AS so

Quote from: jhkim on February 28, 2025, 01:47:40 PM

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.

As someone else said, it's very streamlined compared to 3e and 4e. There are much fewer numbers to keep track of, the combat and environmental rules are simpler, feats are much chunkier and there are much fewer of them, and so on.

Quote from: Spobo on March 01, 2025, 09:41:28 AMAs someone else said, it's very streamlined compared to 3e and 4e. There are much fewer numbers to keep track of, the combat and environmental rules are simpler, feats are much chunkier and there are much fewer of them, and so on.

Strangely enough, I think 5e 2014 went too far in some ways (feats bloat needed to reigned in... but not removed completely as the baseline with no starting feat at all even if you are using them) whereas other things were only half-simplified (adding a global proficiency bonus instead of individual skill ranks was nice but do we really need 18 different skills so badly skewed to some attributes?).

Quote from: RNGm on March 01, 2025, 09:47:01 AM

Quote from: Spobo on March 01, 2025, 09:41:28 AMAs someone else said, it's very streamlined compared to 3e and 4e. There are much fewer numbers to keep track of, the combat and environmental rules are simpler, feats are much chunkier and there are much fewer of them, and so on.

Strangely enough, I think 5e 2014 went too far in some ways (feats bloat needed to reigned in... but not removed completely as the baseline with no starting feat at all even if you are using them) whereas other things were only half-simplified (adding a global proficiency bonus instead of individual skill ranks was nice but do we really need 18 different skills so badly skewed to some attributes?).

The biggest loss for me was that, barring multiclassing (which not everyone allows), just about every meaningful choice for your progression was locked in by level 3.

If you're a monk you will pick up Stunning Fist at level 5. You will get the feature determined by the subclass you picked at level three when you reach level 6, etc. If your table is doing array or point buy, you're probably not even getting a feat choice until level 12 unless you're happy with AC 15 and falling behind on to-hit and damage bonuses.

Maybe it's that I've played a lot more M&M, Champions, WoD, and 4E, but that locked-in progression in 5e is so uninspiring. You're just waiting out levels until the traits you want come online and everyone else with the same class/subclass and level gets the exact same thing.

By your third 5e campaign you can see the underlying samey-ness of everything. It's why I'm going to be taking over the 5e slot for the local group as soon as the current campaign wraps to run M&M and try to slowly break them of their 5e habit (M&M is close enough mechanically that it shouldn't be too jarring for the ones whose only gaming reference is 5e and comic book heroes are a familiar enough genre to not require extensive explanations of its tropes). That would be samey too if we continued it, but hopefully I can push for WEG or Savage Worlds Star Wars (Old Republic era) after that.

Quote from: Zalman on February 26, 2025, 11:44:41 AMI watched the video. Along with a few other of his recent appearances. It's hard to shake the feeling that Mearls is on some sort of half apology tour half shill-my-game tour, as if he was never on board with the direction of 5e all along.

Also, "I find your lack of avatar disturbing" (Vader voice).

Exactly. He is trying to curry favor with the playerbase he rejected by backpedalling and chirping new buzzwords.

Remember kids. It is only wrong when someone else does it.

Quote from: Omega on March 01, 2025, 12:39:03 PM

Quote from: Zalman on February 26, 2025, 11:44:41 AMI watched the video. Along with a few other of his recent appearances. It's hard to shake the feeling that Mearls is on some sort of half apology tour half shill-my-game tour, as if he was never on board with the direction of 5e all along.

Also, "I find your lack of avatar disturbing" (Vader voice).

Exactly. He is trying to curry favor with the playerbase he rejected by backpedalling and chirping new buzzwords.

Remember kids. It is only wrong when someone else does it.

What "playerbase he rejected"? That doesn't make any sense.

Quote from: Spobo on March 01, 2025, 03:18:13 PMWhat "playerbase he rejected"? That doesn't make any sense.

Early into 5e he was chirping woke buzzwords left and right. I cant find it but he was on the bandwagon declaring all the old D&D material "racist".

Quote from: Spobo on March 01, 2025, 09:41:28 AMAs someone else said, it's very streamlined compared to 3e and 4e. There are much fewer numbers to keep track of, the combat and environmental rules are simpler, feats are much chunkier and there are much fewer of them, and so on.

If the bar is having less system bloat than 3e, then the bar is in hell.

Quote from: yosemitemike on March 01, 2025, 09:43:06 PM

Quote from: Spobo on March 01, 2025, 09:41:28 AMAs someone else said, it's very streamlined compared to 3e and 4e. There are much fewer numbers to keep track of, the combat and environmental rules are simpler, feats are much chunkier and there are much fewer of them, and so on.

If the bar is having less system bloat than 3e, then the bar is in hell.

Crunch tolerance is relative.

I don't like how few options 5e actually gives you, but then I'd switched from AD&D to Palladium (starting with Robotech) before I was old enough to drive, was doing mostly Rifts and Champions in high school, tried GURPS and got into World of Darkness in college, tried just enough 3e to hate how hard it was to build any type of hero that didn't feature in a D&D novel, got into M&M for my superhero games, Spycraft while their Living campaign was running strong, and didn't really come back to D&D proper until 4E, which had its problems (including becoming nearly unplayable past level 16), but was definitely my favorite of the D&D editions (for one thing I could finally make a wizard who played more like one from non-D&D fiction and a warrior who didn't require a Christmas tree of magic items to remain competitive with the wizard and cleric right out of the box).

One thing about my crunch tolerance is that I have a super high tolerance for at the character creation and progression stages, while in play my tolerance is considerably lower (one of 4E's sins was a very unintuitive character sheet and a desire to record powers as playing cards rather than, say, how they laid out the monster stat blocks and their powers... the game got extremely easier and faster to play when I started making PC sheets for myself and my fe!!ow players based on the monster statblock layout; nearly all were less than a page even up to about level 20).

I also know people who love Exalted 3e and designing even more subsystems for it. That's beyond even my preferred complexity (I can play it, but it does nothing for me), but there's two tables worth I'm aware of.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 01, 2025, 10:34:14 PMCrunch tolerance is relative.

Saying that it has less system bloat than 3e just isn't saying very much. 

Quote from: yosemitemike on March 01, 2025, 09:43:06 PM

Quote from: Spobo on March 01, 2025, 09:41:28 AMAs someone else said, it's very streamlined compared to 3e and 4e. There are much fewer numbers to keep track of, the combat and environmental rules are simpler, feats are much chunkier and there are much fewer of them, and so on.

If the bar is having less system bloat than 3e, then the bar is in hell.

It's not the amount of bloat (in this case) but how the complexity budget is used.  Base 5E has a little bloat but not to a terrible degree, and at least some of that bloat is options that many people want.  Whereas the expansions of 5E take that base bloat and expand it.

The promise of 5E when it came out would be that it would be modular, such that they would develop a domain system, a good ship combat system, etc.  Instead, what we got was poorly developed systems built on the same mechanics, when we got them at all, more widgets as reflavored versions of the existing widgets, and power creep--all wrapped in a chunk of poorly written fan fiction.  It's literally the work of no-talent hacks that can only imitate others, and as time went on it got worse, because they were further and further from the starting point.  Of course, when you've got Jeremy Crawford as your leader, that's about all you are capable of producing anyway.

My group invested in 5E.  I tried to like it.  Ran a couple adventures for the group, seemed to go pretty smooth the first few sessions.  Then around level 4-5 it seemed to get a little out of control.  They party was DESTROYING things that were supposed to be balanced encounters (hey I was trying to follow the CR) in published adventures.  They seemed extremely hard to kill/threaten in a meaningful way (where they had to use a bit of strategy or caution in a fight) that would create a bit of tension.  It just was not the game for me and I gave up on it (WOTC still got a good chunk of change for our investment).  It certainly did not help when I watched a you tube video with crawford and heard WAY more than I needed to about him and his husband.   I do not care to hear about ANYONE's significant other in a video about game rules and certainly do not need to hear about lifestyles I merely tolerate, not accept.  Truth is I would have been just as put off if he were hetero and droned on and on like that about his wife and their interactions when I am there to hear about Game rules.  I guess he was attempting to be "relatable"...I just have no idea who he was trying to be relatable to. Lack of ability to design games and out of touch...sort of summed up the direction the game took.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 01, 2025, 12:00:36 PMYou're just waiting out levels until the traits you want come online and everyone else with the same class/subclass and level gets the exact same thing.

That's a common complaint of (strict) class & level advancement. It's a fair point, but the appeal of it to casual gamers (that may never get to their third campaign) is that it makes learning the game less complex. For those that like added complexity, spellcasters offer considerably more flexibility with easy-to-change (the degree depending on class) spell choices.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 01, 2025, 12:00:36 PMThe biggest loss for me was that, barring multiclassing (which not everyone allows), just about every meaningful choice for your progression was locked in by level 3.

(snip)

By your third 5e campaign you can see the underlying samey-ness of everything.

QFT.

I don't hate 5ed, to the point that it's a strong contender for my favorite version of the game.  But you hit the nail on the single biggest problem with the game, in that it locks builds in and starts feeling very samey fairly quickly.  If you start reading up on ideal builds, the "one true way" showcases how mechanically stagnant it is.  Compare with a DIY points-based/effects-based system like M&M or (better yet) Fantasy HERO, and you can see just how confining and restrictive a game it is.

I know some might want to argue that this is where "role-playing over roll-playing" comes in, but that's a deflection on the issue of mechanical constraints.  Like saying even if a restaurant's food is bad, as long as the people you're there with are fun, then the food is retroactively good.  It's not. 

Quote from: yosemitemike on March 01, 2025, 10:42:02 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 01, 2025, 10:34:14 PMCrunch tolerance is relative.

Saying that it has less system bloat than 3e just isn't saying very much. 

5e is worlds easier and has far far less system bloat than 3e.
Over the course of its run they introduced very few expansion books and of those most were new class paths. Some skill expansion, etc.
There were only 2 rules expansion books. Xanithar and Tasha.
And 3 that were setting books but also had a bunch of new class stuff. Sword Coast, Spelljammer and Planescape are the only ones.

Thats pretty much it.

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on March 04, 2025, 08:26:47 AMI don't hate 5ed, to the point that it's a strong contender for my favorite version of the game.  But you hit the nail on the single biggest problem with the game, in that it locks builds in and starts feeling very samey fairly quickly.  If you start reading up on ideal builds, the "one true way" showcases how mechanically stagnant it is.  Compare with a DIY points-based/effects-based system like M&M or (better yet) Fantasy HERO, and you can see just how confining and restrictive a game it is.

Whatever those systems are, there's a one true build in them too.  Maybe there's not enough players to have published a thorough guide, or maybe the games aren't predictable enough so that there's a small milieu of builds depending on the type of campaign, but overall the fact that there's fewer choices in 5e actually makes it better in this regard. 

The few choices you have in D&D (all versions) compared to a skill-based game (or one where you mix and match a variety of things) has actually made it easier to balance and more understandable.  If you nerf Wish and Polymorph and Wild Shape, you know that isn't nerfing the rogue, or the fighter. There's not a huge number of moving pieces unless you start modifying base pieces of the rules shared by everyone. 

It's a perfectly valid 5e criticism to point to the fact that you don't get that many meaningful choices.  In 5.0, the background feature gives you a bunch of choices that don't matter too much (including tho opportunity to select whatever your proficiencies are, for skills, tools, languages, and a special feature that can be one of the sample ones or a custom one).  Then the race pick is very impactful, and of course the main thing is the class pick.  Later you get a few feats or ASIs, and a subclass.  If you are one of the few pure martials in the game that may be all of your picks (ex: Champion Fighter), but most D&D characters aren't martials and have to pick spells, and those aren't always just optimal-path picks at least.

Anyway in 5e, like every other version, you as the DM can go through and nerf and buff as you like.  Unlike versions with a zillion different options, like 3.X's default-on multiclassing (3.X doesn't have default-on prestige classes though, a common point forgotten to forumites in the early 2000s), you don't have to spend too much time on this, nor is the system so large as to be outrageous. 

But a skill system that seems like you can go through the garden of mechanics and pick the ones that smell nice- you'll find people saying that about every system that is new, but an earnest min-maxxer analyzing the system will deliver you the Golden Correct Path, every time.  Some systems are so small as to not have warranted the effort, but don't confuse that with anything else.