Base 5e had a number of problems that doomed it from the start, IMO.  The biggest is that the whole game becomes unwieldy at about level 12.  There was always going to be a point where GMs and players realized that there were a number of things that needed deep level repairs.

I love 5e for some of what it did. I got to run games for younglings that got a chance because of the combo of Stranger Things and 5e.  It's very easy to house rule and make homebrew content for.  When it's not saddled with a bunch of extra crap, it works well.  At it's core, it's an excellent game.

Quote from: BadApple on Today at 07:36:42 AMBase 5e had a number of problems that doomed it from the start, IMO.  The biggest is that the whole game becomes unwieldy at about level 12.

Out of curiosity, what do you think is broken about higher-level play? For me, it's the glacial speed of combat. By level 11, the players have so many actions, reactions, and hit points that large battles can take hours to resolve. Compared to the speediness of low-level play, it's a real drag.

Watched it. Good information. I don't like Mearls (I won't deny he can design games) so it was good to hear the confirmation of what I've long suspected. What was more fun to read was the comment section and the WotC fanboys defending it.

Quote from: Horace on Today at 09:43:15 AM

Quote from: BadApple on Today at 07:36:42 AMBase 5e had a number of problems that doomed it from the start, IMO.  The biggest is that the whole game becomes unwieldy at about level 12.

Out of curiosity, what do you think is broken about higher-level play? For me, it's the glacial speed of combat. By level 11, the players have so many actions, reactions, and hit points that large battles can take hours to resolve. Compared to the speediness of low-level play, it's a real drag.

For similar reasons, non-combat play gets to be an issue too.  Between spells and money, players will either just blow through everything or get stuck and give up.  Finding ways to challenge players gets to the point of absurdity of hours concocting interesting encounters that the players will just solve with spells, money, or stabbing.

Fuck goodberry too. Survival D&D?  Wilderness adventure?  Nope, goodberry and Mordenkinen's mansion and it's just over.

Quote from: BadApple on Today at 10:57:38 AMFuck goodberry too. Survival D&D?  Wilderness adventure?  Nope, goodberry and Mordenkinen's mansion and it's just over.

Ah yes. I tried running a dungeon crawl with all the ration, water, encumbrance, and resource management rules once, but the players just showed up with characters that trivialized all those things. The rules never came up after the first few minutes, because there was no point.

I could spend time modifying the game to make classic dungeon crawls possible, but I start to feel really silly when my list of house rules stretches beyond half a page.

Quote from: Horace on February 27, 2025, 11:22:03 AMThe simplicity is what made 2014 5E great. Every class and subclass was roughly equal in power, so a new player could make a character without fear of being a gimp. They didn't have to research "builds" in order to be useful. Since then, though, 5E has only added more feats, spells, classes, and subclasses -- way more than was ever needed -- to the point that the options are overwhelming once again. System mastery is almost as much of a thing as it was in 3E, thanks to power-creep and broken multiclass combinations. It's enough to ruin the game, in my opinion.

Even with only the core rules, 5E isn't simplicity IMO. It's still complicated, so I found it a little off-putting to hear Mearls praise himself about how streamlined the 2014 rules he worked on were. If one wants a simple D&D-like game, BECMI or one of its many offshoots is a better bet.

I agree that the 5E option books made it worse, and I didn't like them - but every edition of D&D has added more options that eventually became overwhelming if you allow them all. In the 1E days, I avoided _Unearthed Arcana_ options like Cavalier and Barbarian because they showed clear power-creep. 2E had a huge number of kits in all the "Complete <X>" books along with Skills & Powers. 3E and 3.5E likewise added tons of options.

I've enjoyed 5E - but I generally only allowed options from the core books, and I never ran above level 9.