D&D 5E Your favorite and least favorite things :)

[Falling Icicle]

Favorites:
Overall simplification of the rules
Bounded Accuracy
Advantage/Disadvantage
Backgrounds
Spellcasting (preparation and slots being separate, spells scaling with higher slots, at-will cantrips, rituals, etc)
Subclasses (The arcane trickster and wizard school specialists are particularly awesome)

Least Favorites:
The spell index
The summoning spells can conjure ridiculous numbers of creatures
The Sorcerer has less spells known than the freaking Bard
The Ranger has to use its own actions to control its pet (they totally demolished the action economy with the summoning spells, but went to the total opposite extreme with the ranger's pet...)

 

[Andor]

Favorites:
Feels like D&D
A lot of the solutions like Advantage/Disadvantage and Concentration seem really elegant
Many options, with "No thank you" also an option.
Evocative sub-classes like Green Knights and Shadow Monks

Least Favorite:
Weak Skills system
Resumption of Linear Fighter/Quadratic Wizard debates.
"Gods made them evil" fluff.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Favorites:

• Paladin Oaths are about a certain set of behaviors from which to justify your actions, rather than some nebulous concept of alignment.
• Also Oath of Devotion's tenets written in a way that basically nips the "Lawful Stupid" trope right in the butt.
• Paladins are actually mechanically sound, distinct and capable from Day 1 (completely opposite of 3e and 4e).
• Bards with 9th-level spells, skill Expertise and Jack of All Trades, and powerful "leader" capabilities.
• Assassins (Rogue subclass) living up to its name mechanically for once.
• Battle Master Fighter is more or less what I expected and wanted. Can really make some diverse and effective builds out of the maneuvers.
• Bounded accuracy.
• Advantage and disadvantage.
• Classical nine alignments there, but greatly reduced in mechanical relevance, a happy medium between old D&D and what 4e tried to do.
• Grid not necessary for combat.
• Combat very fast-paced, comparable to AD&D.
• The flexible neo-Vancian spellcasting system.
• Backgrounds
• Concentration mechanic (yes, even the check to maintain on damage now that it seems most monsters even at high level don't consistently force more than a DC10)

Least favorites:

• Ranger being geared best toward the most suboptimal attack strategy (i.e. spreading measly one-hit weapon damage as opposed to focus fire).
• Caster supremacy is back to an extent (though not nearly as bad as 3e, or probably even AD&D for that matter).
• Spell index not separating by school, making picking spells for Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters a pain without some other resource.
• The default Human's pretty lame. (While ironically the variant Human's bloody incredible.)
• Probably should've put the Backgrounds chapter before Races and Classes, since Backgrounds come with set skills. When making characters I always find myself going to the Backgrounds chapter first because of that.

Jury's out:

• Summon spells (mass combat rules in DMG might come into play there, have to see what those are like).

 

[Mouseferatu]

[*]Spell index not separating by school, making picking spells for Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters a pain without some other resource.

For those who need it and haven't seen it yet, I present "some other resource."

5e Spell Sorter!

 

[Mostlyjoe]

For those who need it and haven't seen it yet, I present "some other resource."

5e Spell Sorter!

You are a saint sir.

 

[77IM]

Favorite things:

• Backgrounds. They add a lot of role-playing flavor to character creation in a way that seems to fit really well into D&D.
• Paladin subclasses. What a great way to take a dry, bland class and give it some really interesting and flavorful options.

Least Favorite:

• Weapon and armor tables. They just don't make any ing sense to me.
• V, S, M. Distracting and pointless visual clutter.

 

[ccooke]

So, there's a few things in this that I think need comment. Obviously your opinions and preferences are your own and I'm not trying to say you're wrong - just to say that there are valid reasons for a load of the things you dislike which explain them (well, they do to me, at least )

What I dislike:

• The order of the chapters:
  • I think it would make more sense to place the backgrounds before classes. Due to the fact that with backgrounds you get fixed skills while with classes you choose.
  • The equipment layout should be a bit more separated, its hard to see where one type of equipment starts and the other begins.
  • Feats and skills should be right after classes.
  • What I'm saying is the books layout should be more like the 3.5 PHB, for the order of chapters.

• 
  
  In 5e, classes allow you to pick from a restricted set of proficiencies while backgrounds allow you free pick (check the rules - backgrounds are all suggestions with the rules saying you should mix and match proficiencies and traits as you prefer). That means picking class first makes more sense.
  
  Also, because feats are optional now, keeping them out of the main chargen section is sensible.
  
  

  [*]That it is Faerun centric, Greyhawk was a nice and simple default setting. Oh-well.

  
  But quite reasonably, the Forgotten Realms are much better known outside people who already play D&D, and 5e is aiming to bring more people in.
  
  

  [*]The new thiefling, I preferred the old one from 3.5 people could customize their look and origins. These new ones from 4e look silly and are only here so people have a default warlock race.

  No argument there. The mechanics are fine for the 2e Tiefling, though - we just need an appearance chart to be ported... or am I missing something?
  
  

  [*]They could have done so much more with Inspirations. This way people can farm Inspiration before a large event, stack up on inspiration and use it when needed.

  
  It's a good point. The rules do say you can't keep it for very long, and the DM should be able to correct for people trying to game it ("Quick everyone, do some convincing roleplay before we open this door!), since it's not an automatic. Some guidance here would help; hopefully in Basic and the DMG.
  
  

  [*]Lack of enveloping rules, for instance:
  

  • Rules for armor AC. - Leather armor - 11 + dex, WHY CAN'T it be 10 + 1 (armor) + dex. This way you can explain un-armored and armored states in the same sentence. Just feels stupid to me.

  
  Swings and roundabouts, here - the 3e version suffers from having to specify what items work with what types of armour quite a bit. Items that can only be worn if you're not wearing armour are clumsy to word when there are lots of different effects that provide armour that need to be. 5e gets around this entirely - things that provide armour set your AC to a certain value, and thus don't stack with each other. Things that add to existing armour provide bonuses on top of that.
  Or to put it another way, it moves complexity around rather than adding or removing it. I'm sure I'd call it better, but (I think) it's not worse... and it's going to have fewer corner cases to abuse because some material somewhere adds a new type of armour-replacement that's not explicitly excluded from stacking with some other type of armour-replacement. Or, at least, such a mistake will be easily visible. If you see an item that purports to be a replacement for armour that doesn't set your AC to a value, it's broken. Just like anything that allows casters to get around the limitations of Concentration (by which I mean "Perform two actions requiring Concentration at once") is explicitly broken.
  
  

  • Proficiency bonus, just create a table before the classes section, and in the table insert - Level - Proficiency bonus - EXP needed for level. This way you don't have to copy paste the same info for every class.

  
  They did. PHB Page 15, bottom right.
  The proficiency bonus is reproduced in the classes because most characters are expected to not multiclass, so it has all the information you need on one table. For multiclass characters, the rules explicitly refer you to the table on page 15.
  
  For me...
  
  Dislikes:
  • Not being sure who is right on all the contentious issues yet because I haven't had time to play it much
  • Seriously, that one's irritating. I think 5e has LFQW pretty much sorted. I am pretty sure that 5e has a fighter that's balanced with Wizards. But there's no way I can actually be certain about it until we've played things out for a few months
  
  I'm not quite convinced by the Halfling art, but the "that's not right" reaction seems to be fading.
  
  I have far, far too many likes, but some of the points I really appreciate:
  • The inclusion of Thaumaturgy and Druidcraft
  • The variants in backgrounds - Take a look at the variant entertainer (pg 131, mid-bottom left) if you haven't seen it
  • The sheer flexibility of chargen. 5e is massively more flexible than any previous edition when you look at the amount of material present. I'm pretty sure I can create a workable version (not 1:1 mechanical recreation, but something that captures the complete feel) of about 95% of the classes and prestige classes in the entire set of 3.0 PHB, MM and DMG plus the basic splats (Masters of the Wilds, Tome and Blood, Sword and Fist, Defenders of the Faith, Song and Silence) using just the 5e PHB. That's an insane amount of flexibility.
  • The way it makes me really want to play it, and the fact that I am pretty certain to be able to. None of my 3.0 group would ever DM 4e, even though they were happy to play it when I ran it. We've had serious discussions about moving every 3.0 campaign to 5th (although happily we decided not to, because variety is great). However, at least two of them are planning to run their next game using 5e.

 

[Ragmon]

In 5e, classes allow you to pick from a restricted set of proficiencies while backgrounds allow you free pick (check the rules - backgrounds are all suggestions with the rules saying you should mix and match proficiencies and traits as you prefer). That means picking class first makes more sense.

I agree that some things are subjective, but this one isn't.

• If lets say if people choose to take a background (instead of put one together), then its better if the backgrounds are before classes.
• If you rather put together a background then it might not be better to place it before classes. But at that point it doesn't matte where it is in the book, since its all up to the player.

Also, because feats are optional now, keeping them out of the main chargen section is sensible.

Lol, optional. I think just about everyone will take one feat atleast. Even then since its a character option, it should be much closer to classes and races, instead of after equipment (i find this to be objective).

But quite reasonably, the Forgotten Realms are much better known outside people who already play D&D, and 5e is aiming to bring more people in.

Yea, I know. I don't like it tho.

No argument there. The mechanics are fine for the 2e Tiefling, though - we just need an appearance chart to be ported... or am I missing something?

I just thought about it it, and...why can't we customize how our character looks? ... I mean duh....

It's a good point. The rules do say you can't keep it for very long, and the DM should be able to correct for people trying to game it ("Quick everyone, do some convincing roleplay before we open this door!), since it's not an automatic. Some guidance here would help; hopefully in Basic and the DMG.

Yea I agree, (I myself would not give my players who RP-ed just to get an INPS point, that and I reset the players INPS points after each session).

Swings and roundabouts, here - the 3e version suffers from having to specify what items work with what types of armour quite a bit. Items that can only be worn if you're not wearing armour are clumsy to word when there are lots of different effects that provide armour that need to be. 5e gets around this entirely - things that provide armour set your AC to a certain value, and thus don't stack with each other. Things that add to existing armour provide bonuses on top of that.
Or to put it another way, it moves complexity around rather than adding or removing it. I'm sure I'd call it better, but (I think) it's not worse... and it's going to have fewer corner cases to abuse because some material somewhere adds a new type of armour-replacement that's not explicitly excluded from stacking with some other type of armour-replacement. Or, at least, such a mistake will be easily visible. If you see an item that purports to be a replacement for armour that doesn't set your AC to a value, it's broken. Just like anything that allows casters to get around the limitations of Concentration (by which I mean "Perform two actions requiring Concentration at once") is explicitly broken.

I completely agree.
But there are logical issues or realism issues. Why doesent the Dragon heritage's "natural armor" stack with normal armor, or the barbarians? Its just weird.

They did. PHB Page 15, bottom right.
The proficiency bonus is reproduced in the classes because most characters are expected to not multiclass, so it has all the information you need on one table. For multiclass characters, the rules explicitly refer you to the table on page 15.

Oh yea, its there... my bad. But then there is no point in having it in the class table.
I think when multi-classing, proficiency bonus continues to rise, "proficiency bonus is based on character level". (I might be wrong).
Thus I think it should just be written in one table.

 

[ccooke]

I agree that some things are subjective, but this one isn't.

• If lets say if people choose to take a background (instead of put one together), then its better if the backgrounds are before classes.
• If you rather put together a background then it might not be better to place it before classes. But at that point it doesn't matte where it is in the book, since its all up to the player.

No, that's still subjective.
Classes give you a choice from a limited pool. Backgrounds give you free choice with suggestions. If you picked background first, you might find the skill choices overlap badly, and end up backtracking to backgrounds to pick something else.
Does that make this layout better? Well, it's arguable. You can tell, because there's an argument about it ;-)

Lol, optional. I think just about everyone will take one feat atleast. Even then since its a character option, it should be much closer to classes and races, instead of after equipment (i find this to be objective).

In your game, perhaps.
There have been several people on these forums who have said they wouldn't use feats, and there will be a lot of people who play only the Basic Rules, then pick up the PHB later. They might not go for feats immediately or at all.

The thing is, in both of the points above I can see your point - I'm just arguing that it's all subjective and there are valid reasons for the way things have been laid out, even if you (or perhaps we) don't agree with them.
So basically I am being pedantic. Sorry about that.

Yea, I know. I don't like it tho.

Aye. I guess I don't really care about settings, since I don't use any of the published ones. Well, except for Planescape, and that's just in the background of a load of campaigns that take place on the Prime Material, in case I need to know what sort of strange stuff is out there.

I just thought about it it, and...why can't we customize how our character looks? ... I mean duh....

Well, we can. Although I'd love to have a decent copy of the old 2e stuff. If you just change the appearance of the Tiefling, it really looks like it'll work well.

Oh yea, its there... my bad. But then there is no point in having it in the class table.
I think when multi-classing, proficiency bonus continues to rise, "proficiency bonus is based on character level". (I might be wrong).
Thus I think it should just be written in one table.

Because for most people (who don't multiclass), having everything in one table is easier and freindlier. And for those who do multiclass, they know they're taking a more complex option and are referred to the character-level table. But really, since everyone has the same proficiency progression and everyone has the same spell slot progression, they can actually use any class for their proficiency (they just look at total character level) and any full caster class for their spell slots (they just look at their actual spellcaster class level). Which makes finding the information a bit easier, once you're used to it.

But mostly, I think, so that the default situation - single classing - has everything they need for their class in one table.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Fey-pacted warlocks and beastmaster rangers
Randomized trollops accosting some strangers
Electrum pieces; invisible rings
These are a few of my favorite things

PCs with backgrounds and feats I can doodle
Door traps and pit traps and flumpfs who canoodle
Dragons that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

Many sub-races with variant classes
Axes to swing for barbarian bashes
Fireball spells that a red wizard flings
These are a few of my favorite things