D&D 5E Discussion

[thesecret1]

2E is the best.

• No "cr 2" monsters capable of soaking cannon balls like on 5e.
• Low easy to track numbers
• Class diversity with kits
• Class restrictions on races. Eg - Manlets like Dwarves, Hobbits halflings can't be glorious magic users
• The best settings was written for 2e. Mystara? Dark Sun? Ravenloft/Domains of Dread? Spelljammer? Planescape? A lot of glorious iconic settings comes on 2e. After WoTC bought D&D, the unique memorable setting that we got is Eberron.
• Kits instead of prestige classes
• No BS tier / power spikes
• Multiclass is discouraged.

Source : https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/why-d-d-2e-is-the-best-edition-ever.138042/

Most of this flies over my head; I guess you had a lot more experience with DnD than me. I've never managed to get a character past level 4 – always died and restarted from level 1 (or level 0, depending on the game) again – so I haven't seen any powerspikes nor partook in multiclassing. A level 6 character tanking a cannonball thus doesn't seem very strange to me After all, by the time I'd reach level 6, I'd have probably dragged my character through numerous dungeons and adventures

 

[Reinhardt]

differentiate magical robes with the dresses

keep saying it to yourself, dress-wearing person.

 

[Reinhardt]

I guess you had a lot more experience with DnD than me.

ha ha

 

[Cryomancer]

I've never managed to get a character past level 4 – always died and restarted from level 1 (or level 0, depending on the game) again

Some groups only play low level D&D. Which is not interesting for me... Keep in mind that despite what some "dictators" say, most modules for AD&D are mid level(7~14). The last AD&D game which I DMed was in last year, was ship of horrors and everyone started at lv 10 but died when reached the Island to ice golems. Some people here in Codex would say that running an pretty iconic Ravenloft module is not D&D and that I should have send the party to kill kobolds for 6 years before bringing then into such adventure.

 

[Reinhardt]

I should have send the party to kill kobolds for 6 years

they would kill your group

 

[Alex]

Been playing 5e on and off for the past two years or so. What's so bad about it? Mechanics-wise, obviously, I just ignore all their gay lore, lol.

Well, if you ask me...

1. Almost all duration spells are based on concentration, and that means you can only have one such spell on at any time. This greatly reduces the kind of creative use of spells and mixing and matching of buffs you could do in previous editions.
2. Many magic items require "attunement" which seems some kind of silly mmo rule to limit the usefulness of hoarding stuff.
3. Many of the spells are greatly reduced in usefulness from previous editions. Charm person, for instance, can only be used for an hour at best, whereas in 2e it could last months against a dimmer creature, and even weeks against a normal intelligence one that nevertheless had bad saves (like most people without levels are likely to). This problem tends to be somewhat ameliorated on high level spells (7th and up) but low level spells are specifically made so they don't have much lasting effect.
4. Death save rules are too lenient (even if I say this as the guy who managed to die in 5e).
5. There are also several places where the rules are far too separated from the fiction they are supposed to represent. An example of this I have in mind is how ghosts take half damage from non-magical, non-blessed weapons. In 2e, for reference, a silver weapon would cause half damage, and a magic one would do full damage. But otherwise, they would harmlessly pass through the creature. And spells from creatures not in the ethereal plane would likewise pass right through him.

In the end, with a good DM the game can still be a whole lot of fun. If your options are either playing 5e or nothing at all, then I would definitely choose 5e. But it could be much better than it is.

I don't know about death saves – if you've got a decent DM, you're going to be dying like flies, death saves or not. TPKs are nothing uncommon in my games. The spells I understand, though it sounds like a balancing issue – letting you spam concentration spells, or making them last months, would make spellcasters overpowered compared to other classes, no?

About the death saves, the point is not whether they stop players from dying absolutely or not, but whether they are needed as a mechanic and whether they do a good job filling that need. I would say that having a mechanic so 0 hit points is not the same as dying is a good match for most games; especially since low level characters start with such low hp in most editions. But there have been much better iterations of this idea. When I played with David, getting below 0 hp meant you either fainted (and would die in the next blow) or you managed to stand, but got some kind of permanent wound from the blow, reducing your permanent hit points by that amount. This damage could still be healed, but only with higher level spells that were beyond our easy access. It was a pretty good way to handle it, I think, making it tense to get to the low hit points without making it be an automatic "game over". Personally, I would go for something similar, except wounds would have different kinds of effects, such as reducing movement, arm strength, etc.

As for spells being overpowered, there are many that consider 2e to be too skewed towards casters. I think it is more of a matter of giving some kind of consequence to magic and perhaps giving a better focus on what kind of things other classes can do than needing to "nerf" magic. But it should be noted that there are two different things going on here. On one hand, only having one spell active at a time is not so much about limiting the usefulness of casters as it is about reducing combining several buffs at once. In fact, most buffs in 5e are rather... unimpressive. This means that all the buffing and counter-buffing strategies in 2e and 3e are either impossible or much more limited. If you didn't like that kind of gameplay, I suppose you could see this as an improvement. Sadly, this also means that several creative uses of spells that combined them are going to be absent as well.

On the other hand, beyond that issue is how spells now are much more "gamefied" in order to be balanced. I gave the example of charm person. The old spell could be the center of a whole low level campaign; a scheming wizard could use it to keep a noble under his thumb for years if he was careful in re-casting it when it was resisted and the noble in question was either a 0-level npc or a low level one. Another example is hold person which now gets resisted every turn (and requiring concentration to keep it working anyway), which makes it a big joke when compared to the older versions. Personally, I consider D&D's magic system one of the best in table top games. Yes, the whole memorisation issue does come across as a bit artificial, but I haven't seem another game that made the spells feel more like part of the setting rather than a character ability. Spells in D&D are frequently interesting in themselves. The way 5e works, though, this is greatly diminished and even then you don't really get much combat balance at the end of the day, so I don't think there is much merit in this approach.

 

[Larianshill]

I think it is more of a matter of giving some kind of consequence to magic and perhaps giving a better focus on what kind of things other classes can do than needing to "nerf" magic.

Once magic gets some kind of consequences, it can stop getting nerfed. Until then, suck it.

 

[deuxhero]

Been playing 5e on and off for the past two years or so. What's so bad about it? Mechanics-wise, obviously, I just ignore all their gay lore, lol.

Bonded Accuracy and Proficiency Bonus scale in an utterly retarded fashion and fundamentally make the entire system a luck fest without GM fiat overwrite. A character's attribute modifier can't be above* +3 at character creation, and their proficiency bonus starts at +2 (+5). A maxed out character's attribute modifier can't be above +5, and their proficiency bonus ends at +6 (+11). Since all these apply to a d20 roll (5% chance each number**), this means a starting character who is supposedly trained and skilled at something has only a 55% chance of completing a task of moderate difficulty (DC15), and someone completely untrained and unskilled has a 30% chance of doing that same task. By level 5 the supposed expert has improved to a whopping 65% chance. Only at level 17 does a character's modifier increase beyond the bounds of pure luck, giving a character an average chance of doing something impossible for an average guy, and only then just barely (+11 vs. 10.5+/- up to 9.5).

The system tries to control this by Advantage, but that just plain old doesn't work. It either means players have to focus on abusing the few ways to explicitly gain advantage (which overwhelmingly favor spellcasters) or GM fiat is required. Even if a character does gain advantage, it's equally easy to inflict Disadvantage and one Disadvantage cancels out any number of instances of Advantage.

This creates a lot of other problems down the line. Combat is basicly an HP Sponge v. HP Sponge fight since advantage (excluding spells) is generally exactly as easy to gain at level 1 as it is at level 20 and the only thing that can be scaled to create "tougher" opposition is more HP and damage (they can't be more accurate, they can't really gain resistances because elemental sorcerers are the only ones who can't just switch to a different damage type at no cost, they can't have higher defense, and they can't have noticeably better offense than anything of the same challenge level). Past level 9, when a character's bonus increases at only half the rate, the only way to make enemies more challenging is just to turn the fight into

This lack of scaling is totally ignored by spellcasters though. While everyone else gains +2 chance of success every five levels, full casters gain exponentially greater powers every three levels. Complain about 3.P's martial/caster disparity all you want, but at least fighters scaled fully linearly there: In 5E martials scale less than linearly (thanks to no more attribute bonus increase after +5 at the cap of 20, and no more armor bonus increase after the cap of 20,) while casters still scale exponentially.

*Because there's no way to make up for lacking this bonus, shouldn't be lower either meaning character generation is an illusion of choice. A fighter without a racial bonus to strength or dexterity is a bad fighter.
**ignoring how most people use shitty d20s that aren't actually good RNGs since which numbers are favored differs by which d20 is used

 

[Cryomancer]

I think it is more of a matter of giving some kind of consequence to magic and perhaps giving a better focus on what kind of things other classes can do than needing to "nerf" magic.

Once magic gets some kind of consequences, it can stop getting nerfed. Until then, suck it.

Which P&P RPG did magic right in your opinion? Lamentations of the Flame princess made magic far less flashy and far more dangerous, mainly summoning magic. GURPS magic depends a lot on the setting. In vampire the masquarede - bloodlines, most powerful spells like Gargoyle-creation are expensive and hard RITUALS. Lure of flames can botch and affect the caster.

while casters still scale exponentially.

This I strongly disagree.

Lv 5 evoker fireball = 8d6 hp.
Lv 11 freezing sphere = 10d6

6 levels gained and merely 2d6 damage gained. Now, how much hp does the average cr 11 mob gained in relation to the cr 5??

But in one aspect, 5E nerfed martials even more. Magical weapons are far weaker in 5E. But in 3E, an magician after levelin up can chose to learn wish spell from tin air. An warrior can't reach high level and get an +5 greataxe of awesomeness which casts disintegrate when strike an enemy and deals +3d6 sonic damage. In 2E, which spells the magic user gets is more handled by the DM, so if you don't wanna your magic user taking the rogue role, don't give an scroll of knock/invisibility/etc.

Allowing magicians to get spells from tin air is IMO the biggest buff that the class received from 2e to 3e. Increased spell slots, faster leveling up(no more different classes require different xp), harder to resist spells, way more spells that ignore spell resistance(...) everything pales in comparison to this.

 

[thesecret1]

About the death saves, the point is not whether they stop players from dying absolutely or not, but whether they are needed as a mechanic and whether they do a good job filling that need. I would say that having a mechanic so 0 hit points is not the same as dying is a good match for most games; especially since low level characters start with such low hp in most editions. But there have been much better iterations of this idea. When I played with David, getting below 0 hp meant you either fainted (and would die in the next blow) or you managed to stand, but got some kind of permanent wound from the blow, reducing your permanent hit points by that amount. This damage could still be healed, but only with higher level spells that were beyond our easy access. It was a pretty good way to handle it, I think, making it tense to get to the low hit points without making it be an automatic "game over". Personally, I would go for something similar, except wounds would have different kinds of effects, such as reducing movement, arm strength, etc.

But you just described lingering injuries. It's an optional rule to play with, provided by 5e (you roll on the lingering injury table every time your HP goes to 0. Another optional rule is to also roll it whenever you get hit by a crit). Mind you, the table they provide is pretty shit for numerous reasons, so making your own or at least modifying the vanilla one is recommended, but the system you describe is very much in 5e already.

Fair about the magic stuff, though aren't most of the things mentioned still possible, albeit at much higher levels?

 

[Mortmal]

I think it is more of a matter of giving some kind of consequence to magic and perhaps giving a better focus on what kind of things other classes can do than needing to "nerf" magic.

Once magic gets some kind of consequences, it can stop getting nerfed. Until then, suck it.

Which P&P RPG did magic right in your opinion? Lamentations of the Flame princess made magic far less flashy and far more dangerous, mainly summoning magic. GURPS magic depends a lot on the setting. In vampire the masquarede - bloodlines, most powerful spells like Gargoyle-creation are expensive and hard RITUALS. Lure of flames can botch and affect the caster.

while casters still scale exponentially.

This I strongly disagree.

Lv 5 evoker fireball = 8d6 hp.
Lv 11 freezing sphere = 10d6

6 levels gained and merely 2d6 damage gained. Now, how much hp does the average cr 11 mob gained in relation to the cr 5??

But in one aspect, 5E nerfed martials even more. Magical weapons are far weaker in 5E. But in 3E, an magician after levelin up can chose to learn wish spell from tin air. An warrior can't reach high level and get an +5 greataxe of awesomeness which casts disintegrate when strike an enemy and deals +3d6 sonic damage. In 2E, which spells the magic user gets is more handled by the DM, so if you don't wanna your magic user taking the rogue role, don't give an scroll of knock/invisibility/etc.

Allowing magicians to get spells from tin air is IMO the biggest buff that the class received from 2e to 3e. Increased spell slots, faster leveling up(no more different classes require different xp), harder to resist spells, way more spells that ignore spell resistance(...) everything pales in comparison to this.

You are missing something again, the fireball is dexterity save, will the ice sphere is constitution one, one is 30 feet radius the other.. 60 feet radius! Dont look at damage scaling only, look at the situations. The freezing sphere allow you to target some enemies weaker point if they are high dex,low con, it's also deadly in an aquatic environment or versus some amphibian monster as it completely trap them in the body of water, think on an aboleth for exemple. You get a little more damage, different element weakness, different saves better radius, and a control spell in the same package...On a CRPG freezing sphere would probably be lame and poorly implemented.
By now you should understand wizard shines for battlefield control in 5E.
Martials arent nerfed either, in 5E you are not supposed to get many magic items, its perfectly balanced to have standard equipment.

 

[halfchad]

What's so bad about it?

IS not 2E.

2E is the best.

• No "cr 2" monsters capable of soaking cannon balls like on 5e.
• Low easy to track numbers
• Class diversity with kits
• Class restrictions on races. Eg - Manlets like Dwarves, Hobbits halflings can't be glorious magic users
• The best settings was written for 2e. Mystara? Dark Sun? Ravenloft/Domains of Dread? Spelljammer? Planescape? A lot of glorious iconic settings comes on 2e. After WoTC bought D&D, the unique memorable setting that we got is Eberron.
• Kits instead of prestige classes
• No BS tier / power spikes
• Multiclass is discouraged.

Source : https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/why-d-d-2e-is-the-best-edition-ever.138042/

All of those are good things.

No, are not.

Concentration is not an bad mechanic, but GURPS implemented it in a much better way. About attunement the problem is that the limit is the same for an lv 20 fighter and an lv 0 commoner. Thanks to this two mechanics, many extremely deadly enemy abilities had to be nerfed.

men in dresses should suffer

Cryomancer are you going to sit here and listen to this?!

He can't differentiate magical robes with the dresses that his master enchanter forces him to wear...

Jokes aside, I wish that D&D magic was a bit different. Like more risky. If you try to throw explosive fireball with low throw skill in GURPS, you can hit yourself. Many large scale artillery spells would require much ""rounds"" to cast, certain high level spells in D&D could work in an similar way. When D&D initially launched, there was no tier 7/8/9 spells and the initial idea is that such spells would be "rituals". So instead of meteor swarm being an spell which someone can cast in 6 seconds, would be an archmage, lots of reagents and his apprentices using it to nuke an orc army and the party could be in charge of protecting him or assassinating himwhile he is casting.

I still haven't played 5e but I've played 1e to 3.5e as far as 30 years back. I want to address some points brought up in the mentioned thread. Just some base line old school rules, yall can tell me if I'm out of touch.
My table used to play roll 3d6 6 times for attributes, no rerolls, place them where you wish to get the class you wish. Classes like Paladin were prestige classes, and if you didn't make the min requirements, you had to wait. After every single level up, player gets to choose one attribute to roll against to raise it 1 point. So you could choose to easily boost a 7 to an 8, or try your luck to boost an 16 to a 17, etc. This was to simulate growing as a character. The barbarian could learn a thing or two and get smarter, the wizard could get buff from all the trecking, etc.
This is where they grow to fit prestige classes, so its a journey. Not something they start with.

And xp was given for class based incentives. Wizards get xp for finding and reading spellbooks or magical items, thieves for gold stolen and traps, fighters for killing things, Clerics for healing or religious activities, etc. It made groups more dynamic in their goals and in ways they want to deal with things.

Leveling up was not automatic. The pc's had to fight a completely equal opponent in non lethal combat found at a combat school in order to advance in their "guild". If they lose, they are not recognized as next level and must try again. At low levels, they can easily find opponents, but at higher levels, they must start seeking out famous persons of their class and convince them to fight to prove their worth. So leveling becomes a character arc, part of the story.

Magic should be deadly. There shouldn't be an overabundance of casters running around. Failure rates should be lethal to the caster. No matter what level, critical failures should be a risk of every spell cast, and it should cause damage to the caster, even if it wasn't a damage spell. Otherwise, why wouldn't every parent teach their kids to sling spells as soon as they can walk, just for extra protection?

Also, at the end of the day, a sharp metal object going through a skull should be lethal enough. Spells, feats, magical items, everything else should be situational. Weapons should be deadly, unless the target is immune to that specific type or it cast a situational spell to protect itself.

Lastly, 0 HP is where the character goes down without taking permanent injuries. -10 meant death. They could bleed out, but unless someone was still bashing on their head after they fall, they would not die faster or slower, or stabilize themselves.

Im just a simple caveman rpg lawyer, and its very late. My 2 cents.

 

[Reinhardt]

Dont look at damage scaling only

nigga, it's victor

 

[Cryomancer]

damage scaling only,

People mentioned damage scaling... I was only addressing this point.

By now you should understand wizard shines for battlefield control in 5E.

Agreed. Mainly against single mobs. But IMO just like an fighter can pick an sword/shield and go "tank", or an longbow + poisoned/magical arrows and go "range dps", same with an caster.

That said, 5E has two good things :
1 - Is extremely accessible
2 - Way less "dictators" wanting to dictate how other people/group play their game.

There are some people who believe that everything above lv 4 is mid level and everything above lv 6 is high level and you should never play in this level ranges. Doesn't matter how many great modules exists, playing an iconic module like White Plume mountain(lv 5~10) is heresy and playing Queen of the demonweeb pits(lv 10~14) is absolute HARAM!!! And is not that they don't wanna play this modules. They don't wanna other groups to play this modules. The own boxed set of Dark Sun(2e) recommend creating multiple lv 3 characters(cuz they will gonna die) and lv 5 if small party.

About wizard nerf in 5E, is easy to say so. PF1e/D&D 3.5E probably has the strongest Wizard of every tabletop game that I know. Not only D&D. Unless we are talking about archmages in MtA and an extremely highly magical setting for GURPS.

 

[Reinhardt]

There are some people who believe that everything above lv 4 is mid level and everything above lv 6 is high level and you should never play in this level ranges. Doesn't matter how much great modules exists, playing an iconic module like White Plume mountain(lv 5~10) is heresy and playing Queen of the demonweeb pits(lv 10~14) is absolute HARAM!!!

no, victor, some people believe that if you never played from low levels and preferably something not combat-heavy you will have no idea how to play high level. beginner levels is where you can learn creative use of your limited resources to solve problems. wizzordz have plenthora of reality bending shit in their arsenal but all you know is PEW-PEW EPUC LEVEL LICHES!!1 because you skipped "boring shit"

 

[JamesDixon]

About wizard nerf in 5E, is easy to say so. PF1e/D&D 3.5E probably has the strongest Wizard of every tabletop game that I know. Not only D&D.

Except that PF/DANDINO 3.x+ is not D&D.

The best wizards in any system would be in Fantasy Hero. Their packages combined with the ability to create spells as you desire with a magic system of your choosing. There is no inherent limitation on wizards to not wear armor either. GURPS is similar.

 

[Cryomancer]

f you never played from low levels

Yes, I did but not in OSR/AD&D. I played at the high school from lv 1 to 13(When took a TPK. in 3.5E)

And you talk as if you don't have to deal with extremely limited resources in mid level Dark Sun and that there is epic level liches everywhere in athas...

Except that PF/DANDINO 3.x+ is not D&D.

Yep. I was comparing fanfic D&D with the real D&D.

 

[deuxhero]

while casters still scale exponentially.

This I strongly disagree.

Lv 5 evoker fireball = 8d6 hp.
Lv 11 freezing sphere = 10d6

6 levels gained and merely 2d6 damage gained. Now, how much hp does the average cr 11 mob gained in relation to the cr 5??

You're making a critical mistake here: Damage isn't the only way spells scale. Even with those two spells, Freezing Sphere is an anti-aquatic option that forces waterborn enemies to strength check or be immobilized.

Martials arent nerfed either, in 5E you are not supposed to get many magic items, its perfectly balanced to have standard equipment.

Magic item scarcity favors casters and always has. Casters don't need GM fiat magic items to keep scaling, whereas a 5E fighter without magic armor stops gaining AC, doesn't get any new out of combat tricks, and can't even damage anything that's immune to non-magic weapons (unless you have a caster willing to blow their Concentration slot on Magic Weapon).

 

[Cryomancer]

Magic item scarcity favors casters and always has.

That in 3.XE and newer editions. In 2E, if you reached lv 5 and really wanna to cast fireball, but can't find an scroll of fireball, you can't cast fireball. In 2E, how easy is to find magical gear and scrolls depends a lot. an high level adventure in Netherese or Thay would find scrolls and magical gear ridiculous easy. Now an low or even medium level adventure in Athas(Dark Sun), even non magical metal weapons would be extremely rare.

In original Ravenloft module, Strahd could only be hurt by +3 weapons and there is only one +3 weapon in Barovia.

 

[JamesDixon]

In 2E, if you reached lv 5 and really wanna to cast fireball, but can't find an scroll of fireball, you can't cast fireball.

There are three main ways of learning fireball or any spell in AD&D 2E.

1. Being taught the spell by your mentor.
2. Find a scroll either in a dungeon or buying it from a fellow wizard/merchant.
3. Researching it in your lab.

 

[Reinhardt]

In 2E, if you reached lv 5 and really wanna to cast fireball, but can't find an scroll of fireball, you can't cast fireball.

There are three main ways of learning fireball or any spell in AD&D 2E.

1. Being taught the spell by your mentor.
2. Find a scroll either in a dungeon or buying it from a fellow wizard/merchant.
3. Researching it in your lab.

so basically only "finding or buying", because 2 others are boring.

 

[JamesDixon]

so basically only "finding or buying", because 2 others are boring.

Oh ye of little imagination. The mentor might require a task that you and your companions need to complete before you are taught the spell in the first case. In the third case, there are numerous plot hooks that can be employed to create an adventure from gathering the material components to dealing with devils and demons.

It ultimately boils down to how you want to play it out.

 

[Reinhardt]

The mentor

but it means victor's wizzord is some low level chump who needs mentor. not awesum. that's what i was talking about - if you don't play low level campaigns you skip all this in favor of "pew-pew many liches" until pew-pew is the only thing you know.

 

[JamesDixon]

The mentor

but it means victor's wizzord is some low level chump who needs mentor. not awesum. that's what i was talking about - if you don't play low level campaigns you skip all this in favor of "pew-pew many liches" until pew-pew is the only thing you know.

Every class has mentors. Whether or not the DM uses them is up to them and their players.

Increasing the starting level and you will never know how to play that class right.

So I'm rather confused in your replies. Are you for low level or mid-level campaign starts?

 

[Reinhardt]

low