4e and 5e give them monster-like stat blocks. 3e gave them NPC classes. AD&D gave them compressed in-line stats.

And, it's not complexity. One of the most complex character-creation system I know is Hero, and it tends to write up NPCs (and monsters, and robots, and automobiles and cereal bowls) with the same rules as PCs.

That's the opposite situation. It's perfectly reasonable to have two different monsters that use a similar stat block. You just can't have the same monster with different stat blocks.

Happens all the time. Alternate forms, for instance. Effects of rituals or items or the like if you don't get to the BBEG fast enough. NPCs that advanced in experience while you were off on other adventures.

 

[Hussar]

That's the opposite situation. It's perfectly reasonable to have two different monsters that use a similar stat block. You just can't have the same monster with different stat blocks.

Any given individual within the game will have one true Strength score, and one true HP total, etc. These numbers reflect the in-game reality of that individual.

No, that's not true.

An orc grows up in his tribe. He's an AD&D orc with 1HD. The chieftain of his tribe gets killed by a wandering troll and our orc is promoted to chieftain. He's now got the stats of a Bugbear.

IOW, this orc has more than one stat block. And, if for some reason he stops being chieftain, while not being killed, he goes back to being 1 HD.

You appear to think that the 3e model was the only model in D&D. That is very, very much mistaken.

 

[BryonD]

No, that's not true.

An orc grows up in his tribe. He's an AD&D orc with 1HD. The chieftain of his tribe gets killed by a wandering troll and our orc is promoted to chieftain. He's now got the stats of a Bugbear.

IOW, this orc has more than one stat block.

Wow.

No he doesn't. At two different points in his life he is modeled two different ways. The is completely and entirely unlike 4E where the EXACT same individual in the exact same second is modeled differently depending on who is standing next to him.

And, if for some reason he stops being chieftain, while not being killed, he goes back to being 1 HD.

I NEVER thought of this. I guess if you take the extreme of letting the rules use you then this kinda sorta makes sense.
But I've never actually gamed with anyone who presented this disfunctional logic as intended, expected, or anything approaching what should be done.

You appear to think that the 3e model was the only model in D&D. That is very, very much mistaken.

That is a strange distortion of his position and a rather petty instance of putting words in someone's mouth.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

An orc grows up in his tribe. He's an AD&D orc with 1HD. The chieftain of his tribe gets killed by a wandering troll and our orc is promoted to chieftain. He's now got the stats of a Bugbear.

IOW, this orc has more than one stat block. And, if for some reason he stops being chieftain, while not being killed, he goes back to being 1 HD.

An orc being promoted to chieftain is like a fighter gaining a level - different stat blocks, to represent improved abilities.

The chieftain stats are supposed to represent that this orc is much tougher than other orcs. It wouldn't suddenly lose stats after being demoted. An orc being demoted from chieftain isn't a situation that the game rules were ever intended to model. If you handle it in such a ridiculous fashion, then that's entirely on you.