D&D 5E What are the "True Issues" with 5e?

Cadence · Aug 25, 2023

I am beginning to ponder if there would be a benefit for DMs making a campaign pitch to always cite what their inspirational literature/movies/shows are to give the players an idea of what to take as the default in the world.

The world of SISU vs. Rambo vs. Platoon vs. Hogan's Heroes would all set very different expectations, for example.

Maxperson · Aug 25, 2023

EzekielRaiden said:
Except that these things are blatantly unrealistic. Often by exactly the same standards as used elsewhere. Fighters cannot ever deal damage on a miss (remember how much of a fracas there was with that?), but hit points being blatantly unrealistic is something Gygax himself discussed. (I'd hoped to have a link for this, but I can't seem to find a reference, sadly.) Damage, hit points, it's all one system together--but that exact same system is perfectly acceptable in one place and utterly unacceptable in another.

Not to mention the more blatant hypocrisy of saying that magic-using classes just should be more powerful than non-magic-using classes.

None of that matters and none of it is hypocrisy. You keep trying to treat realism as a dichotomy. It's not. In an RPG it's a sliding scale. If I want attacks to be 67%* realistic and have no damage on a miss, but I am okay with damage taken being 54%* realistic with hit points, that's both fine and not hypocritical. I don't have to look at different aspects of things in exactly the same light.

It's also not hypocritical to want spell users to be more powerful than non-spell users. Unfair, yes. Hypocritical, no.

*numbers chosen arbitrarily to illustrate a point, not for absolute accuracy.

Maxperson · Aug 25, 2023

Warpiglet-7 said:
It is not expensive and we have useless gold.

No we don't have useless gold. We have a game where the designers didn't spell out every use for you. In my games gold does not pile up. My players use it on all kinds of things that their PCs want.

In one game there were two who were playing devotees of the same god. One paladin and one cleric. They pooled their money to build a temple in their starting city. It took a very long time, but every time they got back to town they'd check on the progress of the dwarven masons, problem solve an issues and issue more funding to continue the project.

That's just one example of things they come up with for their gold. You just need proactive players. If your players are more passive and need lists of things to spend money on, then yes 5e will present you with issues.

Gammadoodler · Aug 25, 2023

mamba said:
yes, because the game does not talk all that much about biology or mechanics, does it.

And if we want to use real world biology then either the question is a non-starter because most of the species do not exist, or we have to accept them as very closely related to humans to allow for the interbreeding.

So we are back to them having very similar capabilities to humans, which also is reflected in game by their attributes.

We can also turn this around and say what in the game supports them having drastically different capabilities when it comes to walk and run speed, or long and high jump.

You know..it really doesn't talk much about biology does it.

So acting like there is a biological justification for species' physical limitations is kinda nonsense isn't it?

And we do not have to accept that there is biological similarity that allows interbreeding..unless you plan to go ahead and make a case that celestials, fiends, and dragons all share this similarity. As much as I hate it's overuse as a single source of power, magic does a great job of papering over these types of concerns.

As far as similar ability scores having any use in comparing creatures, I submit to you..

the Avatar of Death..
no attributes below an 8 or above a 16..

Must be basically a human..right? Let's look at the sheet.

60 ft move speed, 60 ft fly speed..
Darvision, truesight
Near total condition immunity, poison and necrotic immunity
Can move through objects and creatures

Uuuuummmm.. call me crazy, but these seem a little north of what I'd expect a real-world human to manage. Maybe it's just an exception.

Let's see what other creatures are in this range.

Amnizu, Autumn Eladrin, Barghest, Battleforce Angel, Beholder..Blink Dog..

Uhhh..are we sure this is a good case to make even from a game statistics perspective?

James Gasik · Aug 25, 2023

Gammadoodler said:
I don't think the difficulty of it is the problem so much as the pointlessness of doing it. Ammunition in 5e is trivially inexpensive.

The end result of rigorous ammo tracking in 5e is that eventually the ranged PC drops 50gp in a well-stocked town, and throws 1000 arrows in their bag of holding and then they're good for roughly 100 encounters even if they lose every arrow they fire.

At that point, you, as the DM have to decide how closely you plan to monitor ammunition usage for the player over at least 100 encounters. This could represent tracking over months or years of IRL time and at-best only pays off once before the PC drops another 50gp.

It's not difficult. It's just that the payoff is so low, unlikely, and easy to prevent that the effort isn't worth it.

For me, it was 4e that made me realize tracking ammo is no longer even fair as I watched the Arcane classes spam cantrips round after round with no need for any ammunition at all. Sure, bows have great range, but that comes up pretty rarely.

When arguably the best archer in the game is a Warlock with Eldritch Spear, why should we even care about making sure the Ranger tosses a few gold into his "arrow budget" every time he hits town? I mean heck, you never see Legolas run out of arrows.

EzekielRaiden · Aug 25, 2023

Maxperson said:
None of that matters and none of it is hypocrisy. You keep trying to treat realism as a dichotomy. It's not. In an RPG it's a sliding scale. If I want attacks to be 67%* realistic and have no damage on a miss, but I am okay with damage taken being 54%* realistic with hit points, that's both fine and not hypocritical. I don't have to look at different aspects of things in exactly the same light.

It's also not hypocritical to want spell users to be more powerful than non-spell users. Unfair, yes. Hypocritical, no.

*numbers chosen arbitrarily to illustrate a point, not for absolute accuracy.

I'm not the one who treats it as a dichotomy! I hate that people do this! But they do, in fact, do it. All the time! And they use it as an excuse for why the rules should be crappy for some players and super awesome for others!

And yes, it absolutely is hypocritical--because these people clearly want D&D to be a cooperative game.

But I'm done discussing this with you. I guarantee you, you won't convince me on this one. You are simply, flatly wrong, and the things you have said have done nothing to change my mind; if anything, they've made me even more convinced.

James Gasik · Aug 25, 2023

EzekielRaiden said:
Except that these things are blatantly unrealistic. Often by exactly the same standards as used elsewhere. Fighters cannot ever deal damage on a miss (remember how much of a fracas there was with that?), but hit points being blatantly unrealistic is something Gygax himself discussed. (I'd hoped to have a link for this, but I can't seem to find a reference, sadly.) Damage, hit points, it's all one system together--but that exact same system is perfectly acceptable in one place and utterly unacceptable in another.

Not to mention the more blatant hypocrisy of saying that magic-using classes just should be more powerful than non-magic-using classes.

I assume you mean this, from the AD&D DMG, page 81:

Gammadoodler · Aug 25, 2023

Minigiant said:
That's where I copied it from.

Man I enjoyed that game. I think about it more often than I'd care to admit.

Micah Sweet · Aug 25, 2023

Gammadoodler said:
I don't think the difficulty of it is the problem so much as the pointlessness of doing it. Ammunition in 5e is trivially inexpensive.

The end result of rigorous ammo tracking in 5e is that eventually the ranged PC drops 50gp in a well-stocked town, and throws 1000 arrows in their bag of holding and then they're good for roughly 100 encounters even if they lose every arrow they fire.

At that point, you, as the DM have to decide how closely you plan to monitor ammunition usage for the player over at least 100 encounters. This could represent tracking over months or years of IRL time and at-best only pays off once before the PC drops another 50gp.

It's not difficult. It's just that the payoff is so low, unlikely, and easy to prevent that the effort isn't worth it.

Sounds like a 5e problem to me.

Micah Sweet · Aug 25, 2023

EzekielRaiden said:
Except that these things are blatantly unrealistic. Often by exactly the same standards as used elsewhere. Fighters cannot ever deal damage on a miss (remember how much of a fracas there was with that?), but hit points being blatantly unrealistic is something Gygax himself discussed. (I'd hoped to have a link for this, but I can't seem to find a reference, sadly.) Damage, hit points, it's all one system together--but that exact same system is perfectly acceptable in one place and utterly unacceptable in another.

Not to mention the more blatant hypocrisy of saying that magic-using classes just should be more powerful than non-magic-using classes.

That's not inherently hypocritical. Magic can be very powerful. It's a gamist problem, not a simulationist problem.

D&D 5E What are the "True Issues" with 5e?

Cadence

Legend

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

Gammadoodler

Hero

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun

EzekielRaiden

Follower of the Way

James Gasik

We don't talk about Pun-Pun

Gammadoodler

Hero

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast

Micah Sweet

Level Up & OSR Enthusiast

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