D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[FormerlyHemlock]

I agree with pretty much everything here. Only a minor difference in that I've found that shadow monks almost as good as rogues for sneaking, but that's sort of pedantic and doesn't take away from your point.

I've found shadow monks even better than rogues and bards at sneaking, especially underground and in other dimly-lit settings. Invisibility + Pass Without Trace + Shadow Jump >>> Expertise + Reliable Talent/Enhance Ability/Dex. Even better if they cooperate though, so the bard enhances the monk's Dex. On average that will beat a perception score of 41 at twentieth level, or 39ish at 11th level. Shadow monks can ambush ANYBODY in my experience.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don't know if I would count invisibility though, as you don't get it until pretty late in levels--at least at a stage that most people don't play at, judging by the surveys. And many of the other abilities are ki driven, which means they are limited. A thief gets supreme sneak at level 9--two levels before the monk gets invisibility, and can sneak all the time. A shadow monk is good, of course. But overall still behind the rogue IMO mainly due to the rogue having higher bonuses to skill checks and doesn't run out of them like a monk does with ki.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I hear what you are saying, but your arguments counteract eachother. For example, lets say you have a Strength based challenge where the 20 Strength fighter needs to roll an 11+ to overcome it. If he fails, he dies.

The 10 wizard who happens to be trained in athletics could attempt this, but he only succeeds on a 16+. Now, clearly the fighter is better at overcoming this obstacle, but is a 50% chance of dying even worth attempting such a task. Hell, even if the fighter succeeded on a 6+, I wouldn't risk taking a 25% chance of instant death.

That's still artificial - "instant death" isn't a often real result from a failed check in play. I mean, you could at least use trap damage, and then, the warrior has a better chance to make it and a better chance to survive it, since they have more HP.

Now the wizard could just cast a level 1 or 2 spell (jump, spider climb, misty step, levitate, or tensers disk can bypass most STR based hazards just fine) and have no chance of death. So in this scenario, it is better for the wizard to use one of his low level slots. Especially given that at levels 5+, a cantrip will tend to do about as much damage as a level 1 spell. By level 5+, the wizard should easily be capable of preparing at least 2 exploration utility spells.

Again, you're ignoring the most frequent situations (the wizard simply doesn't know the magic spell that solves this problem, or would like to save their spells for other purposes). You're also ignoring the rest of the party - okay, use Jump. Now how does the cleric get across? Or does that one low-level spell slot suddenly turn into half your low-level spell slots? And if that's the price they're willing to pay to bypass this obstacle, that's fine in my book - now the caster won't be magic missile-ing and the fighter's chucked axe will be more useful in the next encounter.

So again, when there are major consequences, it is better to let the caster use a low level spell. When there are no consequences, having a high strength doesn't matter. That is my biggest problem with Strength checks in exploration; there is no real middle ground where having a high Strength is needed or even preferred.

You're still ignoring resource consumption. Spells will get you out of one situation, but they won't get you out of eight of 'em. If the game you're in is facing fewer encounters/chances for TPK's in a day, you'll want to adjust the game to suit, since it's not really built for that out of the box.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I don't know if I would count invisibility though, as you don't get it until pretty late in levels--at least at a stage that most people don't play at, judging by the surveys. And many of the other abilities are ki driven, which means they are limited. A thief gets supreme sneak at level 9--two levels before the monk gets invisibility, and can sneak all the time. A shadow monk is good, of course. But overall still behind the rogue IMO mainly due to the rogue having higher bonuses to skill checks and doesn't run out of them like a monk does with ki.

A shadow monk gets PWT at level six. PWT >>> Expertise, +17ish vs +11 tops. I haven't seen ki be a limiting factor for sneaking, it's practically free--although I have seen SP and concentration be a limiting factor for bards trying to keep up with the monk.

Ultimately, shadow monks and bards and probably even rogues are quite competent at sneaking. I just think shadow monks are the best. They are Batman.

 

[Sacrosanct]

That's still artificial - "instant death" isn't a often real result from a failed check in play. I mean, you could at least use trap damage, and then, the warrior has a better chance to make it and a better chance to survive it, since they have more HP.
.

Not to mention, a lot of times there are extra circumstances that motivate the choice, like being chased by monsters, or needing to escape a situation immediately, or there just being a huge reward by doing it. It's all about risk vs reward, so I don't think "I'd never risk this" is a very accurate statement in actual game play.

 

[Sacrosanct]

A shadow monk gets PWT at level six. PWT >>> Expertise, +17ish vs +11 tops. I haven't seen ki be a limiting factor for sneaking, it's practically free--although I have seen SP and concentration be a limiting factor for bards trying to keep up with the monk.

Ultimately, shadow monks and bards and probably even rogues are quite competent at sneaking. I just think shadow monks are the best. They are Batman.

I play a shadow monk as my main PC. They get PWT at level 3. And I disagree strongly that ki isn't really a limiting factor. It's hugely limiting. It costs 2 ki, and you only get ki back after a short rest. Most everything a monk does is around ki management. Unless you grant players a short rest whenever they want, and after each encounter (which I find highly unlikely from my own gaming experiences), it's most certainly not free. I'm out of ki almost every time by the chance I get an opportunity to rest for an hour uninterrupted, and I never use PWT. Almost always flurry and patient defense, and often darkvision when I need it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You're still ignoring resource consumption.

No one's ignoring it, if anything, it's a major part of the point. Resource management - choosing resources and when to use them - is arguably the single most important aspect of the game. It's where system mastery makes the difference between success and failure (or, more often, desperate success with difficulty & pain vs easy success with style & flair), between standing out and just phoning it in.

 

[Sacrosanct]

No one's ignoring it, if anything, it's a major part of the point. Resource management - choosing resources and when to use them - is arguably the single most important aspect of the game. It's where system mastery makes the difference between success and failure (or, more often, desperate success with difficulty & pain vs easy success with style & flair), between standing out and just phoning it in.

It's not system mastery to base an argument on the position that a caster will always have the right spell available to cast, all the time. It's a fallacy.

*Edit* And did you just quote me, but completely change what I actually said to what you wrote in that quote box?

*Edit II* it looks like you're attributing a statement KM said to me in that quote.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Okay, initially I did a double-take here, but on re-reading the rules, you are correct--Action Surge, technically speaking, does not explicitly state that it can only be used in combat. It does, however, say "on your turn." "Turns" are explicitly defined as being part of combat--I have not been able to find a reference to non-combat "turns" in the PHB. This is something I'd consider a pretty severely grey area--I, personally, wouldn't say anything that modifies a turn's nature* could be used outside of combat, generally speaking, unless the book explicitly said it could be.

Combat is an illusion. There is no in combat or out of combat within the game world. The rounds-and-turns structure is used in "fast-paced situations", such as combat, because those are the situations where it actually matters whether or not you can accomplish something within a small time frame, or where the specific order of events are particularly relevant.

The rules don't change based on the time scale you're using. The presentation in the book is consistent with the fact that you always track time by the increments in which it's relevant. A fighter can use an Action Surge whenever she needs to accomplish two action-scale actions within six seconds, and if you're measuring time in hours or weeks, then it doesn't matter that the fighter can do two things at once for six of those seconds. If it did matter, then you would be using the appropriate time scale to demonstrate it.

Likewise, the fighter doesn't need to be "in combat" to make use of the Second Wind ability. If she did, then it would quickly devolve into stupid meta-gaming, like the fighter attacking a squirrel (or another party member) in order to trigger the "in combat" condition, just so she could make use of that ability. Give the designers some credit. Nobody is that incompetent.

 

[Ashkelon]

That's still artificial - "instant death" isn't a often real result from a failed check in play. I mean, you could at least use trap damage, and then, the warrior has a better chance to make it and a better chance to survive it, since they have more HP.

You were the one who brought up instant death. But either way, lets say is some amount of damage on a failed save. If the damage is significant, then it is better to use a spell with 100% chance of success to bypass the damage. If the damage is not significant, then failure isn't really a consequence. A 30 foot drop may be deadly at level 2, but that 10.5 average damage is nothing for level 10 PCs.

Again, you're ignoring the most frequent situations (the wizard simply doesn't know the magic spell that solves this problem, or would like to save their spells for other purposes). You're also ignoring the rest of the party - okay, use Jump. Now how does the cleric get across? Or does that one low-level spell slot suddenly turn into half your low-level spell slots? And if that's the price they're willing to pay to bypass this obstacle, that's fine in my book - now the caster won't be magic missile-ing and the fighter's chucked axe will be more useful in the next encounter.

In my experience, most wizard learn one of the terrain bypassing spells by some point in their career. Jump, spider climb, levitate, misty step, etc are all fairly common spells, and just one will suffice to overcome most STR based terrain challenges. Also, usually once once PC overcomes a STR based obstacle, they can simply tie a rope allowing the other PCs to overcome it with ease. And not magic missiling is probably a good thing by level 7+, as a level 1 spell simply doesn't do enough damage to be worthwhile at that point.

You're still ignoring resource consumption. Spells will get you out of one situation, but they won't get you out of eight of 'em. If the game you're in is facing fewer encounters/chances for TPK's in a day, you'll want to adjust the game to suit, since it's not really built for that out of the box.

The designers specifically said that as you level, your low level slots become utility slots. Your highest level slots remain combat relevant, freeing you level 1 and 2 slots for pure utility functions. On top of that, how many serious physical challenges do you face per adventuring day? In my experience they are not all that frequent, certainly not frequent enough to be a drain a caster of all their level 1 slots. Of course, if there are that many such challenges, and each has a significant consequence, that means that the fighter is still worse off because he can never reach 100% chance to overcome the obstacle, so the more such obstacles there are, the more likely the fighter is to fail.