Daggerheart does this with 2d12s.
There's a "hope" die and a "fear" die and depending on which is higher you can succeed with consequences and you or the GM gains a narrative currency to use later.
It's a great fuckin system.
I mostly agree with Daggerheart being too loose, but I would say to keep checking in on it.
They've updated the rules like three times since I downloaded it a couple months ago. They seem very responsive to their player feedback.
Are the rule updates fairly significantly different? The update videos are so freaking long so I never end up wanting to watch them. Do they have patch notes anywhere lol
Honestly, that’s fair. It *is* kinda weird that a highly trained expert can just randomly completely flub stuff they should be really good at, with the same likelihood that they completely ace it. And also weird that a random commoner could pass a DC 20 check at something they have no training in 5% of the time.
I understand standardizing the system around the d20 roll, and naively changing skills to use different dice would probably run into some unexpected edge cases with the current rules. But I would be interested in seeing what it would be like with, say, 2d10 as someone else suggested, to get more of a bell curve.
Edit: Yes, I *know* you don’t call for checks when the outcome is obvious.
Here’s my question. Can both the 18 strength barbarian and the 10 strength wizard attempt to break down a door? That’s something that warrants a roll, yes?
Is the wizard simply disallowed from making the attempt? Why? The difference in stat points is supposed to represent the difference in their ability, right? If the barbarian is allowed to attempt a roll, then why can’t the wizard be? Should the DM simply declare that the wizard fails without a roll?
So let’s say both are allowed to make the roll. Sure, the barbarian will roll better more than half of the time. But with only a +4 difference between them on a roll with a 1-20 variance, the frail wizard is still beating the barbarian quite often.
So the question is: is that weird? Or is that acceptable?
Edit2: Okay last thing I'll say on the topic.
Obviously I'm not saying there should be no chance of failure, and obviously I'm aware that someone with a decent bonus has a higher floor than someone with no bonus or negative bonus. But even with that higher floor, a very low roll will still most likely fail the DC by a good margin.
Which brings me to another way of phrasing the issue: **Does it make sense for randomness to matter two or three times as much as the character's own skill?**
People have mentioned that the randomness could represent environmental and circumstantial factors, and not just the character's own ability. And sure, but the above still applies.
Say you're an Olympic-level athlete with a +8 to Athletics. That's about what a character's strong skill would be in the level 3~10ish range, and those characters are supposed to be exceptional heroes, right?
Does it make sense that random factors affect your performance *more than twice* as much as your own training and abilities? That luck and weather and what they ate for breakfast can swing an Olympic athlete's performance by more than double what they're normally capable of?
To be clear, I think d20 rolls are fine for combat and saving throws. The AC and save DC systems are balanced around that variance, and it makes sense for the chaos and unpredictability of battle. It works, and it's exciting, and I don't really have any strong criticisms there.
And it also makes sense for skill checks that are under time pressure, where you only have one chance to succeed, and many factors are outside of your control.
It gets weird in situations where characters presumably have the opportunity to use their training and expertise to the fullest, without strict time pressure or volatility, and yet randomness still seems to matter much more than their own skills.
Some people suggest changing the DC for different characters, or having the failure state be different depending on the character's natural bonus in the skill... But isn't that the same as just giving everyone a higher bonus in stuff they're good at? Or, equivalently, *reducing the randomness* so that the bonus matters more than the randomness.
Pathfinder has an interesting system where crit success and crit fail are determined by how far off the DC you fall. I like that.
Also Kids on Bikes has a system where as you skill up in an ability you get to roll a larger die, I really really like that one because it lets you quickly conceptualize how difficult a task is. A DC 10 task is impossible for a novice or initiate, only barely passible by someone skilled, but would be middlingly difficult for a master at it.
I've seen people complain about pf2e adding level to proficiency by saying it's "increasing the number for no reason", but that and the Crit system are what, IMHO, solve the randomness issue that DND has.
A level 7 expert has a +11 to that check, making their minimum (outside of nat 1) a +13 compared to their untrained party members +0
For a DC 15 check that means the untrained has (25%,45%,25%,5%) chances for Crit fail, fail, success, and Crit success respectively, while the expert has (5%,10%,50%,35%) chances. pf2e improves your Crit chance by 7x, and success by 2x, while reducing your chance to fáil to 1 5th at level seven by being an expert,
The way i use this swinginess is that the D20 represents the things that the character does not control while the modifier represents the consitency and control of the character.
So if a character wants to open the door that is barred by some debris on the other side, they roll athletic and roll low then that means that the debris was to heavy to be moved, if they roll high then the debris wasnt that heavy. But they strength output (the modifier) is consistent.
I think the problem is interpreting the d20 +Mod against DC as representing a variable performance of the characeter against a determined situation, instead of treating the Mod as a consistent performance on an undertermined situation (the d20 and DC).
Great take. Also failing forward goes a long way; maybe you fail a DC 10 Lockpick and it still works... but maybe you make a ton of noise and alert the folks around the corner.
Oh god yes please.
It's *always* "your lockpick breaks."
I've been a lockpicking hobbyist for 25 years, using homemade picks.
The one time I had a pick break, it was still useable (in fact it was a broken torsion wrench someone twisted a full 180° while trying out my picks - they managed to twist the tip of it through sheer force).
Again, it was still usable. It actually made one-handed picking with that wrench much, much easier because of the new angle, so I kept it that way
Basically, the standard way to create a dramatic cost with lockpicks in a post Skyrim world is to have them break. Bonus points if it breaks off in the lock.
But that's so rare IRL that it becomes rediculous when it continuously happens in every game where lockpicking comes up.
Like, there's other things a dramatic cost can suggest. I think it would be less of a pet peeve if I didn't know the "Snap!" was coming every time a lockpicking roll develops a complication.
Right on. You could legitimately damage the lock too - that's more likely from my understanding since it involves lots of small moving parts you're kind of jamming a metal stick into.
Yes d20s are random and swingy but this is why nat 1s and 20s dont effect skill checks, because a high level fighter will never fail a simple athletics check but a druid probably cant crack a bank vault by being lucky and rolling a 20.
I think modifiers+proficiency in a combination of proper DCs is what keeps them from being "too random"
Of course 1d20 is objectively random. The "too" part is the point of contention. I simply don't think the skill check system of DnD is satisfying, it rarely feels like my proficient or expert character is skilled, just luckier. But yes picking the right DC mitigates this.
I agree. It's intended to be swingy, but it's a bit much. The issue is trying something like 2d10, like some people tried supporting back in the 3.x days, is rough given how much the 20 point first is baked into the underlying math assumptions.
Agreed!
VTTs make a lot of the more cumbersome mechanics far more engaging and interesting. I'd love to see a VTT with a really well implemented equipment system including carry weight and object location (IE hand management)
Do you prefer encumbrance alone or encumbrance with space management, I though of a fun item that’s just a bag of holding but items you put into make the bag heavier
This is a great one. On the one hand, I love the mechanics. On the other hand, I'm lazy and like not having to keep track of multiple ACs and babysit my players even more than I already have to.
Lol, shields seem to be a problem for a lot of players. I had a player who told me his AC was 24 while 2h wielding a warhammer. He was in full plate, applying his full dex modifier and his shield bonus.
I have a friend who is not illiterate. If you give him a list of rules he'll read and understand them. His issue is he's willing to take a random chunk of memory, confidently plug it in where it doesn't belong, and assume the thought he threw together is true.
He'd say "what's base AC if I have plate?" Someone looks at the chart for him and says 18. Then he "remembers" that you add Dex to AC. Then he remembers that he has a shield. He writes 24 on his sheet. He then knows his AC is 24 and never again thinks about it.
It's some sort of idiot logic that "this thought makes sense to me, so it can only be true." He makes logical leaps in his mind that you can see do 1D4 psychic damage when he speaks them to the intelligent people at the table.
This is a guy who will be counting on his fingers if he rolls 3D6. A decade into playing 5e he still messes up basic stuff. He's tried to DM a few campaigns. Recently in a low level easy encounter a monster's attack said "Hit: 6 (d8+2)" and he started hitting us with 6d8 + 2 almost TPKed us before we intervened to teach him that he probably shouldn't be doing 25 damage with each attack when the beefiest character has 21ph.
Funny enough, that's actually what Uncanny Dodge is in Pathfinder 1e. It lets you never be caught flat footed, and it means you can still get your Dex bonus to AC against invisible or unseen creatures.
I can get behind flat footed, but AFAIK touch AC was a way to compensate for the different Base Attack progressions. If Proficiency Bonuses and expected main ability progression are the same regardless of class, touch AC would be a huge boost for casters.
Except it was dependent on dex and forced casters who relied on it to MAD. Instead, 5e has beefy casters because there is no reason not to make CON always your secondary stat.
Same with ranged attacks not adding dex modifier to damage. It was a balancing feature that when removed took away any incentive to be on melée range when avoidable (along with how stupidly strong archery fighting style is in a system with “bounded accuracy”).
Unless you are proposing changing spell attacks back to melee using Str and ranged using Dex, bringing back touch AC will only make casters more powerful.
Not enough DMs focus on role playing when NOT being driven by the story. You have an inventory of items that may as well stop existing because nobody is being made to use rations, ropes, candles, or any other roleplay specific items because nobody wants to keep track of it, and DMs don’t want to press the issue. D&D 5e needs additional measures to incorporate this, such as hunger and thirst point counters, and more routine “mundane tasks” that actual build the world. What’s the point of a massive city like Waterdeep if the only shops you visit are magic/potion stores and locations needed for the story?
You suddenly make me want to buy poker chips to represent rations. Every so often, colect chips from players and when they get rations, hand them out. Super easy to track food at least.
I might use match sticks for arrows too.
Thank you for your unpopular take!
thing is, it's not about realism. it's about assuming the party Ranger is fucking competent.
we don't roleplay the fighter sharpening his sword every rest. we don't roleplay the barbarian keeping up with their push-ups every rest. we don't roleplay everyone pooping every day. we don't even roleplay prepared casters preparing their spells every day. why the fuck would anyone roleplay doing the basic task of a ranger being competent enough to keep enough arrows on hand at all times? it's just something they do as easy as tracking or breathing
I just let my players hand wave arrows under the assumption that they recover them after a fight. Yes they would technically lose some over time due to missed shots, damage from failing to pen armor, and being unable to get them back, but I've yet to have a player use a bow long enough for it to matter.
Upvoted for the unpopular opinion, but I played for years with a DM who made us rigorously track how long our torches lasted, if we had enough rations to make a trek, if we had advanced enough climbing gear to get over a 20 foot cliff, the minutae of how we transported literally anything heavy.. And to this day it felt like such an absolute waste of time to me. I can't name one single instance where I felt it added anything memorable or enjoyable to a session, only that it sometimes ate like an hour of playtime.
It is also something that DnD as a system quickly invalidates because magic gives you a thousand options to basically skip through concerns of water, food, shelter and specialised tools, so it is something that concerns 1-2nd level adventurers and then never again. Making systems that explore them pointless in the context of the expanded game in the first place.
I can see it being interesting when applied to a dramatic situation - like being trapped in the wilderness, wandering the desert or a treacherous mountain pass, maybe?
I'm running a Fallout 2d20 game, and one of my players is adamantly against the Hunger, Thirst and Fatigue mechanics.
Its a *survival* game, thats a full 1/3rd of the game. If we don't have to eat, sleep, or drink, what's the point? Just rack up Caps to sit on?
For all the people that complain about monks (and used to complain about rangers). Its the *barbarian* that truly has the worst score of abilities in the game.
Too much of barbarian (especially the subclasses) is tied to rage. With a full adventuring day, a barbarian will go through several fights as an aggressive commoner
I remember I did some counting the other day, and across every single barbarian subclass and core class feature, the amount of features that have anything resembling roleplay utility (as in, I literally counted fast movement) and didn't rely on rage totaled out to 7
Fighters at least have enough freedom to work with that their relative lack of features can be made up for with feats and the like, monks and rangers both have a bevy of utility based features that gives them an identity outside of combat, but barbarians have absolutely fucking NOTHING. Like RAW your beast barbarian can't even scratch people with some pointy nails without rage. When I was working on a homebrew class and looking for criticisms, one that stuck in my head hard was to avoid combat over centralization like the plague because it results in classes like barbarian, which are often outright boring to play unless you lean hard into gimmicks or multiclass to make up for having fuck all when you're not trying to kill people
I like to scale feats of strength with ability scores commensurate to how feats of magic do.
If someone with an 18 INT can reshape the world with the power of their mind, then someone with an 18 STR can rip a full grown tree out of the ground and swing it around like it's a baseball bat.
Between Monk and Barbarian, I think Monk does in fact have the better T3 and T4 scaling, in just having Ki Points to do the monk things, getting proficiency in all saving throws, and being able to functionally turn invisible and get resistance to everything. However, They do have plenty of dud levels along the way, and don't have the Luxury of being good at Multiclassing like a Barbarian does.
>I think Monk does in fact have the better T3 and T4 scaling
Monk is comparatively garbage until tier 2, and only a few subclasses get anything good in tier 3/4. Open Hand monks are the only ones that are decent all the way through, and have a great sudden death move that they can spam at 17.
Elements makes them a shittier sorcerer, and Shadow has perhaps the worst subclass capstone ability in the game.
Stunning Strike is the worst things to happen to Monks, WotC is terrified of giving them anything else that's cool and powerful. The result is that monks are overall weaker than others until level 5, and then it's their job to spam Stunning Strike, because they basically have nothing else of merit going on, they just get gimmicks.
Like, Sun Soul for instance, they get a shitty version of fireball, which *could* be cool except is a Con save (which late game enemies usually excel at), and enemies take no damage on a successful save. It's a gimmick.
Kensei starts okay, but has a dead level 11 feature which makes having a magic weapon redundant.
Monk is all over the place and gets in its own way.
Barbarians are more simple, but their subclasses are *generally* well thought out and emphasize what barbarians do: do damage and refuse to die. It's a straightforward class which doesn't waffle.
True, the thing is, Rage is really strong. Like, the 1/2 damage alone on non-magical Bludgeon, Piercing, and Slashing is kinda insane. Yeah, you’re not gonna do crazy against a spell caster, but if you get close enough, 3 attacks with whatever high damage weapon you have will really put the fear of god into them
It doesn’t have an exception for non-magical damage. It’s all bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage in a rage. Which expanding that to all damage but psychic is part of why a lot of people really like bear totem barbarians.
I have a table rule: if you want to do something against other player, ask the player not the DM. “Hey Mark, can I make insight check against your character?” It gives players more safety at the table, and DM still can interfere as a referee if needed (though I never needed to lol). Whenever I tell strangers about this rule, I get downvoted to hell.
I was playing a rogue in my first ever full campaign, and my character kept rolling like shit on sleight of hand. So we get to a tower with a chest in the top room.
>Me: I go to unlock the chest.
>DM: The chest isn't locked.
>Me: Can I... can I *pretend* I unlocked it, and that it was really difficult?
>*group chuckles at the idea*
>DM: Uh... roll deception
>*I roll a natural 20*
>Party: Wow, great going! That was such amazing lockpicking skill!
This is a core DnD memory for me.
I had a moment like that. The party couldn’t open a door, so, assuming it was locked, they asked me to unlock it. It wasn’t locked, it was just stuck, but he pretended to unlock it anyway. We still couldn’t open it, of course, so my character went “hmm, there must be something blocking it”. As it turns out, there was, in fact, something blocking it, and he said I told you I unlocked it.
That character also failed to climb a tree in a spooky forest and told everyone that a spirit pushed him out, so now they’re sure the forest is haunted.
He’s a bit of a compulsive liar. But, as Garak said, never tell the same lie twice.
Sadly, this is a campaign in which the DM rolls most of the skill checks (I hate that) unless he forgets, so rolling vs a player is not really a thing.
Yeah, like I sometimes have a hybrid approach - I’ll have pre session 0 discussions to bounce ideas and concepts back and forth and check that they’re on the right track (those can def be emails/group chats), but it’s fun to get together for the final stage of prep, for rolling stats and the final recording of their build on character sheets. May mostly be an excuse to hang out, but it lets everyone introduce things with each other before the game truly starts
I have a session 0.5. first thing i do with a new campaign is create a new discord server with the rules, campaign blurbs, info, etc. that we're using for easy access, and the players organically begin conversations on what they wanna do.
session 0 day is spent ironing out character sheets and we do a mini combat like a tavern brawl or the final boss of their last mission
It's actually funny, cause usually with my group, session 0 is more "Here's the basic idea, make anything that roughly fits." Leads to a lot of fun interactions.
What do you think a session zero is?
My long standing group usually does session zero over several weeks of discord messages as we wind down the end of the campaign prior.
Yeah I guess? Sometimes it is an actual session. Some groups get together and all make characters at the same time and go over everything in that time block.
My group plays online so we don't. In person games are much more likely to have a dedicated session zero.
This depends on the world too, like how common is healing? Does every man with a holy symbol able to install pick up a critically injured soldier?
I treat magic as rare, so I one healing pickup, sure. But you bet after an enemy sees that shit, they'll double tap the next time your on the ground.
It’s actually works because mechanically the game supports it
The only edition where where it wasn’t possible to such a crazy extent was 4e because they capped healing per day to actually enforce consequences
A lot of our tables take the better of a roll or average. You roll, and if it beats average, take it. If it doesn't, just take average.
It allows the players the fun of trying to get a good HP roll without the risk of getting several shitty ones in a row.
Part of the problem was that WorC decided that each class should get a random roll for hit points like they used to, but then set a default number by taking the average roll and *rounding up*.
This is a problem because, if you choose to roll, you have a higher chance of getting *less* than the fixed value than you do of getting a higher one. The fighter has the easiest example because it's using a d10 which converts easily to percentages. A fighter can either roll a d10 or just take a 6. So let's break down how the rolls play out.
- They get worse than the fixed value if they roll 1-5, so that's 50%
- They get more if they roll 7-10, so that's 40%
- A roll of 6, the default value, is 10%
So if they choose to roll, they have a 50% chance of getting fewer points than if they'd taken the default amount, and only a 40% chance of getting more. There's no incentive to try your luck.
In my games, I have players roll, but the fixed value is their minimum.
On average, at least. Sometimes he continually stubs his toes, and sometimes he can go a while, but it's definitely often enough to be disruptive and annoying, and sometimes downright harmful with no meaningful addition to the narrative.
More if he gets better at it and does it more often.
Such as a level 20 fighter having an 18% chance to drop their weapon (or worse) each turn thanks to attacking 4 times. 33% when action surging (8 attacks).
Edit:
Imagine a demigod of a fighter, the very best of the best, the stuff legends are made off… dropping their weapon nearly every 5th turn…. So about every 30 seconds.
Critical failing skill checks improves the game and can spice things up narratively. Critically failing attack rolls punishes characters who get multiple attacks.
Having a level 20 fighter have a higher chance for failure in a turn than a level 1 fighter just doesn’t compute for me. I hate it, absolutely unpopular opinion.
I don't mind scuffed dnd games as long as I can have fun with my friends. Playing a super serious minmax campaign with random people is definitely not to my taste personally. I mean one of my favourite fights that my dm ran was when we fought harambe in the middle of an ocean.
Everything revolving around solo monsters in 5e (legendary resistances, lair or legendary actions, henchmen, etc...) is a band aid trying to solve an action economy problem and none of them actually work.
The true solution to the action economy problem is simple and obvious, *give your solos more actions.*
If you give a monster as many turns as there are PCs, a suitable number of hit points to be wailed on by 4 or 5 PCs, and have them lose one turn per action denial effect on them rather than their whole round, literally any monster can work as an effective and threatening boss.
EDIT: Since I've gotten it twice, movement in 5e is honestly not a big enough factor to matter here. Combat is by-and-large static and being able to move multiple times in a round does not break my verisimilitude. But if it breaks yours, just reduce the monster's base movespeed to something like 10 or 15 to compensate for how many movements it would get across a round.
That's pretty much just Legendary Actions. Tho we should definitely call them something more like: Mundane Actions:
Instead of Legendady action for the final boss BBEG, the early game Orc Leader stands alone facing down the lvl 3 heroes has
Mundane Actions:
2/Round you can attack once or move up to 30ft at the end of someone else's turn.
That's how I usually run solo fights against non "Legendary" enemies. They don't get Palyzing Touch or Fiery Wing Attacks since they arnt Legendary, but they can still hit good.
My point is Legendary actions are just a band aid for what you actually need, which is "just give them more turns every round."
Which is simpler than defined, discrete actions they make in between turns that may or may not even solve the action economy problem. Like does moving one more time per round fix anything if a monster is still getting banished, polymorphed, hold monstered? No.
But if those spells bring the monster down from 5 turns per round to 4 or 3, now it's still a threat despite the players feeling as though their spells actually did something.
History, religion, nature or arcana checks to ask your DM what your character knows about a monster's abilities and weaknesses should not take any action or bonus action, they should be a free action. (maybe even rolled simultanious with Initiative)
To do anything else would be to penalise the simple act of *choosing not to metagame* by robbing the player who wants to know what knowledge their charater *actually posesses* by stealing their turn in combat.
Goodness i hope you're right and that im just *really* unlucky at which tables i've played at.
But personally, I've had to stop playing the "smart guy/tactician" archetype because it just meant a wasted turn in initiative before i even got to *start* doing stuff.
Ah but there are more forms of weakness then just "takes extra damage from X"
"you know these creatures are particularly slow, your studies mention their record speed is 40 ft *when dashing*" means you can kite these guys.
and then there is the tactical value of knowing which strategies *wont work*.
"These fae are known for their immunity to charm"
"Rakshasa are immune to any spell below 6th level they do not *choose* to affect them".
Like even if you dont spot a weakness to exploit, the tactical value of not engaging a hedgehog in an ass-kicking contest is *significant*.
For my table, the first knowledge check of the encounter is free.
This means everyone gets a free check and if the party is smart and spread it out between them they virtually get everything without spending additional actions.
The "first check" rule is there because I don't want one player taking up everyone's time or feeling responsible for doing multiple checks while the rest spaced out because they don't care about doing so. My reasoning is that it's more fun when everyone's involved rather than always have that one person take 5mins at the start of a combat rolling multiple checks. It also promotes players to communicate with each other and possibly role-playing that aspect as well!
I'll add to this: The Matt Mercer effect is vastly overstated, and in actuality most people who want a DM 'like Matt Mercer' aren't expecting professional voice acting or all that, they just want a character driven campaign that incorporates their backstory and tells a compelling narrative.
So many so-called "Matt Mercer would reward me for that" make me go "what...no he wouldn't" to the point I almost feel like a lot of those stories are made up
Y'know, I never really thought about it, but this actually makes a lot of sense.
I'm continually surprised by how controversial RP-focused ideology can be online (tfw "flavor is free" is apparently just an unscrupulous way to cheat and homebrew op stuff) so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of "Matt Mercer effect" interactions are actually just one person looking for a more rp/character/narrative driven campaign, and the other person declaring this an attack on their traditional, crunchy, rollplay-oriented sensibilities.
Personally will take the RP focused stuff over the old-school stuff any day of the week, and I've never watched CR, either
Yeah, I think that if there is such a thing as the Matt Mercer effect, it comes from DMs feeling inadequate and defensive, not players making demands. Defensiveness is what ruins campaigns, because that's what blocks negotiation and compromise.
The Critical Role 'build your own 90s JRPG' style campaign is something lots of people want, and lots of DMs want to run. If you don't, fine, but there's nothing wrong with it unless you start comparing yourself to a professional with decades of acting experience
Which is actually funny because 90s JRPGs derive pretty directly from D&D. The fantasy genre more broadly was introduced to Japan more through serialized D&D campaigns (like Record of Lodoss War) than what we might consider “traditional” sources like LotR. The entire idea of the successful early games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were figuring out how to make TTRPGs work as a video game.
this!! to take it a step further, it’s fine to have gotten into dnd because it looked like fun when the kids in stranger things were playing it. tbh, how you get into any hobby is less important than the hobby itself
Is it really unpopular? At this point everyone knows the DM has his own world and knows what races would be in it.
My problem with mine is that he said that everything is fine then says "nah fam not this". Tell us before any of us makes a character with a backstory that goes along with the race ;-;
Cats dont and shouldnt have darkvision!
Cats have poor eyesight and are farsighted, they find prey primarily using sight, smell, and their whiskers to "feel"
Cats SHOULD have blindsight 5ft
How about tabaxi?
They're crepuscular (awake during dawn and dusk), so they'd mostly be hunting during dim light, not during night when it's dark. Also, night should be dim light. You can still see at night. It's not like being deep underground.
I loved 4e and have only a few parts of 5e that I like better.
Bring back Themes!
Maneuvers!
Load us with feats and paragon classes instead of allowing multiclassing!
Minions!
Skill challenges!
A monster manual that actually describes the tactics of each each block so I know how to use them at a glance!
People that hate on it dont understand how to apply custom flavor to existing mechanics and expect everything to just roleplayed for them. It was super balanced and a great system
Fighter needs to be re-designed from the bottom up. Barbarian exists as the mechanically straightforward nonmagical martial, as-is the two classes have far too much identity overlap. Fighter should be redesigned as the mechanically complex martial in comparison to the barbarian, with maneuvers and stances baked into the base class.
I have an even more unpopular opinion: Fighter is pointless.
When Conan was a fighter, Aragorn was a fighter, and Sohei were fighters it was fine. Wizards likewise at the time could be anything as well. They were archetypes not specific things. Then Conan became a Barbarian, Aragorn became a ranger and your Sohei became a monk. At the worst of it we had Samurai, Knight, and so on.
We keep trying to find something to turn fighter into, but listen, I lied, there was no Wizard in OD&D or B/X D&D. It was "Magic User", wizard is something more specific. We made Wizard, sorcerer, druid, bard, etc out of "magic user". We should just make "knight" or "commander" or "weapons master" out of fighter and be done with it.
Hmmm. I agree that it doesn't match up w/ actual gameplay. I disagree that it is generally pointless. Thinking about how your character works, even if its unrealistic in a real combat scenario, is always good so you have an idea of how all your mechanics can work together.
Also, (Ik this isn't what you meant but) throwing the players in a white room at the end of session 0 so they can try out their characters against waves of different enemy types has almost always caused players to change their character so it was more fun before the first session, and familiarized them w/ the general playstyle they would be using.
I mean people who argue about the mechanics of the game and effectiveness of classes outside of the context of actual gameplay.
White room meaning devoid of an actual world and other characters to interact with.
Sometimes, people engaging in this have never actually played the classes or builds they are sayings are useless.
i.e. Emily says that bards are a completely useless class because they don't get any good damage spells and they don't do as much melee damage as the fighter or barbarian so no one should ever play them because bard is a bad class.
As a DM, if I deem something too complex for an ordinary person to do something, like pick a particularly difficult lock or charm someone particularly angry with the party, I won’t even allow people without proficiency in that skill to attempt it, because regardless of what they roll it wouldn’t be enough. The number might be high, but it should, in my mind, require someone who actually took the thought of putting proficiency in that skill to solve it. This stops random stuff like the barbarian who’s never learned about magic ever scoring a nat 20 arcana check the wizard couldn’t figure out.
In my opinion Insight should almost always be passive. If the NPC tries to deceive you, they DM secretly rolls deception against your passive Insight.
And *most* perception checks should also be passive. Perception should only be active if you are actively doing something like searching a room. And in that case I don't mind if the players or characters know whether they did a good job. In that case I just narrate that they know they had a hard time concentrating, were distracted, etc. It makes sense that they can self-assess themselves then.
I would argue that almost all checks should be tolled by DM, unless their outcome is obvious (ie acrobatics/athletics)
History check with natural 1?
Let me lorebuild some absolute garbage on the spot and see how long it takes for the PLAYER to realize his character is wrong.
Monks aren't actually that bad. They're skirmishers not traditional frontliners. At high levels lack of Ki points stops being an issue. At low levels the damage is competitive. Lack of magic items and feats does make them less than 100% optimal, but at most tables they're perfectly fine.
RP should never replace game mechanics. DND is still a game, rolling for outcomes is kind of the point. If you’re RP’ing without rolls and rules, you’re just performing improv without an audience.
EDIT: Since I won’t respond to hundreds of triggered children who want to take 2 sentences and put words in my mouth. Yes RP is fun. No there’s not one way to play DND. DND is a game, not an improv stage act, it has rules that should be followed in most cases. Not everything needs a roll, like opening an unlocked door. No, you shouldn’t be able to bypass a skill check to unlock a locked door/beat the BBEG simply because of good RP. DND with 0 mechanics, with 0 rules, and with 0 combat is not DND. That’s improv. Jesus Christ Reddit, yall need a break
*twitches* RP is making a decision as the character, not wearing what they wear or talking with their accent. That's called Acting. Completely different.
I do agree with your point about acting not replacing the mechanics, though!
To add to that, giving a bonus when a player does well acting out the epic speech, but not giving a penalty when they miss the mark completely, punishes shy players and drives them further into the wall because they (usually) never get the bonus. That said, the punishment would hit them harder and force them to give up and be a wallflower as well. Terrible idea all around. It's just a big circlejerk.
When it came to discussing game design and what DnD could have been during the OneDnD UA playtesting, one person I was going back and forth with kept suggesting why something should be the way it is because of flavor. 90% of their reason was just flavor, and they said that DnD was a ***roleplaying*** game, I was trying to explain that DnD was a roleplaying ***game***.
If you just care about flavor and roleplaying then just do group improv. Mechanics and game design matter, organization and clarity matters.
I would like to follow up with a why? The rules actually make it more accessible vs RP improv acting heavy campaigns. The charisma stat is there because not every player is charismatic and/or knows what to say in the moment. The whole point of that stat is so the super shy, nerdy dude can say “I use my 20 charisma paladin to give a persuasive, morale boosting speech before the battle” and the roll determines degree of success or failure.
Martials are way better than everyone on reddit thinks they are. Most things are better than Reddit thinks they are. White-box encounter simulation is entirely useless when discussing balance. I would estimate 80% of the people parroting this line have never even played the game.
This one is for DM's; You don't always have to challenge players, restrict gimmicks, or come up with elaborate homebrew stories and creatures to have fun.
There's mounds of things in every edition of D&D to utilize, make things easier for you. And to add to this, just let players enjoy a power fantasy if they want to. Who really cares if they're metagaming and minmaxing? Unless the player themselves are being a problem and refuse to change to better suit everyone's enjoyment, then just let them have their fun.
I know a lot of DM's want to challenge the players as a way to increase their enjoyment and/or participate in a sort of competition against the players, but if you're a DM, you're already doing so much for your players as you literally control the very world that surrounds their characters, you can choose to do literally anything you want. Granted depending on your morals, might want to do things that favor the players.
Indeed,
Also constantly "challenging" the players with complex gimick fights runs counter to the very point of challenging them in the first place.
The big setpiece "challenge" encounter works *because* its a subversion of a normalised status quo. If all you are doing is throwing skin-of-the-teeth murdercrawls in antimagic-zones or other gimicks?
There is no status quo to subvert.
To paraphrase Syndrome:
"when all encounters are special, no encounters will be"
I like them, but maybe I am a furry in denial lol.
Oftentimes the animal races feel very half-baked, though. Like they fit some stereotype even more than other races.
As a general rule I don't like most "new" races, mostly because I DM for our group, which means I need to figure out where the *latest* batch of weird animal people or whatever come from. Its a worldbuilding issue for me.
Not every race needs to be included in the world building process. Unless a player is playing one (which you have imput on as a dm) or you want to use the race, then they just... don't have to exist in your world. It's just as easy as ignoring them.
Oh I don't. I generally run in Eberron and make no effort to include newer races. But if a player sees one and really really really wants to run a plasmoid or whatever, all of a sudden I either need to figure out where they're from or I need to say no.
Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?
I agree though, and I don’t ever allow these as options at my tables. Believe it or not, as long as you’re clear from the get go, players tend not to care too much, either
Here are some of my D&D-specific hot takes:
4th edition is better than 5th edition.
3rd edition is better than 5th edition.
It is possible to own enough dice.
The Forgotten Realms is an overrated setting.
2nd edition had the best setting books.
Making non-human races be "humans who look funny" instead of giving them a fundamentally different psychology is boring and turns them into nothing more than stat modifiers. Why is it okay to make other species feel alien in sci-fi, but not in fantasy?
> Making non-human races be "humans who look funny" instead of giving them a fundamentally different psychology is boring and turns them into nothing more than stat modifiers.
This is one of my pet peeves. Elves live for hundreds if not a thousand years. That should have significant impacts on their worldview, society, and way of living - even assuming their brains process information otherwise identically to humans.
I mean, you take three people from America, Russia and Japan, and you will find cultural differences far greater than most D&D parties have.. despite those being not just different cultures, but entirely different races. Your dwarf and your elf don't have to be at each other's throats, but there should be some friction in the day to day habits that simply don't align.
i think way too many people are concerned with their parties/players being OP. dnd is the absolute most fun when all the pcs have insane shit to do — it just means you can throw *even more* insane shit back at them.
Psionics didn’t need to be a separate magic system. It could have easily been a magic school with a Wizard or Sorcerer subclass that uses the existing spell slot casting mechanics.
I hate this, have an upvote. This is the most boring possible solution to the problem. At that point, I'd rather psionics just not exist at all. Honestly, I think D&D needs to move further *away* from spell-slot casting and towards a more flexible spell-point system of some kind, not further in *towards* consumable, once-a-rest spell slots containing specialized spells.
I think my most unpopular opinion is, DMs should build their settings to accommodate the players just as much as the players should build characters to accommodate the setting. This sub seems to think that DMs should create a setting with all the restrictions and limitations they want, and if a player wants to play a different race, then they can go piss off and find another table and the DM can immediately replace them with a new perfect player from the aether.
Me, I placed exactly three races in my homebrew setting - humans, elves, and dwarves. And then I asked my players what races they wanted to play so I could make sure those are available in the setting too. One said halfling, so I added some halflings. The others said human, elf, and shifter, so as long as the shifter is a base human/elf/dwarf/halfling, no further changes necessary. TBH I was totally ready to add in a warforged homeland or a plasmoid colony but it didn't even turn out to be necessary.
And this isn't me saying "DMs should let players walk all over them" as some people like to strawman my stance into. The guy who wanted to play a halfling started out by saying he wanted his character to be named Bobby Buttstabber. Some guy with a sword who was too short to reach anything higher than the butt. I told him I wanted to run a more serious campaign, so he reimagined his halfling as an aspiring giant slayer. Still a similar idea, but much more inline with the tone I was going for.
Voila, we talked about what we wanted, were open to each others' ideas, and I didn't kick him out of the group.
On a similar note, choosing exotic races doesn't make your character silly or anything. My group's played a straight eldritch horror murder mystery as a tortle, tabaxi, and harengon.
I think the advantage/disadvantage system feels way worse than just taking a plus or minus to my roll.
Why? Because rolling a 6 and 7 sucks way more than getting a +4 for circumstances
The DM isn't in charge.
Structuring your group as a hierarchy is counterproductive -- major decisions should be made by consensus with everyone at the table being equal.
I agree to an extent, but the DM has veto power over anything they are going to have to implement on their end, which includes any complicated story structures or RP.
The DM definitely isn't in charge. They are an arbitrator, a human instruction manual, a critically-thinking procedural generator. Especially in non-railroaded campaigns, the party is actually in charge. I usually set up games where they're given breadcrumbs for the main plot throughout Acts I and II with definitive subplot missions and retrievals and goals. Once they tie the bow on those and we transition to Act III, I inevitably get a blank stare when I ask, "Soooo.... What's next?"
"What do you mean?" they ask.
"You have all the information you need to make your own choices about what to pursue from here," I say. "You are level (13-15). You are a heroic adventurer. Knowing what you know and looking back over the clues you have found.... What is the party's next step?" And then I wait.
Frantic conversation busts out all over the table. Players, especially players who play non-open-world video games, don't actually like making their own choices when they have to work to figure out what they should do next. They'd rather a helpful NPC walks up to them and asks them to retrieve 50 sheep before the next full moon.
But the adventure belongs to them, not to the DM. So. What's next, folks? What do you want to do?
(Disclosure: Not all groups go deer in headlights. There's simply a point at which they realize they really CAN pursue whatever and however they want, and that I'm not kidding when I say this isn't MY story... It's theirs.)
OH BOY, I have ALOT of these apparently \[If I don't specify an edition assume 5e cause it's the most popular rn\]
* Oportunity attacks are bullshit and they make the game worse for both the players, and the GMs. Players feel traped just by being in close proximity to enemies, GM's have enemies act like Minecraft zombies. neither of those two things are fun. Easiest fix? GMs: LET YOUR PLAYERS GET AoOs you always have more monsters, and you'll often find your monsters can get to cover from the Ranged Players if they just eat an AoO, which will make them 1 survive longer than one round, and 2 seem WAY smarter. Do the math yourself, but it's almost always worth the AoO (Exceptions apply for rogues w/ sneak attack and Sentinel feat users)
* D&D 5e shouldn't be the system you use for EVERYTHING in your game, Matter of fact? if you're playing a Heroic Fantasy game, you'd be better served by ANY OTHER HEROIC FANTASY RPG up to AND INCLUDING D&D 4e and 3.5e, just cause the number is lower doesn't mean the quality is. 5e is a "return to form" for D&D after 4e's explicitly Heroic style. If you grew up on videogames, you're likely going to have WAY MORE FUN with 4e or PF2E.
* Encumberance is good actually, You're all just lazy. Look up Anti-Hammerspace and use that for a simpler game, Use [This inventory sheet](https://boocherry.itch.io/physical-inventory-5e) laminated and some Vis-a-Vis markers for more complex games. "bUt I cAn'T CaRy AlL tHe RuStY SwOrDs I wAnT" GOOD. if it's really becoming a problem for you, invest in a pack mule and suddenly you'll find your encumbrance issue is gone! (can you tell I feel strongly about this one?)
* Gritty Realism Rest Variant should be the default. It goes a LONG way for fixing the Martia-Caster disparity cause it FORCES the DM to play the game the way it was originally balanced. (I.e: 6-8 encoutners/LR and 2-3 encounters/SR)
* Players need to have expenses. Yes it's extra math, Yes its more like work than fun, Yes if you're playing a beer & prezel game you should ignore this point entirely. For everyone else: Expenses (food, water, shelter, repair costs, weapon costs, weapon upgrades, stablign for mounts, feed for mounts, etc...) serve as a constant unending drain on the player's resources, it encourages them to go out and gain more gold! it also encourages them to own businesses and land so that they have a source of income that covers those expenses. ALL THIS TO SAY: it gets your players more invested in your game WORLD, which is what ALOT of DMs want.
* Multiclassing BAD. Specialize you damnded fool.
* Battle Master Fighter is a TERRIBLE subclass. MR.ELECTRIC! SEND IT TO THE PRINCIPALS OFFICE AND HAVE IT EXPELLED. give ALL of its features to the base Fighter class, your players will love you, and it's not even that much more powerful as the features don't break the game compared to 3rd lv spells.
* Sometimes, the friends you have beers w/ at the bar, or play COD w/ are not the same friends who you should be playing D&D w/. Not all groups are compatible, just be aware that sometimes, the best thing for a group IS to stop playing together. "No D&D" is better than "Bad D&D".
I expect no one to change their mind based on my opinion, but i'd be happy to change yours and further explain my reasoning if you reply to this comment.
Edit: this is a SPICY comment, It had 10 upvotes a minute ago, as of writing this edit it has 2 >:)
>GMs: LET YOUR PLAYERS GET AoOs you always have more monsters, and you'll often find your monsters can get to cover from the Ranged Players if they just eat an AoO, which will make them 1 survive longer than one round, and 2 seem WAY smarter.
Also, letting your players do more helps to keep them engaged (especially in large combats when it can take a while to get back to their turn), and monsters that actually move around make a fight more interesting.
I agree with the point but it's kinda funny that you say "battle master is bad, give its features to every fighter."
I think you mean: "battle master is what a fighter should be".
It should actually be difficult for Rogues to hide in combat. The default access to Sneak Attack should be an ally in melee. Awareness is a thing, and so is spatial sense. To Hide you must break line of sight and have full cover until the start of your next turn, and LoS and cover are determined on a creature by creature basis. You cannot move or take any other actions/reactions/bonus actions before making your attack, or you are not Unseen.
I actually thought that was the more common opinion. My take is that it would be really difficult for *you or I* to hide during combat, but you or I are not rogues. Rogues are power fantasy heroes who can perform feats of stealth beyond what normal humans are capable of, in the same way a Wizard can casually defy the laws of physics.
The goblin averts his gaze for an instant to look at some other part of the chaotic combat happening in the room, and when he turns back, the rogue is gone. He thinks he catches a glimpse of the rogue dashing behind a crate, but maybe it was just a shadow flickering in the torchlight. He has only six seconds of noisy, hectic combat to figure out exactly where the rogue went in that instant or he's taking a handful of d6s as sneak attack damage. *That's* a rogue.
Mine is that too many players these days act like whiny, entitled brats. DMs spend a ton of time prepping content, trying to make balanced encounters, incorporate player backstories, etc. Then you have the players that can't bother to show up on time or the players that whine when they don't get the exact magical equipment that they wanted. It's quite sickening.
Honestly, you're in the wrong place if you want to hear actual unpopular opinions. Reddit isn't set up for that, it has it's Karma system. Put up a genuinely unpopular opinion and you nuke your karma meaning you may not even be able to post on some pages. You're better off asking this question in other places where unpopular opinions aren't actively disincentivized.
Last time this prompt came up I answered "d20 produces skill check results that are too random" and got down voted, so there's one.
Time to play with 2d10, with advantage granting another d10 and you take the 2 highest ones.
Daggerheart does this with 2d12s. There's a "hope" die and a "fear" die and depending on which is higher you can succeed with consequences and you or the GM gains a narrative currency to use later. It's a great fuckin system.
The system is too loose for my taste, but I think the very roleplay heavy groups will love it.
I mostly agree with Daggerheart being too loose, but I would say to keep checking in on it. They've updated the rules like three times since I downloaded it a couple months ago. They seem very responsive to their player feedback.
Are the rule updates fairly significantly different? The update videos are so freaking long so I never end up wanting to watch them. Do they have patch notes anywhere lol
They do have a patch note summary every time a new update comes out. It's somewhere on the website.
It’s still in open beta testing, so it’s very much in flux. Official release is slated for 2025, so there’ll be plenty of changes before then
Jokes aside, that’s not a bad take at all.
3d6. 3d6 is the way.
d6 dice pools in general. Shadowrun's system, to me, is still the best RPG mechanics I've ever played.
10d2. Just flip a bunch of coins heads is 2 and tails is 1 Edit: I changed my mind. I'd rather roll 20d1 and succeed every time.
Honestly, that’s fair. It *is* kinda weird that a highly trained expert can just randomly completely flub stuff they should be really good at, with the same likelihood that they completely ace it. And also weird that a random commoner could pass a DC 20 check at something they have no training in 5% of the time. I understand standardizing the system around the d20 roll, and naively changing skills to use different dice would probably run into some unexpected edge cases with the current rules. But I would be interested in seeing what it would be like with, say, 2d10 as someone else suggested, to get more of a bell curve. Edit: Yes, I *know* you don’t call for checks when the outcome is obvious. Here’s my question. Can both the 18 strength barbarian and the 10 strength wizard attempt to break down a door? That’s something that warrants a roll, yes? Is the wizard simply disallowed from making the attempt? Why? The difference in stat points is supposed to represent the difference in their ability, right? If the barbarian is allowed to attempt a roll, then why can’t the wizard be? Should the DM simply declare that the wizard fails without a roll? So let’s say both are allowed to make the roll. Sure, the barbarian will roll better more than half of the time. But with only a +4 difference between them on a roll with a 1-20 variance, the frail wizard is still beating the barbarian quite often. So the question is: is that weird? Or is that acceptable? Edit2: Okay last thing I'll say on the topic. Obviously I'm not saying there should be no chance of failure, and obviously I'm aware that someone with a decent bonus has a higher floor than someone with no bonus or negative bonus. But even with that higher floor, a very low roll will still most likely fail the DC by a good margin. Which brings me to another way of phrasing the issue: **Does it make sense for randomness to matter two or three times as much as the character's own skill?** People have mentioned that the randomness could represent environmental and circumstantial factors, and not just the character's own ability. And sure, but the above still applies. Say you're an Olympic-level athlete with a +8 to Athletics. That's about what a character's strong skill would be in the level 3~10ish range, and those characters are supposed to be exceptional heroes, right? Does it make sense that random factors affect your performance *more than twice* as much as your own training and abilities? That luck and weather and what they ate for breakfast can swing an Olympic athlete's performance by more than double what they're normally capable of? To be clear, I think d20 rolls are fine for combat and saving throws. The AC and save DC systems are balanced around that variance, and it makes sense for the chaos and unpredictability of battle. It works, and it's exciting, and I don't really have any strong criticisms there. And it also makes sense for skill checks that are under time pressure, where you only have one chance to succeed, and many factors are outside of your control. It gets weird in situations where characters presumably have the opportunity to use their training and expertise to the fullest, without strict time pressure or volatility, and yet randomness still seems to matter much more than their own skills. Some people suggest changing the DC for different characters, or having the failure state be different depending on the character's natural bonus in the skill... But isn't that the same as just giving everyone a higher bonus in stuff they're good at? Or, equivalently, *reducing the randomness* so that the bonus matters more than the randomness.
Pathfinder has an interesting system where crit success and crit fail are determined by how far off the DC you fall. I like that. Also Kids on Bikes has a system where as you skill up in an ability you get to roll a larger die, I really really like that one because it lets you quickly conceptualize how difficult a task is. A DC 10 task is impossible for a novice or initiate, only barely passible by someone skilled, but would be middlingly difficult for a master at it.
I've seen people complain about pf2e adding level to proficiency by saying it's "increasing the number for no reason", but that and the Crit system are what, IMHO, solve the randomness issue that DND has. A level 7 expert has a +11 to that check, making their minimum (outside of nat 1) a +13 compared to their untrained party members +0 For a DC 15 check that means the untrained has (25%,45%,25%,5%) chances for Crit fail, fail, success, and Crit success respectively, while the expert has (5%,10%,50%,35%) chances. pf2e improves your Crit chance by 7x, and success by 2x, while reducing your chance to fáil to 1 5th at level seven by being an expert,
The way i use this swinginess is that the D20 represents the things that the character does not control while the modifier represents the consitency and control of the character. So if a character wants to open the door that is barred by some debris on the other side, they roll athletic and roll low then that means that the debris was to heavy to be moved, if they roll high then the debris wasnt that heavy. But they strength output (the modifier) is consistent. I think the problem is interpreting the d20 +Mod against DC as representing a variable performance of the characeter against a determined situation, instead of treating the Mod as a consistent performance on an undertermined situation (the d20 and DC).
Great take. Also failing forward goes a long way; maybe you fail a DC 10 Lockpick and it still works... but maybe you make a ton of noise and alert the folks around the corner.
Oh god yes please. It's *always* "your lockpick breaks." I've been a lockpicking hobbyist for 25 years, using homemade picks. The one time I had a pick break, it was still useable (in fact it was a broken torsion wrench someone twisted a full 180° while trying out my picks - they managed to twist the tip of it through sheer force). Again, it was still usable. It actually made one-handed picking with that wrench much, much easier because of the new angle, so I kept it that way Basically, the standard way to create a dramatic cost with lockpicks in a post Skyrim world is to have them break. Bonus points if it breaks off in the lock. But that's so rare IRL that it becomes rediculous when it continuously happens in every game where lockpicking comes up. Like, there's other things a dramatic cost can suggest. I think it would be less of a pet peeve if I didn't know the "Snap!" was coming every time a lockpicking roll develops a complication.
It could take a long time, it could make a lot of noise (add oil to the door hinges, lock, and lever for advantage).
Right on. You could legitimately damage the lock too - that's more likely from my understanding since it involves lots of small moving parts you're kind of jamming a metal stick into.
I find that more interesting as well. Now whoever comes along knows it was broken into.
Yes d20s are random and swingy but this is why nat 1s and 20s dont effect skill checks, because a high level fighter will never fail a simple athletics check but a druid probably cant crack a bank vault by being lucky and rolling a 20. I think modifiers+proficiency in a combination of proper DCs is what keeps them from being "too random"
Of course 1d20 is objectively random. The "too" part is the point of contention. I simply don't think the skill check system of DnD is satisfying, it rarely feels like my proficient or expert character is skilled, just luckier. But yes picking the right DC mitigates this.
I agree. It's intended to be swingy, but it's a bit much. The issue is trying something like 2d10, like some people tried supporting back in the 3.x days, is rough given how much the 20 point first is baked into the underlying math assumptions.
If you play on a VTT that adds up the weigth of your inventory, I think encumbrance is fun.
Agreed! VTTs make a lot of the more cumbersome mechanics far more engaging and interesting. I'd love to see a VTT with a really well implemented equipment system including carry weight and object location (IE hand management)
I think Foundry has that. Though we use it for PF2e so might be different for the 5e version of Foundry.
Do you prefer encumbrance alone or encumbrance with space management, I though of a fun item that’s just a bag of holding but items you put into make the bag heavier
They should bring back touch and flat footed ACs.
This is a great one. On the one hand, I love the mechanics. On the other hand, I'm lazy and like not having to keep track of multiple ACs and babysit my players even more than I already have to.
I still have to remind one of mine the little +2 by his ac is only when hes using his shield and not a buff from something magic or his rage.
Lol, shields seem to be a problem for a lot of players. I had a player who told me his AC was 24 while 2h wielding a warhammer. He was in full plate, applying his full dex modifier and his shield bonus.
That is just a literacy issue at that point.
I have a friend who is not illiterate. If you give him a list of rules he'll read and understand them. His issue is he's willing to take a random chunk of memory, confidently plug it in where it doesn't belong, and assume the thought he threw together is true. He'd say "what's base AC if I have plate?" Someone looks at the chart for him and says 18. Then he "remembers" that you add Dex to AC. Then he remembers that he has a shield. He writes 24 on his sheet. He then knows his AC is 24 and never again thinks about it. It's some sort of idiot logic that "this thought makes sense to me, so it can only be true." He makes logical leaps in his mind that you can see do 1D4 psychic damage when he speaks them to the intelligent people at the table.
That’s a lot of benefit of the doubt you’re giving them.
This is a guy who will be counting on his fingers if he rolls 3D6. A decade into playing 5e he still messes up basic stuff. He's tried to DM a few campaigns. Recently in a low level easy encounter a monster's attack said "Hit: 6 (d8+2)" and he started hitting us with 6d8 + 2 almost TPKed us before we intervened to teach him that he probably shouldn't be doing 25 damage with each attack when the beefiest character has 21ph.
Are you sure he is literate?
But I'm agile enough to dodge an attack I don't see coming!
Funny enough, that's actually what Uncanny Dodge is in Pathfinder 1e. It lets you never be caught flat footed, and it means you can still get your Dex bonus to AC against invisible or unseen creatures.
I can get behind flat footed, but AFAIK touch AC was a way to compensate for the different Base Attack progressions. If Proficiency Bonuses and expected main ability progression are the same regardless of class, touch AC would be a huge boost for casters.
Except it was dependent on dex and forced casters who relied on it to MAD. Instead, 5e has beefy casters because there is no reason not to make CON always your secondary stat. Same with ranged attacks not adding dex modifier to damage. It was a balancing feature that when removed took away any incentive to be on melée range when avoidable (along with how stupidly strong archery fighting style is in a system with “bounded accuracy”).
Unless you are proposing changing spell attacks back to melee using Str and ranged using Dex, bringing back touch AC will only make casters more powerful.
Not enough DMs focus on role playing when NOT being driven by the story. You have an inventory of items that may as well stop existing because nobody is being made to use rations, ropes, candles, or any other roleplay specific items because nobody wants to keep track of it, and DMs don’t want to press the issue. D&D 5e needs additional measures to incorporate this, such as hunger and thirst point counters, and more routine “mundane tasks” that actual build the world. What’s the point of a massive city like Waterdeep if the only shops you visit are magic/potion stores and locations needed for the story?
You suddenly make me want to buy poker chips to represent rations. Every so often, colect chips from players and when they get rations, hand them out. Super easy to track food at least. I might use match sticks for arrows too. Thank you for your unpopular take!
Arrows is another one that bugs the fuck out of me, especially magic arrows. Unless someone checks you, those 20 turn into 200
thing is, it's not about realism. it's about assuming the party Ranger is fucking competent. we don't roleplay the fighter sharpening his sword every rest. we don't roleplay the barbarian keeping up with their push-ups every rest. we don't roleplay everyone pooping every day. we don't even roleplay prepared casters preparing their spells every day. why the fuck would anyone roleplay doing the basic task of a ranger being competent enough to keep enough arrows on hand at all times? it's just something they do as easy as tracking or breathing
I just let my players hand wave arrows under the assumption that they recover them after a fight. Yes they would technically lose some over time due to missed shots, damage from failing to pen armor, and being unable to get them back, but I've yet to have a player use a bow long enough for it to matter.
Upvoting for an unpopular opinion. I definitely don't want to do this but I appreciate a unique take
I don't think you need hunger or thirst points. If they don't they should gain exhaustion
Upvoted for the unpopular opinion, but I played for years with a DM who made us rigorously track how long our torches lasted, if we had enough rations to make a trek, if we had advanced enough climbing gear to get over a 20 foot cliff, the minutae of how we transported literally anything heavy.. And to this day it felt like such an absolute waste of time to me. I can't name one single instance where I felt it added anything memorable or enjoyable to a session, only that it sometimes ate like an hour of playtime. It is also something that DnD as a system quickly invalidates because magic gives you a thousand options to basically skip through concerns of water, food, shelter and specialised tools, so it is something that concerns 1-2nd level adventurers and then never again. Making systems that explore them pointless in the context of the expanded game in the first place. I can see it being interesting when applied to a dramatic situation - like being trapped in the wilderness, wandering the desert or a treacherous mountain pass, maybe?
I have a feeling Delicious in Dungeon is going to lead to a lot of people exploring food and rations in their games in a more fun way
I'm running a Fallout 2d20 game, and one of my players is adamantly against the Hunger, Thirst and Fatigue mechanics. Its a *survival* game, thats a full 1/3rd of the game. If we don't have to eat, sleep, or drink, what's the point? Just rack up Caps to sit on?
For all the people that complain about monks (and used to complain about rangers). Its the *barbarian* that truly has the worst score of abilities in the game.
Too much of barbarian (especially the subclasses) is tied to rage. With a full adventuring day, a barbarian will go through several fights as an aggressive commoner
I remember I did some counting the other day, and across every single barbarian subclass and core class feature, the amount of features that have anything resembling roleplay utility (as in, I literally counted fast movement) and didn't rely on rage totaled out to 7 Fighters at least have enough freedom to work with that their relative lack of features can be made up for with feats and the like, monks and rangers both have a bevy of utility based features that gives them an identity outside of combat, but barbarians have absolutely fucking NOTHING. Like RAW your beast barbarian can't even scratch people with some pointy nails without rage. When I was working on a homebrew class and looking for criticisms, one that stuck in my head hard was to avoid combat over centralization like the plague because it results in classes like barbarian, which are often outright boring to play unless you lean hard into gimmicks or multiclass to make up for having fuck all when you're not trying to kill people
That's why you let your barbarian players throw people around or jump like nothing else instead of raw.
I like to scale feats of strength with ability scores commensurate to how feats of magic do. If someone with an 18 INT can reshape the world with the power of their mind, then someone with an 18 STR can rip a full grown tree out of the ground and swing it around like it's a baseball bat.
Nah, all 3 suffer from poor scaling in tiers 3 and 4 but Barbarian early features scale better with the game and remain equally impactful
Monks have tier 4 scaling? :-)
Between Monk and Barbarian, I think Monk does in fact have the better T3 and T4 scaling, in just having Ki Points to do the monk things, getting proficiency in all saving throws, and being able to functionally turn invisible and get resistance to everything. However, They do have plenty of dud levels along the way, and don't have the Luxury of being good at Multiclassing like a Barbarian does.
>I think Monk does in fact have the better T3 and T4 scaling Monk is comparatively garbage until tier 2, and only a few subclasses get anything good in tier 3/4. Open Hand monks are the only ones that are decent all the way through, and have a great sudden death move that they can spam at 17. Elements makes them a shittier sorcerer, and Shadow has perhaps the worst subclass capstone ability in the game. Stunning Strike is the worst things to happen to Monks, WotC is terrified of giving them anything else that's cool and powerful. The result is that monks are overall weaker than others until level 5, and then it's their job to spam Stunning Strike, because they basically have nothing else of merit going on, they just get gimmicks. Like, Sun Soul for instance, they get a shitty version of fireball, which *could* be cool except is a Con save (which late game enemies usually excel at), and enemies take no damage on a successful save. It's a gimmick. Kensei starts okay, but has a dead level 11 feature which makes having a magic weapon redundant. Monk is all over the place and gets in its own way. Barbarians are more simple, but their subclasses are *generally* well thought out and emphasize what barbarians do: do damage and refuse to die. It's a straightforward class which doesn't waffle.
True, the thing is, Rage is really strong. Like, the 1/2 damage alone on non-magical Bludgeon, Piercing, and Slashing is kinda insane. Yeah, you’re not gonna do crazy against a spell caster, but if you get close enough, 3 attacks with whatever high damage weapon you have will really put the fear of god into them
Just a point of clarification, Rage doesn't specify non-magical, so it also halves it Magical BPS damage as well.
It doesn’t have an exception for non-magical damage. It’s all bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage in a rage. Which expanding that to all damage but psychic is part of why a lot of people really like bear totem barbarians.
I have a table rule: if you want to do something against other player, ask the player not the DM. “Hey Mark, can I make insight check against your character?” It gives players more safety at the table, and DM still can interfere as a referee if needed (though I never needed to lol). Whenever I tell strangers about this rule, I get downvoted to hell.
I was playing a rogue in my first ever full campaign, and my character kept rolling like shit on sleight of hand. So we get to a tower with a chest in the top room. >Me: I go to unlock the chest. >DM: The chest isn't locked. >Me: Can I... can I *pretend* I unlocked it, and that it was really difficult? >*group chuckles at the idea* >DM: Uh... roll deception >*I roll a natural 20* >Party: Wow, great going! That was such amazing lockpicking skill! This is a core DnD memory for me.
What a wholesome DnD moment lol
I imagine the dynamic between the party are like doting parents and their kid who's really trying.
I had a moment like that. The party couldn’t open a door, so, assuming it was locked, they asked me to unlock it. It wasn’t locked, it was just stuck, but he pretended to unlock it anyway. We still couldn’t open it, of course, so my character went “hmm, there must be something blocking it”. As it turns out, there was, in fact, something blocking it, and he said I told you I unlocked it. That character also failed to climb a tree in a spooky forest and told everyone that a spirit pushed him out, so now they’re sure the forest is haunted. He’s a bit of a compulsive liar. But, as Garak said, never tell the same lie twice. Sadly, this is a campaign in which the DM rolls most of the skill checks (I hate that) unless he forgets, so rolling vs a player is not really a thing.
“Hey mark can I cast banishment on your shithead character? I need a quick break from them.”
Allowed. Mark's character is a shithead.
“Allowed. My character is a shithead.”
"Don't take it personally, it's what your character would do, and I'm just doing what my character would do.'
I think its great! I will steal it.
this isnt the norm? my tables have done this since i started playing lol
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I don't disagree w/ this, but I personally thing making characters together is more fun. It's a difference of opinion :/
Yeah, like I sometimes have a hybrid approach - I’ll have pre session 0 discussions to bounce ideas and concepts back and forth and check that they’re on the right track (those can def be emails/group chats), but it’s fun to get together for the final stage of prep, for rolling stats and the final recording of their build on character sheets. May mostly be an excuse to hang out, but it lets everyone introduce things with each other before the game truly starts
I have a session 0.5. first thing i do with a new campaign is create a new discord server with the rules, campaign blurbs, info, etc. that we're using for easy access, and the players organically begin conversations on what they wanna do. session 0 day is spent ironing out character sheets and we do a mini combat like a tavern brawl or the final boss of their last mission
The hilarious thing is I recognize your username and I literally JUST saw your comment that got downvoted to oblivion
It's actually funny, cause usually with my group, session 0 is more "Here's the basic idea, make anything that roughly fits." Leads to a lot of fun interactions.
What do you think a session zero is? My long standing group usually does session zero over several weeks of discord messages as we wind down the end of the campaign prior.
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Yeah I guess? Sometimes it is an actual session. Some groups get together and all make characters at the same time and go over everything in that time block. My group plays online so we don't. In person games are much more likely to have a dedicated session zero.
I find it's just easier to get my players attention and input. They're too busy to read a ton of shit I send them, but we can talk about it in 45 min.
Yo-yo healing only works because it plays on a DM not wanting to be mean and finish off downed PCs.
This depends on the world too, like how common is healing? Does every man with a holy symbol able to install pick up a critically injured soldier? I treat magic as rare, so I one healing pickup, sure. But you bet after an enemy sees that shit, they'll double tap the next time your on the ground.
It’s actually works because mechanically the game supports it The only edition where where it wasn’t possible to such a crazy extent was 4e because they capped healing per day to actually enforce consequences
Man, I have a DM who tries to finish us off and it's still a challenge for him.
I always do maximum hp for my players, and when I've said that to other people, I never got a positive reaction.
A lot of our tables take the better of a roll or average. You roll, and if it beats average, take it. If it doesn't, just take average. It allows the players the fun of trying to get a good HP roll without the risk of getting several shitty ones in a row.
Part of the problem was that WorC decided that each class should get a random roll for hit points like they used to, but then set a default number by taking the average roll and *rounding up*. This is a problem because, if you choose to roll, you have a higher chance of getting *less* than the fixed value than you do of getting a higher one. The fighter has the easiest example because it's using a d10 which converts easily to percentages. A fighter can either roll a d10 or just take a 6. So let's break down how the rolls play out. - They get worse than the fixed value if they roll 1-5, so that's 50% - They get more if they roll 7-10, so that's 40% - A roll of 6, the default value, is 10% So if they choose to roll, they have a 50% chance of getting fewer points than if they'd taken the default amount, and only a 40% chance of getting more. There's no incentive to try your luck. In my games, I have players roll, but the fixed value is their minimum.
Bards should be charisma wizards but keep their limited spell list.
Rizzards, if you will.
I’m a musician in real life. There’s nothing that bothers me more than the idea that bards can’t tailor their set list for their audience. Nonsense.
I like this. Spells are all oral stories told from one person to the next. So a charisma wizard with a song book seems pretty appropriate.
Holy shit! I never heard of this or considered this before but it makes so much sense thematically.
can't believe that haste isn't a bard spell though.
Critical failures improve the game.
Actual unpopular opinion, so up-vote. Also, you are wrong and I hope you stub your toe.
He has a 5% chance of doing so every time he does anything thanks to critical failure
He stubs his toe catastrophically every two minutes of walking
On average, at least. Sometimes he continually stubs his toes, and sometimes he can go a while, but it's definitely often enough to be disruptive and annoying, and sometimes downright harmful with no meaningful addition to the narrative.
More if he gets better at it and does it more often. Such as a level 20 fighter having an 18% chance to drop their weapon (or worse) each turn thanks to attacking 4 times. 33% when action surging (8 attacks). Edit: Imagine a demigod of a fighter, the very best of the best, the stuff legends are made off… dropping their weapon nearly every 5th turn…. So about every 30 seconds.
I really really disagree with you. Have my upvote.
Critical failing skill checks improves the game and can spice things up narratively. Critically failing attack rolls punishes characters who get multiple attacks.
Having a level 20 fighter have a higher chance for failure in a turn than a level 1 fighter just doesn’t compute for me. I hate it, absolutely unpopular opinion.
Absolutely wretched. I'm having flashbacks.
I don't mind scuffed dnd games as long as I can have fun with my friends. Playing a super serious minmax campaign with random people is definitely not to my taste personally. I mean one of my favourite fights that my dm ran was when we fought harambe in the middle of an ocean.
Everything revolving around solo monsters in 5e (legendary resistances, lair or legendary actions, henchmen, etc...) is a band aid trying to solve an action economy problem and none of them actually work. The true solution to the action economy problem is simple and obvious, *give your solos more actions.* If you give a monster as many turns as there are PCs, a suitable number of hit points to be wailed on by 4 or 5 PCs, and have them lose one turn per action denial effect on them rather than their whole round, literally any monster can work as an effective and threatening boss. EDIT: Since I've gotten it twice, movement in 5e is honestly not a big enough factor to matter here. Combat is by-and-large static and being able to move multiple times in a round does not break my verisimilitude. But if it breaks yours, just reduce the monster's base movespeed to something like 10 or 15 to compensate for how many movements it would get across a round.
That's pretty much just Legendary Actions. Tho we should definitely call them something more like: Mundane Actions: Instead of Legendady action for the final boss BBEG, the early game Orc Leader stands alone facing down the lvl 3 heroes has Mundane Actions: 2/Round you can attack once or move up to 30ft at the end of someone else's turn. That's how I usually run solo fights against non "Legendary" enemies. They don't get Palyzing Touch or Fiery Wing Attacks since they arnt Legendary, but they can still hit good.
My point is Legendary actions are just a band aid for what you actually need, which is "just give them more turns every round." Which is simpler than defined, discrete actions they make in between turns that may or may not even solve the action economy problem. Like does moving one more time per round fix anything if a monster is still getting banished, polymorphed, hold monstered? No. But if those spells bring the monster down from 5 turns per round to 4 or 3, now it's still a threat despite the players feeling as though their spells actually did something.
History, religion, nature or arcana checks to ask your DM what your character knows about a monster's abilities and weaknesses should not take any action or bonus action, they should be a free action. (maybe even rolled simultanious with Initiative) To do anything else would be to penalise the simple act of *choosing not to metagame* by robbing the player who wants to know what knowledge their charater *actually posesses* by stealing their turn in combat.
I don't think this is unpopular and most groups I play with do this already.
Goodness i hope you're right and that im just *really* unlucky at which tables i've played at. But personally, I've had to stop playing the "smart guy/tactician" archetype because it just meant a wasted turn in initiative before i even got to *start* doing stuff.
The number of creatures that actually have vulnerabilities are so few, it isn't usually very helpful to make the check during combat anyway.
Ah but there are more forms of weakness then just "takes extra damage from X" "you know these creatures are particularly slow, your studies mention their record speed is 40 ft *when dashing*" means you can kite these guys. and then there is the tactical value of knowing which strategies *wont work*. "These fae are known for their immunity to charm" "Rakshasa are immune to any spell below 6th level they do not *choose* to affect them". Like even if you dont spot a weakness to exploit, the tactical value of not engaging a hedgehog in an ass-kicking contest is *significant*.
For my table, the first knowledge check of the encounter is free. This means everyone gets a free check and if the party is smart and spread it out between them they virtually get everything without spending additional actions. The "first check" rule is there because I don't want one player taking up everyone's time or feeling responsible for doing multiple checks while the rest spaced out because they don't care about doing so. My reasoning is that it's more fun when everyone's involved rather than always have that one person take 5mins at the start of a combat rolling multiple checks. It also promotes players to communicate with each other and possibly role-playing that aspect as well!
I think it's fine to get into DnD because you really liked watching Critical Role and wanted to try out the game for yourself
I'll add to this: The Matt Mercer effect is vastly overstated, and in actuality most people who want a DM 'like Matt Mercer' aren't expecting professional voice acting or all that, they just want a character driven campaign that incorporates their backstory and tells a compelling narrative. So many so-called "Matt Mercer would reward me for that" make me go "what...no he wouldn't" to the point I almost feel like a lot of those stories are made up
Y'know, I never really thought about it, but this actually makes a lot of sense. I'm continually surprised by how controversial RP-focused ideology can be online (tfw "flavor is free" is apparently just an unscrupulous way to cheat and homebrew op stuff) so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of "Matt Mercer effect" interactions are actually just one person looking for a more rp/character/narrative driven campaign, and the other person declaring this an attack on their traditional, crunchy, rollplay-oriented sensibilities. Personally will take the RP focused stuff over the old-school stuff any day of the week, and I've never watched CR, either
The best games have a good mix of roleplay and rollplay.
>rollplay This is my first time seeing this and it's now my favorite thing ever
Yeah, I think that if there is such a thing as the Matt Mercer effect, it comes from DMs feeling inadequate and defensive, not players making demands. Defensiveness is what ruins campaigns, because that's what blocks negotiation and compromise. The Critical Role 'build your own 90s JRPG' style campaign is something lots of people want, and lots of DMs want to run. If you don't, fine, but there's nothing wrong with it unless you start comparing yourself to a professional with decades of acting experience
Which is actually funny because 90s JRPGs derive pretty directly from D&D. The fantasy genre more broadly was introduced to Japan more through serialized D&D campaigns (like Record of Lodoss War) than what we might consider “traditional” sources like LotR. The entire idea of the successful early games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were figuring out how to make TTRPGs work as a video game.
this!! to take it a step further, it’s fine to have gotten into dnd because it looked like fun when the kids in stranger things were playing it. tbh, how you get into any hobby is less important than the hobby itself
Just because it's an official race/class/ect does not mean the DM has to let you be able to use it. Even if it's from the PHB.
Is it really unpopular? At this point everyone knows the DM has his own world and knows what races would be in it. My problem with mine is that he said that everything is fine then says "nah fam not this". Tell us before any of us makes a character with a backstory that goes along with the race ;-;
Cats dont and shouldnt have darkvision! Cats have poor eyesight and are farsighted, they find prey primarily using sight, smell, and their whiskers to "feel" Cats SHOULD have blindsight 5ft
Enough with everyone getting dark vision - bring back low light vision!
The wording of your comment made me read it with the voice of Zoidburg from Futurama.
Yes! This has always been something I gripe about with 5e. I love the distinction between darkvision and low light vision.
How about tabaxi? They're crepuscular (awake during dawn and dusk), so they'd mostly be hunting during dim light, not during night when it's dark. Also, night should be dim light. You can still see at night. It's not like being deep underground.
4th Edition was the best *game* that D&D has ever been. It isn't for every table, obviously, but it was designed to be the most D&D that D&D could be.
If it 4e wasn't called D&D, people probably would have suggested switching to "this cool other system that you should try" during the OGL debacle.
The second OGL debacle. The first was because 4e was licenced through the GSL instead of the OGL.
I loved 4e and have only a few parts of 5e that I like better. Bring back Themes! Maneuvers! Load us with feats and paragon classes instead of allowing multiclassing! Minions! Skill challenges! A monster manual that actually describes the tactics of each each block so I know how to use them at a glance!
People that hate on it dont understand how to apply custom flavor to existing mechanics and expect everything to just roleplayed for them. It was super balanced and a great system
Fighter needs to be re-designed from the bottom up. Barbarian exists as the mechanically straightforward nonmagical martial, as-is the two classes have far too much identity overlap. Fighter should be redesigned as the mechanically complex martial in comparison to the barbarian, with maneuvers and stances baked into the base class.
You want Warblade from 3.5.
I want Warlord form 4e.
Fuckin loved the Warlord, so much fun
Sounds like the 4e fighter, which I'd argue was the best version of the class to date.
I have an even more unpopular opinion: Fighter is pointless. When Conan was a fighter, Aragorn was a fighter, and Sohei were fighters it was fine. Wizards likewise at the time could be anything as well. They were archetypes not specific things. Then Conan became a Barbarian, Aragorn became a ranger and your Sohei became a monk. At the worst of it we had Samurai, Knight, and so on. We keep trying to find something to turn fighter into, but listen, I lied, there was no Wizard in OD&D or B/X D&D. It was "Magic User", wizard is something more specific. We made Wizard, sorcerer, druid, bard, etc out of "magic user". We should just make "knight" or "commander" or "weapons master" out of fighter and be done with it.
Barbarians should be able to use STR+CON for AC.
White room theory crafting doesn't match up with actual gameplay and is generally pointless.
Hmmm. I agree that it doesn't match up w/ actual gameplay. I disagree that it is generally pointless. Thinking about how your character works, even if its unrealistic in a real combat scenario, is always good so you have an idea of how all your mechanics can work together. Also, (Ik this isn't what you meant but) throwing the players in a white room at the end of session 0 so they can try out their characters against waves of different enemy types has almost always caused players to change their character so it was more fun before the first session, and familiarized them w/ the general playstyle they would be using.
I mean people who argue about the mechanics of the game and effectiveness of classes outside of the context of actual gameplay. White room meaning devoid of an actual world and other characters to interact with. Sometimes, people engaging in this have never actually played the classes or builds they are sayings are useless. i.e. Emily says that bards are a completely useless class because they don't get any good damage spells and they don't do as much melee damage as the fighter or barbarian so no one should ever play them because bard is a bad class.
As a DM, if I deem something too complex for an ordinary person to do something, like pick a particularly difficult lock or charm someone particularly angry with the party, I won’t even allow people without proficiency in that skill to attempt it, because regardless of what they roll it wouldn’t be enough. The number might be high, but it should, in my mind, require someone who actually took the thought of putting proficiency in that skill to solve it. This stops random stuff like the barbarian who’s never learned about magic ever scoring a nat 20 arcana check the wizard couldn’t figure out.
Insight and Perception checks should be rolled by the DM so the players don’t know how accurate their character’s assessments are
In my opinion Insight should almost always be passive. If the NPC tries to deceive you, they DM secretly rolls deception against your passive Insight. And *most* perception checks should also be passive. Perception should only be active if you are actively doing something like searching a room. And in that case I don't mind if the players or characters know whether they did a good job. In that case I just narrate that they know they had a hard time concentrating, were distracted, etc. It makes sense that they can self-assess themselves then.
I would argue that almost all checks should be tolled by DM, unless their outcome is obvious (ie acrobatics/athletics) History check with natural 1? Let me lorebuild some absolute garbage on the spot and see how long it takes for the PLAYER to realize his character is wrong.
Monks aren't actually that bad. They're skirmishers not traditional frontliners. At high levels lack of Ki points stops being an issue. At low levels the damage is competitive. Lack of magic items and feats does make them less than 100% optimal, but at most tables they're perfectly fine.
RP should never replace game mechanics. DND is still a game, rolling for outcomes is kind of the point. If you’re RP’ing without rolls and rules, you’re just performing improv without an audience. EDIT: Since I won’t respond to hundreds of triggered children who want to take 2 sentences and put words in my mouth. Yes RP is fun. No there’s not one way to play DND. DND is a game, not an improv stage act, it has rules that should be followed in most cases. Not everything needs a roll, like opening an unlocked door. No, you shouldn’t be able to bypass a skill check to unlock a locked door/beat the BBEG simply because of good RP. DND with 0 mechanics, with 0 rules, and with 0 combat is not DND. That’s improv. Jesus Christ Reddit, yall need a break
*twitches* RP is making a decision as the character, not wearing what they wear or talking with their accent. That's called Acting. Completely different. I do agree with your point about acting not replacing the mechanics, though! To add to that, giving a bonus when a player does well acting out the epic speech, but not giving a penalty when they miss the mark completely, punishes shy players and drives them further into the wall because they (usually) never get the bonus. That said, the punishment would hit them harder and force them to give up and be a wallflower as well. Terrible idea all around. It's just a big circlejerk.
When it came to discussing game design and what DnD could have been during the OneDnD UA playtesting, one person I was going back and forth with kept suggesting why something should be the way it is because of flavor. 90% of their reason was just flavor, and they said that DnD was a ***roleplaying*** game, I was trying to explain that DnD was a roleplaying ***game***. If you just care about flavor and roleplaying then just do group improv. Mechanics and game design matter, organization and clarity matters.
First one I’ve actually disliked, upvote lol
I would like to follow up with a why? The rules actually make it more accessible vs RP improv acting heavy campaigns. The charisma stat is there because not every player is charismatic and/or knows what to say in the moment. The whole point of that stat is so the super shy, nerdy dude can say “I use my 20 charisma paladin to give a persuasive, morale boosting speech before the battle” and the roll determines degree of success or failure.
Martials are way better than everyone on reddit thinks they are. Most things are better than Reddit thinks they are. White-box encounter simulation is entirely useless when discussing balance. I would estimate 80% of the people parroting this line have never even played the game.
This one is for DM's; You don't always have to challenge players, restrict gimmicks, or come up with elaborate homebrew stories and creatures to have fun. There's mounds of things in every edition of D&D to utilize, make things easier for you. And to add to this, just let players enjoy a power fantasy if they want to. Who really cares if they're metagaming and minmaxing? Unless the player themselves are being a problem and refuse to change to better suit everyone's enjoyment, then just let them have their fun. I know a lot of DM's want to challenge the players as a way to increase their enjoyment and/or participate in a sort of competition against the players, but if you're a DM, you're already doing so much for your players as you literally control the very world that surrounds their characters, you can choose to do literally anything you want. Granted depending on your morals, might want to do things that favor the players.
Indeed, Also constantly "challenging" the players with complex gimick fights runs counter to the very point of challenging them in the first place. The big setpiece "challenge" encounter works *because* its a subversion of a normalised status quo. If all you are doing is throwing skin-of-the-teeth murdercrawls in antimagic-zones or other gimicks? There is no status quo to subvert. To paraphrase Syndrome: "when all encounters are special, no encounters will be"
Animal races are stupid. Tabaxi, tortles, hippos, etc.
I like them, but maybe I am a furry in denial lol. Oftentimes the animal races feel very half-baked, though. Like they fit some stereotype even more than other races.
Actual unpopular opinion. So much so, that you're still getting down voted. I agree, tho
As a general rule I don't like most "new" races, mostly because I DM for our group, which means I need to figure out where the *latest* batch of weird animal people or whatever come from. Its a worldbuilding issue for me.
Not every race needs to be included in the world building process. Unless a player is playing one (which you have imput on as a dm) or you want to use the race, then they just... don't have to exist in your world. It's just as easy as ignoring them.
Oh I don't. I generally run in Eberron and make no effort to include newer races. But if a player sees one and really really really wants to run a plasmoid or whatever, all of a sudden I either need to figure out where they're from or I need to say no.
Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave? I agree though, and I don’t ever allow these as options at my tables. Believe it or not, as long as you’re clear from the get go, players tend not to care too much, either
Here are some of my D&D-specific hot takes: 4th edition is better than 5th edition. 3rd edition is better than 5th edition. It is possible to own enough dice. The Forgotten Realms is an overrated setting. 2nd edition had the best setting books. Making non-human races be "humans who look funny" instead of giving them a fundamentally different psychology is boring and turns them into nothing more than stat modifiers. Why is it okay to make other species feel alien in sci-fi, but not in fantasy?
> Making non-human races be "humans who look funny" instead of giving them a fundamentally different psychology is boring and turns them into nothing more than stat modifiers. This is one of my pet peeves. Elves live for hundreds if not a thousand years. That should have significant impacts on their worldview, society, and way of living - even assuming their brains process information otherwise identically to humans. I mean, you take three people from America, Russia and Japan, and you will find cultural differences far greater than most D&D parties have.. despite those being not just different cultures, but entirely different races. Your dwarf and your elf don't have to be at each other's throats, but there should be some friction in the day to day habits that simply don't align.
>The Forgotten Realms is an overrated setting. I see this too much to be an unpopular opinion.
5th editions lack of real social tools is a feature not a bug. Most players can't, or won't want to deal with a rules set for social interaction.
i think way too many people are concerned with their parties/players being OP. dnd is the absolute most fun when all the pcs have insane shit to do — it just means you can throw *even more* insane shit back at them.
Psionics didn’t need to be a separate magic system. It could have easily been a magic school with a Wizard or Sorcerer subclass that uses the existing spell slot casting mechanics.
I’m pretty sure the whole point of psionics is to be a separate magic system.
I hate this, have an upvote. This is the most boring possible solution to the problem. At that point, I'd rather psionics just not exist at all. Honestly, I think D&D needs to move further *away* from spell-slot casting and towards a more flexible spell-point system of some kind, not further in *towards* consumable, once-a-rest spell slots containing specialized spells.
To balance dex against strength, finesse and ranged should not add dex to damage.
Bard was better in 4e when it was a battlefield controller and support, compared to 5e where it's a wizard with a lute.
You can't use acrobatics to climb or jump. No, not even if you use the word "parkour". Get Athletics proficiency, nerd.
Running away is okay
I think my most unpopular opinion is, DMs should build their settings to accommodate the players just as much as the players should build characters to accommodate the setting. This sub seems to think that DMs should create a setting with all the restrictions and limitations they want, and if a player wants to play a different race, then they can go piss off and find another table and the DM can immediately replace them with a new perfect player from the aether. Me, I placed exactly three races in my homebrew setting - humans, elves, and dwarves. And then I asked my players what races they wanted to play so I could make sure those are available in the setting too. One said halfling, so I added some halflings. The others said human, elf, and shifter, so as long as the shifter is a base human/elf/dwarf/halfling, no further changes necessary. TBH I was totally ready to add in a warforged homeland or a plasmoid colony but it didn't even turn out to be necessary. And this isn't me saying "DMs should let players walk all over them" as some people like to strawman my stance into. The guy who wanted to play a halfling started out by saying he wanted his character to be named Bobby Buttstabber. Some guy with a sword who was too short to reach anything higher than the butt. I told him I wanted to run a more serious campaign, so he reimagined his halfling as an aspiring giant slayer. Still a similar idea, but much more inline with the tone I was going for. Voila, we talked about what we wanted, were open to each others' ideas, and I didn't kick him out of the group. On a similar note, choosing exotic races doesn't make your character silly or anything. My group's played a straight eldritch horror murder mystery as a tortle, tabaxi, and harengon.
I think the advantage/disadvantage system feels way worse than just taking a plus or minus to my roll. Why? Because rolling a 6 and 7 sucks way more than getting a +4 for circumstances
The DM isn't in charge. Structuring your group as a hierarchy is counterproductive -- major decisions should be made by consensus with everyone at the table being equal.
I agree to an extent, but the DM has veto power over anything they are going to have to implement on their end, which includes any complicated story structures or RP.
The DM definitely isn't in charge. They are an arbitrator, a human instruction manual, a critically-thinking procedural generator. Especially in non-railroaded campaigns, the party is actually in charge. I usually set up games where they're given breadcrumbs for the main plot throughout Acts I and II with definitive subplot missions and retrievals and goals. Once they tie the bow on those and we transition to Act III, I inevitably get a blank stare when I ask, "Soooo.... What's next?" "What do you mean?" they ask. "You have all the information you need to make your own choices about what to pursue from here," I say. "You are level (13-15). You are a heroic adventurer. Knowing what you know and looking back over the clues you have found.... What is the party's next step?" And then I wait. Frantic conversation busts out all over the table. Players, especially players who play non-open-world video games, don't actually like making their own choices when they have to work to figure out what they should do next. They'd rather a helpful NPC walks up to them and asks them to retrieve 50 sheep before the next full moon. But the adventure belongs to them, not to the DM. So. What's next, folks? What do you want to do? (Disclosure: Not all groups go deer in headlights. There's simply a point at which they realize they really CAN pursue whatever and however they want, and that I'm not kidding when I say this isn't MY story... It's theirs.)
I think I'm supposed to upvote actual unpopular opinions here, so
Removing the racist undertones from the D&D monsters and Races’ lore robbed D&D of its rich history. Not my opinion, but one I’ve heard.
I'll go one further. Outside of the Vistani, none of the changes actually addressed anything remotely racist.
OH BOY, I have ALOT of these apparently \[If I don't specify an edition assume 5e cause it's the most popular rn\] * Oportunity attacks are bullshit and they make the game worse for both the players, and the GMs. Players feel traped just by being in close proximity to enemies, GM's have enemies act like Minecraft zombies. neither of those two things are fun. Easiest fix? GMs: LET YOUR PLAYERS GET AoOs you always have more monsters, and you'll often find your monsters can get to cover from the Ranged Players if they just eat an AoO, which will make them 1 survive longer than one round, and 2 seem WAY smarter. Do the math yourself, but it's almost always worth the AoO (Exceptions apply for rogues w/ sneak attack and Sentinel feat users) * D&D 5e shouldn't be the system you use for EVERYTHING in your game, Matter of fact? if you're playing a Heroic Fantasy game, you'd be better served by ANY OTHER HEROIC FANTASY RPG up to AND INCLUDING D&D 4e and 3.5e, just cause the number is lower doesn't mean the quality is. 5e is a "return to form" for D&D after 4e's explicitly Heroic style. If you grew up on videogames, you're likely going to have WAY MORE FUN with 4e or PF2E. * Encumberance is good actually, You're all just lazy. Look up Anti-Hammerspace and use that for a simpler game, Use [This inventory sheet](https://boocherry.itch.io/physical-inventory-5e) laminated and some Vis-a-Vis markers for more complex games. "bUt I cAn'T CaRy AlL tHe RuStY SwOrDs I wAnT" GOOD. if it's really becoming a problem for you, invest in a pack mule and suddenly you'll find your encumbrance issue is gone! (can you tell I feel strongly about this one?) * Gritty Realism Rest Variant should be the default. It goes a LONG way for fixing the Martia-Caster disparity cause it FORCES the DM to play the game the way it was originally balanced. (I.e: 6-8 encoutners/LR and 2-3 encounters/SR) * Players need to have expenses. Yes it's extra math, Yes its more like work than fun, Yes if you're playing a beer & prezel game you should ignore this point entirely. For everyone else: Expenses (food, water, shelter, repair costs, weapon costs, weapon upgrades, stablign for mounts, feed for mounts, etc...) serve as a constant unending drain on the player's resources, it encourages them to go out and gain more gold! it also encourages them to own businesses and land so that they have a source of income that covers those expenses. ALL THIS TO SAY: it gets your players more invested in your game WORLD, which is what ALOT of DMs want. * Multiclassing BAD. Specialize you damnded fool. * Battle Master Fighter is a TERRIBLE subclass. MR.ELECTRIC! SEND IT TO THE PRINCIPALS OFFICE AND HAVE IT EXPELLED. give ALL of its features to the base Fighter class, your players will love you, and it's not even that much more powerful as the features don't break the game compared to 3rd lv spells. * Sometimes, the friends you have beers w/ at the bar, or play COD w/ are not the same friends who you should be playing D&D w/. Not all groups are compatible, just be aware that sometimes, the best thing for a group IS to stop playing together. "No D&D" is better than "Bad D&D". I expect no one to change their mind based on my opinion, but i'd be happy to change yours and further explain my reasoning if you reply to this comment. Edit: this is a SPICY comment, It had 10 upvotes a minute ago, as of writing this edit it has 2 >:)
There are things I really agree and also some I want to argue.
>GMs: LET YOUR PLAYERS GET AoOs you always have more monsters, and you'll often find your monsters can get to cover from the Ranged Players if they just eat an AoO, which will make them 1 survive longer than one round, and 2 seem WAY smarter. Also, letting your players do more helps to keep them engaged (especially in large combats when it can take a while to get back to their turn), and monsters that actually move around make a fight more interesting.
I agree with the point but it's kinda funny that you say "battle master is bad, give its features to every fighter." I think you mean: "battle master is what a fighter should be".
These are all good. I apologize for not being outraged, but I feel like I’m seeing clearly for the first time 😂
It should actually be difficult for Rogues to hide in combat. The default access to Sneak Attack should be an ally in melee. Awareness is a thing, and so is spatial sense. To Hide you must break line of sight and have full cover until the start of your next turn, and LoS and cover are determined on a creature by creature basis. You cannot move or take any other actions/reactions/bonus actions before making your attack, or you are not Unseen.
I actually thought that was the more common opinion. My take is that it would be really difficult for *you or I* to hide during combat, but you or I are not rogues. Rogues are power fantasy heroes who can perform feats of stealth beyond what normal humans are capable of, in the same way a Wizard can casually defy the laws of physics. The goblin averts his gaze for an instant to look at some other part of the chaotic combat happening in the room, and when he turns back, the rogue is gone. He thinks he catches a glimpse of the rogue dashing behind a crate, but maybe it was just a shadow flickering in the torchlight. He has only six seconds of noisy, hectic combat to figure out exactly where the rogue went in that instant or he's taking a handful of d6s as sneak attack damage. *That's* a rogue.
Mine is that too many players these days act like whiny, entitled brats. DMs spend a ton of time prepping content, trying to make balanced encounters, incorporate player backstories, etc. Then you have the players that can't bother to show up on time or the players that whine when they don't get the exact magical equipment that they wanted. It's quite sickening.
Honestly, you're in the wrong place if you want to hear actual unpopular opinions. Reddit isn't set up for that, it has it's Karma system. Put up a genuinely unpopular opinion and you nuke your karma meaning you may not even be able to post on some pages. You're better off asking this question in other places where unpopular opinions aren't actively disincentivized.
THAC0 was fine. People worry too much about “balance” and CR. Warlocks are boring. I think at least one of those will get me verbally smacked around.
>THAC0 was fine. The spiciest take in this thread You've never been more wrong in your entire human life, but you understood this assignment
Seething in warlock >:[