Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1110092In page count.

Well, yes.  That is how you measure thickness.

There was a time when it wasn't very popular to criticize D & D 5E.  It appears that has changed a little recently.  People are more willing to poke it with a stick now, just to see what happens.

Quote from: Shasarak;1110096Well, yes.  That is how you measure thickness.

OK, but I was talking about complexity. I assume there was a reason you raised that point, ie, to say that them being the same length means they were somewhat comparable in complexity. If not then carry on.

Quote from: Razor 007;1110098There was a time when it wasn't very popular to criticize D & D 5E.  It appears that has changed a little recently.  People are more willing to poke it with a stick now, just to see what happens.

With any new game that reaches any wider notice at all, but especially a D&D version, there will always be criticism of three stark types (at minimum):

- Criticism based on misunderstandings, ivory tower theorizing, and general, willful ignorance.
- Criticism with design goals declared as failures of implementation--usually because of narrow tastes coupled with a failure to understand that not everything is designed for you.
- Criticism that the implementation fails to reach the design goals--ranging from dispassionate observation to extremely hot regret.

You'll also often get a mixture, from people that understand the distinctions, enjoy parts of the game but not others, or discussion of why some design goals are thought to be off.  But these aren't as stark as those above, and necessarily require experience with actual play of multiple systems combined with some reflection on how design and implementation works.  Not every critic is capable of this, but they won't let that stop them.

All of this to say that there was criticism of 5E from the very beginning.  However, most of the more thoughtful criticism tended to get drowned out in the noise of the other kinds.  And to be fair, the noise of the less thoughtful support, too.  What you are seeing is that the game has been out long enough now for some of the more ridiculous, stupid criticism (and cheer leading) to tone down enough for the other kind to be noticed.  As well, it has been out long enough for many more people to have useful experiences with it, and thus the pool of potentially thoughtful critics is larger.

For me in the current game I'm playing in I find Proficiencies to be bland.

In my opinion: I think proficiencies should be one of the main ways you get character differentiation between classes and even within the same class.

Selecting your Proficiency should be a meaningful choice every time.

But right at 5e character creation they give them away like candy. You get the armor Prof you want, a whole range of weapons, and several skills you want. Basically you are set from level 1.

If it were me...

You'd only get 4-6 proficiency picks at character generation depending on class. Any PC can already use any weapon or armor, so I'd make Proficiencies weapon and armor specific, not a free whole range.

For me that would make the choices more meaningful, because as the current system  for 5e now is it seems just like a way to give everyone a blanket +2 to class actions.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1110104OK, but I was talking about complexity. I assume there was a reason you raised that point, ie, to say that them being the same length means they were somewhat comparable in complexity. If not then carry on.

I thought that when you said that you dont like thick books that you meant you dont like thick books.  My mistake.

Quote from: Giant Octopodes;11099705e is awesome!  Hardly flawless though.  Here are my 5 biggest gripes, and the things I'd change if I were designing it:

1) Certain balance decisions are totally inexplicable.  For example, in a setting wherein you are using small numbers with small bonuses, which features an advantage/disadvantage system, how in the world does Pass Without Trace give a +10 bonus to stealth, rather than just providing advantage?  Numerous examples like that exist.  They come up with a great way to do things consistently, and then seemingly abandon it on a whim for no reason in ways that are blatantly game-breaking and should have been easily identifiable during playtesting.  

2) It's pretty barebones.  Things like, as an example, Naval Combat between vessels are totally unexplored.  Besieging castles, and how those play out, totally unexplored.  Economic systems, political systems, diplomatic systems, you're all on your own for most activities beyond basic combat.  Even within that realm, some really basic stuff like aerial combat during a storm requires heavy prep or modification by the DM to make it remotely viable in actual gameplay.  It works well when running a "standard" adventure and / or using their modules, but as a framework for a freeform sandbox it's really rather bare.

3) It has a level based system, and like most level based systems, it invalidates its own content through HP.  A large amount of content which otherwise would work really well, based on how they have everything else set up, simply does not work well at all with high level characters due to the amount of HP they have to work with.  This is exacerbated by the next problem, but overall, I see no real benefits gained by having HP grow during level gain, and a lot of problems needlessly introduced.

4) There is no fatigue system, and no damage system beyond death.  A large part of the final issue is that combat boils down far too often to "I whittle away at your HP pool, cool, let's keep going until someone dies".  There's very little drama in it because nothing is Actually happening prior to character death.  Called shots to the eyes to blind someone with a handful of mud, an arrow to the leg to cripple someone running away, grabbing the shield from a shield wielder and then bashing them to death with it, a LOT of the events of the most cinematic battles we've seen are simply beyond the scope of the combat system in 5e, or worse are gated off behind specialized and limited use abilities and a byzantine system of checks.  The fact that a strong character can't at will simply grab something an opposing character is holding, and rip it out of their hands with an opposed strength check (advantage if it's strapped in) is a huge failing of the system, and the idea that someone at 15 of 150 HP who has been fighting for 10 minutes straight is exactly as combat ready as they were when they started the battle is crazy.

5) Wizards have all the fun.  As with almost all D&D systems, nearly half the book is devoted to cool things spellcasters can do, carefully and individually spelled out, while martial characters are left with the deeply flawed and shallow system described above.  This means that there is HUGE imbalance of power levels for classes in and out of combat, and while Wizards can explicitly perform miraculous actions at a moment's notice, martial characters rely on DM adjudication to perform even some basic stuff like unhooking a chandelier and letting it fall on the enemies as they ride the rope to an upper level or the rafters, and probably have to perform multiple checks to make it happen.  As such actions rarely have significant impact and definitely slow down the pace of an already sluggish (thanks to HP bloat) system, in practice almost all martial characters I've seen eventually abandon efforts to do such things in favor of simply bashing away relentlessly with their favored weapon of choice and the largest bonuses they can get, while the spellcasters perform one miracle after another.

There are Exhaustion rules, which some DMs have implemented in a variety of ways. All the other issues are true of every edition of D&D from AD&D 1e on. If one can't accept these issues they're better off playing Mythras rather than endlessly tinkering with D&D.

Quote from: Omega;11099932: Naval combat gets a Unearthed Arcanna entry I believe. Seems like they plan to add it into some later supplement. But so far have not seen it appear.
Same for castles. But there is actually rules for siege engines and how much damage a section of wall can take in the warfare section.
Economic systems? Why? Believe there is a section on different political systems. About a paragraph each?
er. There is a negotiation/diplomacy section in the DMG.

Believe there are naval rules in Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

Quote from: Rhiannon;1110292There are Exhaustion rules, which some DMs have implemented in a variety of ways. All the other issues are true of every edition of D&D from AD&D 1e on. If one can't accept these issues they're better off playing Mythras rather than endlessly tinkering with D&D.

Believe there are naval rules in Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

Yes, even discussed in this thread and the HP thread.

If it was going to appear anywhere that would be a good module to introduce it.

Quote from: Rhiannon;1110292There are Exhaustion rules, which some DMs have implemented in a variety of ways. All the other issues are true of every edition of D&D from AD&D 1e on. If one can't accept these issues they're better off playing Mythras rather than endlessly tinkering with D&D.



Believe there are naval rules in Ghosts of Saltmarsh.

Very true, and again I still enjoy D&D despite what I consider to be the flaws in it.  I do, however, play other systems as well.  Paranoia, World of Darkness, Palladium, Deathwatch, Rogue Trader, Star Wars RPG Legacy Edition, and if you consider it a different system Pathfinder being the ones which I can recall offhand.  D&D was my first however, and we always remember fondly our first :-)  It's also more DM friendly and easier to run IMHO than most of the other systems, at least if you're running 5e, the balance for combat is decent, encounter difficulty is easy to calculate, and there's a wide breadth of available baddies.  Still, I do tinker with it, routinely, and as with most people, I think I'm continually tinkering with a homebrew system which I'll finish and properly playtest and balance "one of these days" which attempts to address what I perceive as the issues with the system.  Whether or not it does so successfully remains to be seen of course :-)  Either way I think that just because the issues are relatively common and inherent to the system and series as a whole, it doesn't mean they can't be perceived as issues.

On a whim, I just went to look at some examples of the 5e art. It seems largely decent, if somewhat "sanitized" and uninspired (although the style and quality seem pretty unified?). Not as cartoony and silly as the 4e art.

What are your opinions of the 5e art in general?

Quote from: Antiquation!;1110576On a whim, I just went to look at some examples of the 5e art. It seems largely decent, if somewhat "sanitized" and uninspired (although the style and quality seem pretty unified?). Not as cartoony and silly as the 4e art.

What are your opinions of the 5e art in general?

Not an art person.  But I think 5E is improved compared previous WotC offerings by having little to no Wayne Reynolds art in it (both actual Reynolds art and those influenced by his style).  If you cover up all the halfling and gnome art with brown paper, it improves the average throughout the books, too.  Though that's a little like saying that a football defense played a great game, except for allowing 4 long TD passes.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1110583Not an art person.  But I think 5E is improved compared previous WotC offerings by having little to no Wayne Reynolds art in it (both actual Reynolds art and those influenced by his style).  If you cover up all the halfling and gnome art with brown paper, it improves the average throughout the books, too.  Though that's a little like saying that a football defense played a great game, except for allowing 4 long TD passes.

The Reynolds art was pretty goofy, although I admit at the time I did sort of like the general "dungeonpunk" aesthetic. Felt to me like a natural reaction to the 90's in some ways.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1110576On a whim, I just went to look at some examples of the 5e art. It seems largely decent, if somewhat "sanitized" and uninspired (although the style and quality seem pretty unified?). Not as cartoony and silly as the 4e art.

What are your opinions of the 5e art in general?

The PhB is mostly "meh" with a few awful pieces (halfling feet.) However, the modules (Strahd, Princes of the Apocolypse, Out of the Abyss) range from good to excellent. The Mike Schley cartography is gorgeous, even rivalling some of the old MERPS books. Here's a few of my favorite pieces from CoS:

Denizens of Barovia

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Krezyk, a dying village at the foot of a haunted abbey

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Old Bonegrinder, a windmill that three hags use to grind the bones of children

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Quote from: GnomeWorks;1110083...so while the wizard is learning how to communicate with other planes, summon elementals, and bind people to his will, the fighter is excited because he finally gets plate.

Not even magical plate.

That's retarded.

Read the post again; I was only disputing that there was nothing to buy after initial equipment (and that there was nothing to use it for in general). 10th level is completely ludicrous, but "not being able to buy the best armor right away" is not unusual (even a very slight chance of that in OD&D). Traditionally fighters saved up for castles and baronies, and to pay hirelings; those elements are somewhat neglected in 5e.

The fighter should be excited that he can afford expensive spell casting services; my Druid cast Heroes Feast but the cost was shared, including by fighters who benefited from it.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1110576On a whim, I just went to look at some examples of the 5e art. It seems largely decent, if somewhat "sanitized" and uninspired (although the style and quality seem pretty unified?). Not as cartoony and silly as the 4e art.

What are your opinions of the 5e art in general?

The core books art is bland and inoffensive. Princes of the Apocalypse has thematic art I like a lot. From what I've leafed through of the Tiamat AP, it has some nice art too.