Quote from: Doom;1107338It's the bonus action/reaction spells that are really overbearing. Healing Word (a level 1 ranged bonus healing spell) causes the "Weebles" effect where players get knocked to 0 round after round with no real harm done.

Shield allows wizards to "tank" with surprising effectiveness (always combined with Mage Armor, of course),

Counterspell is stupid-good,

Misty Step is a bonus free-escape action...

these are all "utility" spells, but their "narrow" use is greatly offset by the infinite use cantrips, which means many spellcasters won't need to worry about taking damaging spells.

That's the big issue, is spellcasters just get so much power...they get all the bonus abilities every other class gets as levels are gained, in addition getting their choicest picks from the spell lists, in addition to the same BAB as fighters,

 in addition the ability to cast more spells at the same level compared to previous editions,

 in addition to few ways (none reliable) for non-spellcasters to do much about it--the latter really shows up with the monsters' utter lack of real abilities (Tome of Beasts helps a little, though). Oh, and there are also infinite use rituals also.

In 2e and prior editions, the monsters had abilities the characters couldn't match, only put up with...it's flipped in 5e, most monsters will be pretty helpless against many player abilities. Even golems are extremely vulnerable to spellcasters who even try a little to be effective, as "spell resistance" gets nerfed down to "advantage on saving throws," useless against the many spells which have no save.s

There is some right and some wrong in this post. Lets dissect it.

1:  Two things here. First off The PC might be up and down again and never get a hit in during that. Go ahead and play pop goes the weasel. Second off this has been a thing since AD&D. Though I could have sworn even magic could not offset the massive weakness effect from being at 0hp and brought back in AD&D. But can not find it at a quick glance.

2: Shield lasts only 1 round. For that round yes if you have mage armour up you have an effective AC of 18+DEX mod. So no it does not allow you to tank much unless you blow through spell slots to keep re-casting it every round. But for as long as a caster is willing to keep throwing up shield and combined with mage armour, they are pretty hard to land a hit on. Enemy casters with counterspell might be able to cancel it.

3: Counterspell is good. Especially if you are willing to burn higher level slots to guarantee countering spells over level 3. Bemusingly. You can counterspell counterspell. We asked. You can.

4: Misty Step is a good escape spell. But everyone gets access to the Disengage action anyhoo so Misty Step is not as big as you make it to be.

5: oh you think its bad now. We convinced WOTC to actually TONE DOWN the combat cantrips. I still do not think they toned them down enough.

6: Not quite. Depending on the caster class some do not get really all that much in comparison till late in the levels. They may have the same basic bonuses as every other class. And some might see that as a positive rather than a negative. I am neutral on it. It works. Could be better. Could easily be much worse. The real trick though is that non-magical combatants have access to magic weapons sooner or later. Usually sooner even with the lower emphasis on magic items. This has allways been the melee types advantage over casters and allowed them to actually still out DPS a wizard if outfitted and statted even moderately well.

7: True at the early levels. But AD&D MUs eventually match, then exceed 5e slot capacity. Not counting cantrips and ritual spells. At level 5 a 5e wizard has 9 spell slots while an AD&D MU has 7. At 10th level a 5e and AD&D wizard/mu have 15 spell lots each. At level 20 a 5e wizard has 22 while an AD&D one has 36. The big difference is that, depending on the class, some casters can recover a few spell slots during a short rest. Wizards can on a single short rest per day recover up to half their level in slots. Assuming they can get that short rest a level 10 5e Wizard would have potentially 20 slots worth of spells compared to the MU's 15. The level 20 AD&D MU still comes out slightly ahead at 36 to 5e wizards potential 32.

8: YMMV on that. Alot of monsters have some spells, or rather potent mundane attacks. And as of last check. Spell resistances in 5e were split up into effect resistances and then there is a Spell resistance ability which grants advantage on saves. Quite a few monsters have one or more effect resistances. And several have outright immunities to effects. Resistances in 5e halve damage from that element. PHB 198. Quick example from the PHB, the Imp, has Resistance to Cold, and resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from non magical or silvered weapons. Is Immune to Fire and Poison, and Immune to the Poisoned condition. And has the Magic Resistance ability which is the advantage on saves.

Quote from: Aglondir;1107337Which ones should I look out for, as a GM?

Very much depends upon your GM style and the setting you want to evoke.  For some GM's the 1st level "Goodberry" spell is the kiss of death, and for others it is a barely noticeable speed bump or even useful.  

Your biggest advantage in 5E is to cut down on magic items, hard, at least at first.  It's perfectly possible to play the game without them, though that will make casters even more powerful at high levels.  Instead, once you have a sense of which particular spells and abilities are being abused by the players in your groups, then first try to mitigate by giving items that fit the other characters.  If that's not enough, then step on the spells that are still causing the game to diverge too much from your setting expectations.

For example, you could just ban cantrips from the start.  It's probably overkill unless you are going for a very early D&D feel from the get go.  OTOH, a house rule that says cantrips don't scale by caster level will probably solve 90% of the cantrip issue.  It's useful early, when the casters can run out of spell slots easily, but quickly gets to the point where it is a mere backup option, not a go to thing.  (For that matter, letting them scale only at 5th level and then freezing would probably solve most of the issues for most campaigns.)

Rangers aren't very good.  Give them some +1 arrows or even a +1 bow faster than you plan to otherwise hand out arrows, they'll feel fine.  Fighter start to drag a little?  Put a magic sword in the game to find.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1107367Very much depends upon your GM style and the setting you want to evoke.  For some GM's the 1st level "Goodberry" spell is the kiss of death, and for others it is a barely noticeable speed bump or even useful.  

Your biggest advantage in 5E is to cut down on magic items, hard, at least at first.  It's perfectly possible to play the game without them, though that will make casters even more powerful at high levels.  Instead, once you have a sense of which particular spells and abilities are being abused by the players in your groups, then first try to mitigate by giving items that fit the other characters.  If that's not enough, then step on the spells that are still causing the game to diverge too much from your setting expectations.

For example, you could just ban cantrips from the start.  It's probably overkill unless you are going for a very early D&D feel from the get go.  OTOH, a house rule that says cantrips don't scale by caster level will probably solve 90% of the cantrip issue.  It's useful early, when the casters can run out of spell slots easily, but quickly gets to the point where it is a mere backup option, not a go to thing.  (For that matter, letting them scale only at 5th level and then freezing would probably solve most of the issues for most campaigns.)

Rangers aren't very good.  Give them some +1 arrows or even a +1 bow faster than you plan to otherwise hand out arrows, they'll feel fine.  Fighter start to drag a little?  Put a magic sword in the game to find.

I agree. But to me this goes back to several other threads where I've said repeatedly, the issue *really* is that the system should be supporting the conceits of the setting. Since 5e only partially does this, it creates a lack of coherence between what is implied by the system, the conceit of the default core setting (The Realms), and the attempts at fan-service to previous editions by design are precisely what makes it feel weird and inconsistent.

As you pointed out astutely, Steven, it depends on how as a GM you want to approach it - and for veteran GM's this is really not that big of a deal. But for relatively new GM's or at the very least GM's new to 5e... this is a design flaw and makes it harder to the point where I ask "Is the mechanical bang for the buck really there?" Is the point of playing in setting necessary to use system to get the fullest experience?

That might be the real question? (and likely for another thread - which I'll create!) And I don't wanna derail the thread...

Quote from: Omega;1107356There is some right and some wrong in this post. Lets dissect it.

1:  Two things here. First off The PC might be up and down again and never get a hit in during that. Go ahead and play pop goes the weasel. Second off this has been a thing since AD&D. Though I could have sworn even magic could not offset the massive weakness effect from being at 0hp and brought back in AD&D. But can not find it at a quick glance.

2: Shield lasts only 1 round. For that round yes if you have mage armour up you have an effective AC of 18+DEX mod. So no it does not allow you to tank much unless you blow through spell slots to keep re-casting it every round. But for as long as a caster is willing to keep throwing up shield and combined with mage armour, they are pretty hard to land a hit on. Enemy casters with counterspell might be able to cancel it. The real point here is mages aren't vulnerable in direct melee unless you pound on them for 4 rounds first, at the very least. That's...not a vulnerability.

3: Counterspell is good. Especially if you are willing to burn higher level slots to guarantee countering spells over level 3. Bemusingly. You can counterspell counterspell. We asked. You can.

4: Misty Step is a good escape spell. But everyone gets access to the Disengage action anyhoo so Misty Step is not as big as you make it to be.

5: oh you think its bad now. We convinced WOTC to actually TONE DOWN the combat cantrips. I still do not think they toned them down enough.

6: Not quite. Depending on the caster class some do not get really all that much in comparison till late in the levels. They may have the same basic bonuses as every other class. And some might see that as a positive rather than a negative. I am neutral on it. It works. Could be better. Could easily be much worse. The real trick though is that non-magical combatants have access to magic weapons sooner or later. Usually sooner even with the lower emphasis on magic items. This has allways been the melee types advantage over casters and allowed them to actually still out DPS a wizard if outfitted and statted even moderately well.

7: True at the early levels. But AD&D MUs eventually match, then exceed 5e slot capacity. Not counting cantrips and ritual spells. At level 5 a 5e wizard has 9 spell slots while an AD&D MU has 7. At 10th level a 5e and AD&D wizard/mu have 15 spell lots each. At level 20 a 5e wizard has 22 while an AD&D one has 36. The big difference is that, depending on the class, some casters can recover a few spell slots during a short rest. Wizards can on a single short rest per day recover up to half their level in slots. Assuming they can get that short rest a level 10 5e Wizard would have potentially 20 slots worth of spells compared to the MU's 15. The level 20 AD&D MU still comes out slightly ahead at 36 to 5e wizards potential 32.

8: YMMV on that. Alot of monsters have some spells, or rather potent mundane attacks. And as of last check. Spell resistances in 5e were split up into effect resistances and then there is a Spell resistance ability which grants advantage on saves. Quite a few monsters have one or more effect resistances. And several have outright immunities to effects. Resistances in 5e halve damage from that element. PHB 198. Quick example from the PHB, the Imp, has Resistance to Cold, and resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage from non magical or silvered weapons. Is Immune to Fire and Poison, and Immune to the Poisoned condition. And has the Magic Resistance ability which is the advantage on saves.

Some ridiculous here.

1) AD&D didn't have ranged healing at first level, and even the most generous "0 hp" rules allowed a character to die when knocked to -10, whereas in 5e characters don't drop to negative (so even the very weak healing of Healing Word is all you need no matter how much the character got knocked to 0). Yes, there are some coup-de-gras rules, but realistically most monsters simply can't hit hard enough to kill a character past a few levels, only knock him to zero. So, the giant can drop a boulder on a character, who's brought back to 1hp...another boulder, another 1hp. I can see how some might find that silly, though I use exhaustion as a house rule so at least the boulders will eventually tire a character out.

2) Correct, shield only lasts one round. But you have lots of spare spell slots, it's a reaction, and you only get it when you need it or feel like having it. Toss in that you can easily get an AC better than the fighter at low levels and...yeah, that's a bit much. The "only get it when you feel like having it" is the big deal, since you might not use a level 1 spell slot every round (and if you run out, you get the option to use a higher slot) as monsters can miss, or simply give and instead go after targets in chain mail, since they're easier to hit...just use it when you want to. Yes, mages are vulnerable in melee, but only after at least 4 rounds of bad luck...in other words, they aren't vulnerable at all unless the player really works to keep himself in melee round after round after round.

4) I didn't know Disengage lets you automatically escape any grapple. Where does it say that? Note that Disengage will use up your attack (unless you're a rogue), while Misty Step is a bonus action, so you'll get to attack as well. And, again, you only use this when you feel like it, so not exactly a burden to have.

7) Eliminate the infinite use spells, eliminate the short rest ability to regain spell slots, and eliminate the free use rituals...and 5e wizards have fewer spells than AD&D wizards. Heh, and? Noting that at level 20 under these assumptions you might sort-of have a weak point...but most of the game is played at levels far below that.  If you eliminate 80% of fighter's HP, they have fewer HPs than any other class...a normal response to such an argument would be "and?" as well.

Really, not much of a counter-argument here at all, sorry.

Quote from: Doom;1107372Yes, there are some coup-de-gras rules, but realistically most monsters simply can't hit hard enough to kill a character past a few levels, only knock him to zero. So, the giant can drop a boulder on a character, who's brought back to 1hp...another boulder, another 1hp.

I find in practice the heal-from-0hp rule gives the PCs a fighting chance while maintaining a sense of desperation, which IMO is a lot better than 3e/PF "I'm fine... I'm fine... oops I'm dead." 2 melee attacks on a 0 hp PC will kill them (4 failed death saves) which is easy enough with multiple monsters or multi-attack monsters. I do fine 5e works best with Deadly+ fights, and the converse of that is PCs will be hitting 0 hp a lot.

Quote from: S'mon;1107387I find in practice the heal-from-0hp rule gives the PCs a fighting chance while maintaining a sense of desperation, which IMO is a lot better than 3e/PF "I'm fine... I'm fine... oops I'm dead." 2 melee attacks on a 0 hp PC will kill them (4 failed death saves) which is easy enough with multiple monsters or multi-attack monsters. I do fine 5e works best with Deadly+ fights, and the converse of that is PCs will be hitting 0 hp a lot.

Agree, it does work once you get used to it, it's definitely a YMMV thing, and monsters absolutely need to change their tactics from older D&D games (where hitting a character who was at 0hp or less wasn't usually worthwhile).

The rules are set up like that so PCs rarely die and rarely lose.

4e D&D was a lot more limited with healing surges and most heal powers either being 2x per encounter or one of a characters few dailies.

But your HP bouncing around was part of the shonen anime feel of each fight.

Quote from: S'mon;1107387I find in practice the heal-from-0hp rule gives the PCs a fighting chance while maintaining a sense of desperation, which IMO is a lot better than 3e/PF "I'm fine... I'm fine... oops I'm dead." 2 melee attacks on a 0 hp PC will kill them (4 failed death saves) which is easy enough with multiple monsters or multi-attack monsters. I do fine 5e works best with Deadly+ fights, and the converse of that is PCs will be hitting 0 hp a lot.

Yes.  The GM makes undead scary in 5E not because of level drain, but because they'll keep ripping on downed opponent.  Same thing works with any creature that you want to thematically make scary in 5E--or at least does if you are in the habit of playing monster tactics according to their personality instead of always trying to milk every once of tactics out of their declared abilities.  In my current campaign, I've got some reskinned gnolls as "demon dogs".  The players are terrified of them, because a pack will try to isolate and kill party members and seldom break off.  Plus, once a pack gets a scent, they'll follow for days.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1107201I don't entirely blame the design team for this problem, however.  Designing a good skill system is difficult.  Making a modular skill system even more so.  Plus, the traditional D&D chassis is not the easiest place to do it.

The sacred cow of STR INT WIS DEX CON CHA is the root of a lot of the problems with skills. Have a Perception attribute would clean a lot of things up.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1107292I'm used to playing with the younger crowd, so pick-up-groups and friends-of-a-friend drop-ins are common.

Can you explain why younger = pick up groups? Because when I was 15-30 I was always hanging out with my friends and didn't have any problem finding time to play tabletop games with them. It's when I got older that it became harder to stay on contact and maintain regular sessions with the same group.

Quote from: Haffrung;1107437The sacred cow of STR INT WIS DEX CON CHA is the root of a lot of the problems with skills. Have a Perception attribute would clean a lot of things up.

The first part is an interesting idea. But how would a PER attribute fix it?

I'm not a fan of the constant call for Percpetion checks in 5E. Although it may be something localized to the (four different) groups I have played with. But they all do this nonsense:

GM: You enter the house. You see a fireplace, a counch, and an easy chair. Everyone roll Perception.
Player 1: I made it
Player 2: Missed
Player 3: I made it
Player 4: Natuiral 20!
GM: Those of you have made the checks notice a letter on the fireplace mantle.

Last time I played 5E there were a dozen PER checks of that nature. It seems like it started in 5E, and is now creeping into other games. For the love of Gygax folks, just elminate the pointless PER checks and tell the damn story!

Quote from: Aglondir;1107455The first part is an interesting idea. But how would a PER attribute fix it?

I'm not a fan of the constant call for Percpetion checks in 5E. Although it may be something localized to the (four different) groups I have played with. But they all do this nonsense:

GM: You enter the house. You see a fireplace, a counch, and an easy chair. Everyone roll Perception.
Player 1: I made it
Player 2: Missed
Player 3: I made it
Player 4: Natuiral 20!
GM: Those of you have made the checks notice a letter on the fireplace mantle.

Last time I played 5E there were a dozen PER checks of that nature. It seems like it started in 5E, and is now creeping into other games. For the love of Gygax folks, just elminate the pointless PER checks and tell the damn story!

Why are you guys making perception checks for that stuff? That's what passive perception is for. When you need to make lots of repetitive checks or just see if you notice something basic. They already fixed that problem!

Nowadays you're supposed to only roll perception when you do a deep dive on checking something out, not general awareness.

I've been running 5e since it was first released and run adventures for characters up to about level 12.
I haven't run any RPGs for a few months now mind, as I'm kind of burned out with RPGs atm.

Some issues I encountered with 5e.

1: As usual with DnD games for a while now, once you hit about level 11+, characters get unwieldy and REALLY powerful. It's no longer that fun as a GM to run RPGs for high level characters. But then it was just as bad or worse with Pathfinder, 3.5 and so on anyway.

2: Concentration.  I understand why limits were put on it, but the only ONE concentration spell at a time really limits things. There' should have been a better way to handle this than just use this limitation.  Perhaps changing some spells to NOT concentration would be an easy way to fix it.

3: The skills for the various tools is really ill defined in the book and and feels very unwieldy. Actually I'm found the skill system a bit broken how it works in general. But this has already been pointed out in this thread.

Still. I've had some GREAT times with 5e. It's probably my favourite version of DnD.  But I don't think I'll be running DnD in it's form as it is.
I might get the Middle Earth books and give them a go some time. It seems to have toned down some of the issues with 5e.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1107460Why are you guys making perception checks for that stuff? That's what passive perception is for. When you need to make lots of repetitive checks or just see if you notice something basic. They already fixed that problem!

Nowadays you're supposed to only roll perception when you do a deep dive on checking something out, not general awareness.

You're right! It annoys me to no end, but I can't get them to stop.

The thing I liked least about 5E from my play experience is character creation. Too many options and page flipping just to make a first level character. This is exacerbated by the philosophical aversion to subtraction the game seems to have. It's like trying to order a meal at a restaurant. That comes with soup or salad. Salad. Ranch of vinaigrette? Vinaigrette. Raspberry or balsamic? Enough with the long form application. I said I wanted a steak, get me a steak.

I can't just say "I wanna play a cleric." I got a sphere, and a background, and a skill selection, et cetera etcetera. Why can't there just be a regular old cleric, and if I want to play some sort of specialty priest or cleric of specific god, the rules can say something like "Okay, you give up the ability to turn undead, but you get three singing chipmunk companions" or whatever. Nope. Can't do that. Can't subtract that turn undead power. We gotta strip down the class to a Mr. Potato Head, and you get to spend a whole ton of time accessorizing it, with a lot of page-flipping if you aren't familiar with the rules.

My next biggest gripe I didn't have to experience first hand, but the special abilities classes acquired at higher levels were cringe-worthy. Level 17 fighters regenerating 10 hp a round is beyond silly.

The lack of differentiation of skill levels bugged me at first. But then I realized, when you account for the fighters weapon specialty, doubling the proficiency bonus, it kind of syncs up loosely with the old 1st Ed hit tables. And that worked really well. And would work well in 5E, too, if it weren't for the aversion to probabilities going close to 1 and 0. It seems like the system is designed around keeping probability of success in the 35-70% range. Whereas in 1E, by 9th level fighters have virtually guaranteed hits against the majority of monsters in the game. And between 1st and 9th the game progresses from being like craps to being like chess. It provides a range of different play styles, and it's not that hard to focus on a level range your group finds the most fun. Or just traverse the full range if you prefer.