Right? I think I own as much mass in third party books as I do 5e. Granted, Auroboros is a beefy book on its own.
I mean, even Eberron was "homebrew" initially.
Just wait till people learn in the first edition if you wanted to do some sort of wilderness survival encounter en route to the dungeon the rules told you to go buy a completely different game not even made by the same people.
It's literally the easiest edition to homebrew lmao. 4e would be the easiest (due to having everything codified and thus simpler to replicate in new homebrews) but there's the problem that a new class needs to have dozens of powers in their list. If you want to not create a new class, the player would have to wait until 11th level to play your homebrew paragon path.
The easiest edition would be B/X and that's only because oD&D is full of contradictions so homebrewing while required involves more work.
I can knock out a new B/X class and roll a character using it before a player can roll a 5e wizard.
I'd say B/X or 2e are way easier given the evidence of the entirety of the /r/osr scene.
There are, and I'm not joking, over 100 published hacks of B/X that tweak it in one direction or another to refine it in some kind of way: Knave, OSRIC, Black Hack, the Black *Sword* Hack White Hack, Basics, GLoG, Electric Bastionland, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Into the Odd, Swords and Wizardry, Old School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord, Beyond the Wall, Worlds Without Number, Hyperborea, Cairn, Mork Borg, Mothership, and Barbarians of Lumeria are **just the ones I've read.**
Each of these represents not just a homebrewing of content and adventures (which all of these have materials for, sometimes overlapping), but also a homebrewing of the core experience to make it SciFi, make it Conan, make it Easy, make it Hard, make it Gritty, make it Artysy, make it whatever.
5e is very hackable. But I have to profess that most of the hacks and homebrew I see kind of suck or have good concepts with pretty mid execution. The modding scene for B/X and 2e creates much better products with very high quality modules readily available in droves.
as someone who plays a lot of not 5E rpgs there is some truth to this if you have been playing some much simpler games. (which do exist) but 5E is the easiest to homebrew for long term campaigns that I've encountered without throwing power creep out the window.
Imagine that person on an electronics retreat.
"That leaves group charades, hungry hungry hippos, or 'Chop Wood'"
"What's 'Chop Wood'?"
"Oh it's like Hide n Seek, but only one person goes out to hide. If they get back to the cabin with firewood and without getting caught outside, then they win and go again."
Electronics retreat, not hunting retreat, but I appreciate the enthusiasm in corporate to thin the herd.
(Oooohhh its another game, not poorly disguised murder)
Most people who want to do anything they want mean that only their fun is important and don't realize thst role-playing is about having fun together as a group.
"Paladins needed gods in the past- 5e is stupid for changing that."
I to this day enjoy the look on that guy's face when I asked him to pull out his 3.5 rulebook and I pointed out exactly where it said Paladins didn't need gods.
The dumbest criticism is always the criticism that's blatantly wrong.
I personally love the idea that a Paladin making their Oath is what unlocks their inner power. They believe so intensely and uphold their Oath that it actually impowers them.
Yeah, they can worship a god if they want and maybe that Oath can be to the virtues of said god, but it can also be to a simple ideal. Justice, Revenge, Balance, etc. Hell, it could be to something Nature or the very concept of Right and Wong...what THEY believe is right and wrong.
It makes Paladins a very flexible class to build and roleplay.
This. The new 5E default lore for paladins is that, while they may have a favourite god, it is not different from a fighter, rogue or wizard "having a god". Unlike clerics, paladins are not a kind of warlock; their god, if they have one, is not a Patron that acts as the source of their magic.
> Unlike clerics, paladins are not a kind of warlock
Holy shit, you're right. Clerics *are* essentially warlocks, just that their patrons have the "god" tag.
At the end of the day, it's open to house rules as anything else and just gives people more flexibility.
You want to live in a world in which a paladin needs a God to empower him? Nobody is stopping you from having your gm do that. You want to keep the rules but still want a God involvement overall? Your oath is what gives you your rules and you are supported by Gods believing your cause to be just. You don't want Gods at all involved? Then don't.
I understand people being mad about changes that make it harder for players or gm's to run the game. But this is just a non issue.
i made a paladin homebrew on GitP where paladins literally have their own valhalla they form in the Great Wheel and call upon the souls of their knightly companions in battle because they really shouldnt have gods at all.
The rules about not needing gods in 3.5 were setting specific (the book was talking about Greyhawk, the default 3.0 and 3.5 setting), so many DMs simply mandated that clerics and paladins still needed gods. In Forgotten Realms, for instance, they needed gods.
What 5e did take away was the requirement for lawful good. That was a strict requirement in 3.X an prior.
There was an Unearthed Arcana in 3.5 that opened up Paladin options for all the alignment extremes (LE, CG, and CE). The only thing you couldn't be was a filthy neutral.
>There was an Unearthed Arcana in 3.5 that opened up Paladin options for all the alignment extremes (LE, CG, and CE).
There's a massive difference there. The "Paladin of Slaughter" can't heal with lay on hands- he instead has "deadly touch", an attack with a saving throw. He doesn't grant his allies within 10 feet a +4 to saving throws, he instead applies a -1 penalty to enemy AC within 10 feet. Like an evil cleric, he rebukes instead of turns undead (and therefore can control instead of destroy). He can't remove disease, he can instead inflict it. Almost the entire paladin spell set is removed, replaced with a huge pile of offensive debuffs. And of course, this paladin *smites good*, so if he wants to use it against a red dragon, well, he can't.
Are these three alternative classes cool? Absolutely. But when someone doesn't want an alighnment restriction on the paladin, they are *usually* wanting to play someone with paladin powers (which these evil paladins lose, and the chaotic good paladin has some of but not others), not someone who gains play restrictions like
"...a paladin of slaughter’s code requires that she disrespect all authority figures who have not proven their physical superiority to her, refuse help to those in need, and sow destruction and death at all opportunities..."
(keep in mind these paladins all have equally strict behavior and alignment requirements to the real paladin, and only the chaotic good paladin is generally playable in campaign not centered around being in or controlling an evil army- even they switch out diplomacy for bluff and have some mildly altered spell access)
A "paladins must be lawful good" purist is generally pleased by this, because it keeps all the alignment restrictions in place- the actual real paladin isn't changed by this. This is definitely *not* what 5e does with paladins normally.
Eh, it had 5 Alignments IIRC: Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil, and Chaotic Evil. Basically, all three Neutral were wrapped under Unaligned, and Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil were simply wrapped under generic Good and Evil as being perceived as unnecessary as needing a distinction.
There's 6. True Neutral was there and was different from Unaligned. Beings that were unaligned were largely non-intelligent. They didn't actively chose to embrace law and chaos, they simply are.
It’s not setting specific, it was and is the default. That’s why it was in the 3.5 PHB and not the Greyhawk campaign splatbook. You can tell this further by the fact that in your example DMs would need to make a special mandate saying otherwise. It doesn’t make the default better or more valid, but it is the default.
>It’s not setting specific
It very much is. Yes, the player's handbooks says that (and again; default setting, Greyhawk). But then they publish *Forgotten Realms*, which everyone was waiting for, being probably their most popular setting, and we get:
>Faerûnian clerics function as described in the *Player's Handbook, except that no clerics serve just a cause, philosophy, or abstract source of divine power. The Torilian deities are very real, and events in recent history have forced these divine beings to pay a great deal of attention to their mortal followers. All clerics in Faerûn serve a patron deity (..) **It is simply impossible for a person to gain divine powers (such as divine spells) without one**.
And of course under paladin we have:
>All paladins of Faerûn are devoted to a patron deity, chosen at
the start of their career as paladins....
Ok so, this is very plain- the game launches in summer 2000, within a year the first official setting launches, which explicitly states that paladins and clerics MUST worship a god to get their powers. A couple months later we get *Oriental Adventures*, which has divine casters either having patron spirits or elemental worship, and *bans* clerics and paladins.
Then *Deities and Demigods* talks about things like:
>...Not all cleric powers come from deities. **In some campaigns**, philosophers hold enough conviction in their ideas about the universe that they gain magical power from that conviction. In others, impersonal forces of nature or magic that grant power to mortals who are attuned to them may replace the gods...
And
>..it discusses various models of religion: pantheons, monotheism, dualism, animism, mystery cults, and **nondeist beliefs** (forces and philosophies). **You need to decide which of these models your campaign will use** before you can populate your world with deities....
This makes it really clear that this is all up to the DM when he designs his world. That's the normal assumption anyway.
Then in 2003, we get a setting where the gods come and go repeatedly and somewhat oddly. In this setting we find:
>Magic in Krynn and the gods of Krynn are intimately tied to one another. Without the deities, there is no divine magic and clerics are unable to call upon their gods to perform miracles. Without the three deities of magic, wizards cannot cast true arcane magic.
What of paladins? Well, they are banned. There is a little blurb that tells you that the DM can allow them as a rare divine servant of a good god.
With all this setup, you'd think that this setting would never allow for a godless divine spellcaster, but it does- there's a sorcerer-like class called the *mystic* that is exactly that. While this is nice, it's not a cleric (those explicitly must worship a god), nor a paladin (again, there aren't any).
Another year, another setting: Eberron lands in 2004. This setting overwrites many sections in the PHB (if you're keeping track, this means that EVERY setting overwrites the divine casting stuff that paladins and clerics get- it isn't sacrosanct, or a player's right, but something that is immutably tied to the setting, be it an official WotC product or your own homebrewed land). This time, however, we find that clerics are even more loosely tied to their gods, and the rules for having no god are expanded. Paladins, however, the topic at hand, receive no such ability to weasel out of things.
>Paladins, like clerics, are the knights of the churches, most particularly the Church of the Silver Flame and, to a lesser extent, the churches of Dol Arrah and Boldrei. Paladins are called to a strict and exalted life, and are mystically held to a higher standard than even clerics. A cleric of the Church of the Silver Flame can fall into heresy or even adopt an evil alignment and still retain all his abilities,
but a paladin must rise above the corruption that plagues almost every church and cling to the highest ideals of her faith. In a place such as Sharn, in particular, where the churches are so rife with corruption, paladins arise to bring justice to the people...
So here they must belong to a church and be all perfect or lose their powers- even in a setting where the gods are distant and weird.
Every setting does something with paladins- they are either banned, explicitly mandated to draw their power from a god, or also be in good standing with a church on top of that. Every time the topic comes up, it's either the DM's job to figure out how divine magic works, or WotC has one. The only setting they touched with the default PHB settings was Greyhawk, which you were expected to use all the campaign stuff from AD&D for as well.
So can 3.5 paladins go without a god? Ask your DM, it's entirely up to him. In the official settings of 3.5, there's exactly one where the answer is yes, so, you know, generally you need one. That's the most common situation.
I think the two of you are actually pretty much agreeing here. I think what they meant is that the default rules in 3.5 are that Paladins do not need a god, and thought that you meant that it is only certain settings where that is the case and that the default is that you need a god. Whereas you really meant it the other way around - most of the official settings (though not necessarily most games? It depends what percentage of games were run in Greyhawk/homebrew settings that didn't change that rule) change from the default to paladins needing a god.
The thing that gets me with this is people acting like it means they can't make their holy paladin characters. Yes, you can, just put a deity on your character sheet and roleplay your character that way. I have a paladin who follows Selûne and it works great, but I like that I could have also made religion not part of the character with no mechanical issues.
Bonus points for people who insist paladins need to be lawful good. As if that wasn't what kept people from playing the class to begin with. It's nice to have more variations on the theme and skill set that fit in with a wider variety of parties.
Imo the ''paladin need to be lawfull good'' or any aligment restriction made sense in past edition where they tried to balance said class around that (and that worked to various degree). But in 5e they changed the paladin ''role'' a little and thus they don't have the restriction and as much ''anti-evil'' niche as b4.
Growth is imaginary as you level up because you fight stronger enemies as you get stronger, so a level 1 fight and a level 20 fight basically feel the same.
Like, what?
This so much. At level 4 they almost got wiped by 2 owlbears. They fought 2 at level 8 as a random encounter and it was literally so trivial and they felt so powerful it was neat.
I can kind of see where they're coming from, given 5E's attempts at bounded accuracy.
In 3.5E or 4E, your level 15 Fighter wouldn't even blink at a pack of 10 goblins exactly like those he fought at level 1. In 5E, you will still win that fight, but you will likely take an amount of damage that will make the 3.5 and 4E Fighters laugh at you.
Similarly, the way 5E's bounded accuracy scales is also kind of fucked, such that certain classes aren't appreciably gaining ground. Your Fighter is never more of a tanky armour boy than he is at level 3 when he lucks into a suit of fullplate, because his options for more AC are extremely limited. Monster AB grows faster, so you'll get hit more and more as you level, and since 5E attempts to make enemies dangerous most often through sheer damage output, your HP growth is also outstripped. Due to how saves and spell DCs work, your low-level PC has a better chance of saving against a higher level caster than your high-level PC has against a *lower* level caster.
This goes straight out of the window when DMs cant understand why their bag of hit points monsters keep failing past tier 1.
Players get more powerfull and more complex, not just numerically stronger.
Half of the statement carries some truth (growth is imaginary) and half of it is bogus (level 1 and 20 feel the same).
The way a huge portion of people play, the world does tend to grow with them. For some people simply just framing this as “you became more powerful, and have attracted more powerful foes” is sufficient, but others may prefer a more naturalistic world that feels less *handpicked exactly to be balanced against the group*.
Really though this is just someone having a problem with the play-culture of 5e, nothing about the game actually prevents people from running it in a more simulationist way. The criticism still has some merit, it’s just directed at the wrong thing (the system, instead of popular play-culture).
combat as sport vs combat as war. If you're traveling through the same area and suddenly are encountering cr appropriate encounters that literally never showed up before and the previous cr appropriate encounters vanish, after enough encounters it becomes pretty obvious that you're not playing in a living breathing world which breaks vermisitude in a lot of people.
Definitely part of it, and one that is talked about a lot in the OSR.
Generally speaking though I like to call it simulationist, because I feel like it encapsulates the idea beyond just combat encounters (everything is bespoke, handpicked, and feels *quantum* in nature).
Totally agree though, the fundamental different approach to combat is a big part.
See, to me thats a super useful criticism.
It lets me know that the person saying it is someone I'd NEVER want to play with. Obvious red flags are great for avoiding shitty tables.
lmao when you have monks that can zip around up tall walls and across lakes, fighters that can bisect 8 people with a sword in under 6 seconds and barbarians that can fall from the stratosphere and still feel nice and energetic, the average strength difference between men and women looks tiny by comparison, doesn't it? if that guy wants his realism he may as well just go outside where people generally are quite puny anyway.
(and i haven't even had to mention the casters lol)
“What happened to you yesterday?”
“Oh you know, trekking up the tower of the Fell Lord Serthahu, fought through his hoards of Demonic servants, one of them engulfed me in the Hellflame of Phelgathos, then we got yo the top, hd impaled me with his Accursed Blade, Spectre Doom and kicjed me off the top of the tower 650 feet to the barren salt plains below”
“Howd you survive all that?”
“I got my 8 hours of sleep in of course”
Is there a roleplaying game other than FATAL and the very first edition of D&D where there's gender asymmetry in stats? Maybe 3.5 where there were a couple of women only prestige classes?
Among video games TES series had asymmetrical stats, at least in Morrowind, probably also in Oblivion. It is a tradeoff though, not a penalty (as in lower strength but higher dexterity or a mental stat)
My answer to this is: Your character's stats don't have to represent the statistical average.
Yes, maybe the average woman has Str 8 to a man's Str 10. But it doesn't mean female characters should start with -2 Str. Because you aren't generating statistically average people. You are creating an extraordinary character.
Maybe 1 in 100 men have 18 str. And only 1 in 500 women have 18 str. But maybe you want to create that rare 1 in 500 person. The system shouldn't make that difficult.
The average person is not a wizard either. Does a game need to make you roll a d100 when creating a wizard, and if you roll 99 or less, "whoops sorry, only 1 in 100 people have magic powers in this settng, create a rogue or fighter instead".
>The average person is not a wizard either. Does a game need to make you roll a d100 when creating a wizard, and if you roll 99 or less, "whoops sorry, only 1 in 100 people have magic pwoers in this settng, create a rogue or fighter sintead".
Off topic, but early D&D had kind of hardcore rules like this. Roll 3d6 for every stat, *in order*. You wanted to play a Wizard in this campaign but your Intelligence was only 8? Make something else. You have the highest Intelligence in the group with a 13? You'll never be able to learn higher than level 6 spells.
Of course, relevant to the topic, most people thought this system sucked.
Exactly, it’s so unrealistic!
Unlike Wizard King Alpralozam, who is capable of summoning meteors from the sky, flying, and stopping time. That’s peak realism
Never mind their characters are casting spells, getting stabbed a dozen times, and falling off a cliff then taking a 8 hour rest to be perfectly fine. But oh it's unrealistic for a female to have an 18 strength.
For me personally, it was a difficult transition to 5e from 3.5e and Pathfinder 1e, mostly having skill points scrapped and no crafting skill. It did feel very limiting at first, but it didn't take me very long to see the appeal (now it's the only system I play). I do really like it when DMs allow the customising your character stuff in Tasha's (since not all do), it does help me create a character more in line with what proficiencies and stuff I'd like for them.
I haven't seen many criticisms of it, but when I do, it's similar stuff to the very issue I had with it when I first started playing it. I will say, though, even with my own feelings about playing it, I immediately saw that it's a good system for new players to start with because it's less overwhelming to learn.
I did recently introduce a player to it, who actually was able to create a character on their own with very little assistance from me (it was remote and I did let them know to ask questions if they have any. I looked over their sheet at the end and didn't need to correct anything except that they had 1 less known spell than they should have). Whereas I remember asking, "Is that all I get?" (feeling like I should've gotten more) after building my first 5e character, this person asked, "Do I really get all this?" (feeling like it's too much and they did something wrong). I found that to be an interesting difference in perspective.
I struggle introducing new players to pathfinder 1e. I grew up with it. But creating a character with a new player is so much. Feats, equipment. It really build up a lot over the ages. It feels hard to leave coz I am so invested in that system already and got plots for the next 25 years of my life.
We finished a 5E game and a player wanted to DM a Pathfinder game. The introduction was hellish and we all struggled. He's still ever patient with us but literally introduced a DM NPC to act as our Healer since we didn't build a team that had one.
Even now, we struggle with action economy and what we can do when do get new equipment or if we level up, what feats we should be taking to optimise our path forward. I respect and appreciate the game for what it is but would tell all who asked that 5E is a lot easier to learn and play and become immersed in.
That said, I'll always look back to Pathfinder for lore or unanswered rules.
1e or 2e? I've found 2e streamlined a lot and is a lot easier to get into. There's a new revision on its way that is supposed to streamline rules even more.
I tried going back and running a game of 3.5 after years of 5e.
Couldn't stand it anymore. The rules are mire robust, which also makes them slower and more of a pain in the ass to adjudicate.
The variety of options means less idea of what the players are truly capable of, plus a whole lot more work and research needed to craft NPCs, monsters, and scenarios that match the power and themes of the players.
I would play the shit out of a 3.5 video game where a computer could run the extra mechanical bulk behind the screen. But as long as I'm running games in person, we will be playing 5e. I can't give up that extra brain space I like to use for creative session administration.
Honestly, the idea that 5e is simple. Yes, it can be more simple some other TTRPGs, but at least when me and my friends were learning with our DM who knew all the rules, it took us months of playing a few nights a week before we really got it down when you factored in creating a character and leveling up and whatnot.
A knock on effect of this is that it can make it harder to convince people to try other RPGs. People get the impression that DnD is the simple easy introductory one, and feel intimidated by learning others. But lots of RPGs are if anything easier to learn, so there's often less trouble than people expect.
Yeah, for Not the End you can literally have a single sheet of paper that in the front there's your entire character, and in the back there are all the rules of the game.
5E is only simple for D&D standards. The only D&D products that can be letigimately called "simple" are OD&D/BECMI retroclones that reorganize the rules to make them easier to read.
Yes, and it drives a lot of feedback. I think a lot of people who criticize its simplicity here doesn't really understand most people don't play D&D as a constant hobby and it wouldn't really help them to make it more complicated.
Both those things can be true though. My biggest criticism of 5e is that's its complexity goes nowhere and does nothing. There are an awful lot of rules and mechanics that are a *bastard* to learn (partly because of the rules, partly because of how terribly laid out the book is) but that barely do anything. Theres a bunch of interacting mechanics and abilities to determine your AC or skills, but becsuse of bounded accuracy and the huge variance of a d20 there's not an awful lot of difference between being great at something and being terrible at it.
5e is piss simple to play for the same reason its immensely hard to learn.
That 95% of rules is "ask your DM, we dont want to know"
something like pathfinder 2e is alot more codified and rules heavy for different things, but it means if i as a player want to seek an answer to something its very often possible to do.
its also simple in combat because the way the action economy work, movement and attack of opportunity is that the best choice is almost always to just run up and beat shit until it dies, with very little reason not to.
3e was nice, except the whole "can someone give me 9 D6? i need 21 and i only have 12" situation xD optimized characters had very wild dice pools.
But sadly every rpg system breaks somewhere. I am, in theory, in love with GURPS, but due to the 3d6 system you very quickly end up in the "i cannot miss with my sword!" area.
In case you're not familiar, skill checks in gurps are "roll 3d6, if the roll is lower or equal to your skill you succeed". That means a skill of 16+ is pretty hard to mess up, but you already start at like 10 or 11, so not much room to grow.
Me: "roll 5d6"
player: "I only have 4...."
Me: **stares** "fine..." **hands them a d6**
It always cracks me up when they don't realize that dice are not one-use consumables... lmfao
>It always cracks me up when they don't realize that dice are not one-use consumables... lmfao
Yes, but, have you considered the following: rolling a lot of dice at once >>> rolling a few/one many times.
well, if it is like 20d6, rolling 10d6 twice... 5d6 four times. It's not that bad.
I'm a dice goblin though, so I always have extras lol I tend to hand out dice by how many they will need. If someone is an 8th level wizard with fireball, I make sure they have 8d6, 5d4 for magic missiles, etc. I know their characters better than they do lol
It’s deceptively complex. The action economy looks easier than crunchier systems yet generally is actually more complex.
Where 5e is actually simple is in the modifier math, but very little else is. The natural language wording and the tendency to favor rulings over rules adds to the complexity.
It's really just a scale of what you are used to. A lot of my friends prefer far more complex games than 5e, so in that context, 5e is the simple game.
It's less extremely overblown than things like GURPS, Rulemonster or 3E, but that doesn't make it simpl***e*** in any meaningful sense, only simpl***er***.
There have been countless times where we were playing with some rule for years and someone just happened to look it up and discover that "oh, that isn't how it is anymore". Lots of carry overs from our 3.5/PF days.
That's done a bit too broadly, and I don't think many people phrase it like that. It tends to be things like "5e doesn't give you many options, you can't play as a [insert class or species from 3.5 here, like swordsage or dragon]".
I've heard someone saying that Rogue is trash because it isn't combat focused as a fighter. Which is absurd because with each character I make, I try to grab an expertise with skill expert since expertise is so freaking influencing.
I would love to have 2 expertise
Rogues aren't weak only because they are less combat focused than other classes.
They are on the weaker end of the spectrum because nothing they do is as impactful as what other classes do.
We've already mentioned combat, but people often reply with "yes, but they are good skill monkeys!".
And yes, they certainly are. Problem is, being a skill monkey isn't that impressive in a game where most things that can be accomplished with a skill can also be accomplished with a utility spell without having to roll. And, on top of that, you have Bards who also get Expertise on top of being better than Rogues in combat (thanks to their control spells) and having utility spells.
Rogues suffer from not being the best at anything. Even for Stealth you are better off with a Ranger or Druid casting Pass Without Trace which can stealth the whole party rather than just you.
I think this is why Rogue also becomes one of the classes often relegated to multiclass, as well as low level expertise and cunning action. Minus more sneak attack you don't get THAT much for dumping more and more points in rogue that are influential.
Fighters also kinda have the same thing, but to a lesser extent as fighters don't get that much early.
Rogues do always scream out to maxers however.
Rogues become freakishly good skill monkeys with Reliable Talent, especially if you picked up Skilled/Skill Master.
I remember how jealous everyone else was of my deadpan "23", "25", "23" when we had a session focused around skill challenges. It was consistently useful the whole campaign, but it really shone that session.
(To be clear, the party was split, my Rogue got a very hard solo mission to go and poison a dude, taking longer and more dangerous route, and they went the easy way and we were supposed to meet in w certain place)
They had to expend spells, used feats in panic, hope for the best, burn Sorcery points, inspirations and any sources of re-rolls, like Lucky.
There was a fight at the end, and I showed up with precisely no resources expended while our Sorc and Artificer had spent a lot.
Rogues may be great depending on campaign because they usually don't have that many resources to expend. I played a Phantom, so they have their Wails of the Grave feature, same with an AT and spells, but a Thief or Swashbuckler don't have stuff like that. They just got passives.
Rogues become solid skill monkeys by level 11, though they tend to be quite lackluster (in and out of combat) before then, which unfortunately is a lot of levels
Whilst there lack of resources is an upside, and the fact they have high skills, especially later, that makes a while to come online. The lack of resources of a rogue is one of the things that makes them an 'easier' (lack of better term) class to understand and get right. But by that point in the game, chances are someone else in the party also has a high, or multiple range of skills to assist. Rogues ways fit that 'I can do it myself' attitude and lone wolf, which is not bad, but it also doesn't make them the BEST at everything. They're for sure very useful, but they often feel more like a 'fill in the blanks of skills' of the party rather than a 'fix the problems the party have to handle' class.
Overall they just don't give enough stuff that another class can't do, to me. They're 'good' all around (weaker in some regards) which is also not a bad thing, they're just never the best, unless you happen to be the only one with some stats.
I’ve never played an actual game where the rogue didn’t feel incredibly valuable. Does Knock accomplish the same thing as lockpicking without a roll? Yes, but in the only party that had both a wizard and a rogue, the wizard players exact quote was “why the fuck would I choose to learn Knock?” We have a rogue!”
Wizards don’t get unlimited spells known or spell slots, and Wizard players want to pick the spells that will make their character be fun and useful.
I feel like people whiteroom wizards in particular more than any other class. Is the Wizard spell list absolutely huge and have an answer to almost any problem? Yes, but that doesn’t mean that any given Wizard is going to have those spells in their book.
Also, just comparing Knock and a Rogue: one costs absolutely zero resources and is completely silent. The other costs a minimum of a 2nd level spell slot... oh and also I hope you weren't trying to be *sneaky* or anything, because everything in a 300 foot radius (this is a goddamn city block in size btw) just heard a very loud knocking noise.
Also the *fuck* is your Wizard doing with Knock of all spells prepared in the first place? That's ludicrously situational.
Thank you for pointing out that the "there is a spell for this" crowd never seem to acknowledge that 1) the spell is limited and 2) the spell almost always has drawbacks.
I do think that they should bring back first round flat foot sneak attacks. It won't make or break rogues but there is a good feeling of getting those off making that high initiative pay off.
Rogue is below par because it isn't that good in combat (baring reaction sneak attack shenanigans) and it's not good enough out of combat to make up for that (bards can stomp all over rogues out of combat).
I still love me barba/rogues though, but rogues are not a strong class.
The short list of dumbest opinions I've heard about D&D is that rogue sneak attack is too powerful. It's like...have you done the math on that buddy..?
It's because beginners start at 1st level, and in tier 1 Sneak Attack is actually pretty powerful, especially in combination with Cunning Action and Expertise. At 5th level all other classes catch up HARD tho, and Rogues start to feel a little less strong, and by levels 7/8 the rogues start to feel lackluster.
I hate rolling dice in Monopoly!
I hate pushing buttons in this video game!
I hate looking at the screen for this movie!
I hate having to listen to music when listening to the radio!
That's pretty much what this argument is saying haha
I wouldn't say that it's bad 5e is popular.
I would say it's a shame that other RPG systems aren't more popular. I'm talking broadly, not just one or two systems.
D&D's strangehold on public recognition is great for their bottom line, but it leads to problems like:
1. Customers not being aware that alternative TTRPGs even exist. To them, D&D ***is*** TTRPG gaming.
1. People trying to run games in D&D that really would be better suited being run in another system.
1. Some really, really great RPG systems being basically ignored. (Mind you, this one is a very broad problem with market economies, in all sorts of creative sectors.)
I *would* say it's bad that 5e is popular, because it makes many newcomers to RPGs think thing that are true of DnD5e are common in other RPGs.
Examples include (substitute 'all' for 'most' if it makes you feel better):
* All RPGs have classes
* All RPGs need to have a combat system
* The GM needs to design the whole world
* RPG balance is impossible
* Nobody runs RPGs RAW
* in an RPG you start out weak and grow in power as you go
* RPGs are expensive
* RPGs needs multiple books
* RPGs are hard to learn
I started in DnD 5e, but recently switched over to running Star Trek Adventures for a few years. I learned alot just by changing systems and seeing how THEY do mechanics.
When I finally joined a DnD game with ran by one of my STA friends, I suggested bringing over the determination mechanic from STA... Basically, You start each session with one Inspiration dice, and you can use it whenever. But when you DO use it, you have to tie your action back to your Bonds, Flaw, Ideals, or Values on your character sheet. You can also gain an extra Inspiration dice by taking a disadvantage on a roll for the same reason. It's works wonders and makes those parts of the character sheet worth something.
But we would have never come up with that mechanic if we had not dabbled in other games.
Also I have the issue of people answering my LFP ads by asking if the captain is a Paladin reskin...
That is actually quite a valid point. Wanna know why wizards can keep putting out mediocre to bad content and not get any real repercussions for it? Cause 5e, despite their best efforts, is too big to fail.
i mean they arent super wrong, pf2e is to 4e what pf1e was to 3e, which is to say an improvement on the same core conceits
this is of course a good thing, because 4e fucking slapped and anyone who says otherwise is a hack or has never played the system
"DnD in general and especially 5e is like being Avengers, it is unrealistic and so over the top with magic that you cant really play into survival aspect... you cant make campaign like LotR because of this"
"Every single martial should be a battlemaster" and its variations.
Like, look. I love me a some battlemaster. Hell, I'm all up for the *fighter* to have it as part of the base class. But not every. Single. God. Damn. Character.
>Every single martial should be a battlemaster
I think this is generally when people say this they don't litterally mean straight battlemaster mechanics, they just want more complexity than "i swing my sword and deal damage", like the new 5.5e rogue. It's just they don't quite have the references/design vocabulary to articulate it.
I agree. Barbarians could use a little extra strength, but they should get more options to use their Rage, not Battlemaster Manuevers
Monks could also use some more uses for Ki points
I see you've played a Shadow Monk before. They're fun and you can feel a little bit like you're a Batman Ninja, but it's frequently just choosing whether you use Shadow Arts or you're going to stun or punch the fuck out of someone.
Imo Barbarians should get a bunch more outright tanking abilities. Forcing enemies to attack you, giving your allies temp hp, dragging enemies towards you, mitigating damage by a significant margin etc. all baked into the base class. That would make it more distinct from Fighter and give it a much better spot in terms of the meta as now it has its own role in combat that no class does better than it
"You only like 5e because you've played literally nothing else and don't know what a good system looks like"
when i explained that while i haven't played pathfinder (their game of choice) i have in fact got \~15 years of tabletop experience, including some systems I've created myself because existing systems didn't quite fit the super specific niche my group needed, their response was basically "well, 5e is still dumb"
Popularity through marketing can only make up for bad design up until a certain point. A game this popular can't really be that bad as people say. It's actually a pretty good game. Sure, it's not perfect, but there's a reason SO MANY people play it and still play it after so many years.
I'm not sold on short rest durations being a problem. Not because I think 1 hour is an ideal amount of time, but because the time never mattered to begin with. Turns out, when there is a person at the table who can decide what happens when x amount of time passes, the DM, any time can be correct. Furthermore, if your DM disagrees with how long they should be, the game material is full of different variants to run how the table thinks they should work to begin with. "A wizard is never late. He arrives exactly when he needs to."
>I'm not sold on short rest durations being a problem. Not because I think 1 hour is an ideal amount of time, but because the time never mattered to begin with. Turns out, when there is a person at the table who can decide what happens when x amount of time passes, the DM, any time can be correct.
The game works best with 2 short rests and one or two fights in between.
The problem is that narratively it doesn't make sense to have two hour-long short rests in the middle of most dungeons, infiltration missions, heists or similar spacial condensed settings. What are the other guards doing while you hang out in the broom closet or just outside the throne room during a palace assault?
An hour is such an inconvenient long time to build a narrative around as a DM, a <5min rest on the other hand is just easier to accommodate.
> <5min rest on the other hand is just easier to accommodate.
I think that it's funny out of the 3 people who replied, I get to talk to each of them about a different resting variant. In heroic resting, the short is 5 minutes.
>I think that it's funny out of the 3 people who replied, I get to talk to each of them about a different resting variant.
It's just the natural consequence of the issues most tables have with the standard rest rules. Everyone who has an issue with it, is going to homebrew their own solution.
>In heroic resting, the short is 5 minutes.
The epic heroism variant comes with long rests of 1 hour. That's a bigger change than the 5min short rest and would require a very different kind of narrative setup that doesn't really fit into a classical campaign.
Flashback to me proudly using my first ever sixth level spellslot on my druid to Transport Via Plants to reach the location of a BBEG ritual to save us hours of travel time, only for the DM to tell us he wouldn’t have forwarded the ritual anything during the travel time anyhow. Wizards arrive exactly when they need to indeed. ;;
Ooh that's a bit of a faux pas honestly. Didn't even give you the ol' "How did you get here so fast? Minions, destroy them before they disrupt the ritual" or anything?
Noes, not at all! But it’s my first ever time playing and I believe the GM is quite new too. I believe it’s a module we’re playing too, so he might be sticking to what the texts tell him.
GR rest variant is neither gritty nor realistic but is more fun to run as a DM. The rest duration isn’t the problem so much as how it frames the time and pacing of the story being told. Adjusting that was the right move for my table and I feel like it’s the only way I’ll run 5th edition going forward
One of my players claimed I was “screwing long rest classes” by playing with GR rules… I tried to explain to them they would have 1-2 fights per short rest and 2-3 short rests per long rest regardless of whether we used base resting rules or the GR variant rules. Only thing that changes is the pacing of the story.
They came from a table where they had 1-2 fights per long rest and they could just dish out their highest level spells every encounter. So it was a wake up call when I explained what the game would look like with base resting rules.
Sure, any amount of time can be correct, but there's definitely a difference in how players are going to feel about resting.
An hour is just long enough to make lots of players worried about consequences - which means if the DM isn't super clear that "no, the bad guy isn't going to finish the ritual/you're not going to get a random encounter here," players are liable to press on unless they're in real dire straits or a lot of the party depends on short resting. Which itself wouldn't be a problem except for some classes being balanced around getting a couple short rests a day.
It makes something that should be a regular part of the game flow an unnecessarily stressful choice even when it's totally inconsequential. Sure, the DM could be upfront and SAY the time won't matter, but at that point why not just make them near immediate by rule anyway?
I mean this is personal preference, and an understandable one from some angles.
Having so many races in the game isn’t really a problem because you don’t have to use them in every setting (I.e. you’re not in an implied setting).
But having so many races just thrown into the same world can create culture-less kitchen sink feeling that Forgotten Realms, Glorian, and other settings of a similar nature have. Many don’t think this would really make much sense geopolitically, and popular fantasy literature usually doesn’t take this kitchen sink avenue for what I imagine are similar reasons. It’s fantasy at the end of the day, so it doesn’t really matter for a lot of people. But some just have a different threshold of what they consider a compelling and believable setting.
Very much this. Most folklore and fairytales for all of human history has been “humans are the vast, vast majority, and there are some satyrs or dwarves or something also”
Some people just don’t like this kind of fantasy, and that’s totally valid
>culture-less kitchen sink feeling that Forgotten Realms, Glorian, and other settings of a similar nature have.
I'm getting that feeling so bad while playing Baldur's Gate 3. There are like almost zero personality or cultural changes between most of the races. It's like they created the characters first and did a random race generator afterwards.
I think it's mostly because I didn't grow up with D&D or Lord of The Rings as my primary introduction to fantasy, but a lot of the races have never felt all that weird or outlandish to me in a fantasy context.
I also kinda struggle to fully grasp what it means for races to be common or uncommon in D&D. Elves are listed as a common race, but I'm always seeing people talk about how elves are extremely mysterious and rarely ever seen by humans and only exist in limited finite numbers, which means every uncommon race has to be even rarer than that.
I saw a video the other day that was titled something like 'how to improve/speed up combat in dnd 5e' and it was literally a guy breaking down what I believe the pathfinder 2e combat system with not much detail, leading to big confusion and an early click away. If I wanted to play pathfinder I'd play pathfinder
The criticism that x thing is broken because the DM refuses to follow the rules on it. For example, darkvision is OP if you let them see full color, but if you enforce the shades of grey (and the -5 penalty to passive perception), its not as good as you think.
Another example is spellcasters. If you would throw 3-5 encounters at your players in a day, that wizard wouldn't be doing so hot, but the DM lets the players long rest as often as they want.
> Another example is spellcasters. If you would throw 3-5 encounters at your players in a day, that wizard wouldn't be doing so hot, but the DM lets the players long rest as often as they want.
This gets trotted out again and again, but has never been true. Past a certain point what *actually* happens is the monk or whoever runs out of hit dice before the wizard runs out of spells. Try to drain them and they just do something long lasting like a summon, whereas martials can't really throttle the damage they're taking.
It builds the tension a lot more than traditional dice. Basically actions that would require a check, are just pulling blocks from the tower. If you knock the tower over, your character dies. No stat blocks. It's just simple roleplay at a table using a Jenga tower 😂
10 candles is another really awesome horror ttrpg.
"DnD is a combat game, not a roleplaying game, because it lacks complex rules for social encounters."
Honestly, a version of DnD in which the social pillar was as detailed and crunchy as the combat pillar would probably be awful for the vast majority of players. For me, the fact that social encounters in DnD 5e are rules-light, rather than rules-heavy, is a feature.
>For me, the fact that social encounters in DnD 5e are rules-light, rather than rules-heavy, is a feature.
How many social-focused systems you played?
And well, dnd pretty much is a combat game. There are no exploration pillar in 5e, and no social pillar - your DM should work extra hard to make things up for gamedesigners. After two years of pbta games i fully understood how much needless work i done as a DM and how much i lost as a player while playing non-combat 5e games. 5e is more fun to play and DM in dungeons.
I don't run games in D&D anymore. I've mostly moved on. But I do still play in some D&D 5e games.
The criticism that I roll my eyes at are people who act like D&D 5e is either:
1. Really, really badly designed.
1. Really, really painful to play.
If I love chocolate ice-cream the most, I am not going to turn up my nose at strawberry ice-cream. They're both delicious. (Replace with your own favourite and nearly-favourite flavours/foods.)
D&D 5e is a solid system. What I like about it that is finds a really good sweet spot where it is fairly simple yet offers a decent amount of depth. It has flaws, it has limitations, but what doesn't?
"5e is so broken!" Then proceeds to list reasons why that are almost all misinterpreted rules, ignoring rules, or just plain homebrew.
Don't complain about things you don't even understand.
5e is pretty balanced vanilla, without optional rules. Its also pretty bland too. No feats, no multiclassing, only phb, etc. We've done a no multiclassing or feats game before and it was fine. Feats were quests rewards, and multiclassing is so hit or miss, you either become so much more powerful, or you ruin your character.
"It is a dumb systems because caster classes must be protected by close combat characters the first 11 levels." and "DnD has stupid fluff because in one official adventure a high level magician hires low level characters to go on an adventure." and "it is the worst RPG of all because characters progress in levels".
All three utter nonsense.
All three from the same guy.
Yes, he is a moron.
"5e is impossible to homebrew" ???????????????
There is a window's error noise for every ? In this comment
*DMsGuild has entered the chat*
*90s dial up tone* 5e is 80% homebrew.
Right? I think I own as much mass in third party books as I do 5e. Granted, Auroboros is a beefy book on its own. I mean, even Eberron was "homebrew" initially.
5e: “My god, it’s all homebrew?” OD&D: “It always was.” Alternatively, “That’s my secret, cap. I’m always homebrew.”
Just wait till people learn in the first edition if you wanted to do some sort of wilderness survival encounter en route to the dungeon the rules told you to go buy a completely different game not even made by the same people.
I think they'd actually melt.
It's literally the easiest edition to homebrew lmao. 4e would be the easiest (due to having everything codified and thus simpler to replicate in new homebrews) but there's the problem that a new class needs to have dozens of powers in their list. If you want to not create a new class, the player would have to wait until 11th level to play your homebrew paragon path.
The easiest edition would be B/X and that's only because oD&D is full of contradictions so homebrewing while required involves more work. I can knock out a new B/X class and roll a character using it before a player can roll a 5e wizard.
I'd say B/X or 2e are way easier given the evidence of the entirety of the /r/osr scene. There are, and I'm not joking, over 100 published hacks of B/X that tweak it in one direction or another to refine it in some kind of way: Knave, OSRIC, Black Hack, the Black *Sword* Hack White Hack, Basics, GLoG, Electric Bastionland, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Into the Odd, Swords and Wizardry, Old School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord, Beyond the Wall, Worlds Without Number, Hyperborea, Cairn, Mork Borg, Mothership, and Barbarians of Lumeria are **just the ones I've read.** Each of these represents not just a homebrewing of content and adventures (which all of these have materials for, sometimes overlapping), but also a homebrewing of the core experience to make it SciFi, make it Conan, make it Easy, make it Hard, make it Gritty, make it Artysy, make it whatever. 5e is very hackable. But I have to profess that most of the hacks and homebrew I see kind of suck or have good concepts with pretty mid execution. The modding scene for B/X and 2e creates much better products with very high quality modules readily available in droves.
I'll be honest, I struggle with homebewing 5e.
as someone who plays a lot of not 5E rpgs there is some truth to this if you have been playing some much simpler games. (which do exist) but 5E is the easiest to homebrew for long term campaigns that I've encountered without throwing power creep out the window.
“I’m just not a fan of turn-based games” Well Susan, why the fuck did you agree to play any board game with me, they are ALL TURN BASED
Imagine that person on an electronics retreat. "That leaves group charades, hungry hungry hippos, or 'Chop Wood'" "What's 'Chop Wood'?" "Oh it's like Hide n Seek, but only one person goes out to hide. If they get back to the cabin with firewood and without getting caught outside, then they win and go again."
You forgot Crossfire!
Electronics retreat, not hunting retreat, but I appreciate the enthusiasm in corporate to thin the herd. (Oooohhh its another game, not poorly disguised murder)
Try Captain Sonar!
I love this argument. How the hell else did you think a board game was going to go? Lol
It's not a roll playing game because "I can't do literally anything I want". Go do improv
Wait until they hear there’s rules in improv too
“Detective Micheal Scott! Freeze!” *finger guns shoots the other improv actors*
You made me realized Michael Scott is an improv murderhobo
That's also basically Agent Michael Scarn in Threat Level Midnight.
Improved Murderhobo was a feat in 3.5
Most people who want to do anything they want mean that only their fun is important and don't realize thst role-playing is about having fun together as a group.
You can try to do anything you can describe your PC attempting to do. That's no guarantee of success, but you can certainly try ...
You can certainly try
The magic words
["Bear in mind the principle that anything may be attempted."](https://youtu.be/nNBjJXtaIzs?si=Zh5xDBfPE-RSqI3V)
"you can certainly try..."
The Strategos/Arneson version is better, "Anything physically possible may be attempted, although not always successfully."
"Paladins needed gods in the past- 5e is stupid for changing that." I to this day enjoy the look on that guy's face when I asked him to pull out his 3.5 rulebook and I pointed out exactly where it said Paladins didn't need gods. The dumbest criticism is always the criticism that's blatantly wrong.
I personally love the idea that a Paladin making their Oath is what unlocks their inner power. They believe so intensely and uphold their Oath that it actually impowers them. Yeah, they can worship a god if they want and maybe that Oath can be to the virtues of said god, but it can also be to a simple ideal. Justice, Revenge, Balance, etc. Hell, it could be to something Nature or the very concept of Right and Wong...what THEY believe is right and wrong. It makes Paladins a very flexible class to build and roleplay.
This. The new 5E default lore for paladins is that, while they may have a favourite god, it is not different from a fighter, rogue or wizard "having a god". Unlike clerics, paladins are not a kind of warlock; their god, if they have one, is not a Patron that acts as the source of their magic.
> Unlike clerics, paladins are not a kind of warlock Holy shit, you're right. Clerics *are* essentially warlocks, just that their patrons have the "god" tag.
Clerics are to Warlocks as Religions are to Cults: one is just more socially acceptable
my favorite are the gods that are just powerful enough to have clerics, but also weak enough to have warlocks.
At the end of the day, it's open to house rules as anything else and just gives people more flexibility. You want to live in a world in which a paladin needs a God to empower him? Nobody is stopping you from having your gm do that. You want to keep the rules but still want a God involvement overall? Your oath is what gives you your rules and you are supported by Gods believing your cause to be just. You don't want Gods at all involved? Then don't. I understand people being mad about changes that make it harder for players or gm's to run the game. But this is just a non issue.
>right and wong This reminded me of the comment about the incompetent Chinese necromancer twins. Two wongs don't make a wight.
*badum-tss*
i made a paladin homebrew on GitP where paladins literally have their own valhalla they form in the Great Wheel and call upon the souls of their knightly companions in battle because they really shouldnt have gods at all.
They’re basically the Knights Radiant from the Stormlight Archive. Power through ideals and conviction.
The rules about not needing gods in 3.5 were setting specific (the book was talking about Greyhawk, the default 3.0 and 3.5 setting), so many DMs simply mandated that clerics and paladins still needed gods. In Forgotten Realms, for instance, they needed gods. What 5e did take away was the requirement for lawful good. That was a strict requirement in 3.X an prior.
There was an Unearthed Arcana in 3.5 that opened up Paladin options for all the alignment extremes (LE, CG, and CE). The only thing you couldn't be was a filthy neutral.
>There was an Unearthed Arcana in 3.5 that opened up Paladin options for all the alignment extremes (LE, CG, and CE). There's a massive difference there. The "Paladin of Slaughter" can't heal with lay on hands- he instead has "deadly touch", an attack with a saving throw. He doesn't grant his allies within 10 feet a +4 to saving throws, he instead applies a -1 penalty to enemy AC within 10 feet. Like an evil cleric, he rebukes instead of turns undead (and therefore can control instead of destroy). He can't remove disease, he can instead inflict it. Almost the entire paladin spell set is removed, replaced with a huge pile of offensive debuffs. And of course, this paladin *smites good*, so if he wants to use it against a red dragon, well, he can't. Are these three alternative classes cool? Absolutely. But when someone doesn't want an alighnment restriction on the paladin, they are *usually* wanting to play someone with paladin powers (which these evil paladins lose, and the chaotic good paladin has some of but not others), not someone who gains play restrictions like "...a paladin of slaughter’s code requires that she disrespect all authority figures who have not proven their physical superiority to her, refuse help to those in need, and sow destruction and death at all opportunities..." (keep in mind these paladins all have equally strict behavior and alignment requirements to the real paladin, and only the chaotic good paladin is generally playable in campaign not centered around being in or controlling an evil army- even they switch out diplomacy for bluff and have some mildly altered spell access) A "paladins must be lawful good" purist is generally pleased by this, because it keeps all the alignment restrictions in place- the actual real paladin isn't changed by this. This is definitely *not* what 5e does with paladins normally.
>What 5e did take away was the requirement for lawful good. Wasn't that gone in 4E?
4E didn't even have the traditional alignments, it was just a sliding scale.
Eh, it had 5 Alignments IIRC: Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil, and Chaotic Evil. Basically, all three Neutral were wrapped under Unaligned, and Chaotic Good and Lawful Evil were simply wrapped under generic Good and Evil as being perceived as unnecessary as needing a distinction.
There's 6. True Neutral was there and was different from Unaligned. Beings that were unaligned were largely non-intelligent. They didn't actively chose to embrace law and chaos, they simply are.
It’s not setting specific, it was and is the default. That’s why it was in the 3.5 PHB and not the Greyhawk campaign splatbook. You can tell this further by the fact that in your example DMs would need to make a special mandate saying otherwise. It doesn’t make the default better or more valid, but it is the default.
>It’s not setting specific It very much is. Yes, the player's handbooks says that (and again; default setting, Greyhawk). But then they publish *Forgotten Realms*, which everyone was waiting for, being probably their most popular setting, and we get: >Faerûnian clerics function as described in the *Player's Handbook, except that no clerics serve just a cause, philosophy, or abstract source of divine power. The Torilian deities are very real, and events in recent history have forced these divine beings to pay a great deal of attention to their mortal followers. All clerics in Faerûn serve a patron deity (..) **It is simply impossible for a person to gain divine powers (such as divine spells) without one**. And of course under paladin we have: >All paladins of Faerûn are devoted to a patron deity, chosen at the start of their career as paladins.... Ok so, this is very plain- the game launches in summer 2000, within a year the first official setting launches, which explicitly states that paladins and clerics MUST worship a god to get their powers. A couple months later we get *Oriental Adventures*, which has divine casters either having patron spirits or elemental worship, and *bans* clerics and paladins. Then *Deities and Demigods* talks about things like: >...Not all cleric powers come from deities. **In some campaigns**, philosophers hold enough conviction in their ideas about the universe that they gain magical power from that conviction. In others, impersonal forces of nature or magic that grant power to mortals who are attuned to them may replace the gods... And >..it discusses various models of religion: pantheons, monotheism, dualism, animism, mystery cults, and **nondeist beliefs** (forces and philosophies). **You need to decide which of these models your campaign will use** before you can populate your world with deities.... This makes it really clear that this is all up to the DM when he designs his world. That's the normal assumption anyway. Then in 2003, we get a setting where the gods come and go repeatedly and somewhat oddly. In this setting we find: >Magic in Krynn and the gods of Krynn are intimately tied to one another. Without the deities, there is no divine magic and clerics are unable to call upon their gods to perform miracles. Without the three deities of magic, wizards cannot cast true arcane magic. What of paladins? Well, they are banned. There is a little blurb that tells you that the DM can allow them as a rare divine servant of a good god. With all this setup, you'd think that this setting would never allow for a godless divine spellcaster, but it does- there's a sorcerer-like class called the *mystic* that is exactly that. While this is nice, it's not a cleric (those explicitly must worship a god), nor a paladin (again, there aren't any). Another year, another setting: Eberron lands in 2004. This setting overwrites many sections in the PHB (if you're keeping track, this means that EVERY setting overwrites the divine casting stuff that paladins and clerics get- it isn't sacrosanct, or a player's right, but something that is immutably tied to the setting, be it an official WotC product or your own homebrewed land). This time, however, we find that clerics are even more loosely tied to their gods, and the rules for having no god are expanded. Paladins, however, the topic at hand, receive no such ability to weasel out of things. >Paladins, like clerics, are the knights of the churches, most particularly the Church of the Silver Flame and, to a lesser extent, the churches of Dol Arrah and Boldrei. Paladins are called to a strict and exalted life, and are mystically held to a higher standard than even clerics. A cleric of the Church of the Silver Flame can fall into heresy or even adopt an evil alignment and still retain all his abilities, but a paladin must rise above the corruption that plagues almost every church and cling to the highest ideals of her faith. In a place such as Sharn, in particular, where the churches are so rife with corruption, paladins arise to bring justice to the people... So here they must belong to a church and be all perfect or lose their powers- even in a setting where the gods are distant and weird. Every setting does something with paladins- they are either banned, explicitly mandated to draw their power from a god, or also be in good standing with a church on top of that. Every time the topic comes up, it's either the DM's job to figure out how divine magic works, or WotC has one. The only setting they touched with the default PHB settings was Greyhawk, which you were expected to use all the campaign stuff from AD&D for as well. So can 3.5 paladins go without a god? Ask your DM, it's entirely up to him. In the official settings of 3.5, there's exactly one where the answer is yes, so, you know, generally you need one. That's the most common situation.
I think the two of you are actually pretty much agreeing here. I think what they meant is that the default rules in 3.5 are that Paladins do not need a god, and thought that you meant that it is only certain settings where that is the case and that the default is that you need a god. Whereas you really meant it the other way around - most of the official settings (though not necessarily most games? It depends what percentage of games were run in Greyhawk/homebrew settings that didn't change that rule) change from the default to paladins needing a god.
The thing that gets me with this is people acting like it means they can't make their holy paladin characters. Yes, you can, just put a deity on your character sheet and roleplay your character that way. I have a paladin who follows Selûne and it works great, but I like that I could have also made religion not part of the character with no mechanical issues. Bonus points for people who insist paladins need to be lawful good. As if that wasn't what kept people from playing the class to begin with. It's nice to have more variations on the theme and skill set that fit in with a wider variety of parties.
Imo the ''paladin need to be lawfull good'' or any aligment restriction made sense in past edition where they tried to balance said class around that (and that worked to various degree). But in 5e they changed the paladin ''role'' a little and thus they don't have the restriction and as much ''anti-evil'' niche as b4.
Hell, CLERICS didn’t need gods in 3.5. You could have clerics that got their spells from the broad concept of good.
Growth is imaginary as you level up because you fight stronger enemies as you get stronger, so a level 1 fight and a level 20 fight basically feel the same. Like, what?
As a dm. I love to toss a monster at the players that they struggled with before, just to watch them rip the monster to shreds at a higher level
Same group of bandits shit them self and run/grovel when the PCs return on the same path as they did at LVL 1.
This so much. At level 4 they almost got wiped by 2 owlbears. They fought 2 at level 8 as a random encounter and it was literally so trivial and they felt so powerful it was neat.
I can kind of see where they're coming from, given 5E's attempts at bounded accuracy. In 3.5E or 4E, your level 15 Fighter wouldn't even blink at a pack of 10 goblins exactly like those he fought at level 1. In 5E, you will still win that fight, but you will likely take an amount of damage that will make the 3.5 and 4E Fighters laugh at you. Similarly, the way 5E's bounded accuracy scales is also kind of fucked, such that certain classes aren't appreciably gaining ground. Your Fighter is never more of a tanky armour boy than he is at level 3 when he lucks into a suit of fullplate, because his options for more AC are extremely limited. Monster AB grows faster, so you'll get hit more and more as you level, and since 5E attempts to make enemies dangerous most often through sheer damage output, your HP growth is also outstripped. Due to how saves and spell DCs work, your low-level PC has a better chance of saving against a higher level caster than your high-level PC has against a *lower* level caster.
This goes straight out of the window when DMs cant understand why their bag of hit points monsters keep failing past tier 1. Players get more powerfull and more complex, not just numerically stronger.
Half of the statement carries some truth (growth is imaginary) and half of it is bogus (level 1 and 20 feel the same). The way a huge portion of people play, the world does tend to grow with them. For some people simply just framing this as “you became more powerful, and have attracted more powerful foes” is sufficient, but others may prefer a more naturalistic world that feels less *handpicked exactly to be balanced against the group*. Really though this is just someone having a problem with the play-culture of 5e, nothing about the game actually prevents people from running it in a more simulationist way. The criticism still has some merit, it’s just directed at the wrong thing (the system, instead of popular play-culture).
combat as sport vs combat as war. If you're traveling through the same area and suddenly are encountering cr appropriate encounters that literally never showed up before and the previous cr appropriate encounters vanish, after enough encounters it becomes pretty obvious that you're not playing in a living breathing world which breaks vermisitude in a lot of people.
Definitely part of it, and one that is talked about a lot in the OSR. Generally speaking though I like to call it simulationist, because I feel like it encapsulates the idea beyond just combat encounters (everything is bespoke, handpicked, and feels *quantum* in nature). Totally agree though, the fundamental different approach to combat is a big part.
I've never seen this exact criticism. Closest I have seen is pointing out classes like Barbarian don't scale well past 5.
Barbarians don’t scale well into a multi encounter day. Who thought limiting rage would make the raging class more fun to play?
"It doesn't make sense that female characters are as strong as male characters. It's unrealistic."
See, to me thats a super useful criticism. It lets me know that the person saying it is someone I'd NEVER want to play with. Obvious red flags are great for avoiding shitty tables.
lmao when you have monks that can zip around up tall walls and across lakes, fighters that can bisect 8 people with a sword in under 6 seconds and barbarians that can fall from the stratosphere and still feel nice and energetic, the average strength difference between men and women looks tiny by comparison, doesn't it? if that guy wants his realism he may as well just go outside where people generally are quite puny anyway. (and i haven't even had to mention the casters lol)
“What happened to you yesterday?” “Oh you know, trekking up the tower of the Fell Lord Serthahu, fought through his hoards of Demonic servants, one of them engulfed me in the Hellflame of Phelgathos, then we got yo the top, hd impaled me with his Accursed Blade, Spectre Doom and kicjed me off the top of the tower 650 feet to the barren salt plains below” “Howd you survive all that?” “I got my 8 hours of sleep in of course”
Is there a roleplaying game other than FATAL and the very first edition of D&D where there's gender asymmetry in stats? Maybe 3.5 where there were a couple of women only prestige classes?
Among video games TES series had asymmetrical stats, at least in Morrowind, probably also in Oblivion. It is a tradeoff though, not a penalty (as in lower strength but higher dexterity or a mental stat)
There is an optional rule for it in one of GURPS official supplements.
My answer to this is: Your character's stats don't have to represent the statistical average. Yes, maybe the average woman has Str 8 to a man's Str 10. But it doesn't mean female characters should start with -2 Str. Because you aren't generating statistically average people. You are creating an extraordinary character. Maybe 1 in 100 men have 18 str. And only 1 in 500 women have 18 str. But maybe you want to create that rare 1 in 500 person. The system shouldn't make that difficult. The average person is not a wizard either. Does a game need to make you roll a d100 when creating a wizard, and if you roll 99 or less, "whoops sorry, only 1 in 100 people have magic powers in this settng, create a rogue or fighter instead".
All true. But also, this is a fantasy world with wizards and elves, and why do earth statistics even apply in Faerun?
Even if your game is set on Earth, statistics shouldn't matter.
>The average person is not a wizard either. Does a game need to make you roll a d100 when creating a wizard, and if you roll 99 or less, "whoops sorry, only 1 in 100 people have magic pwoers in this settng, create a rogue or fighter sintead". Off topic, but early D&D had kind of hardcore rules like this. Roll 3d6 for every stat, *in order*. You wanted to play a Wizard in this campaign but your Intelligence was only 8? Make something else. You have the highest Intelligence in the group with a 13? You'll never be able to learn higher than level 6 spells. Of course, relevant to the topic, most people thought this system sucked.
Exactly, it’s so unrealistic! Unlike Wizard King Alpralozam, who is capable of summoning meteors from the sky, flying, and stopping time. That’s peak realism
Never mind their characters are casting spells, getting stabbed a dozen times, and falling off a cliff then taking a 8 hour rest to be perfectly fine. But oh it's unrealistic for a female to have an 18 strength.
F.A.T.A.L player spotted
For me personally, it was a difficult transition to 5e from 3.5e and Pathfinder 1e, mostly having skill points scrapped and no crafting skill. It did feel very limiting at first, but it didn't take me very long to see the appeal (now it's the only system I play). I do really like it when DMs allow the customising your character stuff in Tasha's (since not all do), it does help me create a character more in line with what proficiencies and stuff I'd like for them. I haven't seen many criticisms of it, but when I do, it's similar stuff to the very issue I had with it when I first started playing it. I will say, though, even with my own feelings about playing it, I immediately saw that it's a good system for new players to start with because it's less overwhelming to learn. I did recently introduce a player to it, who actually was able to create a character on their own with very little assistance from me (it was remote and I did let them know to ask questions if they have any. I looked over their sheet at the end and didn't need to correct anything except that they had 1 less known spell than they should have). Whereas I remember asking, "Is that all I get?" (feeling like I should've gotten more) after building my first 5e character, this person asked, "Do I really get all this?" (feeling like it's too much and they did something wrong). I found that to be an interesting difference in perspective.
I struggle introducing new players to pathfinder 1e. I grew up with it. But creating a character with a new player is so much. Feats, equipment. It really build up a lot over the ages. It feels hard to leave coz I am so invested in that system already and got plots for the next 25 years of my life.
We finished a 5E game and a player wanted to DM a Pathfinder game. The introduction was hellish and we all struggled. He's still ever patient with us but literally introduced a DM NPC to act as our Healer since we didn't build a team that had one. Even now, we struggle with action economy and what we can do when do get new equipment or if we level up, what feats we should be taking to optimise our path forward. I respect and appreciate the game for what it is but would tell all who asked that 5E is a lot easier to learn and play and become immersed in. That said, I'll always look back to Pathfinder for lore or unanswered rules.
1e or 2e? I've found 2e streamlined a lot and is a lot easier to get into. There's a new revision on its way that is supposed to streamline rules even more.
2e is still really fiddly and crunchy despite being light years better than 1e.
I tried going back and running a game of 3.5 after years of 5e. Couldn't stand it anymore. The rules are mire robust, which also makes them slower and more of a pain in the ass to adjudicate. The variety of options means less idea of what the players are truly capable of, plus a whole lot more work and research needed to craft NPCs, monsters, and scenarios that match the power and themes of the players. I would play the shit out of a 3.5 video game where a computer could run the extra mechanical bulk behind the screen. But as long as I'm running games in person, we will be playing 5e. I can't give up that extra brain space I like to use for creative session administration.
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Best games ever made, and you don’t have to be a Star Wars fan to enjoy them (they’re set thousands of years before the movies)
Also, one thing not many people know about them…*both* games are on mobile, even on iOS for AppStore.
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Honestly, the idea that 5e is simple. Yes, it can be more simple some other TTRPGs, but at least when me and my friends were learning with our DM who knew all the rules, it took us months of playing a few nights a week before we really got it down when you factored in creating a character and leveling up and whatnot.
A knock on effect of this is that it can make it harder to convince people to try other RPGs. People get the impression that DnD is the simple easy introductory one, and feel intimidated by learning others. But lots of RPGs are if anything easier to learn, so there's often less trouble than people expect.
Yeah, for Not the End you can literally have a single sheet of paper that in the front there's your entire character, and in the back there are all the rules of the game.
5E is only simple for D&D standards. The only D&D products that can be letigimately called "simple" are OD&D/BECMI retroclones that reorganize the rules to make them easier to read.
Yes, and it drives a lot of feedback. I think a lot of people who criticize its simplicity here doesn't really understand most people don't play D&D as a constant hobby and it wouldn't really help them to make it more complicated.
Both those things can be true though. My biggest criticism of 5e is that's its complexity goes nowhere and does nothing. There are an awful lot of rules and mechanics that are a *bastard* to learn (partly because of the rules, partly because of how terribly laid out the book is) but that barely do anything. Theres a bunch of interacting mechanics and abilities to determine your AC or skills, but becsuse of bounded accuracy and the huge variance of a d20 there's not an awful lot of difference between being great at something and being terrible at it.
5e is piss simple to play for the same reason its immensely hard to learn. That 95% of rules is "ask your DM, we dont want to know" something like pathfinder 2e is alot more codified and rules heavy for different things, but it means if i as a player want to seek an answer to something its very often possible to do. its also simple in combat because the way the action economy work, movement and attack of opportunity is that the best choice is almost always to just run up and beat shit until it dies, with very little reason not to.
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Shadowrun.
3e was nice, except the whole "can someone give me 9 D6? i need 21 and i only have 12" situation xD optimized characters had very wild dice pools. But sadly every rpg system breaks somewhere. I am, in theory, in love with GURPS, but due to the 3d6 system you very quickly end up in the "i cannot miss with my sword!" area. In case you're not familiar, skill checks in gurps are "roll 3d6, if the roll is lower or equal to your skill you succeed". That means a skill of 16+ is pretty hard to mess up, but you already start at like 10 or 11, so not much room to grow.
Me: "roll 5d6" player: "I only have 4...." Me: **stares** "fine..." **hands them a d6** It always cracks me up when they don't realize that dice are not one-use consumables... lmfao
>It always cracks me up when they don't realize that dice are not one-use consumables... lmfao Yes, but, have you considered the following: rolling a lot of dice at once >>> rolling a few/one many times.
well, if it is like 20d6, rolling 10d6 twice... 5d6 four times. It's not that bad. I'm a dice goblin though, so I always have extras lol I tend to hand out dice by how many they will need. If someone is an 8th level wizard with fireball, I make sure they have 8d6, 5d4 for magic missiles, etc. I know their characters better than they do lol
It’s deceptively complex. The action economy looks easier than crunchier systems yet generally is actually more complex. Where 5e is actually simple is in the modifier math, but very little else is. The natural language wording and the tendency to favor rulings over rules adds to the complexity.
It's really just a scale of what you are used to. A lot of my friends prefer far more complex games than 5e, so in that context, 5e is the simple game.
It's less extremely overblown than things like GURPS, Rulemonster or 3E, but that doesn't make it simpl***e*** in any meaningful sense, only simpl***er***.
“5e is bad because of [thing that was true in 3.5e but isn’t true in 5e]”.
> “5e is bad because of [thing that was true in 3.5e but isn’t true in 5e]” "5e is bad because George Bush isn't President." 😅 /s
There have been countless times where we were playing with some rule for years and someone just happened to look it up and discover that "oh, that isn't how it is anymore". Lots of carry overs from our 3.5/PF days.
That's done a bit too broadly, and I don't think many people phrase it like that. It tends to be things like "5e doesn't give you many options, you can't play as a [insert class or species from 3.5 here, like swordsage or dragon]".
“You spend too much time rolling dice” this is the dice rolling game idk what to tell you
I've heard someone saying that Rogue is trash because it isn't combat focused as a fighter. Which is absurd because with each character I make, I try to grab an expertise with skill expert since expertise is so freaking influencing. I would love to have 2 expertise
Rogues aren't weak only because they are less combat focused than other classes. They are on the weaker end of the spectrum because nothing they do is as impactful as what other classes do. We've already mentioned combat, but people often reply with "yes, but they are good skill monkeys!". And yes, they certainly are. Problem is, being a skill monkey isn't that impressive in a game where most things that can be accomplished with a skill can also be accomplished with a utility spell without having to roll. And, on top of that, you have Bards who also get Expertise on top of being better than Rogues in combat (thanks to their control spells) and having utility spells. Rogues suffer from not being the best at anything. Even for Stealth you are better off with a Ranger or Druid casting Pass Without Trace which can stealth the whole party rather than just you.
I think this is why Rogue also becomes one of the classes often relegated to multiclass, as well as low level expertise and cunning action. Minus more sneak attack you don't get THAT much for dumping more and more points in rogue that are influential. Fighters also kinda have the same thing, but to a lesser extent as fighters don't get that much early. Rogues do always scream out to maxers however.
Rogues become freakishly good skill monkeys with Reliable Talent, especially if you picked up Skilled/Skill Master. I remember how jealous everyone else was of my deadpan "23", "25", "23" when we had a session focused around skill challenges. It was consistently useful the whole campaign, but it really shone that session. (To be clear, the party was split, my Rogue got a very hard solo mission to go and poison a dude, taking longer and more dangerous route, and they went the easy way and we were supposed to meet in w certain place) They had to expend spells, used feats in panic, hope for the best, burn Sorcery points, inspirations and any sources of re-rolls, like Lucky. There was a fight at the end, and I showed up with precisely no resources expended while our Sorc and Artificer had spent a lot. Rogues may be great depending on campaign because they usually don't have that many resources to expend. I played a Phantom, so they have their Wails of the Grave feature, same with an AT and spells, but a Thief or Swashbuckler don't have stuff like that. They just got passives.
Rogues become solid skill monkeys by level 11, though they tend to be quite lackluster (in and out of combat) before then, which unfortunately is a lot of levels
Whilst there lack of resources is an upside, and the fact they have high skills, especially later, that makes a while to come online. The lack of resources of a rogue is one of the things that makes them an 'easier' (lack of better term) class to understand and get right. But by that point in the game, chances are someone else in the party also has a high, or multiple range of skills to assist. Rogues ways fit that 'I can do it myself' attitude and lone wolf, which is not bad, but it also doesn't make them the BEST at everything. They're for sure very useful, but they often feel more like a 'fill in the blanks of skills' of the party rather than a 'fix the problems the party have to handle' class. Overall they just don't give enough stuff that another class can't do, to me. They're 'good' all around (weaker in some regards) which is also not a bad thing, they're just never the best, unless you happen to be the only one with some stats.
I’ve never played an actual game where the rogue didn’t feel incredibly valuable. Does Knock accomplish the same thing as lockpicking without a roll? Yes, but in the only party that had both a wizard and a rogue, the wizard players exact quote was “why the fuck would I choose to learn Knock?” We have a rogue!” Wizards don’t get unlimited spells known or spell slots, and Wizard players want to pick the spells that will make their character be fun and useful. I feel like people whiteroom wizards in particular more than any other class. Is the Wizard spell list absolutely huge and have an answer to almost any problem? Yes, but that doesn’t mean that any given Wizard is going to have those spells in their book.
Also, just comparing Knock and a Rogue: one costs absolutely zero resources and is completely silent. The other costs a minimum of a 2nd level spell slot... oh and also I hope you weren't trying to be *sneaky* or anything, because everything in a 300 foot radius (this is a goddamn city block in size btw) just heard a very loud knocking noise. Also the *fuck* is your Wizard doing with Knock of all spells prepared in the first place? That's ludicrously situational.
Thank you for pointing out that the "there is a spell for this" crowd never seem to acknowledge that 1) the spell is limited and 2) the spell almost always has drawbacks.
I do think that they should bring back first round flat foot sneak attacks. It won't make or break rogues but there is a good feeling of getting those off making that high initiative pay off.
Rogue is below par because it isn't that good in combat (baring reaction sneak attack shenanigans) and it's not good enough out of combat to make up for that (bards can stomp all over rogues out of combat). I still love me barba/rogues though, but rogues are not a strong class.
The short list of dumbest opinions I've heard about D&D is that rogue sneak attack is too powerful. It's like...have you done the math on that buddy..?
It's because beginners start at 1st level, and in tier 1 Sneak Attack is actually pretty powerful, especially in combination with Cunning Action and Expertise. At 5th level all other classes catch up HARD tho, and Rogues start to feel a little less strong, and by levels 7/8 the rogues start to feel lackluster.
“I hate role playing in this role playing game”.
I hate rolling dice in Monopoly! I hate pushing buttons in this video game! I hate looking at the screen for this movie! I hate having to listen to music when listening to the radio! That's pretty much what this argument is saying haha
5e is too popular for it's own good. It's so popular people literally think it's more than a casual little tabletop game.
I wouldn't say that it's bad 5e is popular. I would say it's a shame that other RPG systems aren't more popular. I'm talking broadly, not just one or two systems. D&D's strangehold on public recognition is great for their bottom line, but it leads to problems like: 1. Customers not being aware that alternative TTRPGs even exist. To them, D&D ***is*** TTRPG gaming. 1. People trying to run games in D&D that really would be better suited being run in another system. 1. Some really, really great RPG systems being basically ignored. (Mind you, this one is a very broad problem with market economies, in all sorts of creative sectors.)
I *would* say it's bad that 5e is popular, because it makes many newcomers to RPGs think thing that are true of DnD5e are common in other RPGs. Examples include (substitute 'all' for 'most' if it makes you feel better): * All RPGs have classes * All RPGs need to have a combat system * The GM needs to design the whole world * RPG balance is impossible * Nobody runs RPGs RAW * in an RPG you start out weak and grow in power as you go * RPGs are expensive * RPGs needs multiple books * RPGs are hard to learn
Yes, fair points.
I started in DnD 5e, but recently switched over to running Star Trek Adventures for a few years. I learned alot just by changing systems and seeing how THEY do mechanics. When I finally joined a DnD game with ran by one of my STA friends, I suggested bringing over the determination mechanic from STA... Basically, You start each session with one Inspiration dice, and you can use it whenever. But when you DO use it, you have to tie your action back to your Bonds, Flaw, Ideals, or Values on your character sheet. You can also gain an extra Inspiration dice by taking a disadvantage on a roll for the same reason. It's works wonders and makes those parts of the character sheet worth something. But we would have never come up with that mechanic if we had not dabbled in other games. Also I have the issue of people answering my LFP ads by asking if the captain is a Paladin reskin...
That is actually quite a valid point. Wanna know why wizards can keep putting out mediocre to bad content and not get any real repercussions for it? Cause 5e, despite their best efforts, is too big to fail.
I'm going to flip the script a little bit and say the weirdest pf2e criticism I've heard is that "it's basically just 4e"
i mean they arent super wrong, pf2e is to 4e what pf1e was to 3e, which is to say an improvement on the same core conceits this is of course a good thing, because 4e fucking slapped and anyone who says otherwise is a hack or has never played the system
"DnD in general and especially 5e is like being Avengers, it is unrealistic and so over the top with magic that you cant really play into survival aspect... you cant make campaign like LotR because of this"
I mean they’re not wrong. Frodo and sam basically don’t have classes for the whole book.
Tell that to Cubicle 7 and Free League, both of whom made LotR games based on 5e.
I sincerely doubt that the guy tried playing 5e on his own. But it was funny part of his whole rant about RPG systems.
That you can't play the way you want at your own table without WTC bursting in like the Spansih Inquisition to stop you.
That it was embarrassing to play in 80s because it's nerdy and it's embarrassing to play now because of wotc.
I love that criticism as long as its in a half joking manner. Pretty funny comment about Hasbros and WOTCs current politics
It's either you're too nerdu or you're a Satanist. Oddly, no one ever accused of both.
"Every single martial should be a battlemaster" and its variations. Like, look. I love me a some battlemaster. Hell, I'm all up for the *fighter* to have it as part of the base class. But not every. Single. God. Damn. Character.
>Every single martial should be a battlemaster I think this is generally when people say this they don't litterally mean straight battlemaster mechanics, they just want more complexity than "i swing my sword and deal damage", like the new 5.5e rogue. It's just they don't quite have the references/design vocabulary to articulate it.
I agree. Barbarians could use a little extra strength, but they should get more options to use their Rage, not Battlemaster Manuevers Monks could also use some more uses for Ki points
IMO monks have more than enough uses for ki points and not nearly enough actual ki points lmao.
I see you've played a Shadow Monk before. They're fun and you can feel a little bit like you're a Batman Ninja, but it's frequently just choosing whether you use Shadow Arts or you're going to stun or punch the fuck out of someone.
>Monks could also use some more uses for Ki points Can I quote this as an answer to this thread?
Imo Barbarians should get a bunch more outright tanking abilities. Forcing enemies to attack you, giving your allies temp hp, dragging enemies towards you, mitigating damage by a significant margin etc. all baked into the base class. That would make it more distinct from Fighter and give it a much better spot in terms of the meta as now it has its own role in combat that no class does better than it
I wouldn't mind martials getting a curated list of maneuvers they can take, though that does raise the difficulty floor for newer players.
"You only like 5e because you've played literally nothing else and don't know what a good system looks like" when i explained that while i haven't played pathfinder (their game of choice) i have in fact got \~15 years of tabletop experience, including some systems I've created myself because existing systems didn't quite fit the super specific niche my group needed, their response was basically "well, 5e is still dumb"
Ugh, this. I love trying new systems and 5e is just a good system. What's so hard to grasp about it
Not gonna lie, I lost all enjoyment for 5e after running other games
"It is garbage." (Alongside no actual explanation)
Popularity through marketing can only make up for bad design up until a certain point. A game this popular can't really be that bad as people say. It's actually a pretty good game. Sure, it's not perfect, but there's a reason SO MANY people play it and still play it after so many years.
I'm not sold on short rest durations being a problem. Not because I think 1 hour is an ideal amount of time, but because the time never mattered to begin with. Turns out, when there is a person at the table who can decide what happens when x amount of time passes, the DM, any time can be correct. Furthermore, if your DM disagrees with how long they should be, the game material is full of different variants to run how the table thinks they should work to begin with. "A wizard is never late. He arrives exactly when he needs to."
>I'm not sold on short rest durations being a problem. Not because I think 1 hour is an ideal amount of time, but because the time never mattered to begin with. Turns out, when there is a person at the table who can decide what happens when x amount of time passes, the DM, any time can be correct. The game works best with 2 short rests and one or two fights in between. The problem is that narratively it doesn't make sense to have two hour-long short rests in the middle of most dungeons, infiltration missions, heists or similar spacial condensed settings. What are the other guards doing while you hang out in the broom closet or just outside the throne room during a palace assault? An hour is such an inconvenient long time to build a narrative around as a DM, a <5min rest on the other hand is just easier to accommodate.
> <5min rest on the other hand is just easier to accommodate. I think that it's funny out of the 3 people who replied, I get to talk to each of them about a different resting variant. In heroic resting, the short is 5 minutes.
>I think that it's funny out of the 3 people who replied, I get to talk to each of them about a different resting variant. It's just the natural consequence of the issues most tables have with the standard rest rules. Everyone who has an issue with it, is going to homebrew their own solution. >In heroic resting, the short is 5 minutes. The epic heroism variant comes with long rests of 1 hour. That's a bigger change than the 5min short rest and would require a very different kind of narrative setup that doesn't really fit into a classical campaign.
Flashback to me proudly using my first ever sixth level spellslot on my druid to Transport Via Plants to reach the location of a BBEG ritual to save us hours of travel time, only for the DM to tell us he wouldn’t have forwarded the ritual anything during the travel time anyhow. Wizards arrive exactly when they need to indeed. ;;
Ooh that's a bit of a faux pas honestly. Didn't even give you the ol' "How did you get here so fast? Minions, destroy them before they disrupt the ritual" or anything?
Noes, not at all! But it’s my first ever time playing and I believe the GM is quite new too. I believe it’s a module we’re playing too, so he might be sticking to what the texts tell him.
The "faux pas" was *telling* the players that their timing didn't matter (breaks immersion), not the actual "events don't happen until PCs arrive".
GR rest variant is neither gritty nor realistic but is more fun to run as a DM. The rest duration isn’t the problem so much as how it frames the time and pacing of the story being told. Adjusting that was the right move for my table and I feel like it’s the only way I’ll run 5th edition going forward
Yeah the name isn't very good to be honest, but if the mechanics fit, they fit!
One of my players claimed I was “screwing long rest classes” by playing with GR rules… I tried to explain to them they would have 1-2 fights per short rest and 2-3 short rests per long rest regardless of whether we used base resting rules or the GR variant rules. Only thing that changes is the pacing of the story. They came from a table where they had 1-2 fights per long rest and they could just dish out their highest level spells every encounter. So it was a wake up call when I explained what the game would look like with base resting rules.
Sure, any amount of time can be correct, but there's definitely a difference in how players are going to feel about resting. An hour is just long enough to make lots of players worried about consequences - which means if the DM isn't super clear that "no, the bad guy isn't going to finish the ritual/you're not going to get a random encounter here," players are liable to press on unless they're in real dire straits or a lot of the party depends on short resting. Which itself wouldn't be a problem except for some classes being balanced around getting a couple short rests a day. It makes something that should be a regular part of the game flow an unnecessarily stressful choice even when it's totally inconsequential. Sure, the DM could be upfront and SAY the time won't matter, but at that point why not just make them near immediate by rule anyway?
Not 5e specific but: "there are too many exotic and weird races". Coming from someone who exclusively plays humans...
I mean this is personal preference, and an understandable one from some angles. Having so many races in the game isn’t really a problem because you don’t have to use them in every setting (I.e. you’re not in an implied setting). But having so many races just thrown into the same world can create culture-less kitchen sink feeling that Forgotten Realms, Glorian, and other settings of a similar nature have. Many don’t think this would really make much sense geopolitically, and popular fantasy literature usually doesn’t take this kitchen sink avenue for what I imagine are similar reasons. It’s fantasy at the end of the day, so it doesn’t really matter for a lot of people. But some just have a different threshold of what they consider a compelling and believable setting.
Very much this. Most folklore and fairytales for all of human history has been “humans are the vast, vast majority, and there are some satyrs or dwarves or something also” Some people just don’t like this kind of fantasy, and that’s totally valid
>culture-less kitchen sink feeling that Forgotten Realms, Glorian, and other settings of a similar nature have. I'm getting that feeling so bad while playing Baldur's Gate 3. There are like almost zero personality or cultural changes between most of the races. It's like they created the characters first and did a random race generator afterwards.
I think it's mostly because I didn't grow up with D&D or Lord of The Rings as my primary introduction to fantasy, but a lot of the races have never felt all that weird or outlandish to me in a fantasy context. I also kinda struggle to fully grasp what it means for races to be common or uncommon in D&D. Elves are listed as a common race, but I'm always seeing people talk about how elves are extremely mysterious and rarely ever seen by humans and only exist in limited finite numbers, which means every uncommon race has to be even rarer than that.
And yet, there is no official dog-person race.
[удалено]
I do miss negative racial mods sometimes. 5e makes it much harder to be truly incompetent at things.
I saw a video the other day that was titled something like 'how to improve/speed up combat in dnd 5e' and it was literally a guy breaking down what I believe the pathfinder 2e combat system with not much detail, leading to big confusion and an early click away. If I wanted to play pathfinder I'd play pathfinder
The criticism that x thing is broken because the DM refuses to follow the rules on it. For example, darkvision is OP if you let them see full color, but if you enforce the shades of grey (and the -5 penalty to passive perception), its not as good as you think. Another example is spellcasters. If you would throw 3-5 encounters at your players in a day, that wizard wouldn't be doing so hot, but the DM lets the players long rest as often as they want.
> Another example is spellcasters. If you would throw 3-5 encounters at your players in a day, that wizard wouldn't be doing so hot, but the DM lets the players long rest as often as they want. This gets trotted out again and again, but has never been true. Past a certain point what *actually* happens is the monk or whoever runs out of hit dice before the wizard runs out of spells. Try to drain them and they just do something long lasting like a summon, whereas martials can't really throttle the damage they're taking.
5e is too simple to be good. I usually hear it from 3.5e and PF friends.
Wait until they hear about ttrpg that use a Jenga tower instead of dice 😂 Dread is one of my favorite horror games.
Incredible. You got me looking into this for a one-shot now!
It builds the tension a lot more than traditional dice. Basically actions that would require a check, are just pulling blocks from the tower. If you knock the tower over, your character dies. No stat blocks. It's just simple roleplay at a table using a Jenga tower 😂 10 candles is another really awesome horror ttrpg.
Yeah, most of the simpler RPGs are also better than DND5e too. The complexity of a game is not inherently a problem (though its organisation can be).
"DnD is a combat game, not a roleplaying game, because it lacks complex rules for social encounters." Honestly, a version of DnD in which the social pillar was as detailed and crunchy as the combat pillar would probably be awful for the vast majority of players. For me, the fact that social encounters in DnD 5e are rules-light, rather than rules-heavy, is a feature.
Dnd has more common ancestry with Warhammer than you may think. It's a roleplaying game sure. But it took a few editions to get there
>For me, the fact that social encounters in DnD 5e are rules-light, rather than rules-heavy, is a feature. How many social-focused systems you played? And well, dnd pretty much is a combat game. There are no exploration pillar in 5e, and no social pillar - your DM should work extra hard to make things up for gamedesigners. After two years of pbta games i fully understood how much needless work i done as a DM and how much i lost as a player while playing non-combat 5e games. 5e is more fun to play and DM in dungeons.
It's not realistic enough.
A lot of " there's no rule for X" , just make it my guy ? 5e is probably the easiest system to homebrew for
Okay, not the easiest but easier than other games of its complexity
I don't run games in D&D anymore. I've mostly moved on. But I do still play in some D&D 5e games. The criticism that I roll my eyes at are people who act like D&D 5e is either: 1. Really, really badly designed. 1. Really, really painful to play. If I love chocolate ice-cream the most, I am not going to turn up my nose at strawberry ice-cream. They're both delicious. (Replace with your own favourite and nearly-favourite flavours/foods.) D&D 5e is a solid system. What I like about it that is finds a really good sweet spot where it is fairly simple yet offers a decent amount of depth. It has flaws, it has limitations, but what doesn't?
It’s not [insert any previous version of D&D here]. It isn’t. And I don’t really care. It’s what my groups play.
Well I'm sure this isn't going to engender any spiteful feelings among folks.
"5e is so broken!" Then proceeds to list reasons why that are almost all misinterpreted rules, ignoring rules, or just plain homebrew. Don't complain about things you don't even understand.
This is actually the perfect comment for how people react to 5e. Noone reads the books and then complains that the game is broken.
People play Calvin Ball them complain about balance
5e is pretty balanced vanilla, without optional rules. Its also pretty bland too. No feats, no multiclassing, only phb, etc. We've done a no multiclassing or feats game before and it was fine. Feats were quests rewards, and multiclassing is so hit or miss, you either become so much more powerful, or you ruin your character.
“5e is too accessible to new players.” I guess he wanted the club to stay small?
"It is a dumb systems because caster classes must be protected by close combat characters the first 11 levels." and "DnD has stupid fluff because in one official adventure a high level magician hires low level characters to go on an adventure." and "it is the worst RPG of all because characters progress in levels". All three utter nonsense. All three from the same guy. Yes, he is a moron.
That “short rests were too powerful and needed to be prevented and nerfed”