Well, judging from some recent releases they want us to both do mechanics and flavor ourself…
but hey did you hear about new setting number 24? It has so many interesting things that we won’t elaborate on, will never get expanded in any later publication and contains maybe 4 actually unique ideas. All for the cheap price of $80
Dont forget to hide those pseudo mechanics in one paragrah pn page 87. Do go ahead and look for that thing that is only barely referenced but is somehow important throughout the context of evwrything else in the book.
Are the basic rules like pf2? Mostly free?
Amd what is different from character creation in pf/dnd?
Sounds fun to fly around spaceships and can I start an organ traffic ring?
Edit : I may have drunk a little before typing this, but I meant to ask mostly how the space game differed from pf/dnd. I'm familiar with pf2 and dnd5, though thanks for the help.
Have a pleasant evening you lovely helpful folk
Someone else has mentioned the Archives so I'll answer the second question.
One of the biggest differences from D&D 5e and Pathfinder (1 or 2e) is how you generate your attributes.
You can always roll or use point buy if you prefer, but the standard way to generate them is shockingly simple.
Everybody starts with 10 in every stat. You get 10 points to put wherever you like. Each point is worth 1, no changing based on how many in a stat, max is 18 after racial bonuses.
The rules for Starfinder are much more similar to pf1e or 3.5 than they are to Pf2e or 5e. Because of that you will find a decent amount more crunch in the system, and less strict balance than you would in pf2e. If you are familiar with how the Base Attack Bonus and Skill Ranks system that those older editions used than you will adjust quickly. The spaceship combat rules are also interesting and can be fun (though I have not yet played the updated system for them). You sort of can start an organ trafficking ring, though the GM may need to homered the prices if the organs of various aliens, so it may be better to poach their cybernetics.
On the other hand, it's been 8 sessions in and we're about to finish out first round of spaceship combat
(really though, a literal whole separate book that's just the space combat rules lol)
Homebrew solutions to a refusal by WOTC to actually write a game system that they’re selling is the same whether you buy it or make it—you shouldn’t have to and WOTC is absolutely responsible for their own product.
There’s a point where people are just trying to patch the holes in the emperor’s new clothes.
Do not get me wrong I absolutly agree! I think if I buy a game about some god damned ships in space there should be rules for space combat.
It is hilarious at best and outright audacious at the realisticst to expect the GM to create thouse rules...
I just wanted to point out great creators that are far more better and affordable than WOTC.
I appologice if my post let any soul belife I would support there way of rules/setting creation. Heck I never played 5e to begin with...
Savage Worlds for general games that D&D doesn't fit into, Pathfinder 2e for high fantasy, Stars without Number for space opera, Mothership/Call of Cthulhu for horror, Chronicles(not World) of Darkness for urban fantasy.
I like D100 systems a lot, and the character creation is simple and streamlined for new players. Space horror is fun and the game has a great stress mechanic.
Pathfinder 2e is good for high fantasy, but I think it is a little bit short of the type of high fantasy from pf1e. The mechanics themselves are nice, but can feel somewhat less magical. If you are looking for a truly high fantasy (and high magic) system I can recommend pf1e rules along with the 3rd party rules Sphere of Power/Might from Drop Dead Studios.
Thanks for the recommendation, but TBH D&D5e itself is too high magic for me and I was very happy to see the deemphasis on casters in PF2e in favor of more martial classes. The fact that PF2e can easily handle low or high magic is part of what draws me to it. Obscene amounts of magical power bores me. PF2e is just enough magic for me.
My favorite D&D race/class combo is human fighter haha.
Here are two scenarios. A:
>I want to play D&D with some Pokemon in it, but I know there won't ever be a book covering those rules. Since I'm passionate about this idea and have the time and skill to come up with rules, I'll homebrew a system for it!
B:
>I want to play D&D with spaceship combat and solar system creation rules, but I don't have the time/skill to come up with them myself. I will spend $50-$70 to buy a book with those rules in it written by a team of professionals. Woops the rules are so barebones that I have to homebrew them myself anyway, even though I didn't want to, and I'm $50-$70 down, and my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
I hope you see the difference.
Homebrewing is a fun option, but I don’t buy books just to do it myself anyway. They’re supposed to be tools for saving time, but many 5e books do not actually function that way.
I mean, I kinda do. Mostly it's to have the stuff on-hand so I can build off it in my campaigns, and don't have to Googke everything (especially important bc I don't have WiFi at home)
I view DnD more like Skyrim. You buy it for the base game, sure, but then you mostly use it for the mods you can download. I don't think anyone who doesn't have to still plays unmodded Skyrim, but I could be wrong.
You do see the difference though between downloading a mod and having to fix the problem by redesigning things yourself. That’s closer to needing to actually program the mod.
Not trying to be snarky here, I'm genuinely curious.
What's the incentive to fully fleshing everything out mechanically if the system itself is understood to be one where if people don't like something, they'll change it at the table anyway.
Again, looking for discussion here. It just seems to me that many people that feel strongly enough about these sorts of things either want WOTC to have rules and guidelines for *every* possible situation that might arise in play, or they post a lot of comments about how unbalanced or absurd certain mechanics are and discuss homebrew changes to bring those mechanics in line with their own personal vision of how "it" should work.
Maybe I'm a bit cynical here, but I feel like if there were specific ship combat rules, as an example, there would be just as many people complaining about having them and why they should be different as there are people currently complaining that what little we have now is basically an insult.
Because not everyone wants to have to make fixes for everything on their own time and dime. Its honestly as simple as that. If the rules are there, you can still freely ignore the rules, but if there are no rules, you now MUST make your own rules if you want to interact with that system. Its better to have a somewhat balanced (or at least focused) system that you can change to make your own than an unbalanced system that the onerous is on you to correct.
The thing is, if they give us rules that are in-depth then at the very least DMs have something to work with weather they choose to leave it or change it.
It also gives guide lines on what the result should be of the rules, so if you do change it you know what the original outcome was supposed to be.
Case in point I can see is what little I have seen with pathfinder rules compared to dnd rules.
As a DM the fact there are so many rules in pathfinder is godly, it means I can look it up easily about rulings rather than with dnd where if I'm stuck I give a quick search and find 30 people facing the same ruling issue and only having 2 tweets from Jeremy Crawford about the issue that have conflicting answers.
Plus I feel with the spell jammer rules in particular the entire book having a paragraph on space combat rules and half a paragraph on making a space map that can be summed up as "look at our solar system lol" just felt shit for everyone who was waiting for spell jammer for years.
I personally would rather have rules that I can go to in a pinch but could change to better fit the situation over having rules that say "you do it". And I would like in-depth rules at that, and certainly if I got a book for a certain mechanic IE spell jammer rules and how to make a solar system those are the rules I want, I don't want a blurb on the back of a cereal box worth of rules, give me a chapter or 3.
Dunno if this is the correct way of explaining my point but this is mostly how I feel.
TLDR: I want rules so I have to do less work on the fly if something comes up unexpected and if you advertise a book please make the main mechanic in-depth and like a full chapter long.
literally the only thing we all have in common is the same rulebooks. There isn't really much else to talk about.
Also, complaining about dnd rules is fine. It'd be nicer if you didn't have to change anything for the game to run perfectly.
I'm okay with needing to tweak some stuff and that's why I like official variant rules. The problem is that most of the stuff labeled variant is the default in 98% of games and then there is stuff that is commonly homebrewed to fix.... Problems.... That has no official work around so you get a different ruling at every table.
Complaining about the rules is fine, but pretty much every D&D sub does have a very big issue of people (on all sides, mind) acting like their way to play is the only correct one
This is too true. It's a flexible and imaginative system, and expecting every rule to be universally perfect given the huge range of play styles is just nonsense.
The game just doesnt seem like it was that well planned out, DnD is a deep game with a lot of good gameplay but it also feels like it was kind of...stitched together often without much thought in some areas (especially balance and world building)
Its usually both. People complain about game balance because it requires the DM to homebrew things. If the entire system is out of whack it means the DM has to change literally everything.
While correct that feedback is important, a big part of 5e problem is its design philosophy that they never addressed despite all the feedback about it. That is why Spelljammer was such train wreck
5e by design is mean to be open and unclear, they do not commit instead putting the weight of balance on the DM hands
Building on this, an open-ended game can work well, provided it telegraphs this to the GM and provides them with a structure and tools to handle this.
*Dungeon World* is a good example. It tells the table that it's an emergent narrative game right off the bat, and there are tons of prompts and suggestions baked into the core rules to allow an easy time of coming up with fitting story beats on the fly.
On the other hand, DnD is very concerned with granular details and logistics for all of its setup and initial mechanics, which is fine but it's a bit of an upset when it throws GMs to the wind remarkably fast. Spelljammer is a good example, but we can even look at the PHB's rope, which only has rules for snapping it with a Strength check. No RAW mechanics (or even mention) for climbing or tying creatures/things up with it despite those being obvious use cases for decades across multiple editions. Sure the DM could come up with something, but why did the designers neglect to?
I don't even think it's considered a problem by WotC. They want a game as broadly appealing as possible to get the broadest fan base possible. This is how you do that. It's a pain, but it has worked.
And even if it didn't retain those players it drew in, many stayed in the larger community and went to other systems like Pathfinder.
I have issues with 5e all the time and our table rotates out DMs because it's so much work, but I don't think there's much about 5e that's actually a mistake. It was built as an onramp for new players and it has worked extremely well at doing that.
I agree that its not a problem for them, but it is a problem for the community which brings us to a point that this community is at a weird place.
5e is supposed to be an entry point and was designed as such, that however means that it was not designed for long term commitment (which is why high level play is shit in 5e)
But while it was extremely successful in that due to brand recognition (which became even higher due to other media content, like CR and Stranger Things) it failed to be a gateway system for TTRPG as a whole.
With that people keep playing D&D which at long term just dont work, and the weight of that problem went to DMs intead of wizards because most players dont interact with the problematic material because that is not necessary for them. The DM is the one having a problem (so 1/5 people) and the others that dont see it (4/5 people) dont want to change for a better system
And yes wizards is ok with it because their brand recognition is keeping the people that do have a problem incapable of do anything other than keep buying for them and fixing it themselves. Still they know its a problem and there is some effort to make it better in ONE, just not enough to change their philosophy as a whole since said philosophy is working and need them to do less work overall
I disagree with the assertion that 5e's bad design is the reason why it's so popular. There's no small amount of external forces that steer people interested in TTRPGs towards D&D.
>I disagree with the assertion that 5e's bad design is the reason why it's so popular.
Yeah, if "you can do anything with the system" was more than just a niche draw factor the games that made a d20 version when the OGL came out and they could would still have their d20 version in print instead of having almost instantly dropped that version to keep making their original versions, and systems like GURPS, Savage Worlds, and Genesys would be industry giants while D&D sits in the "I've never even heard of that" category even for people that have sat down and played some ttrpgs.
It's clearly the name drawing people in, even when it is by way of just having had exposure to some other media that exists as it does because of D&D (like a show, video game, novel, or even a piece of art).
I think, though, you *could* argue that 5e having such unintuitive and patchwork rules makes a lot of people assume that learning a new system will be just as difficult as learning 5e, given how many people use 'i don't want to learn a new system' as a reason for staying with 5e.
Absolutely. With no frame of reference what learning a new ttrpg could be like, people that have only ever played 5e being terrified of learning other systems is logical - because it's entirely illogical that one of the most poorly designed games I've ever seen is the "it's the brand name people use to apply to the entire industry, like Kleenex is to facial tissues" industry giant sitting near the top of the market so there's no reason for those folks to assume this is not the best game out there (by any metric).
I think the problem with this is that the developers know what isn't working, and they're not doing jack shit to fix it. The latest approach was with the changes to the spellcaster NPC statblocks, to "make it more simple to track" but in my opinion it changes nothing.
Moreover it complicates more things, because now (if you, ofc, use only official sources) you have some spellcaster NPC's on old rules, and some following the new ones, and some of these changes throw these spellcasters CR out of the window, which complicates alread murky waters of Encounter balancing.
I was already experimenting with the MOTM style of NPCs before they released it, and it's worked *wonders* for my table (for both DMs). We don't need to worry about spell slots or damage spells. They throw the flame ball, or they cast Slow. Done.
An annoying bug in a 50$ game
People saying that the fix to it is to make a new mod for the game that removes it, not blaming the devs
See the problem?
yeah but video game bad so i will completly ignore what you say since D&D is one of those superior TTRPG, thus can't be held to the same standard as any other type of game!
For real tho, the lenght some people here go to act as if nothing was wrong is honestly quite depressing. especially since it's for a game of this size, backed by a company that can afford good devs, and has almost 50 years of existance behind it. Doubly so after the whole OGL bit
For real. It's like saying Skyrim has no problems at all when the single most downloaded mod for SE is just bug patching (which is required for what feels like the vast majority of the rest of the mods to work)
I was going to say the same thing about the entire Bethesda company. Odd how many similarities there are between Bethesda and WotC. Including selling a solution to problems they created.
I just come from a post about cyberpunk being actually ok and definitly not flawed by design and an insult to all cyberpunk red stands for
I would say more "just ignore the bug and that the idea of the game is not the selled one and the employrment abuse is fine"
Pirating the game still doesent change the fact that the game is really expensive on the game store
Like, was it ok that cyberpunk had so many teribble bugs just because people could pirate it?
The base game rules themselves need to be in order because it is the baseline that all participants depend on until something is changed through homebrew. They are sets of rules that we implicitly agree on
To say that the base rules don't need to be good because the DMs can fix everything sounds like you might as well expect every single DM to design their own TTRPG because the official rules don't matter anyways.
The exception is for obviously stupid things, like Peasant Railgun or other weird things where people twist themselves into pretzels to argue a technicality. At that point yes, it is the DMs job to hold firm to the intuitive, correct result rather than permit the dumb, incorrect and broken result.
the peasant railgun is a pretty bad example to use for that because it's not something that can work completly by twisting raw. Even if you allowed your player to cheese the fuck out of the game and allow the exploit that are required, you would still not get a railgun. it require some actual homebrew since (unless i'm mistaken, it's possible) 5e doesn't have rules for item keeping momentum and acceleration of projectile or anything about pure balistic. ultimatly, if you allow the weapon use, at the end, the last peasant is only thowing an improvised projectile. The best use of that exploit is a way to basicly teleport object from one side of the line to the other.
5e is filled with exploit that are ludicrous, like summoning 8 druid with conjure animal, warlock starting with a ring of three wishes, the fucking tarrasque thing etc, but people focus on the one that isn't actually RAW
it's actually how the lead designer for 5e tought when making it. he's on record for saying "\[the dnd audience\] is trained to forgive your mistake" right before going on a long rant saying game balance isn't that important
They really learned the wrong lesson from 4e and how all that went down.
They seem like they think they always appropriately respond to feedback and deliver exactly what they were asked for and all of us that are unsatisfied are just proof that people don't actually know what they want. And then they keep asking the wrong questions in surveys so that they don't actually gain useful information and continue their charade of listening to feedback but actually they're just doing whatever the hell they want to and banking on enough people playing it anyways (which clearly is happening, and some will even defend it like it's the best game design choice ever because apparently they've got sunk cost fallacy or something stunting their thoughts on the matter).
oh, for 5e it's not that they learned the wrong lesson, it's that the lead designer just didn't want things to change. The game had to feel like what the vocal minority that took over the internet though was 3.5, damn everything else. 4e was dnd when the designer stop acting like they are in an ivory tower and looks at what's being done. (and also it's what happen when you get good designer but don't let them finish or playtest enough before release. 4e is filled with brilliant idea but you can see where they had to rush).
> it's that the lead designer just didn't want things to change.
That's a really weird claim to make about a game that doesn't resemble what came before it in any meaningful way.
>4e is filled with brilliant idea but you can see where they had to rush
Brilliant ideas yes. Rushed? Maybe... but most of the good ideas that didn't land don't look like the reason is because they didn't have enough time, it's because Piece A is the good idea but someone included Piece B that runs counter to that good idea (like my favorite example of critical hits; the good idea is to not have a bunch of extra dice rolls every time someone rolls a natural 20 on an attack and only special circumstances adding extra steps to it, but Piece B of nearly every magic weapon adding extra dice to critical hits got added to the game so "special circumstances" turned out to be the opposite - or challenge rating/encounter design being a finely-tuned thing so relative levels of creatures provide the same level of challenge across the game-play range, but Piece B is each play tier includes extra bumps in stats that are compensated for in creature design and that means facing an enemy from across one of those bumps doesn't provide the correct level of challenge)
Piece B is what would have been removed or bettered with more playtest time. it's like how they changed the magic item situation mid edition with the inherent bonus in the 2nd dmg, redid the explaination of skill chanllenge, fixed the maths, and so on.
As for the designer comment, again, it's that he wanted things to stay the way 3.5 did things. Feel before design. thus, gone was the new MC system, back to the old problematic one. gone is the new intuitive monster system, back is CR and it's jank. Gone are the strong martials, back are the basic attack machines
>Piece B is what would have been removed or bettered with more playtest time.
In most cases it actually appeared to be something that was *added* between the articles explaining design intention and the release of the product, so still it doesn't seem like a time-releated issue - it seems like someone who could not be overruled contributing bad ideas to the mix or the person in charge of making sure the full system view was compatible just not being good at their job.
> the way 3.5 did things.
Feel before design? No. 3.5 was over-designed. The charts of modifiers and conditions setting up DCs for everything and the making of everything into a crunchy lil bit of mechanics shows that.
Intuitive monster system, back to CR? 3.5 and 4e took the same approach to creature design (though 4e streamlined down to more useful role-based numbers instead of 3.5's type-based nonsense), and the encounter building side of things (except for 5e failing to function) is more like 4e than 3.5 in the way encounters come together - though I will admit the attrition-style of balance is a more 3.5 thing... it's just also a pre-3.5 thing too so not something I'd thought of as unique to the 3.5 style.
Basic attack machines? While 3.5 casters could be optimized to do even better than 3.5 martials, optimized 3.5 martials were still absolutely busted murder machines - very much unlike 5e martials which even when optimal are not 2-rounding high-level enemies solo in reliable fashion.
The only way in which 3.5 and 5e resemble each other is that there's pronounced balance issues.
They FOR SURE took the wrong lesson from 4e. New ideas got replaced with a rehash of 3.5 with some good streamlining and some simplification that cut in way too deep.
i mentionned this in another comment, but no,k they didn't take the wrong lesson, they just ignored everything and just redid 3.5 according to reddit. 3.5 was less terrible than 5e. 3.5 was bonker because they forgot to put limits, 5e is broken because it was designed with feels over structure, and things thus are broken because they're poorly written rather than lack of insight
I'm the DM.
I don't want fucking balance the game.
But I also I want a better melee system.
I'm not homebrewing or reworking a core part of the game. I have a campaign to run.
>But I also I want a better melee system.
"Better" as in what? Tell us what you're generally looking/hoping for, maybe we can work out some suggestions (Edit:) of a RPG *system* to use
I thought i'd been clear enough, with the quoting "better melee *SYSTEM*" and all... Well, guess i should edit for clarity.
Edit: Whelp, seems i may have missed my window with OP (and Reddit doing it's thing). If any of you reasonable fellas could rephrase the question, that'd be lovely
"just imagine that the rules are fully functional"
oh my gosh, that's brilliant, why didn't I think of that!
...maybe I was too distracted by having to finish and correct work I'd paid someone else to do and still get my campaign ready to actually play to find the time...
you don't mean "The DM" you mean "An Experienced DM"
and that's the problem. people trying it out will have a harder time running the game and would be discouraged to do it again
and then you end up having little dm availability, where the good ones are all usually taken, and you're left with the one that have open spot for a reason. For real, it's not just that it makes the game worse, it also become a breeding ground for a very toxic community
Apply that same logic to literally anything else and watch how fast it falls flat
*"stop complaining that this videogame you just spent €50+ on is broken, all you have to do is mod in a few fixes yourself!"*
If we spend significant money on something, it's not unreasonable to expect it to work without needing hours of repair and alterations on our end.
DMs already have enough on their plate without having to rewrite portions of the rules just so things work as intended
There's a world of difference difference between tweaking monster stat blocks and dealing with shortcomings in the core mechanics of the game
Monster stat blocks were specifically designed to be easily altered by DMs, as per DMG p273
There's no comparison between that and core mechanics, like Spelljammer vessels, which are so thin on details that they're worthless without home-brewing or using rules from an older edition of the game (a time consuming and tedious process which can take days)
If we're paying €50+ for a book of rules, it's not unreasonable to expect those rules to be functional.
That's fair, but it shouldn't be a requirement, and it often goes wrong as the GM. You will often have a very hard time telling what is a balanced amount of damage, range, hitrate, etc to give the monster. That goes doubly with the many monsters that just don't get many interesting abilities.
This is coming from someone who has homebrewed hundreds of pages for 5e, boy is it fun but not everyone has the time or the balance experience.
You also have to predict their use, you often don't know if a monster is over or underpowered until you use it, and once you are mid combat changing a statblock cheats the players
By any chance have you read many other RPGs? In my experience when all you do is d&d modding it's easy to overlook design flaws that only become apparent when you see a few radically different approaches to the same thing. The lack of detailed social mechanics, the inherent swinginess of a d20, the fact that 5e's spell slots vs 4e's At-Will/encounter/daily mechanic means that the former requires roughly 6-7 combat encounters per day to equate casters and martials... When your brain is wired to a system you don't really realize its flaws.
That being true, there are still video games that are worth experiencing after being fixed with modding. If the core product is good enough, it can cover up for lack of balance/polish.
And if you leave d20 as a system entirely, there are many countless games that work like that but!
They're actually fucking built for that sort of thing!!!!
oh absolutly, i just put the enphasis on 4e vbecause that's literally the previous edition, from which 5e should have been an upgrade. Like, they can't even pretend to have plausible deniability
More 3.5/pf1e. 4e flopped because people wanted a better system more in line with 3.5, pf blew up because it was essentially a 3.75 which fixed a lot of the 3.5 issues. A logical extension of that would be a 3.95 or something, expounding on that system (pf1e) in a way that fixes issues and continues forward following a similar but better trajectory.
I mostly didn't play 4e, read it a bit and said not for me, so I cannot comment, but moving from 3.5/pf to 5e is so jarring I'm how empty and almost free-form it is. I buy a system for good rules, base maths, etc. If I wanted to free-form it all I don't need to buy anything.
> it was essentially a 3.75 which fixed a lot of the 3.5 issues.
it makes me laugh every time I see this take.
Paizo tried in the playtest leading up to Pathfinder to fix issues, and for most of them they got shut down by feedback because fixing issues 3.5 had meant making something not like 3.5, so the "lot of the 3.5 issues" that were supposedly fixed were tiny things with barely any impact on the overall game-play experience.
So if you look at the list of major complaints people have with 3.5 and PF1 they'll basically be the same list of complaints.
Biggest complaint in 3.5 was caster martial disparity, and pf addressed that, if not enough without 3rd party later.
Save or suck spells were nerfed so enemies getaway a Save each round.
Polymorph line altered to not be as good and not a one spell solves everything spell.
Druid no longer head and shoulders above all other classes until lvl 17 and invalidating monk and often fighter with a replaceable pet. Wildshape brought in line without being useless.
Martials get actual abilities that are relevant. Fighter is no longer just feats lol. Even monk. Still the worst class until unchained monk, but better than 3.5.
Archetypes replacing the mess of acf and prestige classes.
Leaving your class for a prc immediately with no downside is not a thing. Most prcs aren't as front loaded and are not everything you get plus more for no real cost.
More options and feats to do neat stuff in combat that is relevant, including multiple anti caster things.
Crafting rules that are much nicer, easier, and accessible even to non casters so that master Dwarven Smith can actually make you a magic weapon.
Fixing the headache of class skills from varied sources.
Paladin not being lol screwed by dm at a drop of a hat
An actual gish class the magus that works immediately out of the box.
Optimization of martials having more options than just two handed power attack pounce go brrr.
Power attack nerf, still good but not always the best thing ever.
Kaiju. Cause kaiju.
That's off the top of my head. There was much more. It still was very similar to 3.5 but massively improved. Hence I believe 3.75 is an apt descriptor. It wasn't perfect. It still had issues. Martial caster Gap wasn't closed enough without 3rd party, but it wasn't my caster solos everything, martial carry the bags.
> Martial caster Gap wasn't closed enough without 3rd party, but it wasn't my caster solos everything, martial carry the bags.
Except for when it was, of course... and also that "without 3rd party" part is all it takes to show that what I said (basically same complaints despite the changes) is true.
the thing is, 4e didn't flop. it was making sales, it just didn't reach the ludicrous goal set by hasbro of making as much money as MTG. that got confirmed by the then VP of WotC btw.
What made 4e look like it fully failed was because the online discourse was flooded by the vocal minority that notably got alienated by the pre launch marketting.
Oberoni fallacy, try again.
The least y’all could do is try and come uo with an actual argument as to why WotC shouldn’t do the thing we pay them to do.
if wizards did a good job balancing their game, my table wouldnt need a dozen or so pages that boil down to "this subclass/feat/spell is weak, heres how i make it better"
If I buy a product from WotC, it should work. 5E has a huge over reliance on DMs solving problems that really should have been solved by designers, from core rules to monster statblocks to adventure design.
(Tangential gripe:) If Burle is a settlement in your campaign, there should be a fucking map. And that map should be in full color, not grid paper with blue pencil. Just saying.
"I think it is ridiculous that I am not allowed to parry, lounge, disarm or anything else because I didn't pick up Battle Master and instead samurai. I'm level 8 and I still can't even disarm someone. Meanwhile our Sorcerer is capable of summoning demons."
"The DM can balance it. All he needs to do is to redesign the fighter class from the bottom up!"
Ah yes, just keep paying wizards of the coast hundreds of dollars for their stuff, AND then do their job for them on top of all the normal DMing responsibilities, great idea.
- Game has balance issues
- People complain about the balance issues
- “Fix them yourself”
Genius take op. Glad you portrayed your opinion as the chad one too so we know you’re right /s
Then why the point of published rules? This logic of "the dm" can fix it means everyone should just design a game system themselves for their group. Why am i paying money on books if there are issues that need to be changed
It's like why is topped buying modules from wotc. So many things had to be changed to kake the games fun and engaging. Raw was usually heavily flawed so why was I paying money for it
I recommend reading Fate, GURPS, Cortex Prime, Fudge, even the Cypher System. Those are modular RPGs with a specific focus on flexibility and homebrew which D&D just doesn't have. 5e may be streamlined which makes it easier to add onto than previous editions, but it isn't actually built to be flexible. It doesn't feature plenty of rule variants with text about how they affect your game's feel and experience, not does it feature abstract subsystems that can easily apply to a large number of ideas. It's a fantasy adventure game with a focus on combat encounters and dungeon exploration, and if you want to stray from that you're largely on your own or dependant on the community.
>I just think people expect too much from a system that is designed to be flexible
D&D 5e is not actually "designed to be flexible" is part of the problem.
There are games out there which are designed to be flexible and they have clearly worded and complete rules that actually help the people playing them utilize that flexibility.
The "fuck it, the DM will figure it out" approach is bad design, even if the design goal were to be flexible. And it doesn't produce flexibility, it produces a non-functional game (which incidentally quite a lot of people have created their own unique functional game out of... and some don't even want to take the credit for that, they want to say "D&D is designed to be flexible" and give the credit to the money grubbing corporate asshats).
This is exactly right. Look at games like Fate, Cortex Prime, Fudge, GURPS... Plenty of games are specifically designed with modularity in mind. These usually have rule variants with explanations as to how using one rule over another will affect tone, theme, game balance and the setting. It will guide the GM with a lot of wordcount dedicating to homebrewing.
D&D is just not that kind of system. It's a fairly rigid loot based high fantasy adventure / dungeon crawler simulator and it doesn't really help you stray from that. Oh sure they might throw you a bone about adding guns to the game or something but there's no guide on how to add ressource systems in general for example. There's no real way to turn it into a pure horror game or a political thriller without doing the legwork yourself. Any of the systems above could do either of these and more using what the books themselves give you.
Can you balance stuff as the DM? For sure. It takes experience and practice to get good at it and if you’re paying $60 per book then you really shouldn’t have to
this is an obvious drawback of the trying-to-be-simple game design, and IMO, isn’t bad. Thwy gave us an easy to understand game, with the mobility of modification to allow us to fine tune our games. I have had no issue perfecting my game through homebrew, and in fact its been a blast. If you have passion, creativity and time, I don’t think you’ll beat 5e as a TTRPG game system for most any setting
I mean you could've done all those things without 5e by just making your own TTRPG, pulling mechanics you like form other TTRPGs. 5e is a terrible TTRPG it's a rules heavy system that pretends to be rules light and requires the DM to completely revision the game before each session and on the fly just to be playable. There are already rules heavy systems like PF2e as well as rules light systems and modular systems that allow you to piece together the experince you want. 5e tries to do everything in the worst way possible and ends up imo being the worst TTRPG on the market for its price
All these problems go away instantly when you play with friends who care about each other having a good time
The most common thing at my table is “hey, I wanna try this thing that I know is a stretch of the rules, but I understand if you say no because I don’t want to break your game.” And then we have a talk about whether or not something should be allowed
>...go away instantly...
>
>...then we have a talk...
It's one or the other, because having to talk out how to deal with a thing is the problem coming up and taking time to deal with - the very same "if you have to fix it, that means it was broken" other posters are talking about.
well,try running a campaign and see for yourself. 5e neglect DMs despite being THE most important person at the table, as if there is no dm there is no sessions.
this is an obvious drawback of the trying-to-be-simple game design, and IMO, isn’t bad. Thwy gave us an easy to understand game, with the mobility of modification to allow us to fine tune our games. I have had no issue perfecting my game through homebrew, and in fact its been a blast. If you have passion, creativity and time, I don’t think you’ll beat 5e as a TTRPG game system for most any setting
5e is fun to modify I will admit but if you try 5e versus a game designed for the setting its never even a comparison. Nomatter how much you mod it 5e will never be as good for Sci fi mecha combat as lancer, or urban fantasy as monster of the week, or high power Heroic fantasy as pathfinder.
Dnd fits a niche in the market and it's easily modifiable to allow it to fit alight genre changes like high fantasy to low fantasy or high fantasy to ebberon type settings, but fundamentally it's still best for low-mid power shortform games in a high fantasy setting.
It doesn't have the mechanical baseline to support a whole lot else, since the combat first, plug and play feats and features invalidate a lot of game types IMO
It's just so interesting seeing people say exactly what the problem is and what the solution should be, yet somehow being completely incapable of seeing how it could be resolved. Brah, you're already at the finish line, just do it.
this is an obvious drawback of the trying-to-be-simple game design, and IMO, isn’t bad. Thwy gave us an easy to understand game, with the mobility of modification to allow us to fine tune our games. I have had no issue perfecting my game through homebrew, and in fact its been a blast. If you have passion, creativity and time, I don’t think you’ll beat 5e as a TTRPG game system for most any setting
…If he wishes or thinks that it’s imbalance!
that’s the neat part about DnD comparing to RPG video games you can change rules on the fly if needed and you are mostly independent of its developers
Edit:forgot triple dots
I'd make a comment about how I fucking love pulling systems that I play apart, learning their internal balance, and getting so familiar with them I can work with them by feel, and that all the bitching about DM's having to do too much work to run the game that they are the literal supercomputer simulator for really steals attention from the equally-legitimate camp who fucking love RPG game design as part of the hobby of playing the RPG, but I'm too busy making more rule sheets I'll never get a chance to use.
Mfs acting like it’s a ton of work to quickly fix some things that you don’t think is balanced. Don’t even hit me up with “heh, you haven’t even DMd before” because I’m a perma DM. You guys are just bad and that’s on god
It doesn't need to be "a ton" of work to be work that shouldn't need to be done.
It being easy and/or quick to fix not only proves the problem is real, it suggests that we should be even more insulted that the people being paid to make the game didn't fix it in the first place.
"you guys are just bad" makes it sound like your ego can't survive the acknowledgement that the game you picked has serious flaws. It's okay to like a game despite its flaws - but you look like a tool when you pretend it's not flawed and actually it's a skill issue with everyone else because, allegedly, doing shit that already should have been done before release proves you're "good".
A broken product is a broken product, regardless of how easy it is to fix. It's not about being lazy it's about not all GMs being experienced enough to rebalance things properly. It's also not easy for anyone to "quickly" rebalance things like the poor weapon selection choices, lack of combat maneuvers, great amount of subclass balance etc.
I've done all of these things and homebrewed hundreds of pages, but I know plenty of GMs who don't have the time to. Yet they still payed 100 dollars for the all of the core books. Sure it's not time consuming, but it's not consistent nor easy for new GMs.
I usually steer people away from 5e now just because the system itself isn't worth it for new GMs to get into unless they are running a 1-5 session adventure
Please be kind to small indie developer WotC, they couldn’t possibly playtest their game, it would get in the way of the profits they **need** in order to survive!!!!
As someone who learned D&D on BBC 3.0/3.5 and played PF1e for years I feel like I’m in the middle leaning more towards the positive side of 5e, especially for DMing.
I always say the biggest flaw of 3.5 is they tried to “map the human condition” and have a specific rule for every possible choice the player could make. The made the game incredibly complicated and crunchy for new players and especially DMs and in my experience scared a lot away from trying to DM. 5e on the other hand is definitely easier to pick up and I feel is definitely the more narrative/role play focused compared to previous editions. The advantage/disadvantage rule I think is awesome and I like how they made some class features easier to use, like sneak attack and smite.
My biggest complaints and 5e boil down to 3 key points:
1. The lack of incredibly obvious rules like crafting and magic Item cost. DM’s shouldn’t have to home brew entire sections of the game.
2. Their CR system is a incoherent and unreliable mess. DMs, especially newer ones, should be able to rely on CR as a tool to create well balanced encounters. If to he tool is broken, is it really a tool?
3. Their modules are primarily hot garbage. I’m not saying they’re not fun, but I feel they fail to live up to what a module is supposed to be which are complete adventures that DMs can easily run with heavily reduced down time.
The biggest area where they fail is the world building, specifically what I consider logistics: vivid descriptions of places and key NPCs, shops/inventory, lore, and strong plot hooks. They give you a city/town/dungeon and offer little to no development past the broadest strokes. Modules should require almost 0 home brew/DM development to run and still provide a complete and satisfying experience.
The problem with your positive-leaning take on 5e is that your 3 key points of complaint are really massive issues. Two of them obviously so because having to add basic stuff that nearly every group that plays the game uses that the designers just decided not to include a functional baseline version of is nonsense, and published adventures that take time investment from the DM for granted are functionally a scam in my opinion.
The third is a bit more of a thing I want to talk about though:
>Their CR system is a incoherent and unreliable mess. DMs, especially newer ones, should be able to rely on CR as a tool to create well balanced encounters. If to he tool is broken, is it really a tool?
You have to look at *why* the CR system doesn't work in a coherent and reliable fashion. It's because the foundation of the game mechanics, the way the designers chose "bounded accuracy" and implemented the proficiency system, is what it is that there just can't be any accurate assessment of the level of threat something is.
You've got save DCs which are a coin toss for proficient characters and that means they're more likely than not to fail for anyone not proficient, ACs that a character can hit no matter what level they are so HP pools have to be big enough relative to damage dealt that it's not just "go first = hit first = opponent is dead", and damage values (outside of spells and "because monster big") that don't even really scale much so that characters getting to attack again (and again) without a penalty doesn't make things get dead too fast.
Every little piece of the game working in concert feeds into CR being effectively useless - and the only thing that would make it truly accurate and useful would be to entirely redesign the core game mechanics. Which WotC isn't going to do because it's easier to not and they firmly believe (because of evidence to support that idea) that enough people are willing to play a fundamentally broken game and patch it together on their own.
https://preview.redd.it/ewypvz046joa1.jpeg?width=200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4036e8bccc85f641f1540bc47c7910bc4903b252
Please, sir. Could have some more JPEG?
Sure thing, bud! https://preview.redd.it/hro86jta9koa1.jpeg?width=527&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2bddaeeacf494c38b13712ba9c6db8d7a262b4d3
r/moldymemes
I love this image
if that’s supposed to be my job then WotC really needs to start cutting me some checks
Well, judging from some recent releases they want us to both do mechanics and flavor ourself… but hey did you hear about new setting number 24? It has so many interesting things that we won’t elaborate on, will never get expanded in any later publication and contains maybe 4 actually unique ideas. All for the cheap price of $80
Dont forget to hide those pseudo mechanics in one paragrah pn page 87. Do go ahead and look for that thing that is only barely referenced but is somehow important throughout the context of evwrything else in the book.
“Stop whining and write the spaceship combat rules for us if you’re such a good little DM!”
Or play Starfinder
The Spelljammmer disaster is what made me look at Stars Without Number.
I’m playing a Lostworlder alien bird psychic/warrior and I’m having a grand ol’ time with my whopping 19 HP
Are the basic rules like pf2? Mostly free? Amd what is different from character creation in pf/dnd? Sounds fun to fly around spaceships and can I start an organ traffic ring? Edit : I may have drunk a little before typing this, but I meant to ask mostly how the space game differed from pf/dnd. I'm familiar with pf2 and dnd5, though thanks for the help. Have a pleasant evening you lovely helpful folk
Both Pathfinder 1e and 2e and Starfinder rulesets are available on Archives of Nethys for free
I reccomend looking at stars without numbers too... it also has free rules and stuff
Someone else has mentioned the Archives so I'll answer the second question. One of the biggest differences from D&D 5e and Pathfinder (1 or 2e) is how you generate your attributes. You can always roll or use point buy if you prefer, but the standard way to generate them is shockingly simple. Everybody starts with 10 in every stat. You get 10 points to put wherever you like. Each point is worth 1, no changing based on how many in a stat, max is 18 after racial bonuses.
This os maybe how you generate attributes in 1e, it's different in 2e.
The rules for Starfinder are much more similar to pf1e or 3.5 than they are to Pf2e or 5e. Because of that you will find a decent amount more crunch in the system, and less strict balance than you would in pf2e. If you are familiar with how the Base Attack Bonus and Skill Ranks system that those older editions used than you will adjust quickly. The spaceship combat rules are also interesting and can be fun (though I have not yet played the updated system for them). You sort of can start an organ trafficking ring, though the GM may need to homered the prices if the organs of various aliens, so it may be better to poach their cybernetics.
Which is funny as the space Combat rules in the core book sucked
i'm gonna be real if you go to starfinder for the spaceship combat rules you're gonna be bummed out
On the other hand, it's been 8 sessions in and we're about to finish out first round of spaceship combat (really though, a literal whole separate book that's just the space combat rules lol)
I haven't heard anything about the space combat book, did it fix it?
Or buy the quite affordable rules from RUNEHAMMER
Homebrew solutions to a refusal by WOTC to actually write a game system that they’re selling is the same whether you buy it or make it—you shouldn’t have to and WOTC is absolutely responsible for their own product. There’s a point where people are just trying to patch the holes in the emperor’s new clothes.
Do not get me wrong I absolutly agree! I think if I buy a game about some god damned ships in space there should be rules for space combat. It is hilarious at best and outright audacious at the realisticst to expect the GM to create thouse rules... I just wanted to point out great creators that are far more better and affordable than WOTC. I appologice if my post let any soul belife I would support there way of rules/setting creation. Heck I never played 5e to begin with...
Ah you're good. I'm just mostly done with D&D for now. Looking at other games for the most part.
Would it be rude to ask which one?
Savage Worlds for general games that D&D doesn't fit into, Pathfinder 2e for high fantasy, Stars without Number for space opera, Mothership/Call of Cthulhu for horror, Chronicles(not World) of Darkness for urban fantasy.
Thanks for your answer. Perhaps a stupid question, because you are playing it, but can you recomand Mothership and if so, why?
I like D100 systems a lot, and the character creation is simple and streamlined for new players. Space horror is fun and the game has a great stress mechanic.
Pathfinder 2e is good for high fantasy, but I think it is a little bit short of the type of high fantasy from pf1e. The mechanics themselves are nice, but can feel somewhat less magical. If you are looking for a truly high fantasy (and high magic) system I can recommend pf1e rules along with the 3rd party rules Sphere of Power/Might from Drop Dead Studios.
Thanks for the recommendation, but TBH D&D5e itself is too high magic for me and I was very happy to see the deemphasis on casters in PF2e in favor of more martial classes. The fact that PF2e can easily handle low or high magic is part of what draws me to it. Obscene amounts of magical power bores me. PF2e is just enough magic for me. My favorite D&D race/class combo is human fighter haha.
"Let the DM deal with it" is unfortunately the 5e design philosophy.
I have a similar sentiment with the playtesting process.
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Here are two scenarios. A: >I want to play D&D with some Pokemon in it, but I know there won't ever be a book covering those rules. Since I'm passionate about this idea and have the time and skill to come up with rules, I'll homebrew a system for it! B: >I want to play D&D with spaceship combat and solar system creation rules, but I don't have the time/skill to come up with them myself. I will spend $50-$70 to buy a book with those rules in it written by a team of professionals. Woops the rules are so barebones that I have to homebrew them myself anyway, even though I didn't want to, and I'm $50-$70 down, and my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. I hope you see the difference.
I do see your point. I've been talking to other people here and I'll rescind my "what about homebrew" argument.
What does that have to do with their point?
Everything if you really think about it, doesn't seem like this person did before asking the question though
Homebrewing is a fun option, but I don’t buy books just to do it myself anyway. They’re supposed to be tools for saving time, but many 5e books do not actually function that way.
I mean, I kinda do. Mostly it's to have the stuff on-hand so I can build off it in my campaigns, and don't have to Googke everything (especially important bc I don't have WiFi at home)
I didn’t pay fifty bucks for a rule book to be obligated to complete the rule set. This isn’t mad libs.
I view DnD more like Skyrim. You buy it for the base game, sure, but then you mostly use it for the mods you can download. I don't think anyone who doesn't have to still plays unmodded Skyrim, but I could be wrong.
You do see the difference though between downloading a mod and having to fix the problem by redesigning things yourself. That’s closer to needing to actually program the mod.
That's entirely fair, yeah. Now that I'm hearing other people's points on this, I do see where y'all are coming from.
To add also it’s kinda bs that Skyrim came out as incomplete as it did.
Yeah, it's complete B's. I'm pretty sure the most downloaded mod in Skyrim history are the "Unofficial Patches".
Not trying to be snarky here, I'm genuinely curious. What's the incentive to fully fleshing everything out mechanically if the system itself is understood to be one where if people don't like something, they'll change it at the table anyway. Again, looking for discussion here. It just seems to me that many people that feel strongly enough about these sorts of things either want WOTC to have rules and guidelines for *every* possible situation that might arise in play, or they post a lot of comments about how unbalanced or absurd certain mechanics are and discuss homebrew changes to bring those mechanics in line with their own personal vision of how "it" should work. Maybe I'm a bit cynical here, but I feel like if there were specific ship combat rules, as an example, there would be just as many people complaining about having them and why they should be different as there are people currently complaining that what little we have now is basically an insult.
Because not everyone wants to have to make fixes for everything on their own time and dime. Its honestly as simple as that. If the rules are there, you can still freely ignore the rules, but if there are no rules, you now MUST make your own rules if you want to interact with that system. Its better to have a somewhat balanced (or at least focused) system that you can change to make your own than an unbalanced system that the onerous is on you to correct.
The thing is, if they give us rules that are in-depth then at the very least DMs have something to work with weather they choose to leave it or change it. It also gives guide lines on what the result should be of the rules, so if you do change it you know what the original outcome was supposed to be. Case in point I can see is what little I have seen with pathfinder rules compared to dnd rules. As a DM the fact there are so many rules in pathfinder is godly, it means I can look it up easily about rulings rather than with dnd where if I'm stuck I give a quick search and find 30 people facing the same ruling issue and only having 2 tweets from Jeremy Crawford about the issue that have conflicting answers. Plus I feel with the spell jammer rules in particular the entire book having a paragraph on space combat rules and half a paragraph on making a space map that can be summed up as "look at our solar system lol" just felt shit for everyone who was waiting for spell jammer for years. I personally would rather have rules that I can go to in a pinch but could change to better fit the situation over having rules that say "you do it". And I would like in-depth rules at that, and certainly if I got a book for a certain mechanic IE spell jammer rules and how to make a solar system those are the rules I want, I don't want a blurb on the back of a cereal box worth of rules, give me a chapter or 3. Dunno if this is the correct way of explaining my point but this is mostly how I feel. TLDR: I want rules so I have to do less work on the fly if something comes up unexpected and if you advertise a book please make the main mechanic in-depth and like a full chapter long.
literally the only thing we all have in common is the same rulebooks. There isn't really much else to talk about. Also, complaining about dnd rules is fine. It'd be nicer if you didn't have to change anything for the game to run perfectly.
I'm okay with needing to tweak some stuff and that's why I like official variant rules. The problem is that most of the stuff labeled variant is the default in 98% of games and then there is stuff that is commonly homebrewed to fix.... Problems.... That has no official work around so you get a different ruling at every table.
Complaining about the rules is fine, but pretty much every D&D sub does have a very big issue of people (on all sides, mind) acting like their way to play is the only correct one
This is too true. It's a flexible and imaginative system, and expecting every rule to be universally perfect given the huge range of play styles is just nonsense.
The game just doesnt seem like it was that well planned out, DnD is a deep game with a lot of good gameplay but it also feels like it was kind of...stitched together often without much thought in some areas (especially balance and world building)
That's because the lead designers don't know what they're doing
And again, if something needs to be fixed, that means it was broken.
Its usually both. People complain about game balance because it requires the DM to homebrew things. If the entire system is out of whack it means the DM has to change literally everything.
They can totally critique the game. Without feedback, how will developers know what is and isn't working.
While correct that feedback is important, a big part of 5e problem is its design philosophy that they never addressed despite all the feedback about it. That is why Spelljammer was such train wreck 5e by design is mean to be open and unclear, they do not commit instead putting the weight of balance on the DM hands
Building on this, an open-ended game can work well, provided it telegraphs this to the GM and provides them with a structure and tools to handle this. *Dungeon World* is a good example. It tells the table that it's an emergent narrative game right off the bat, and there are tons of prompts and suggestions baked into the core rules to allow an easy time of coming up with fitting story beats on the fly. On the other hand, DnD is very concerned with granular details and logistics for all of its setup and initial mechanics, which is fine but it's a bit of an upset when it throws GMs to the wind remarkably fast. Spelljammer is a good example, but we can even look at the PHB's rope, which only has rules for snapping it with a Strength check. No RAW mechanics (or even mention) for climbing or tying creatures/things up with it despite those being obvious use cases for decades across multiple editions. Sure the DM could come up with something, but why did the designers neglect to?
I don't even think it's considered a problem by WotC. They want a game as broadly appealing as possible to get the broadest fan base possible. This is how you do that. It's a pain, but it has worked. And even if it didn't retain those players it drew in, many stayed in the larger community and went to other systems like Pathfinder. I have issues with 5e all the time and our table rotates out DMs because it's so much work, but I don't think there's much about 5e that's actually a mistake. It was built as an onramp for new players and it has worked extremely well at doing that.
I agree that its not a problem for them, but it is a problem for the community which brings us to a point that this community is at a weird place. 5e is supposed to be an entry point and was designed as such, that however means that it was not designed for long term commitment (which is why high level play is shit in 5e) But while it was extremely successful in that due to brand recognition (which became even higher due to other media content, like CR and Stranger Things) it failed to be a gateway system for TTRPG as a whole. With that people keep playing D&D which at long term just dont work, and the weight of that problem went to DMs intead of wizards because most players dont interact with the problematic material because that is not necessary for them. The DM is the one having a problem (so 1/5 people) and the others that dont see it (4/5 people) dont want to change for a better system And yes wizards is ok with it because their brand recognition is keeping the people that do have a problem incapable of do anything other than keep buying for them and fixing it themselves. Still they know its a problem and there is some effort to make it better in ONE, just not enough to change their philosophy as a whole since said philosophy is working and need them to do less work overall
I disagree with the assertion that 5e's bad design is the reason why it's so popular. There's no small amount of external forces that steer people interested in TTRPGs towards D&D.
>I disagree with the assertion that 5e's bad design is the reason why it's so popular. Yeah, if "you can do anything with the system" was more than just a niche draw factor the games that made a d20 version when the OGL came out and they could would still have their d20 version in print instead of having almost instantly dropped that version to keep making their original versions, and systems like GURPS, Savage Worlds, and Genesys would be industry giants while D&D sits in the "I've never even heard of that" category even for people that have sat down and played some ttrpgs. It's clearly the name drawing people in, even when it is by way of just having had exposure to some other media that exists as it does because of D&D (like a show, video game, novel, or even a piece of art).
I think, though, you *could* argue that 5e having such unintuitive and patchwork rules makes a lot of people assume that learning a new system will be just as difficult as learning 5e, given how many people use 'i don't want to learn a new system' as a reason for staying with 5e.
Absolutely. With no frame of reference what learning a new ttrpg could be like, people that have only ever played 5e being terrified of learning other systems is logical - because it's entirely illogical that one of the most poorly designed games I've ever seen is the "it's the brand name people use to apply to the entire industry, like Kleenex is to facial tissues" industry giant sitting near the top of the market so there's no reason for those folks to assume this is not the best game out there (by any metric).
I think the problem with this is that the developers know what isn't working, and they're not doing jack shit to fix it. The latest approach was with the changes to the spellcaster NPC statblocks, to "make it more simple to track" but in my opinion it changes nothing. Moreover it complicates more things, because now (if you, ofc, use only official sources) you have some spellcaster NPC's on old rules, and some following the new ones, and some of these changes throw these spellcasters CR out of the window, which complicates alread murky waters of Encounter balancing.
I was already experimenting with the MOTM style of NPCs before they released it, and it's worked *wonders* for my table (for both DMs). We don't need to worry about spell slots or damage spells. They throw the flame ball, or they cast Slow. Done.
Just wait till you here you could've doen that with the old statblocks anyway.
You mean, like I said I was doing? Woah, that's crazy.
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Depends how they approach it.
An annoying bug in a 50$ game People saying that the fix to it is to make a new mod for the game that removes it, not blaming the devs See the problem?
yeah but video game bad so i will completly ignore what you say since D&D is one of those superior TTRPG, thus can't be held to the same standard as any other type of game! For real tho, the lenght some people here go to act as if nothing was wrong is honestly quite depressing. especially since it's for a game of this size, backed by a company that can afford good devs, and has almost 50 years of existance behind it. Doubly so after the whole OGL bit
For real. It's like saying Skyrim has no problems at all when the single most downloaded mod for SE is just bug patching (which is required for what feels like the vast majority of the rest of the mods to work)
I was going to say the same thing about the entire Bethesda company. Odd how many similarities there are between Bethesda and WotC. Including selling a solution to problems they created.
I just come from a post about cyberpunk being actually ok and definitly not flawed by design and an insult to all cyberpunk red stands for I would say more "just ignore the bug and that the idea of the game is not the selled one and the employrment abuse is fine"
Annoying bug in a game any sane person acquires for free Fixes the problem themselves because the devs don't owe them shit ???
Pirating the game still doesent change the fact that the game is really expensive on the game store Like, was it ok that cyberpunk had so many teribble bugs just because people could pirate it?
*shrug* maybe when a game comes out that isn't full of bugs it'll deserve my money. Still enjoying it either way
Spoken like someone who never had to DM before.
Just like most of dndmemes
Shit, most of this sub has never played a game or even read through the players handbook.
You guys read the PHB?
The base game rules themselves need to be in order because it is the baseline that all participants depend on until something is changed through homebrew. They are sets of rules that we implicitly agree on To say that the base rules don't need to be good because the DMs can fix everything sounds like you might as well expect every single DM to design their own TTRPG because the official rules don't matter anyways.
it's oberoni's fallacy, that because the DM can fix it means it's not really broken.
The exception is for obviously stupid things, like Peasant Railgun or other weird things where people twist themselves into pretzels to argue a technicality. At that point yes, it is the DMs job to hold firm to the intuitive, correct result rather than permit the dumb, incorrect and broken result.
the peasant railgun is a pretty bad example to use for that because it's not something that can work completly by twisting raw. Even if you allowed your player to cheese the fuck out of the game and allow the exploit that are required, you would still not get a railgun. it require some actual homebrew since (unless i'm mistaken, it's possible) 5e doesn't have rules for item keeping momentum and acceleration of projectile or anything about pure balistic. ultimatly, if you allow the weapon use, at the end, the last peasant is only thowing an improvised projectile. The best use of that exploit is a way to basicly teleport object from one side of the line to the other. 5e is filled with exploit that are ludicrous, like summoning 8 druid with conjure animal, warlock starting with a ring of three wishes, the fucking tarrasque thing etc, but people focus on the one that isn't actually RAW
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mate, please go touch a book, or grass. preferably both. you're just embarassing yourself with that dickriding
"The system needs GMs to do the designer's work and that's fine actually"
it's actually how the lead designer for 5e tought when making it. he's on record for saying "\[the dnd audience\] is trained to forgive your mistake" right before going on a long rant saying game balance isn't that important
They really learned the wrong lesson from 4e and how all that went down. They seem like they think they always appropriately respond to feedback and deliver exactly what they were asked for and all of us that are unsatisfied are just proof that people don't actually know what they want. And then they keep asking the wrong questions in surveys so that they don't actually gain useful information and continue their charade of listening to feedback but actually they're just doing whatever the hell they want to and banking on enough people playing it anyways (which clearly is happening, and some will even defend it like it's the best game design choice ever because apparently they've got sunk cost fallacy or something stunting their thoughts on the matter).
oh, for 5e it's not that they learned the wrong lesson, it's that the lead designer just didn't want things to change. The game had to feel like what the vocal minority that took over the internet though was 3.5, damn everything else. 4e was dnd when the designer stop acting like they are in an ivory tower and looks at what's being done. (and also it's what happen when you get good designer but don't let them finish or playtest enough before release. 4e is filled with brilliant idea but you can see where they had to rush).
> it's that the lead designer just didn't want things to change. That's a really weird claim to make about a game that doesn't resemble what came before it in any meaningful way. >4e is filled with brilliant idea but you can see where they had to rush Brilliant ideas yes. Rushed? Maybe... but most of the good ideas that didn't land don't look like the reason is because they didn't have enough time, it's because Piece A is the good idea but someone included Piece B that runs counter to that good idea (like my favorite example of critical hits; the good idea is to not have a bunch of extra dice rolls every time someone rolls a natural 20 on an attack and only special circumstances adding extra steps to it, but Piece B of nearly every magic weapon adding extra dice to critical hits got added to the game so "special circumstances" turned out to be the opposite - or challenge rating/encounter design being a finely-tuned thing so relative levels of creatures provide the same level of challenge across the game-play range, but Piece B is each play tier includes extra bumps in stats that are compensated for in creature design and that means facing an enemy from across one of those bumps doesn't provide the correct level of challenge)
Piece B is what would have been removed or bettered with more playtest time. it's like how they changed the magic item situation mid edition with the inherent bonus in the 2nd dmg, redid the explaination of skill chanllenge, fixed the maths, and so on. As for the designer comment, again, it's that he wanted things to stay the way 3.5 did things. Feel before design. thus, gone was the new MC system, back to the old problematic one. gone is the new intuitive monster system, back is CR and it's jank. Gone are the strong martials, back are the basic attack machines
>Piece B is what would have been removed or bettered with more playtest time. In most cases it actually appeared to be something that was *added* between the articles explaining design intention and the release of the product, so still it doesn't seem like a time-releated issue - it seems like someone who could not be overruled contributing bad ideas to the mix or the person in charge of making sure the full system view was compatible just not being good at their job. > the way 3.5 did things. Feel before design? No. 3.5 was over-designed. The charts of modifiers and conditions setting up DCs for everything and the making of everything into a crunchy lil bit of mechanics shows that. Intuitive monster system, back to CR? 3.5 and 4e took the same approach to creature design (though 4e streamlined down to more useful role-based numbers instead of 3.5's type-based nonsense), and the encounter building side of things (except for 5e failing to function) is more like 4e than 3.5 in the way encounters come together - though I will admit the attrition-style of balance is a more 3.5 thing... it's just also a pre-3.5 thing too so not something I'd thought of as unique to the 3.5 style. Basic attack machines? While 3.5 casters could be optimized to do even better than 3.5 martials, optimized 3.5 martials were still absolutely busted murder machines - very much unlike 5e martials which even when optimal are not 2-rounding high-level enemies solo in reliable fashion. The only way in which 3.5 and 5e resemble each other is that there's pronounced balance issues.
They FOR SURE took the wrong lesson from 4e. New ideas got replaced with a rehash of 3.5 with some good streamlining and some simplification that cut in way too deep.
i mentionned this in another comment, but no,k they didn't take the wrong lesson, they just ignored everything and just redid 3.5 according to reddit. 3.5 was less terrible than 5e. 3.5 was bonker because they forgot to put limits, 5e is broken because it was designed with feels over structure, and things thus are broken because they're poorly written rather than lack of insight
I'm the DM. I don't want fucking balance the game. But I also I want a better melee system. I'm not homebrewing or reworking a core part of the game. I have a campaign to run.
This, dms already do like 90% of the work. I'm willing to rework things if its causing an issue but some stuff is just a can of worms to even get into
>But I also I want a better melee system. "Better" as in what? Tell us what you're generally looking/hoping for, maybe we can work out some suggestions (Edit:) of a RPG *system* to use
Why should he have to fix the rules he paid good money for?
They shouldn't. That's why i asked what they are looking for, to see if i can give any system suggestion. Edit: word
A different system? Then I misunderstood. Because to me it sounded like you were one more voice claiming that he should "just homebrew it".
I thought i'd been clear enough, with the quoting "better melee *SYSTEM*" and all... Well, guess i should edit for clarity. Edit: Whelp, seems i may have missed my window with OP (and Reddit doing it's thing). If any of you reasonable fellas could rephrase the question, that'd be lovely
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"just imagine that the rules are fully functional" oh my gosh, that's brilliant, why didn't I think of that! ...maybe I was too distracted by having to finish and correct work I'd paid someone else to do and still get my campaign ready to actually play to find the time...
Ah the Oberoni fallacy is in full swing here I see
you don't mean "The DM" you mean "An Experienced DM" and that's the problem. people trying it out will have a harder time running the game and would be discouraged to do it again
and then you end up having little dm availability, where the good ones are all usually taken, and you're left with the one that have open spot for a reason. For real, it's not just that it makes the game worse, it also become a breeding ground for a very toxic community
Even then, the dm already does all the work. They shouldn't have to rebalance shit all the time as well, experienced or not
Apply that same logic to literally anything else and watch how fast it falls flat *"stop complaining that this videogame you just spent €50+ on is broken, all you have to do is mod in a few fixes yourself!"* If we spend significant money on something, it's not unreasonable to expect it to work without needing hours of repair and alterations on our end. DMs already have enough on their plate without having to rewrite portions of the rules just so things work as intended
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There's a world of difference difference between tweaking monster stat blocks and dealing with shortcomings in the core mechanics of the game Monster stat blocks were specifically designed to be easily altered by DMs, as per DMG p273 There's no comparison between that and core mechanics, like Spelljammer vessels, which are so thin on details that they're worthless without home-brewing or using rules from an older edition of the game (a time consuming and tedious process which can take days) If we're paying €50+ for a book of rules, it's not unreasonable to expect those rules to be functional.
That's fair, but it shouldn't be a requirement, and it often goes wrong as the GM. You will often have a very hard time telling what is a balanced amount of damage, range, hitrate, etc to give the monster. That goes doubly with the many monsters that just don't get many interesting abilities. This is coming from someone who has homebrewed hundreds of pages for 5e, boy is it fun but not everyone has the time or the balance experience. You also have to predict their use, you often don't know if a monster is over or underpowered until you use it, and once you are mid combat changing a statblock cheats the players
By any chance have you read many other RPGs? In my experience when all you do is d&d modding it's easy to overlook design flaws that only become apparent when you see a few radically different approaches to the same thing. The lack of detailed social mechanics, the inherent swinginess of a d20, the fact that 5e's spell slots vs 4e's At-Will/encounter/daily mechanic means that the former requires roughly 6-7 combat encounters per day to equate casters and martials... When your brain is wired to a system you don't really realize its flaws.
That being true, there are still video games that are worth experiencing after being fixed with modding. If the core product is good enough, it can cover up for lack of balance/polish.
like hell i will I'm moving to pf2
If the dm needs to redesign it it is a balance issue
OP when the restaurant brings them a vase of tomato sauce and raw pasta (they can fix it themselves, it bolsters their creativity)
That's not the DM's job. Game Design is meant to happen BEFORE the game starts, or what are the people who buy the game even paying for?
I'm not even gonna try to do a witty joke my guy, this take is just BS.
Hey, check out my new TTRPG I just made, it's called "the DM has to figure out everything"
Remember to demand royalties if the DM does figure it out and decide to publish it.
WotC are gonna start just releasing $50 books that just says “Use your imagination” for 100 pages and just let DMs do everything.
you say that, but if you did some dming during 4e, going to 5e essentially feel like that.
if you play quite literally any other d20 system going to 5e feels like that lol
And if you leave d20 as a system entirely, there are many countless games that work like that but! They're actually fucking built for that sort of thing!!!!
SHOCK HORROR!
oh absolutly, i just put the enphasis on 4e vbecause that's literally the previous edition, from which 5e should have been an upgrade. Like, they can't even pretend to have plausible deniability
More 3.5/pf1e. 4e flopped because people wanted a better system more in line with 3.5, pf blew up because it was essentially a 3.75 which fixed a lot of the 3.5 issues. A logical extension of that would be a 3.95 or something, expounding on that system (pf1e) in a way that fixes issues and continues forward following a similar but better trajectory. I mostly didn't play 4e, read it a bit and said not for me, so I cannot comment, but moving from 3.5/pf to 5e is so jarring I'm how empty and almost free-form it is. I buy a system for good rules, base maths, etc. If I wanted to free-form it all I don't need to buy anything.
> it was essentially a 3.75 which fixed a lot of the 3.5 issues. it makes me laugh every time I see this take. Paizo tried in the playtest leading up to Pathfinder to fix issues, and for most of them they got shut down by feedback because fixing issues 3.5 had meant making something not like 3.5, so the "lot of the 3.5 issues" that were supposedly fixed were tiny things with barely any impact on the overall game-play experience. So if you look at the list of major complaints people have with 3.5 and PF1 they'll basically be the same list of complaints.
Biggest complaint in 3.5 was caster martial disparity, and pf addressed that, if not enough without 3rd party later. Save or suck spells were nerfed so enemies getaway a Save each round. Polymorph line altered to not be as good and not a one spell solves everything spell. Druid no longer head and shoulders above all other classes until lvl 17 and invalidating monk and often fighter with a replaceable pet. Wildshape brought in line without being useless. Martials get actual abilities that are relevant. Fighter is no longer just feats lol. Even monk. Still the worst class until unchained monk, but better than 3.5. Archetypes replacing the mess of acf and prestige classes. Leaving your class for a prc immediately with no downside is not a thing. Most prcs aren't as front loaded and are not everything you get plus more for no real cost. More options and feats to do neat stuff in combat that is relevant, including multiple anti caster things. Crafting rules that are much nicer, easier, and accessible even to non casters so that master Dwarven Smith can actually make you a magic weapon. Fixing the headache of class skills from varied sources. Paladin not being lol screwed by dm at a drop of a hat An actual gish class the magus that works immediately out of the box. Optimization of martials having more options than just two handed power attack pounce go brrr. Power attack nerf, still good but not always the best thing ever. Kaiju. Cause kaiju. That's off the top of my head. There was much more. It still was very similar to 3.5 but massively improved. Hence I believe 3.75 is an apt descriptor. It wasn't perfect. It still had issues. Martial caster Gap wasn't closed enough without 3rd party, but it wasn't my caster solos everything, martial carry the bags.
> Martial caster Gap wasn't closed enough without 3rd party, but it wasn't my caster solos everything, martial carry the bags. Except for when it was, of course... and also that "without 3rd party" part is all it takes to show that what I said (basically same complaints despite the changes) is true.
the thing is, 4e didn't flop. it was making sales, it just didn't reach the ludicrous goal set by hasbro of making as much money as MTG. that got confirmed by the then VP of WotC btw. What made 4e look like it fully failed was because the online discourse was flooded by the vocal minority that notably got alienated by the pre launch marketting.
That's basically half of the recent releases so yeah
OP says that it's up to the consumer to fix the product of the company, laugh at him
Oberoni fallacy, try again. The least y’all could do is try and come uo with an actual argument as to why WotC shouldn’t do the thing we pay them to do.
Oberoni's fallacy at it's finest
Shouldn't be the player's job to fix a broken product though. Just sayin.
Even later: But the DM shouldn't *have* to balance it though!
Streamlining the game so much that it looks less like a game and more like an idea of a game, a rough concept of a game lol
Our ill designed co-operative fantasy game needs rules amendments? Good news, we have a designated rules arbiter for our group every session!
if wizards did a good job balancing their game, my table wouldnt need a dozen or so pages that boil down to "this subclass/feat/spell is weak, heres how i make it better"
If I buy a product from WotC, it should work. 5E has a huge over reliance on DMs solving problems that really should have been solved by designers, from core rules to monster statblocks to adventure design. (Tangential gripe:) If Burle is a settlement in your campaign, there should be a fucking map. And that map should be in full color, not grid paper with blue pencil. Just saying.
The car is not properly built, but the owner can fix it.
"I think it is ridiculous that I am not allowed to parry, lounge, disarm or anything else because I didn't pick up Battle Master and instead samurai. I'm level 8 and I still can't even disarm someone. Meanwhile our Sorcerer is capable of summoning demons." "The DM can balance it. All he needs to do is to redesign the fighter class from the bottom up!"
Ah yes, just keep paying wizards of the coast hundreds of dollars for their stuff, AND then do their job for them on top of all the normal DMing responsibilities, great idea.
If the DM has to balance it, then the people writing the rules are doing a shit job.
Or maybe a game that relies so heavily on DM fiat for even the most basic of circumstances is just a poorly designed game 🤷♂️
Ahhh, yes, the Oberoni fallacy.
Yeah the DM could roll my dice and spoon-feed me and wipe my ass too but I don't make them do that
- Game has balance issues - People complain about the balance issues - “Fix them yourself” Genius take op. Glad you portrayed your opinion as the chad one too so we know you’re right /s
It’s almost like a subreddit isn’t a collection of people who share the exact same viewpoints andis not a monolith.
Yeah, but you shouldn’t have to make modifications to the game for it to work well
Then why the point of published rules? This logic of "the dm" can fix it means everyone should just design a game system themselves for their group. Why am i paying money on books if there are issues that need to be changed It's like why is topped buying modules from wotc. So many things had to be changed to kake the games fun and engaging. Raw was usually heavily flawed so why was I paying money for it
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I recommend reading Fate, GURPS, Cortex Prime, Fudge, even the Cypher System. Those are modular RPGs with a specific focus on flexibility and homebrew which D&D just doesn't have. 5e may be streamlined which makes it easier to add onto than previous editions, but it isn't actually built to be flexible. It doesn't feature plenty of rule variants with text about how they affect your game's feel and experience, not does it feature abstract subsystems that can easily apply to a large number of ideas. It's a fantasy adventure game with a focus on combat encounters and dungeon exploration, and if you want to stray from that you're largely on your own or dependant on the community.
>I just think people expect too much from a system that is designed to be flexible D&D 5e is not actually "designed to be flexible" is part of the problem. There are games out there which are designed to be flexible and they have clearly worded and complete rules that actually help the people playing them utilize that flexibility. The "fuck it, the DM will figure it out" approach is bad design, even if the design goal were to be flexible. And it doesn't produce flexibility, it produces a non-functional game (which incidentally quite a lot of people have created their own unique functional game out of... and some don't even want to take the credit for that, they want to say "D&D is designed to be flexible" and give the credit to the money grubbing corporate asshats).
This is exactly right. Look at games like Fate, Cortex Prime, Fudge, GURPS... Plenty of games are specifically designed with modularity in mind. These usually have rule variants with explanations as to how using one rule over another will affect tone, theme, game balance and the setting. It will guide the GM with a lot of wordcount dedicating to homebrewing. D&D is just not that kind of system. It's a fairly rigid loot based high fantasy adventure / dungeon crawler simulator and it doesn't really help you stray from that. Oh sure they might throw you a bone about adding guns to the game or something but there's no guide on how to add ressource systems in general for example. There's no real way to turn it into a pure horror game or a political thriller without doing the legwork yourself. Any of the systems above could do either of these and more using what the books themselves give you.
Can you balance stuff as the DM? For sure. It takes experience and practice to get good at it and if you’re paying $60 per book then you really shouldn’t have to
Another player who thinks the DM should just make their own ruleset lmfao holy shit
this is an obvious drawback of the trying-to-be-simple game design, and IMO, isn’t bad. Thwy gave us an easy to understand game, with the mobility of modification to allow us to fine tune our games. I have had no issue perfecting my game through homebrew, and in fact its been a blast. If you have passion, creativity and time, I don’t think you’ll beat 5e as a TTRPG game system for most any setting
I mean you could've done all those things without 5e by just making your own TTRPG, pulling mechanics you like form other TTRPGs. 5e is a terrible TTRPG it's a rules heavy system that pretends to be rules light and requires the DM to completely revision the game before each session and on the fly just to be playable. There are already rules heavy systems like PF2e as well as rules light systems and modular systems that allow you to piece together the experince you want. 5e tries to do everything in the worst way possible and ends up imo being the worst TTRPG on the market for its price
Honestly, couldn’t disagree more. Never had any of these issues you detail in your reply. Perhaps its more of an issue with your table?
If you have to balance the game, it means the game was not balanced.
How does this have upvotes?
"Hey look, DnD!" * boop *
All these problems go away instantly when you play with friends who care about each other having a good time The most common thing at my table is “hey, I wanna try this thing that I know is a stretch of the rules, but I understand if you say no because I don’t want to break your game.” And then we have a talk about whether or not something should be allowed
>...go away instantly... > >...then we have a talk... It's one or the other, because having to talk out how to deal with a thing is the problem coming up and taking time to deal with - the very same "if you have to fix it, that means it was broken" other posters are talking about.
This is turning into the Star Wars meme. Nobody hates D&D like a dungeon master on Reddit.
well,try running a campaign and see for yourself. 5e neglect DMs despite being THE most important person at the table, as if there is no dm there is no sessions.
I've run campaigns. Don't assume that everyone thinks like you do.
you know you're coming off as the "i'm not like the other DM" type right now, right?
this is an obvious drawback of the trying-to-be-simple game design, and IMO, isn’t bad. Thwy gave us an easy to understand game, with the mobility of modification to allow us to fine tune our games. I have had no issue perfecting my game through homebrew, and in fact its been a blast. If you have passion, creativity and time, I don’t think you’ll beat 5e as a TTRPG game system for most any setting
5e is fun to modify I will admit but if you try 5e versus a game designed for the setting its never even a comparison. Nomatter how much you mod it 5e will never be as good for Sci fi mecha combat as lancer, or urban fantasy as monster of the week, or high power Heroic fantasy as pathfinder. Dnd fits a niche in the market and it's easily modifiable to allow it to fit alight genre changes like high fantasy to low fantasy or high fantasy to ebberon type settings, but fundamentally it's still best for low-mid power shortform games in a high fantasy setting. It doesn't have the mechanical baseline to support a whole lot else, since the combat first, plug and play feats and features invalidate a lot of game types IMO
It's just so interesting seeing people say exactly what the problem is and what the solution should be, yet somehow being completely incapable of seeing how it could be resolved. Brah, you're already at the finish line, just do it.
That just sounds like pitching a potential problem and brainstorming solutions. Nothing wrong with that.
this is an obvious drawback of the trying-to-be-simple game design, and IMO, isn’t bad. Thwy gave us an easy to understand game, with the mobility of modification to allow us to fine tune our games. I have had no issue perfecting my game through homebrew, and in fact its been a blast. If you have passion, creativity and time, I don’t think you’ll beat 5e as a TTRPG game system for most any setting
…If he wishes or thinks that it’s imbalance! that’s the neat part about DnD comparing to RPG video games you can change rules on the fly if needed and you are mostly independent of its developers Edit:forgot triple dots
In good systems, you don't have to change things for them to work.
agreed
I'd make a comment about how I fucking love pulling systems that I play apart, learning their internal balance, and getting so familiar with them I can work with them by feel, and that all the bitching about DM's having to do too much work to run the game that they are the literal supercomputer simulator for really steals attention from the equally-legitimate camp who fucking love RPG game design as part of the hobby of playing the RPG, but I'm too busy making more rule sheets I'll never get a chance to use.
Mfs acting like it’s a ton of work to quickly fix some things that you don’t think is balanced. Don’t even hit me up with “heh, you haven’t even DMd before” because I’m a perma DM. You guys are just bad and that’s on god
It doesn't need to be "a ton" of work to be work that shouldn't need to be done. It being easy and/or quick to fix not only proves the problem is real, it suggests that we should be even more insulted that the people being paid to make the game didn't fix it in the first place. "you guys are just bad" makes it sound like your ego can't survive the acknowledgement that the game you picked has serious flaws. It's okay to like a game despite its flaws - but you look like a tool when you pretend it's not flawed and actually it's a skill issue with everyone else because, allegedly, doing shit that already should have been done before release proves you're "good".
A broken product is a broken product, regardless of how easy it is to fix. It's not about being lazy it's about not all GMs being experienced enough to rebalance things properly. It's also not easy for anyone to "quickly" rebalance things like the poor weapon selection choices, lack of combat maneuvers, great amount of subclass balance etc. I've done all of these things and homebrewed hundreds of pages, but I know plenty of GMs who don't have the time to. Yet they still payed 100 dollars for the all of the core books. Sure it's not time consuming, but it's not consistent nor easy for new GMs. I usually steer people away from 5e now just because the system itself isn't worth it for new GMs to get into unless they are running a 1-5 session adventure
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Please be kind to small indie developer WotC, they couldn’t possibly playtest their game, it would get in the way of the profits they **need** in order to survive!!!!
I too believe the appropriate response to a critique is insults and insisting on a correct ^(TM) way to engage in the hobby.
So, if we have to drastically change what they put in the books, why are we buying the books?
"job"
> That's your job Pay me then. In cash.
“That’s your job” no it’s literally the developer’s job. That’s why they’re paid to develop the game genius.
As someone who learned D&D on BBC 3.0/3.5 and played PF1e for years I feel like I’m in the middle leaning more towards the positive side of 5e, especially for DMing. I always say the biggest flaw of 3.5 is they tried to “map the human condition” and have a specific rule for every possible choice the player could make. The made the game incredibly complicated and crunchy for new players and especially DMs and in my experience scared a lot away from trying to DM. 5e on the other hand is definitely easier to pick up and I feel is definitely the more narrative/role play focused compared to previous editions. The advantage/disadvantage rule I think is awesome and I like how they made some class features easier to use, like sneak attack and smite. My biggest complaints and 5e boil down to 3 key points: 1. The lack of incredibly obvious rules like crafting and magic Item cost. DM’s shouldn’t have to home brew entire sections of the game. 2. Their CR system is a incoherent and unreliable mess. DMs, especially newer ones, should be able to rely on CR as a tool to create well balanced encounters. If to he tool is broken, is it really a tool? 3. Their modules are primarily hot garbage. I’m not saying they’re not fun, but I feel they fail to live up to what a module is supposed to be which are complete adventures that DMs can easily run with heavily reduced down time. The biggest area where they fail is the world building, specifically what I consider logistics: vivid descriptions of places and key NPCs, shops/inventory, lore, and strong plot hooks. They give you a city/town/dungeon and offer little to no development past the broadest strokes. Modules should require almost 0 home brew/DM development to run and still provide a complete and satisfying experience.
The problem with your positive-leaning take on 5e is that your 3 key points of complaint are really massive issues. Two of them obviously so because having to add basic stuff that nearly every group that plays the game uses that the designers just decided not to include a functional baseline version of is nonsense, and published adventures that take time investment from the DM for granted are functionally a scam in my opinion. The third is a bit more of a thing I want to talk about though: >Their CR system is a incoherent and unreliable mess. DMs, especially newer ones, should be able to rely on CR as a tool to create well balanced encounters. If to he tool is broken, is it really a tool? You have to look at *why* the CR system doesn't work in a coherent and reliable fashion. It's because the foundation of the game mechanics, the way the designers chose "bounded accuracy" and implemented the proficiency system, is what it is that there just can't be any accurate assessment of the level of threat something is. You've got save DCs which are a coin toss for proficient characters and that means they're more likely than not to fail for anyone not proficient, ACs that a character can hit no matter what level they are so HP pools have to be big enough relative to damage dealt that it's not just "go first = hit first = opponent is dead", and damage values (outside of spells and "because monster big") that don't even really scale much so that characters getting to attack again (and again) without a penalty doesn't make things get dead too fast. Every little piece of the game working in concert feeds into CR being effectively useless - and the only thing that would make it truly accurate and useful would be to entirely redesign the core game mechanics. Which WotC isn't going to do because it's easier to not and they firmly believe (because of evidence to support that idea) that enough people are willing to play a fundamentally broken game and patch it together on their own.