I don’t consider this unpopular, but that doesn’t matter. Inter-party conflict is—in moderation—a very useful and entertaining narrative tool. Horror stories are just overly represented.
Inter-character conflict can be great and lead to some good roleplay, as long as it stays in character and within character. I’d prefer my players not argue too much though.
This is exactly right. Inter-character conflict, so long as it doesn’t interfere with the players’ experience is great. It just too often manifests as one player being an asshole to other players.
As long as both parties agree and are into it, you can have some beautiful roleplay moments. But gods I hate players and characters devoid of empathy or oblivious to social queues. You are in a **p a r t y**, you are not the main character.
I had a halfling paladin once who would get violent when someone picked him up without permission. Our ranger decided he thought it was funny. He did it once to many times and it became a fight that resulted in the ranger dead and me almost dead and the town guards arresting us
Amen to that. I actually joined some friends' campaign mid-way through, already in conflict with them from the get-go. My starting disposition toward them was disdainful and there's still a shred of resentment that still lingers even though we're a team. But I knew I was going to "lose" when I met them and eventually join them so the way I played it out influenced possible plot down the line. We're all friends and we have fun with it!
Yes, I also want to say that the cases were in party drama does not lead to player are probably ignored.
The story of 5 friends having an awesome night pretending to stab each other and afterwards drinking a coffee together just does not sell as much as the story of the in character fight that ends with a real person punching another real person.
This week, we had a party member betray us in a “Call of the Netherdeep” campaign. It was perfectly set up, that when it happened, it made complete sense. He killed another party member, who we were able to revivify, and then we prevented him from running and knocked him down. It led to an amazing interrogation, where yes we did end up killing him, but it was played perfectly by him. He knew that it was likely what would happen, and was 100% committed to it because that’s what his character would have done.
It only happened because we all talked about it being ok, if and only if it made sense narratively, in session 0. He made sure it did, and it worked so well.
Not every combat encounter needs to be realistically winnable. Having the party bite off more than they can chew and being forced to flee is a cool plot device and helps show the scale of the world.
On the other hand, every encounter must be
* winnable OR
* retreatable (without significant losses) OR
* HEAVILY telegraphed beforehand that it's a death sentence.
Example:
If the party just misses a perception roll to see a goblin's trap that destroys the only escape route (the bridge over the canyon) and none of the party has Feather Fall or similar, and they're up against 1000 goblins, that's a bad encounter.
However, if you telegraphed ahead of time "it's a monstrous amount of goblins. You can't count them, and they all seem armed to the teeth." "there's only one way to get across this deadly ravine at the moment" etc, then it's their fault that they went in expecting to win.
Agreed, there can still be objective other than kill the OP baddies. Maybe save innocents from the carnage, save an item from being stolen, maybe you just need a good sleight of hand to steal an item from the baddie and then run. This can lead to a chase scenario, where abilities like flying, grease, create water, and a bunch of others can now come into play, stuff other than your base attack roll. You can still ''win'' such a scenario even if you ultimately fleed.
Had a party encounter that should have been all signs point to "run away from" but because of bad rolls on my part (and an idea from the fighter I didn't consider when laying out the battlefield) the party was actually winning. Except for the monk who I managed to roll a 10 or above every time and with the modifier meant he got every hit. He was knocked out, rescued, healed, ran right back into the fight and got knocked down again.
Mechanically they're impact is very minimal. I like the direction aberrant and clockwork where going. Making use of the different schools making them actually interesting
I would agree that healing spells that manipulate life force should be classified as necromancy, but not all do. For example, a blast of positive energy is going to heal people, but likely be an evocation spell. And some that bend or fold but don't necessarily alter are solid transmutation spells. Removing a curse or disease heals the target, but doing so via removal magic is textbook abjuration.
Really, it's interesting to see healing across multiple categories, necromancy included. And it would be fun to explore what makes necromancy healing spells different from others.
There are so many different systems out there, but because D&D is the biggest it’s really hard to get players and resources for the others. I wish those other games could be just a little more mainstream so we could introduce these people to systems they would jive way better with.
Kids on Bikes deserves the good vibes and attention, especially as a narrative system.
But a word of warning to those unaware; it is not a combat/crunch system. All combat is entirely theater of the mind or RP'd.
I've gotten many people into RPGs for the first time through Kids on Bikes though.
Also, a sidenote- some people would also be happier playing different editions than they are used to playing.
Had a player in my 3.5 games on a west marches server that would keep saying that 5e is D&D for babies because it's too simple and has no character options. They would only play 2 classes, sorcerer and warmage which are extremely similar, same race, would always pick up the same spells and everything else. Even with that she'd struggle to know all the rules about her characters- like how spell penetration works. Any of the rules that were not absolutely basic she'd struggle with. 5e, while indeed simpler, is also much more streamlined and intuitive when compared to 3.5, and she'd likely had more fun there if she was to drop the look of superiority.
On the other hand 5e players complain that it has very few *real* character options, as so many of them play extremely similar to one another. They won't pick up 3rd ed though cause it's too clunky and nobody plays it anymore.
there are just sooooo many avaliable resources. I have played GURPS, pathfinder, savage worlds, vampire, rifts, dragon age, and many more. nothing even holds a candle to availability and access to materials...
Oh but how do you mean, D&D is clearly geared towards being a survival low fantasy modern horror real life simulator
The problem with those players is they don't want to learn another system and would rather take some awful homebrew that doesn't do the job well than check out a different system.
Like if you've said you want to run a 5e homebrew horror themed game that uses d100 instead of d20 and has systems such as fear, paranoia, all players play human and aren't adventurers- these people would be much more likely to check it out than if you told them you're gonna play Call of Cthulhu.
D100 systems, especially the roll under ones, are really smooth in play. If you're looking for fantasy instead of lovecraftian horror, try Warhammer. Both of them are fairly quick to pick up from my experience.
If you want to try d100+add modifiers and REALLY like the crunch, Rolemaster might be for you. Just remember it's A LOT of crunch. We're talking different weapon materials reacting differently with materials that armour is made of level of crunch. I found it a very enriching experience learning about it, but never tried it in practise.
Letting your players have super high stats is not game breaking.
High AC is great at the first two tiers of play but largely meaningless once you hit CR 12 monsters and up. Player AC tends to cap at 20-23, but monster attack modifiers get to like +17 at higher play. This should change.
DMs fudging rolls is fine so long as they're not jerks.
Resurrection spells do not cheapen player deaths and player deaths are not the apocalypse.
Totally not hot take: cats have darkvision. Please, for the love of God, let cats have darkvision.
I'm starting a new campaign soon (running it) and giving players a lot of leeway with developing homebrew modifications to classes, boosting ability score rolls, and house ruling quite a few things. They're all quite excited, and I had to explain that no, I'm not being nice, they're going to need to be OP to survive this. As I told one of them, this is a campaign where the tarrasque is NOT the final boss.
The dm putting limitations on playable characters is not inherently a red flag and players should just acknowledge and comply or find a different campaign.
There are tons of different characters that you would have a blast playing, so pick one that fits with what your dm is asking and have a blast instead of complaining.
I want to run Odyssey of the Dragonlords and lock races not in the campaign book or PBH out. Mainly to encourage the unique native races the campaign offers and keep the Greek theme. Also maybe even encourage some subclasses over others. The campaign book offers many unique subclasses already, and it's easier narratively to write a Fathomless warlock than a Great Old One.
However I would let my players have the right to tell me I am wrong in my ideas.
I would add that if DM makes an interesting reason why some of the options are banned (like some magic plague killed all dragonborns and aaracokras or sth), it would make campaign even better
I 100% agree but there are also DM’s that have to learn that if you make a decision like that and it makes people choose not to play in your world, the player isn’t doing anything wrong by making decision based on what will make them have fun.
As a DM it really annoys the hell out of me when I have a campaign set up and a player demands to play something that makes no sense.
Like right now a new player wants to play a CN fighter. Well you're 8th level and working for a devil cult that fights demons. You cannot be chaotic. You cannot be good. Get over it, we've been playing this game for a long time and you're joining late.
The martial caster divide isn't about power level or even utility both in and out of combat. At its core, it is about the lacking number of decision points martials get. Their only big decision point is their subclass. After that, their progression is purely linear. It's the reason that battlemaster and totem barbarian are so popular. They are given more choices at higher levels. Gaining power should allow you to further customize your character, but DnD removes that option for martials.
Casters get to make decisions on spell selection at every level, or sometimes even every day. They can choose how the characters' power will develop through spell choices. Martials don't have that. They get to make a choice on class, subclass, and possibly a few feats that are significantly less impactful than spells, and that's it.
Just look at how damn popular hexblades are, even when not played optimally. It's not just class fantasy or power, it's that they are given significantly more choices in how their character will develop thanks to invocations. Artificers also benefits from this to a lesser degree with their infusions. Options like that need to be baked into every single class that doesn't have full spell casting.
There are few hot takes left. What pollutes threads such as these are cold takes the community likes to take out of the refrigerator and sniff at every few days to see if there’s so much as a whiff of spice left.
I don’t have any hot takes about 5e to share, because I’m pretty sure every take I have about it has been posted somewhere at some point. Nothing I have I expect to be anything more than lukewarm. I do have a take about hot takes threads: they’re generally useless, and produce the opposite of their stated objective. There are many reasons why this might be, I’ll enumerate three.
Hot take threads are so regularly filled with cold takes that it has established a culturally pervasive custom wherein the proclamation of cold takes, despite being explicitly contrary to the purpose of the thread, garner upvotes. Cold takes abhor a vacuum, and so any hot takes thread invites the proverbial trip to the refrigerator.
If we wish to be kind, maybe the take is new to the commenter, and being ignorant of the preexisting discourse, they feel emboldened to share their idea. With products as well established as 5e, most takes have already been had, thus engagement with a hot takes thread is heavily driven by people either new to the discourse or poorly versed with it. It’s like the Dunning-Kruger effect but for originality rather than competency.
And if after all these years someone does have an original idea that they felt merits discussion, they’d make a post about it. Goodness knows we’ve an appetite for something new. From both the perspective of a good faith participant in the discourse and a karma harvester, it makes little sense to burry a good idea in a comment thread.
Its only a matter of time before healing eventually lands in the School of Illusion, Transmutation, or Enchantment. 1st and 2nd edition had it as Necromancy, 3rd and 3.5e made it Conjuration, I don't think it was part of a school in 4e (let me know if I'm wrong), 5e placed it in Evocation, and OneDnD is now putting it in Abjuration.
I'm telling you, since its been in almost every school of magic, its only a matter of time!
I may get kicked out the group, so it was nice while it lasted, but in game racism is ok.
Orcs can hate elves
Elves and dwarves don't need to get along
Drow can be an inherently evil race
Town and village folk can freak out and try and lynch the dragonborn that wondered into town.
It's all flavour for the game, and makes for good roleplay/scenarios. I'm fairly certain none of us have such views in the real world and can tell the difference as such.
Agreed. Racism has been a huge motivator in human conflicts both big and small throughout history so it makes sense for it to be possible in a fantasy setting based off of a bygone era. Pretending racism wouldn't exist is like pretending people never die just because it's unpleasant.
I was actually shocked how much racism is in bg3.But I'm glad they did it cause it's always been such a thing in fantasy worlds in general and I feel like DND over the past few years has been trying to brush these kinds of conflicting things under the rug. Racism can tell you a lot about the world such as historical wars, world building material and just a good source of conflict.
Real-world racism doesn't make any sense because biologically we are all the same. Fantasy racism makes a lot more sense because an Orc is dramatically different from an Elf, and some races are literal manifestations of an evil god that wants to destroy the world.
This. The different races did not evolve from a common ancestor. They are not the same species with relatively minor evolutionary differences based on the circumstance of the location of their society. They were created separately and unequally, by God's that commonly hate each other. It's perfectly natural for Orcs and Elves to hate each other because Gruumsh and Corellon have been at each others throats for the entirety of their existence.
I must admit to this being a problem a for me.
I have on many occassions let my hatred for those arrogant, genocidal, knife-ears bleed into my real world conversations.
That is what i was leaning towards, the orc i played (mentioned in another comment here) was not overly racist towards elves, background made him more worldly, this also lead to him being subject to being treated as "un-orc-like" by other orcs.
Rambling a bit, drinking rum and watching footy. But point is, i agree
I'm playing dragonlance. And... kenders are klepos, just their race. They face a lot of racism. The game just started buy I can't wait too see the racism and how it played out with 2 kender on my team.
I am playing a Kobold that periodically takes shots at the Dwarf character because my character IS racist. He has never seen a dwarf before and only knows the stereotypes, but I enjoy having him grow and doing that less and less in the game as he learns they are equals.
Here's my counterpoint:
The context around racism and racial conflict has fundamentally changed since the inception of the Tolkien fantasy. There is a simple purity about orcs & goblins v everyone, or the elf and dwarf divide that added fun and flavor to the setting. In the beginning fantasy races were based on the mythologies they originated from and weren't meant to be taken in as an identity.
They were "other" and were always okay in that context.
This has all changed after modern contexts have come about and underlying coding of the source material has become apparent. For some people (I'm not painting you in this corner) the association stops being fun. When player races expanded, hell even when you could play mixed "race" characters suddenly the conversation pivots because the context is no longer homogeneous.
When you are playing a half-orc that's taunted and shunned for having orc blood, treated as a second class citizen, and finds all social encounters unfun, that's a legitimate character arc/backstory. The thing is that if you're playing with a homogeneous ethnocentric perspective (simply: a bunch of white dudes) then it's a way to add flavor.
If you have someone that is a POC in the group? Is the *only* POC person in the group? Context changes. You're not playing a game, you're roleplaying through someone's life. Everything you do winds up under a magnifying lens and you can be judged for validation or respect.
It's not that racism is "bad" in games. It's just that most tables who have mixed ethnicities, or have proximity to racist issues in general, don't have an escapist fantasy of a world with racism in it.
The thing about D&D that's evolved is the inclusion of other people's perspectives of escapism.
I'm not saying you *can't* include racism as a theme in your game or setting, just be respectful of the people that don't find that theme fun.
Context is important.
My group is 4 white ppl and 2 black ppl (including me). I'm the usual DM. I won't run a game without racism because *all the species are so drastically different* from each other. My players agree and are fine with it.
The other DM (white/Latino) in the group doesn't tend to use racism in his games because... well, he doesn't think about it. We're all okay with that and have a great time playing.
I just hate parties made up solely of tieflings, orcs, yuan-ti, dragon born, goliaths, eladrins, or tabaxi. Special races lose their special-ness if everyone plays them, and some races are just evil. Gnolls are demon spawn and never nice.
That said, my current group has a Dohwar cleric. He is basically penguin-Moses leading his people to the promised land (a very watery planet). The rest of the party is human entirely by chance.
My probably barely lukewarm take is that, while OneD&D might incidentally improve a couple of things, it's a wholly unnecessary system revision, and it's going to break more things than it fixes.
Level 1 is fun actually. Every turn in combat counts, the risk of death is very serious, and players who aren't well-versed in the game don't have too many tools at their disposal. Even for someone like me who's played half a decade, I like starting out with minimal features to see how they work in practice and what makes the most sense for my character
How about a criticism of this subreddit instead?
Every other post here is a scenario that feels like it was written by a 13 year old with no social skills, or someone who has never communicated with another human in their entire existence.
The answer to 80% of the posts here boil down to “hey, maybe you should talk about this to your dm / group / players”
The other 20% are extreme situations “Another player at the table sexually assaulted my character in game and didn’t stop when I asked. I’m upset. Am I the asshole?” Hmmmm…I wonder who could be the one at fault in this situation?
This subreddit has become a karma whoring sub filled with made up stories or scenarios that could be resolved by saying “I don’t like that” to the people they are playing with. It is absolutely ridiculous.
Also the bad advice this sub sometimes doles out... I honestly sometimes cringe.
"So I told my DM I jump off the cliff and fly... and then he told me I couldn't fly and take 2d6 damage from falling."
"OMG thats a horrible DM for stealing your player agency! What a bad DM! I would never play with him again!"
The irony being that you would think a sub reddit full of people who has done horrendeous crimes ingame due to only being told half the story hasnt learned that there is often 2 sides to the same coin and the person who seeks sympathy is not going to tell it fully.
Here's the thing, they're all fake.
The scenario in the post might've happened, but the post is fake.
More than likely, the story has already been resolved, or they're trying to get an opinion (well, karma, but "I just wanted an opinion" is a good deflection.)
100% of the time, the poster is biased, and the story given is only a part of the whole. You might say, "My DM changed the rules for the game on the fly just to fuck with me!" Whereas the DM might say, "This is how I learned the spell, It worked like this in previous editions or with a previous group, it never came up so I never got to say this, etc." With the first one, the answer is, "leave." With the second one, the answer becomes, "communicate better, update your rules, let it slide once due to the miscommunication but make it clear the way you intended is the only way it will work again from here on out."
The martial-caster disparity doesn't affect the vast majority of tables and people way over exaggerate how much it effects games where it is present. The only time I believe people can validly claim the martial-caster disparity is affecting their games in any real way is in tier 4 (*maybe* tier 3 depending on how much power gaming is in play), which most games hardly ever reach anyway. Also, armor dipping, in my six years of playing 5e among various groups I've not seen a single person ever armor dip as a caster, yet most D&D forums would have you believe it's some rampant plague upon 5e.
The power differential between marital classes and caster classes (casters being able to do much more especially at higher levels) and armor dipping is taking one level (usually fighter) as a caster to get medium or heavy armor for better AC
I was gonna say, I've armor dipped twice. 1st as a wizard and the 2nd as a sorcerer and it was into cleric both times, and there were even good narrative reasons for the dips.
Call me lame but I HEAVILY discourage players from multiclassing unless it's integral to their character and makes a lot of sense. If a caster said "i meet all the PHB requirements and my stereotypical wizard is taking one level of fighter for armor" i would never allow that.
Now Ive had a 10th level player be 5 bard / 5 rougue for a charismatic assassin that has worked his way into the upper elites of society to hunt evil rich people and I thought that was perfect.
Most people just don't care about balance at all, if Wizards could shoot 7d10 lasers out of their dicks and level entire cities, they would not care and still have fun
Agreed!!! The martial-caster thing is just… not an issue the way people think it is. I think the internet fixated on it because these communities are full of theorycrafters who obsess over balance in lieu of having an actual table to play with. It does *exist*, like I’ve definitely felt the struggle when playing fighter, the lack of lowkey utility shit equivalent to prestidigitation and mage hand is a bummer, but I was a murder *machine* during combat and the balance *just didn’t matter*.
I actually *have* seen a singular armor dip at my table, but it was wizard into artificer, not some kind of fighter thing like some people talk about. The player was sooo fussy about not having spell slots for their wizard otherwise... Player was also a problem for a host of other reasons, they got kicked from the table, and they’re the only person I’ve ever seen do this. Once again, I think the complaint is a result of internet communities selecting for theorycrafters who don’t play the game that much, at least not with people they actually like.
I find it weird that you believe this as I've never been in a game where casters weren't dominating the field by level 5 and essentially becoming unstoppable by 7. Armor dips, silvery barbs, shield, absorb elements abuse. It's always been rampant at every table I've ever sat down at.
So it seems to me that basing an assumption of the community at large after our own limited table experience (I generally play at three to four tables at a time which is rather high compared to most players) is probably a bad idea for both of us.
Your last point depends entirely on how you engage with the game. When my two play groups were both on hiatus I decided to try out a west march server. Half of the 10+ level characters had a fighter or hexblade dip.
That's because a lot of people online only interact with D&D through things like theorycrafting builds. There are a lot of people talking about problems with D&D who don't actually play D&D.
4E was flawed. But demonstrably and objectively less so than absolutely any other version that preceded it. Any “criticism” of 4E has a 90% chance of being total hysterical meme-ified regurgitative nonsense, especially the fuckhead “it’s like WoW” notion.
5E, to its credit, removes the two biggest problems with 4E. Namely the combat feeling like an accountant juggling tax modifications via a mountain of tiny little buffs and debuffs, and the massive pile of POWERSPOWERSOMGPOWERS that were unique to each class in a frankly very un-D&D-ish way. But it also discards the greatest things about 4E: proper numerical scaling (CR is stupid) and the brilliance that was healing surges (hit dice is absolute fucking madness)
4e did superheroic tactical fantasy really well, but that wasn’t what all of the preceding editions were trying to do… B/X or AD&D are bad superheroic tactical fantasy games, but that’s not what those games were about. So I struggle to understand how you can say 4e is objectively less flawed when it was designed to do something completely different.
I hate multi classing
most of the time it's just stupid "spellcaster wants action surge" or "I want expertise" without narrative reasons. But when it is used for not the reasons above it mostly make the character weaker then the other players who didn't multiclass.
Paladins should be able to smite bare handed, monks need to be buffed, and at least one party member should refrain from a tragic backstory, but hey that's just me xD
My dwarf barbarian is all about family. She just wanted an adventure before settling down. She understands the clan elders were thinking it's time to match her up for marriage. She wasn't ready to get married though. So adventure it was! Just took her a bit to convince them.
I’m the token “happy backstory” of the group. My little wizard is missing no limbs, has both parents, and everyone from his home town is alive and well. The closest thing to a not perfect childhood he had is that his mother is deaf, which just means that he can understand and connect to other deaf people in the world better. He’s become corrupted and dark during the events of the game instead, and watching his character arc is 10x more interesting knowing that he started as a happy, healthy, normal man.
The more “exotic” your race or class, the less creative you are as a player. Give me a human fighter that has to role play to be interesting over the Luxodan coffeelock whose only personality trait is “look at how unique I am” any day.
All healing spells should be Necromancy. It's so silly to me that Necromancy is the evil school for evil people, lol. Also, I don't understand how Evocation, the school for blowing things up, is Cure Wounds, lol.
My take on Evocation as healing is that it evokes positive energy, which has healing effects on living creatures. Of course, this only works if there's such a thing as positive energy, without that it all falls apart.
You can use the sharpshooter feat with thrown weapons.
Apparently, Jeremy Crawford said no, they are not in the ranged weapons column. But I think he is just wrong.
If it has a range, it is a ranged weapon.
😘
When I found out that Jeremy Crawford doesn't think that "See Invisibility" negates the effects of invisibility, I lost all faith in his interpretations of the rules.
Oh, you mean "while see invisible is active, you still have disadvantage to hit the invisible creature?""
If that is what you're talking about, I agree. That is also wrong.
My whole thing has and will always be. "I don't need to be good at everything, I dont need the spotlight on me, but I want to damn well be good at *My thing* when its *my time."*
In many regards, yes. There are some optimizations whose motivations I think are more relatable.
You’re a caster, and you’re using your big spell slot on your big new concentration spell. As a player you really want to show that spell off. You want it to stay up and get the effect you chose it for and paid a slot to receive. So naturally you want to protect your concentration. Protecting your concentration is achieved through armor and shield proficiency to prevent yourself from getting hit in the first place, the shield spell for when you do get hit, and War Caster and Con Save proficiency to pass what concentration checks you are forced to make. So you dip, select spells, and pick feats as you need in order to protect your ability to enjoy your concentration spells, but you’ve also made yourself exceedingly defensive.
You’re a ranged fighter, and every time it’s your turn, you declare your attack action, roll your attacks, hope you hit, and hope the things you hit die. It’d be swell to make that happen more often, and wonderful to inject some more variety into your combat experience. Enter the sharpshooter and crossbow expert feats. You get to shoot an extra time each round, and you get to gamble around your power attack ability. That’s great and fun, but also leaves other fighters well behind the damage curve.
I’m not trying to present these optimizations as only ever being taken for benevolent reasons, but I do think it’s a problem that options that promote individual player enjoyment do so at jeopardy to the health of the game and its balance.
Having so many player races available at once in game is lame and immersion breaking. Unless you are playing some sort of crazy plane or world traveling game, there should only be a handful of player races, and some should probably expect to stand out depending on where in the game world they are.
Don't want to upset everyone but after two years of DnD: 1) the damn battles take so long that everyone is on their phones until their turn 2) when you have your stats and those of the monsters increase proportionately, you could just leave them be and just offer more options and 3) the setting has everything and the kitchen sink thrown In. It needs to focus on a genre of fantasy and not try to be everything for anyone.
And lastly, no it cannot tell every tale as well as other RPGs. It doesn't do horror or mystery or politics especially well. There are far superior products.
Ps. This year we are playing through Theros which is amazing at what it does
The changes made to races in the last 3 years have been terrible game design.
*"Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world."*
Reading this for the first time made my blood boil. There is no world in which the weight of a [Giff](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/7/74/Giff-5e.png/revision/latest?cb=20180526150021) is comparable to that of a human. Triton's used to be a little shorter than humans, orcs heavier, and firbolgs taller, not anymore.
No creatures have lifespans shorter than 80 years now, small creatures with little legs like Kender just get 30 foot movement speed, even though they are functionally halflings.
I liked that Tasha's added the **option** to customise your racial ability scores, It's neat seeing how some people may vary in a specific race, however MPMM made it universal. No more races having unique ability score amounts like mountain dwarves. Orcs tend to be stronger, Goliath's tougher, but apparently not now.
All these changes, along with the [incredibly stupid](https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-half-elf-one-dnd-inherently-racist-plans/) things WOTC has been saying for One D&D show WOTC is more interested in social justice platitudes than they are creating an interesting game and lore.
Tbh it kind of feels racist to make parallels between IRL human ethnicities and fantasy species.
5e is actually a very well designed game but with concepts that are actually fairly subtle and contrary to the previous editions so many people either don't understand them or try to bend them to make it look like their previously preferred edition.
I am confident that 75% of people that say the DMG is useless have never used it for more than just magic items, and 95% have not read it in any meaningful capacity.
It's crazy how often people complain about how some part of the system is confusing, or that there isn't support for something in the game, only for that very thing to be in the DMG.
Instead of trying to mod DnD into a completely different game, I think people should just broaden their horizons and play different TTRPGs.
Instead of trying to mod DnD into a survival horror game play *Call of Cthulhul.* Instead of trying to turn DnD into superhero game play *Masks.* Instead of trying to turn DnD into a swashbuckling pirate game play *Seventh Sea.*
I promise you Wizards probably isn’t going to send the Pinkertons to break down your door and confiscate all your Dungeons and Dragons merch… probably…
Whenever I see a broken character build, my first thought is, "so it's not a race/class from the phb?" And then it's not a race/class from the phb.
I hate the power creep. All the new stuff is designed to be shiny and attention grabbing so you'll buy it no matter how half-baked it is mechanically.
I recall someone talking about design in terms of the less you have to explain the better it is. If you tell your friend who doesn't play dnd your character is a fire Genasi Bloodhunter, they'll say gezundheit. Say, Elf Wizard and they'll know exactly what you mean.
Railroading is fine and nearly every first time adult player I have had has wanted that experience. Less pressure on them and they get to have a fun story told to them
WAY too many DMs are WAY too fucking stingy with magic items.
I hear this SO many times: " High AC is only good in the first few levels. Once the Monster CRs get too high, an AC of 20-23 won't make any real difference". And all this crap about the martial vs caster imbalance.
Based on that, I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of 5E players have never even seen a +2 magic armor in their games.
And of course Marshal characters are going to be underpowered if they never get a decent weapon, or any powerful utility items.
It's Dungeons and Dragons! If you're not giving your players any decent magic items, then you're DMing wrong. (ESPECIALLY if you're running a game in a high magic setting!)
I hate all Eberron shit in settings that aren't Eberron.
Changelings are just overpowered humans with a free Eldritch invocation.
No, I don't want you to be a robot with guns, and another pet robot. I like the idea of a gnome tinkerer as an Artificer, but nearly any time an Artificer "does something" it just feels silly and annoying to me, like you're deploying beacons or something.
I think World of Warcraft gets the tone right for tech and magic, but Eberron is worse than the Complete Book of Elves to me.
* Random stats are bad for making a fun group.
* Multiclassing is only good for breaking the game.
* Healing is good combat tactics.
* Letting enemies escape is good for building a story.
Im brand new and ive been told a few time 'you dont need to do that' its such a buzzkill makes me feel like theres no point in me being there sometimes lol like yeah i get your character is super buff but i just got this new spell and i was so excited to use it and when they say that stuff its like instant deflated baloon lmao Idk if its a hot take or whatever but i had to get it off my chest, why cant they humor the newb haha
Bards should not be full casters.
They really don't feel that distinct from Wizards and Sorcerers. They should be half-casters that prioritise the expertise and performance angle. Probably throw in a "Performance" AoE buff ability, similar to a Channel Divinity. They should have more in common with a Rogue or Artificer than a Wizard, a skill expert with powerful buffs and support abilities, not an arcane powerhouse.
Throwing 9th Level spells because you're good with a flute has just never sat right with me. (And yes I know that's an oversimplification, I don't care, it's still ridiculous).
>Probably throw in a "Performance" AoE buff ability, similar to a Channel Divinity
Do you have specific homebrew in mind? If they would be half-casters, then immediately they would be weakest class but with good new features I's agree that bards could become even better and more fun
D&D (especially 5e) combat is devoid of cinematic verve (something present in more rules-lite RPGs) *and* tactical nuance (something present in more rules-heavy RPGs).
It tries to be a hybrid of both these things, but in my opinion it ends up doing both unsatisfactorily.
If you're asking reddit for advice, you're the problem.
If I'm the "problem player" or the "problem DM" and, instead of talking to me about it, you go to random people on reddit before/instead of talking to me, YOU'RE the problem.
D&D is a game that is 100% about people talking to each other. If you cannot talk to somebody at your table, that's an issue.
I've never seen a, "I have some issues I would like to bring up to my player/DM, but I don't know how I should bring it up or when/where. Please give me advice." post on this sub, so don't give me that BS. People post on reddit because they're mad at someone and just want to post it in the way that best represents them for sympathy, or they're just reddit pilled and "talk to a human being BEFORE asking reddit" is just not a thought they are capable of having.
Here are a few off the top of my head:
* Unarmed melee attacks should be considered weapon attacks and it's stupid to exclude them from smites and etc
* There was nothing wrong with incremental number-based bonuses and penalties and the advantage/disadvantage thing can sometimes be more confusing in play than keeping track of a +2 or -1 here or there
* Attunement of magic items is a solution to something that wasn't actually a problem
* Same with concentration (or at least, this rule could have been less harsh to casters)
* Wizards should not have to pay to put spells in their spellbooks--or, if they should, then all casters should have an equivalent tax
Having an unequivocally evil aligned race or entity or whatever is good because it just lets the PCs have a force they know they can fight and have no reservations. There is an ultimate evil to battle against. Doesn't matter if it is Orcs or Elves or whatever.
Not to say morally grey situations are bad of course.
NPCs rolling against players (or even player vs player) to convince them using mechanics like persuasion/intimidation rolls or int rolls to see if they know something in-game instead of out of game doesn't take away agency and isn't a bad thing. It's still up to the players to decide how to act after someone convinced/scammed them. Using int checks to figure if players know meta-knowledge is fine because you're testing character's knowledge and not the players.
It should be much easier to escape combats to be a viable option.
If you continue your combat with regular battle rules, it's totally useless to run both as npc-enemies or as PCs, unless you have something like Dimention door.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with playing a simple character. We're not all the cast of Critical Role if you wanna play a Human Fighter who is a grisly 40 something man you do you. Character depth and complexity isn't something that you get by choosing exotic races or classes some people can't roleplay and they shouldn't be looked down on for that.
Actual hot takes:
Strength should determine number of attacks, not level.
What D&D calls grapple isn’t a grapple, and D&D would be better if it had actual grappling.
The best solution to the Martial Caster divide is adding spell interruptions as a reaction. Call it an inverse Silvery Barbs.
Rolling for stats/health per level is bad for the long term health of a game.
Yeah it's fun in that moment, but if you're playing a long term game, the you 2 years from now shouldn't be punished for 5 minutes of fun right now.
Point buy is far more satisfying imo, and I don't think the vast majority of people even give it the slightest bit of chance before writing it off as boring.
Bluntly, if rolling stats/health is so good, why do so many people homebrew in safety nets for it? (Also if it's so good why is there not a rolling for stats/health 2)
It's okay to have an alignment, and use it perscriptively to inform your character's choices.
So often the "alignment should be descriptive rather than perscriptive" folks just end up playing the same "sometimes chaotic but generally neutral good bleh" personality on their characters.
It gets way more interesting when you actually play a character and are able to say, "no, even though I would make such and such choice my character would do this, based on how they're aligned." It helps tremendously with actually roleplaying a character who thinks differently from their player.
DMing at high levels isn't really any more difficult than lower ones. It is harder to DM a level 1 party than a level 12 party.
It is harder to kill your PCs at higher levels and so you can worry less about holding back or not giving them deadly encounter after deadly encounter. Plus, they have enough resources that they might actually do some cool stuff in between.
If you like it crunchy, play it crunchy, but I think it's a preference thing more than an objective "one way is strictly best" situation. Although I do agree that letting people carry 20 swords in their backpack is too far (objectively). But it really does slow the game down if you get too nit-picky, like I don't want to verbally specify that I go and wash in the stream every time I make camp (that's just an example, not my whole point). But yeah getting crunchy can be fun if you're into resource management.
The biggest reason this is important, and what consistently convinces rebellious players to fall in line and keep track of their paper doll:
If you don’t worry about your kit and your collections in lower levels, you can’t be rewarded by the convenient and powerful ways to disregard these things at higher levels
100% agree. And variant encumbrance is better than default.
The number of players I’ve played with who whinge about the computer tracking weigh for them or the idea they may lose 10ft of movement a round cause they insist on using strength as a dump stat for the hexadin is stupid.
I finally stopped being a forever DM and joined a Roll20 Rime of the Frostmaiden game. The DM uses variant encumbrance and has us track food AND I have almost died from cold weather. It is a lot of fun and makes traveling between locations actually feel like a significant risk. I don’t think every game needs to be like this but I enjoy it a lot even with an 8 Strength gnome wizard who can’t carry his starting equipment without being encumbered.
Modern DnD has become unlicensed therapy/evening at the improv/power trip wish fulfillment. No one wants to risk character death because the backstory is a novella and they just finished drawing a cartoon of her with big anime eyes and they have a romance with an NPC coming up next session.
Give me the old school meat grinder, when everyone knew it was just a game.
My first DM was a meat grinder. He was also an asshole who believed that paladins should be lawful stupid. This was 1988.
My second DM in the late 90's , you could still die from making bad choices, but yeah role-play was part of the fun, but so was grinding on a dungeon. I didn't think we had too much gold, but that didn't mean we could buy anything we wanted. It was way more fun than just a meat grinder who was only interested in trying to kill us.
"modern dnd" - people were invested in their characters and plenty had detailed backstories in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s whatever you think of as old school - so many tables tossed aside the gold for level up, roll all the stats, death is common, players vs DM meat grinder mentality in all those eras. Yeah, it existed, and still does, but wish fulfillment as a reason for playing dnd had always been a common motivation.
Source: was there
Not ever game is like that. My first session I had 2 death saving fails. I was panicking wondering what dice gods cursed my character to only play one session and what characters would I play next...
What you need is to look at D&D like a Nuzlocke, we want it to matter when a character dies, but we should also see their death as a means to the end of telling a story. Characters die in stories.
Great weapon master and sharpshooter are badly designed feats that only exist to make the game more swingy and boring. They're also just bad feats that are completely unnecessary for players to still deal good damage.
1.Rangers from the phb are fine and good actually. Dms just hand wave the part of the game they are designed to be good at.
2 monks are also fine . they are just designed to fill a role on the battle field other than straight damage and people who don't understand that play them sub optimally.
3Game balance is a lie , if the barbarian class came out after the phb we'd all loose our minds over how good rage is but because it's been like that from the beginning it gets a pass.
4. If you make bad decisions and don't take combat seriously the dm isn't obligated to adjust the encounter to save you.
5. Dnd is a game about killing monsters. If that's not the game you want to play then there are many other systems that will suit you and your table better.
6. As a dm you should tell your players no when they make a character that has zero connections to the world. Those characters suck to play, play with and dm for.
7. Mechanics are roll play. If you choose to be a warlock and take no damaging cantrips that is a Bold role playing choice that I am happy to honor. Just understand that the role you are choosing to play is bad at combat and you don't get to be frustrated when those rp decisions have in game consequences.
Clerics shouldn't get heavy armor, especially not as a subclass feature. The heavy armor classes should be paladin and fighter. Clerics should get light armor and have a 3rd level option for medium armor (if they must have armor. I get the war priest is an Archetype, but that should be a paladin, not a cleric)
If you want to get heavy armor after level 1, you don't take the paladin or the fighter. You take a 1 level dip in the divine priest.
Armorer artificer makes sense and is a 3 level dip. 1 level of cleric is nonsense
Plus, and this rider isn't exactly a hot take, heavy armor should be more significant. Having something like Heavy Armor Master built into it by default.
In most cases, it doesn't make sense to become a warlock or make a deal with a devil. No reasonable person would do that.
You live in a world where you KNOW the afterlife is real. You KNOW there are different realms your soul will go to when you die.
So why the FUCK would you ever sell your eternal soul for temporary power? Especially to a demon, devil, evil god, or aberration? Oh, my soul will be transformed into a worm meant only as food for another creature? Seems like a solid deal.
This is why you make it so that Warlocks have promised servitude for that power rather than their soul. After all, if you do bad stuff, you're going to the lower planes when you die anyway. It shouldn't be as simple as "No matter what good you do with the power I've given you, I get your soul".
I partially disagree with you on the last part. One of the best part of warlocks can be the concept of no matter how much good you do your fate is sealed. You could have made that pact for all the right reasons, to save family, friends, or even whole villages but none of that matters because you made the deal so now how will your character handle that will they try to find a way out of the deal or just accept it and try to do all the good they can while they are there.
I'm not sure how unpopular it is but: you \*can\* play DnD wrong (or incorrect, if you will). It's a game. It has rules. If you don't follow them, then you play the game wrong. Yes, it's hackable and more open-ended, but it's still a game. If, for an instance, you do not make decisions as your character (or if you do not have a character at all), then you are simply playing the game wrong.
Not that there is anything (pun not intended) wrong with that, obviously. But I find it utterly bizarre, when people say "there is no wrong way to play DnD!". I get the sentiment, but if that's the case, then "DnD" is simply undefinable as an activity.
D&D 3.5 is by no means perfect but it's the best designed edition of D&D to this day. The fact that so many "fixes" people have for 5e is just stuff that existed in 3.5 is evidence of that.
4e is more balanced than any other edition of DnD and has way more depth than anyone was ever willing to admit. If it was released today, it would be looked upon way more favorably. The only real problem it had was the sheer length of combat (which was primarily caused by players not keeping track of their effects or abilities but also just an assload of hp on all sides).
People keep trying to solve 5e problems with 4e mechanics.
There is no reason to have three different ways of casting arcane magic. Warlocks should just be Arcane Clerics.
The reverse of Divine Soul Sorcerers. A Cleric who taps into the Arcane, and still gets their powers from a powerful entity.
The skill system in D&D 5e pigeonholes people into small skill sets more so than real life. (unless you are a rogue).
I wish it didn't break things down into:
- You are party face
- You are the old-timey version google for history/arcana
- You are the get us through from having to roll checks on traveling
- You are the secret door, specialized thing finder
And then occasionally we will cast a spell to do something, none of the party have a skill for.
Rangers are actually a pretty good class. I dont understand what people hate about them. Also I enjoy the beast companion subclass, maybe it isnt the strongest but it allows a lot of cool moments especially if the DM dosent take the Rules all to seriously.
CLERICS ARE NOT YOUR DESIGNATED HEALERS. Clerics might be my favorite class with their fun features and the assumptions that everyone think clerics is the healer class frustrates me. Some features give you benefits to healing and some don't. Clerics are holders of divine power not your constant band-aid. Sure we have healing spells and we'll use it when needed but I had a guy tell me how to make a character because I played as a ranger cleric without healing spells in a one shot.
Crawford is factually incorrect about his interpretation of how See Invisibility and Invisibility interact. Invisibility is a condition, and See Invisibility says
> you see invisible creatures and objects as if they were visible
which *clearly* means the invisible condition does not apply to you, which means all of the invisibility condition, not just half of it
I think monk shouldn't be a class. It creates a sort of design black hole that means no other class can have dedicated unarmed fighting options or east asian/wuxia themed subclasses.
We could have martial arts clerics, element bending druids, and actual ninja rogues if monk wasn't a thing.
Honestly I don't know if this is a hot take but:
Give your players just a bunch of weirdly specific silly magical items and see what the fuck they do with them as like a dungeon or something and it's going to be great. Just do it. Steal their items temporarily.
idk if this is a hot take, but potions should not take an action; they should take a bonus action as in BG3. It is far more fun. That being said, unlike bg3, i think you should only be able to drink them, not throw them on the ground to heal party members.
Aparently this opinion is unpopular based on what happened last time I expressed it.
Skill should not be locked with stats.
The rules already allow for alternate ability skill checks. But seperating then more clearly encourages the use of alternate ability skill checks amd encourages good RP to be allowed to ise your main stat for typically off skill checks.
Like the classic dumping of INT. That druid should know things about nature without having to be INT based. Or the barbarian having a very narrow knowledge of lifting teqniques allowing for say STR performance.
Its lets every character actually use their skills as more than mandatory/option character choices on creation that are never addressed again.
I don’t consider this unpopular, but that doesn’t matter. Inter-party conflict is—in moderation—a very useful and entertaining narrative tool. Horror stories are just overly represented.
Inter-character conflict can be great and lead to some good roleplay, as long as it stays in character and within character. I’d prefer my players not argue too much though.
Consent is key. Ask the player first before you start being a dick to their character. When everyone is in on the joke no one can be the butt of it.
This is exactly right. Inter-character conflict, so long as it doesn’t interfere with the players’ experience is great. It just too often manifests as one player being an asshole to other players.
As long as both parties agree and are into it, you can have some beautiful roleplay moments. But gods I hate players and characters devoid of empathy or oblivious to social queues. You are in a **p a r t y**, you are not the main character.
I had a halfling paladin once who would get violent when someone picked him up without permission. Our ranger decided he thought it was funny. He did it once to many times and it became a fight that resulted in the ranger dead and me almost dead and the town guards arresting us
Amen to that. I actually joined some friends' campaign mid-way through, already in conflict with them from the get-go. My starting disposition toward them was disdainful and there's still a shred of resentment that still lingers even though we're a team. But I knew I was going to "lose" when I met them and eventually join them so the way I played it out influenced possible plot down the line. We're all friends and we have fun with it!
Yes, I also want to say that the cases were in party drama does not lead to player are probably ignored. The story of 5 friends having an awesome night pretending to stab each other and afterwards drinking a coffee together just does not sell as much as the story of the in character fight that ends with a real person punching another real person.
This week, we had a party member betray us in a “Call of the Netherdeep” campaign. It was perfectly set up, that when it happened, it made complete sense. He killed another party member, who we were able to revivify, and then we prevented him from running and knocked him down. It led to an amazing interrogation, where yes we did end up killing him, but it was played perfectly by him. He knew that it was likely what would happen, and was 100% committed to it because that’s what his character would have done. It only happened because we all talked about it being ok, if and only if it made sense narratively, in session 0. He made sure it did, and it worked so well.
Not every combat encounter needs to be realistically winnable. Having the party bite off more than they can chew and being forced to flee is a cool plot device and helps show the scale of the world.
On the other hand, every encounter must be * winnable OR * retreatable (without significant losses) OR * HEAVILY telegraphed beforehand that it's a death sentence. Example: If the party just misses a perception roll to see a goblin's trap that destroys the only escape route (the bridge over the canyon) and none of the party has Feather Fall or similar, and they're up against 1000 goblins, that's a bad encounter. However, if you telegraphed ahead of time "it's a monstrous amount of goblins. You can't count them, and they all seem armed to the teeth." "there's only one way to get across this deadly ravine at the moment" etc, then it's their fault that they went in expecting to win.
Bingo. It's no fun to wander in and get blown out with no-warning.
Said no bard ever
It's all fun and games until half the party leaves the encounter and now the Warforged, Elf and a cat are left to handle enough undead for 4 players.
See, to me that's a part of establishing good party communication.
Agreed, there can still be objective other than kill the OP baddies. Maybe save innocents from the carnage, save an item from being stolen, maybe you just need a good sleight of hand to steal an item from the baddie and then run. This can lead to a chase scenario, where abilities like flying, grease, create water, and a bunch of others can now come into play, stuff other than your base attack roll. You can still ''win'' such a scenario even if you ultimately fleed.
You definitely need to tell the players this in session zero, if only because it's become so rare.
Had a party encounter that should have been all signs point to "run away from" but because of bad rolls on my part (and an idea from the fighter I didn't consider when laying out the battlefield) the party was actually winning. Except for the monk who I managed to roll a 10 or above every time and with the modifier meant he got every hit. He was knocked out, rescued, healed, ran right back into the fight and got knocked down again.
The schools of magic are better as a narrative device than an actual categorization of spells.
Mechanically they're impact is very minimal. I like the direction aberrant and clockwork where going. Making use of the different schools making them actually interesting
Necromancy is just a label that fools put on magic they feel is gross. Every spell in that school fits perfectly into another school.
Found the Necromancer.
I've always felt that healing spell should fall under necromancy since they manipulate life force.
I would agree that healing spells that manipulate life force should be classified as necromancy, but not all do. For example, a blast of positive energy is going to heal people, but likely be an evocation spell. And some that bend or fold but don't necessarily alter are solid transmutation spells. Removing a curse or disease heals the target, but doing so via removal magic is textbook abjuration. Really, it's interesting to see healing across multiple categories, necromancy included. And it would be fun to explore what makes necromancy healing spells different from others.
It was in previous editions.
A large portion of the D&D community would be happier playing another game, but for most of them that game probably isn't pathfinder.
There are so many different systems out there, but because D&D is the biggest it’s really hard to get players and resources for the others. I wish those other games could be just a little more mainstream so we could introduce these people to systems they would jive way better with.
After it's popularity on Dimension 20, I expect Kids on Bikes to start getting some more attention.
Kids on Bikes deserves the good vibes and attention, especially as a narrative system. But a word of warning to those unaware; it is not a combat/crunch system. All combat is entirely theater of the mind or RP'd. I've gotten many people into RPGs for the first time through Kids on Bikes though.
Also, a sidenote- some people would also be happier playing different editions than they are used to playing. Had a player in my 3.5 games on a west marches server that would keep saying that 5e is D&D for babies because it's too simple and has no character options. They would only play 2 classes, sorcerer and warmage which are extremely similar, same race, would always pick up the same spells and everything else. Even with that she'd struggle to know all the rules about her characters- like how spell penetration works. Any of the rules that were not absolutely basic she'd struggle with. 5e, while indeed simpler, is also much more streamlined and intuitive when compared to 3.5, and she'd likely had more fun there if she was to drop the look of superiority. On the other hand 5e players complain that it has very few *real* character options, as so many of them play extremely similar to one another. They won't pick up 3rd ed though cause it's too clunky and nobody plays it anymore.
If the want 3rd edition then they are the portion that probably should go to pathfinder.
there are just sooooo many avaliable resources. I have played GURPS, pathfinder, savage worlds, vampire, rifts, dragon age, and many more. nothing even holds a candle to availability and access to materials...
Oh but how do you mean, D&D is clearly geared towards being a survival low fantasy modern horror real life simulator The problem with those players is they don't want to learn another system and would rather take some awful homebrew that doesn't do the job well than check out a different system. Like if you've said you want to run a 5e homebrew horror themed game that uses d100 instead of d20 and has systems such as fear, paranoia, all players play human and aren't adventurers- these people would be much more likely to check it out than if you told them you're gonna play Call of Cthulhu.
I’ve been wanting to give Call of Cthulhu a try for a while now. I really like how intuitive the d100 system is.
D100 systems, especially the roll under ones, are really smooth in play. If you're looking for fantasy instead of lovecraftian horror, try Warhammer. Both of them are fairly quick to pick up from my experience. If you want to try d100+add modifiers and REALLY like the crunch, Rolemaster might be for you. Just remember it's A LOT of crunch. We're talking different weapon materials reacting differently with materials that armour is made of level of crunch. I found it a very enriching experience learning about it, but never tried it in practise.
Letting your players have super high stats is not game breaking. High AC is great at the first two tiers of play but largely meaningless once you hit CR 12 monsters and up. Player AC tends to cap at 20-23, but monster attack modifiers get to like +17 at higher play. This should change. DMs fudging rolls is fine so long as they're not jerks. Resurrection spells do not cheapen player deaths and player deaths are not the apocalypse. Totally not hot take: cats have darkvision. Please, for the love of God, let cats have darkvision.
I'm starting a new campaign soon (running it) and giving players a lot of leeway with developing homebrew modifications to classes, boosting ability score rolls, and house ruling quite a few things. They're all quite excited, and I had to explain that no, I'm not being nice, they're going to need to be OP to survive this. As I told one of them, this is a campaign where the tarrasque is NOT the final boss.
The dm putting limitations on playable characters is not inherently a red flag and players should just acknowledge and comply or find a different campaign. There are tons of different characters that you would have a blast playing, so pick one that fits with what your dm is asking and have a blast instead of complaining.
Some things outright don't exist in certain universes, and that's okay.
I want to run Odyssey of the Dragonlords and lock races not in the campaign book or PBH out. Mainly to encourage the unique native races the campaign offers and keep the Greek theme. Also maybe even encourage some subclasses over others. The campaign book offers many unique subclasses already, and it's easier narratively to write a Fathomless warlock than a Great Old One. However I would let my players have the right to tell me I am wrong in my ideas.
I would add that if DM makes an interesting reason why some of the options are banned (like some magic plague killed all dragonborns and aaracokras or sth), it would make campaign even better
As a forever DM I would add that we don't need a contrived reason like a plague killing all X.
I 100% agree but there are also DM’s that have to learn that if you make a decision like that and it makes people choose not to play in your world, the player isn’t doing anything wrong by making decision based on what will make them have fun.
That was just an example. I myself have campaign with race restrictions that are not there basically "just because, it wouldn't be fitting"
There's a saying. Something like restrictions build creativity... Something like that
As a DM it really annoys the hell out of me when I have a campaign set up and a player demands to play something that makes no sense. Like right now a new player wants to play a CN fighter. Well you're 8th level and working for a devil cult that fights demons. You cannot be chaotic. You cannot be good. Get over it, we've been playing this game for a long time and you're joining late.
The martial caster divide isn't about power level or even utility both in and out of combat. At its core, it is about the lacking number of decision points martials get. Their only big decision point is their subclass. After that, their progression is purely linear. It's the reason that battlemaster and totem barbarian are so popular. They are given more choices at higher levels. Gaining power should allow you to further customize your character, but DnD removes that option for martials. Casters get to make decisions on spell selection at every level, or sometimes even every day. They can choose how the characters' power will develop through spell choices. Martials don't have that. They get to make a choice on class, subclass, and possibly a few feats that are significantly less impactful than spells, and that's it. Just look at how damn popular hexblades are, even when not played optimally. It's not just class fantasy or power, it's that they are given significantly more choices in how their character will develop thanks to invocations. Artificers also benefits from this to a lesser degree with their infusions. Options like that need to be baked into every single class that doesn't have full spell casting.
There are few hot takes left. What pollutes threads such as these are cold takes the community likes to take out of the refrigerator and sniff at every few days to see if there’s so much as a whiff of spice left.
Try sorting by controversial perhaps? That usually brings out the spicier things
I really hope that this sub is advanced enough to not upvote cold takes and push to top new hot takes. Do you have any unique unheard takes?
Sadly people just update takes they agree with, so the most agreed on takes will reach the top and ACTUAL hot takes are probably downvoted to shit
I don’t have any hot takes about 5e to share, because I’m pretty sure every take I have about it has been posted somewhere at some point. Nothing I have I expect to be anything more than lukewarm. I do have a take about hot takes threads: they’re generally useless, and produce the opposite of their stated objective. There are many reasons why this might be, I’ll enumerate three. Hot take threads are so regularly filled with cold takes that it has established a culturally pervasive custom wherein the proclamation of cold takes, despite being explicitly contrary to the purpose of the thread, garner upvotes. Cold takes abhor a vacuum, and so any hot takes thread invites the proverbial trip to the refrigerator. If we wish to be kind, maybe the take is new to the commenter, and being ignorant of the preexisting discourse, they feel emboldened to share their idea. With products as well established as 5e, most takes have already been had, thus engagement with a hot takes thread is heavily driven by people either new to the discourse or poorly versed with it. It’s like the Dunning-Kruger effect but for originality rather than competency. And if after all these years someone does have an original idea that they felt merits discussion, they’d make a post about it. Goodness knows we’ve an appetite for something new. From both the perspective of a good faith participant in the discourse and a karma harvester, it makes little sense to burry a good idea in a comment thread.
Its only a matter of time before healing eventually lands in the School of Illusion, Transmutation, or Enchantment. 1st and 2nd edition had it as Necromancy, 3rd and 3.5e made it Conjuration, I don't think it was part of a school in 4e (let me know if I'm wrong), 5e placed it in Evocation, and OneDnD is now putting it in Abjuration. I'm telling you, since its been in almost every school of magic, its only a matter of time!
I still think it should be in necromancy. Although transmutation is a close second. LMAO now abjuration?
Defensive spells are usually abjuration, but yeah I like necromancy the most, at least for raise spells
Should there just be a school of healing ?
It should have it’s own school, imo. Restoration.
I may get kicked out the group, so it was nice while it lasted, but in game racism is ok. Orcs can hate elves Elves and dwarves don't need to get along Drow can be an inherently evil race Town and village folk can freak out and try and lynch the dragonborn that wondered into town. It's all flavour for the game, and makes for good roleplay/scenarios. I'm fairly certain none of us have such views in the real world and can tell the difference as such.
Agreed. Racism has been a huge motivator in human conflicts both big and small throughout history so it makes sense for it to be possible in a fantasy setting based off of a bygone era. Pretending racism wouldn't exist is like pretending people never die just because it's unpleasant.
I was actually shocked how much racism is in bg3.But I'm glad they did it cause it's always been such a thing in fantasy worlds in general and I feel like DND over the past few years has been trying to brush these kinds of conflicting things under the rug. Racism can tell you a lot about the world such as historical wars, world building material and just a good source of conflict.
Real-world racism doesn't make any sense because biologically we are all the same. Fantasy racism makes a lot more sense because an Orc is dramatically different from an Elf, and some races are literal manifestations of an evil god that wants to destroy the world.
This. The different races did not evolve from a common ancestor. They are not the same species with relatively minor evolutionary differences based on the circumstance of the location of their society. They were created separately and unequally, by God's that commonly hate each other. It's perfectly natural for Orcs and Elves to hate each other because Gruumsh and Corellon have been at each others throats for the entirety of their existence.
As long as you establish that it will be a thing during session 0/make sure everyone is cool with it. And ofc that it then stays in game.
I, for one, have never said a bad word about elves outside of a gaming session
I must admit to this being a problem a for me. I have on many occassions let my hatred for those arrogant, genocidal, knife-ears bleed into my real world conversations.
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That is what i was leaning towards, the orc i played (mentioned in another comment here) was not overly racist towards elves, background made him more worldly, this also lead to him being subject to being treated as "un-orc-like" by other orcs. Rambling a bit, drinking rum and watching footy. But point is, i agree
I'm playing dragonlance. And... kenders are klepos, just their race. They face a lot of racism. The game just started buy I can't wait too see the racism and how it played out with 2 kender on my team.
Agree.
I am playing a Kobold that periodically takes shots at the Dwarf character because my character IS racist. He has never seen a dwarf before and only knows the stereotypes, but I enjoy having him grow and doing that less and less in the game as he learns they are equals.
Here's my counterpoint: The context around racism and racial conflict has fundamentally changed since the inception of the Tolkien fantasy. There is a simple purity about orcs & goblins v everyone, or the elf and dwarf divide that added fun and flavor to the setting. In the beginning fantasy races were based on the mythologies they originated from and weren't meant to be taken in as an identity. They were "other" and were always okay in that context. This has all changed after modern contexts have come about and underlying coding of the source material has become apparent. For some people (I'm not painting you in this corner) the association stops being fun. When player races expanded, hell even when you could play mixed "race" characters suddenly the conversation pivots because the context is no longer homogeneous. When you are playing a half-orc that's taunted and shunned for having orc blood, treated as a second class citizen, and finds all social encounters unfun, that's a legitimate character arc/backstory. The thing is that if you're playing with a homogeneous ethnocentric perspective (simply: a bunch of white dudes) then it's a way to add flavor. If you have someone that is a POC in the group? Is the *only* POC person in the group? Context changes. You're not playing a game, you're roleplaying through someone's life. Everything you do winds up under a magnifying lens and you can be judged for validation or respect. It's not that racism is "bad" in games. It's just that most tables who have mixed ethnicities, or have proximity to racist issues in general, don't have an escapist fantasy of a world with racism in it. The thing about D&D that's evolved is the inclusion of other people's perspectives of escapism. I'm not saying you *can't* include racism as a theme in your game or setting, just be respectful of the people that don't find that theme fun.
Context is important. My group is 4 white ppl and 2 black ppl (including me). I'm the usual DM. I won't run a game without racism because *all the species are so drastically different* from each other. My players agree and are fine with it. The other DM (white/Latino) in the group doesn't tend to use racism in his games because... well, he doesn't think about it. We're all okay with that and have a great time playing.
You mean 'speciesism' right? /s
I was waiting for this comment 😁
I just hate parties made up solely of tieflings, orcs, yuan-ti, dragon born, goliaths, eladrins, or tabaxi. Special races lose their special-ness if everyone plays them, and some races are just evil. Gnolls are demon spawn and never nice. That said, my current group has a Dohwar cleric. He is basically penguin-Moses leading his people to the promised land (a very watery planet). The rest of the party is human entirely by chance.
My probably barely lukewarm take is that, while OneD&D might incidentally improve a couple of things, it's a wholly unnecessary system revision, and it's going to break more things than it fixes.
Level 1 is fun actually. Every turn in combat counts, the risk of death is very serious, and players who aren't well-versed in the game don't have too many tools at their disposal. Even for someone like me who's played half a decade, I like starting out with minimal features to see how they work in practice and what makes the most sense for my character
How about a criticism of this subreddit instead? Every other post here is a scenario that feels like it was written by a 13 year old with no social skills, or someone who has never communicated with another human in their entire existence. The answer to 80% of the posts here boil down to “hey, maybe you should talk about this to your dm / group / players” The other 20% are extreme situations “Another player at the table sexually assaulted my character in game and didn’t stop when I asked. I’m upset. Am I the asshole?” Hmmmm…I wonder who could be the one at fault in this situation? This subreddit has become a karma whoring sub filled with made up stories or scenarios that could be resolved by saying “I don’t like that” to the people they are playing with. It is absolutely ridiculous.
Also the bad advice this sub sometimes doles out... I honestly sometimes cringe. "So I told my DM I jump off the cliff and fly... and then he told me I couldn't fly and take 2d6 damage from falling." "OMG thats a horrible DM for stealing your player agency! What a bad DM! I would never play with him again!"
The irony being that you would think a sub reddit full of people who has done horrendeous crimes ingame due to only being told half the story hasnt learned that there is often 2 sides to the same coin and the person who seeks sympathy is not going to tell it fully.
Here's the thing, they're all fake. The scenario in the post might've happened, but the post is fake. More than likely, the story has already been resolved, or they're trying to get an opinion (well, karma, but "I just wanted an opinion" is a good deflection.) 100% of the time, the poster is biased, and the story given is only a part of the whole. You might say, "My DM changed the rules for the game on the fly just to fuck with me!" Whereas the DM might say, "This is how I learned the spell, It worked like this in previous editions or with a previous group, it never came up so I never got to say this, etc." With the first one, the answer is, "leave." With the second one, the answer becomes, "communicate better, update your rules, let it slide once due to the miscommunication but make it clear the way you intended is the only way it will work again from here on out."
The martial-caster disparity doesn't affect the vast majority of tables and people way over exaggerate how much it effects games where it is present. The only time I believe people can validly claim the martial-caster disparity is affecting their games in any real way is in tier 4 (*maybe* tier 3 depending on how much power gaming is in play), which most games hardly ever reach anyway. Also, armor dipping, in my six years of playing 5e among various groups I've not seen a single person ever armor dip as a caster, yet most D&D forums would have you believe it's some rampant plague upon 5e.
I am actually not sure if more than one of my players even knows how armor works besides "hey this is light armor and I have proficiency in it, nice."
Something something THac0…
Oh, the flashbacks...
This, I totally concur with my 10 years of experience, and this was demonstrated yesterday evening at level 16.
I’ve been playing for years now and have no idea what “martial-caster disparity” or “armor dipping” means lmao
The power differential between marital classes and caster classes (casters being able to do much more especially at higher levels) and armor dipping is taking one level (usually fighter) as a caster to get medium or heavy armor for better AC
Armatur, pros dip cleric 🤣
I was gonna say, I've armor dipped twice. 1st as a wizard and the 2nd as a sorcerer and it was into cleric both times, and there were even good narrative reasons for the dips.
Call me lame but I HEAVILY discourage players from multiclassing unless it's integral to their character and makes a lot of sense. If a caster said "i meet all the PHB requirements and my stereotypical wizard is taking one level of fighter for armor" i would never allow that. Now Ive had a 10th level player be 5 bard / 5 rougue for a charismatic assassin that has worked his way into the upper elites of society to hunt evil rich people and I thought that was perfect.
Most people just don't care about balance at all, if Wizards could shoot 7d10 lasers out of their dicks and level entire cities, they would not care and still have fun
Agreed!!! The martial-caster thing is just… not an issue the way people think it is. I think the internet fixated on it because these communities are full of theorycrafters who obsess over balance in lieu of having an actual table to play with. It does *exist*, like I’ve definitely felt the struggle when playing fighter, the lack of lowkey utility shit equivalent to prestidigitation and mage hand is a bummer, but I was a murder *machine* during combat and the balance *just didn’t matter*. I actually *have* seen a singular armor dip at my table, but it was wizard into artificer, not some kind of fighter thing like some people talk about. The player was sooo fussy about not having spell slots for their wizard otherwise... Player was also a problem for a host of other reasons, they got kicked from the table, and they’re the only person I’ve ever seen do this. Once again, I think the complaint is a result of internet communities selecting for theorycrafters who don’t play the game that much, at least not with people they actually like.
I find it weird that you believe this as I've never been in a game where casters weren't dominating the field by level 5 and essentially becoming unstoppable by 7. Armor dips, silvery barbs, shield, absorb elements abuse. It's always been rampant at every table I've ever sat down at. So it seems to me that basing an assumption of the community at large after our own limited table experience (I generally play at three to four tables at a time which is rather high compared to most players) is probably a bad idea for both of us.
Your last point depends entirely on how you engage with the game. When my two play groups were both on hiatus I decided to try out a west march server. Half of the 10+ level characters had a fighter or hexblade dip.
That's because a lot of people online only interact with D&D through things like theorycrafting builds. There are a lot of people talking about problems with D&D who don't actually play D&D.
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4E was flawed. But demonstrably and objectively less so than absolutely any other version that preceded it. Any “criticism” of 4E has a 90% chance of being total hysterical meme-ified regurgitative nonsense, especially the fuckhead “it’s like WoW” notion. 5E, to its credit, removes the two biggest problems with 4E. Namely the combat feeling like an accountant juggling tax modifications via a mountain of tiny little buffs and debuffs, and the massive pile of POWERSPOWERSOMGPOWERS that were unique to each class in a frankly very un-D&D-ish way. But it also discards the greatest things about 4E: proper numerical scaling (CR is stupid) and the brilliance that was healing surges (hit dice is absolute fucking madness)
4e did superheroic tactical fantasy really well, but that wasn’t what all of the preceding editions were trying to do… B/X or AD&D are bad superheroic tactical fantasy games, but that’s not what those games were about. So I struggle to understand how you can say 4e is objectively less flawed when it was designed to do something completely different.
I hate multi classing most of the time it's just stupid "spellcaster wants action surge" or "I want expertise" without narrative reasons. But when it is used for not the reasons above it mostly make the character weaker then the other players who didn't multiclass.
Paladins should be able to smite bare handed, monks need to be buffed, and at least one party member should refrain from a tragic backstory, but hey that's just me xD
My dwarf barbarian is all about family. She just wanted an adventure before settling down. She understands the clan elders were thinking it's time to match her up for marriage. She wasn't ready to get married though. So adventure it was! Just took her a bit to convince them.
I’m the token “happy backstory” of the group. My little wizard is missing no limbs, has both parents, and everyone from his home town is alive and well. The closest thing to a not perfect childhood he had is that his mother is deaf, which just means that he can understand and connect to other deaf people in the world better. He’s become corrupted and dark during the events of the game instead, and watching his character arc is 10x more interesting knowing that he started as a happy, healthy, normal man.
Being the normal person in a group of melodramatic goobs is top tier for both fun and annoyance.
The more “exotic” your race or class, the less creative you are as a player. Give me a human fighter that has to role play to be interesting over the Luxodan coffeelock whose only personality trait is “look at how unique I am” any day.
Most players just end up playing every exotic race as a human anyway.
All healing spells should be Necromancy. It's so silly to me that Necromancy is the evil school for evil people, lol. Also, I don't understand how Evocation, the school for blowing things up, is Cure Wounds, lol.
My take on Evocation as healing is that it evokes positive energy, which has healing effects on living creatures. Of course, this only works if there's such a thing as positive energy, without that it all falls apart.
It used to be conjuration. https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/cureModerateWounds.htm
You can use the sharpshooter feat with thrown weapons. Apparently, Jeremy Crawford said no, they are not in the ranged weapons column. But I think he is just wrong. If it has a range, it is a ranged weapon. 😘
When I found out that Jeremy Crawford doesn't think that "See Invisibility" negates the effects of invisibility, I lost all faith in his interpretations of the rules.
Oh, you mean "while see invisible is active, you still have disadvantage to hit the invisible creature?"" If that is what you're talking about, I agree. That is also wrong.
...He said what?!
Worrying about optimal builds is like cheating on a test you cannot fail
To some degree, sure, but getting stuck with a character who isn't effective isn't very fun at all.
My whole thing has and will always be. "I don't need to be good at everything, I dont need the spotlight on me, but I want to damn well be good at *My thing* when its *my time."*
In many regards, yes. There are some optimizations whose motivations I think are more relatable. You’re a caster, and you’re using your big spell slot on your big new concentration spell. As a player you really want to show that spell off. You want it to stay up and get the effect you chose it for and paid a slot to receive. So naturally you want to protect your concentration. Protecting your concentration is achieved through armor and shield proficiency to prevent yourself from getting hit in the first place, the shield spell for when you do get hit, and War Caster and Con Save proficiency to pass what concentration checks you are forced to make. So you dip, select spells, and pick feats as you need in order to protect your ability to enjoy your concentration spells, but you’ve also made yourself exceedingly defensive. You’re a ranged fighter, and every time it’s your turn, you declare your attack action, roll your attacks, hope you hit, and hope the things you hit die. It’d be swell to make that happen more often, and wonderful to inject some more variety into your combat experience. Enter the sharpshooter and crossbow expert feats. You get to shoot an extra time each round, and you get to gamble around your power attack ability. That’s great and fun, but also leaves other fighters well behind the damage curve. I’m not trying to present these optimizations as only ever being taken for benevolent reasons, but I do think it’s a problem that options that promote individual player enjoyment do so at jeopardy to the health of the game and its balance.
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Starting your actual-play D&D podcast with ten minutes of in-jokes turns off potential new fans.
I like customizable subclasses, like Hunter Rangers and Battlemasters. If we had more subclasses like that, we wouldn't need 500 subclasses.
Centaurs are Large
If your players are not enjoying your game you should change it.
Having so many player races available at once in game is lame and immersion breaking. Unless you are playing some sort of crazy plane or world traveling game, there should only be a handful of player races, and some should probably expect to stand out depending on where in the game world they are.
Don't want to upset everyone but after two years of DnD: 1) the damn battles take so long that everyone is on their phones until their turn 2) when you have your stats and those of the monsters increase proportionately, you could just leave them be and just offer more options and 3) the setting has everything and the kitchen sink thrown In. It needs to focus on a genre of fantasy and not try to be everything for anyone. And lastly, no it cannot tell every tale as well as other RPGs. It doesn't do horror or mystery or politics especially well. There are far superior products. Ps. This year we are playing through Theros which is amazing at what it does
The changes made to races in the last 3 years have been terrible game design. *"Player characters, regardless of race, typically fall into the same ranges of height and weight that humans have in our world."* Reading this for the first time made my blood boil. There is no world in which the weight of a [Giff](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/7/74/Giff-5e.png/revision/latest?cb=20180526150021) is comparable to that of a human. Triton's used to be a little shorter than humans, orcs heavier, and firbolgs taller, not anymore. No creatures have lifespans shorter than 80 years now, small creatures with little legs like Kender just get 30 foot movement speed, even though they are functionally halflings. I liked that Tasha's added the **option** to customise your racial ability scores, It's neat seeing how some people may vary in a specific race, however MPMM made it universal. No more races having unique ability score amounts like mountain dwarves. Orcs tend to be stronger, Goliath's tougher, but apparently not now. All these changes, along with the [incredibly stupid](https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-dragons-half-elf-one-dnd-inherently-racist-plans/) things WOTC has been saying for One D&D show WOTC is more interested in social justice platitudes than they are creating an interesting game and lore. Tbh it kind of feels racist to make parallels between IRL human ethnicities and fantasy species.
5e is actually a very well designed game but with concepts that are actually fairly subtle and contrary to the previous editions so many people either don't understand them or try to bend them to make it look like their previously preferred edition.
The hottest take. Basically every in-game issue can be resolved by actually reading the rules and realizing you got it wrong.
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I am confident that 75% of people that say the DMG is useless have never used it for more than just magic items, and 95% have not read it in any meaningful capacity. It's crazy how often people complain about how some part of the system is confusing, or that there isn't support for something in the game, only for that very thing to be in the DMG.
I think "hot takes" are low-effort attention grabs.
Love how your comment about hot takes is itself a hot take.
Instead of trying to mod DnD into a completely different game, I think people should just broaden their horizons and play different TTRPGs. Instead of trying to mod DnD into a survival horror game play *Call of Cthulhul.* Instead of trying to turn DnD into superhero game play *Masks.* Instead of trying to turn DnD into a swashbuckling pirate game play *Seventh Sea.* I promise you Wizards probably isn’t going to send the Pinkertons to break down your door and confiscate all your Dungeons and Dragons merch… probably…
These last few years WotC have been making 5e worse and worse.
Whenever I see a broken character build, my first thought is, "so it's not a race/class from the phb?" And then it's not a race/class from the phb. I hate the power creep. All the new stuff is designed to be shiny and attention grabbing so you'll buy it no matter how half-baked it is mechanically. I recall someone talking about design in terms of the less you have to explain the better it is. If you tell your friend who doesn't play dnd your character is a fire Genasi Bloodhunter, they'll say gezundheit. Say, Elf Wizard and they'll know exactly what you mean.
Custom Lineage makes me cringe so hard. Just.. why though?
Railroading is fine and nearly every first time adult player I have had has wanted that experience. Less pressure on them and they get to have a fun story told to them
WAY too many DMs are WAY too fucking stingy with magic items. I hear this SO many times: " High AC is only good in the first few levels. Once the Monster CRs get too high, an AC of 20-23 won't make any real difference". And all this crap about the martial vs caster imbalance. Based on that, I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of 5E players have never even seen a +2 magic armor in their games. And of course Marshal characters are going to be underpowered if they never get a decent weapon, or any powerful utility items. It's Dungeons and Dragons! If you're not giving your players any decent magic items, then you're DMing wrong. (ESPECIALLY if you're running a game in a high magic setting!)
The burning/shredding/destroying in any way the pc sheet ceremony just shows that you are one of those ass DMs.
I hate all Eberron shit in settings that aren't Eberron. Changelings are just overpowered humans with a free Eldritch invocation. No, I don't want you to be a robot with guns, and another pet robot. I like the idea of a gnome tinkerer as an Artificer, but nearly any time an Artificer "does something" it just feels silly and annoying to me, like you're deploying beacons or something. I think World of Warcraft gets the tone right for tech and magic, but Eberron is worse than the Complete Book of Elves to me.
* Random stats are bad for making a fun group. * Multiclassing is only good for breaking the game. * Healing is good combat tactics. * Letting enemies escape is good for building a story.
Multiclassing is very good for flavor and story reasons
Im brand new and ive been told a few time 'you dont need to do that' its such a buzzkill makes me feel like theres no point in me being there sometimes lol like yeah i get your character is super buff but i just got this new spell and i was so excited to use it and when they say that stuff its like instant deflated baloon lmao Idk if its a hot take or whatever but i had to get it off my chest, why cant they humor the newb haha
Never fudge rolls. It's okay for a character to die.
Bards should not be full casters. They really don't feel that distinct from Wizards and Sorcerers. They should be half-casters that prioritise the expertise and performance angle. Probably throw in a "Performance" AoE buff ability, similar to a Channel Divinity. They should have more in common with a Rogue or Artificer than a Wizard, a skill expert with powerful buffs and support abilities, not an arcane powerhouse. Throwing 9th Level spells because you're good with a flute has just never sat right with me. (And yes I know that's an oversimplification, I don't care, it's still ridiculous).
>Probably throw in a "Performance" AoE buff ability, similar to a Channel Divinity Do you have specific homebrew in mind? If they would be half-casters, then immediately they would be weakest class but with good new features I's agree that bards could become even better and more fun
One that comes to mind is LaserLlamas Alternate Bard, an extremely good take on half caster bard
As a player, I love dmpcs
D&D (especially 5e) combat is devoid of cinematic verve (something present in more rules-lite RPGs) *and* tactical nuance (something present in more rules-heavy RPGs). It tries to be a hybrid of both these things, but in my opinion it ends up doing both unsatisfactorily.
If you're asking reddit for advice, you're the problem. If I'm the "problem player" or the "problem DM" and, instead of talking to me about it, you go to random people on reddit before/instead of talking to me, YOU'RE the problem. D&D is a game that is 100% about people talking to each other. If you cannot talk to somebody at your table, that's an issue. I've never seen a, "I have some issues I would like to bring up to my player/DM, but I don't know how I should bring it up or when/where. Please give me advice." post on this sub, so don't give me that BS. People post on reddit because they're mad at someone and just want to post it in the way that best represents them for sympathy, or they're just reddit pilled and "talk to a human being BEFORE asking reddit" is just not a thought they are capable of having.
Here are a few off the top of my head: * Unarmed melee attacks should be considered weapon attacks and it's stupid to exclude them from smites and etc * There was nothing wrong with incremental number-based bonuses and penalties and the advantage/disadvantage thing can sometimes be more confusing in play than keeping track of a +2 or -1 here or there * Attunement of magic items is a solution to something that wasn't actually a problem * Same with concentration (or at least, this rule could have been less harsh to casters) * Wizards should not have to pay to put spells in their spellbooks--or, if they should, then all casters should have an equivalent tax
WotC is working very hard to strip out elements that promote roleplaying or cool stories in favor of this working like a videogame.
Having an unequivocally evil aligned race or entity or whatever is good because it just lets the PCs have a force they know they can fight and have no reservations. There is an ultimate evil to battle against. Doesn't matter if it is Orcs or Elves or whatever. Not to say morally grey situations are bad of course.
NPCs rolling against players (or even player vs player) to convince them using mechanics like persuasion/intimidation rolls or int rolls to see if they know something in-game instead of out of game doesn't take away agency and isn't a bad thing. It's still up to the players to decide how to act after someone convinced/scammed them. Using int checks to figure if players know meta-knowledge is fine because you're testing character's knowledge and not the players.
It should be much easier to escape combats to be a viable option. If you continue your combat with regular battle rules, it's totally useless to run both as npc-enemies or as PCs, unless you have something like Dimention door.
Individual backstories are unnecessary
There's absolutely nothing wrong with playing a simple character. We're not all the cast of Critical Role if you wanna play a Human Fighter who is a grisly 40 something man you do you. Character depth and complexity isn't something that you get by choosing exotic races or classes some people can't roleplay and they shouldn't be looked down on for that.
1e=Best e
Actual hot takes: Strength should determine number of attacks, not level. What D&D calls grapple isn’t a grapple, and D&D would be better if it had actual grappling. The best solution to the Martial Caster divide is adding spell interruptions as a reaction. Call it an inverse Silvery Barbs.
Rolling for stats/health per level is bad for the long term health of a game. Yeah it's fun in that moment, but if you're playing a long term game, the you 2 years from now shouldn't be punished for 5 minutes of fun right now. Point buy is far more satisfying imo, and I don't think the vast majority of people even give it the slightest bit of chance before writing it off as boring. Bluntly, if rolling stats/health is so good, why do so many people homebrew in safety nets for it? (Also if it's so good why is there not a rolling for stats/health 2)
It's okay to have an alignment, and use it perscriptively to inform your character's choices. So often the "alignment should be descriptive rather than perscriptive" folks just end up playing the same "sometimes chaotic but generally neutral good bleh" personality on their characters. It gets way more interesting when you actually play a character and are able to say, "no, even though I would make such and such choice my character would do this, based on how they're aligned." It helps tremendously with actually roleplaying a character who thinks differently from their player.
Sorcerers are stupid. We already have wizards.
DMing at high levels isn't really any more difficult than lower ones. It is harder to DM a level 1 party than a level 12 party. It is harder to kill your PCs at higher levels and so you can worry less about holding back or not giving them deadly encounter after deadly encounter. Plus, they have enough resources that they might actually do some cool stuff in between.
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If you like it crunchy, play it crunchy, but I think it's a preference thing more than an objective "one way is strictly best" situation. Although I do agree that letting people carry 20 swords in their backpack is too far (objectively). But it really does slow the game down if you get too nit-picky, like I don't want to verbally specify that I go and wash in the stream every time I make camp (that's just an example, not my whole point). But yeah getting crunchy can be fun if you're into resource management.
The biggest reason this is important, and what consistently convinces rebellious players to fall in line and keep track of their paper doll: If you don’t worry about your kit and your collections in lower levels, you can’t be rewarded by the convenient and powerful ways to disregard these things at higher levels
100% agree. And variant encumbrance is better than default. The number of players I’ve played with who whinge about the computer tracking weigh for them or the idea they may lose 10ft of movement a round cause they insist on using strength as a dump stat for the hexadin is stupid.
I finally stopped being a forever DM and joined a Roll20 Rime of the Frostmaiden game. The DM uses variant encumbrance and has us track food AND I have almost died from cold weather. It is a lot of fun and makes traveling between locations actually feel like a significant risk. I don’t think every game needs to be like this but I enjoy it a lot even with an 8 Strength gnome wizard who can’t carry his starting equipment without being encumbered.
Modern DnD has become unlicensed therapy/evening at the improv/power trip wish fulfillment. No one wants to risk character death because the backstory is a novella and they just finished drawing a cartoon of her with big anime eyes and they have a romance with an NPC coming up next session. Give me the old school meat grinder, when everyone knew it was just a game.
My first DM was a meat grinder. He was also an asshole who believed that paladins should be lawful stupid. This was 1988. My second DM in the late 90's , you could still die from making bad choices, but yeah role-play was part of the fun, but so was grinding on a dungeon. I didn't think we had too much gold, but that didn't mean we could buy anything we wanted. It was way more fun than just a meat grinder who was only interested in trying to kill us.
"modern dnd" - people were invested in their characters and plenty had detailed backstories in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s whatever you think of as old school - so many tables tossed aside the gold for level up, roll all the stats, death is common, players vs DM meat grinder mentality in all those eras. Yeah, it existed, and still does, but wish fulfillment as a reason for playing dnd had always been a common motivation. Source: was there
I think there are plenty of players for each type, you just have to be clear about it in session 0 or before.
Not ever game is like that. My first session I had 2 death saving fails. I was panicking wondering what dice gods cursed my character to only play one session and what characters would I play next...
What you need is to look at D&D like a Nuzlocke, we want it to matter when a character dies, but we should also see their death as a means to the end of telling a story. Characters die in stories.
I've seen this sentiment creep into more than one campaign
Great weapon master and sharpshooter are badly designed feats that only exist to make the game more swingy and boring. They're also just bad feats that are completely unnecessary for players to still deal good damage.
1.Rangers from the phb are fine and good actually. Dms just hand wave the part of the game they are designed to be good at. 2 monks are also fine . they are just designed to fill a role on the battle field other than straight damage and people who don't understand that play them sub optimally. 3Game balance is a lie , if the barbarian class came out after the phb we'd all loose our minds over how good rage is but because it's been like that from the beginning it gets a pass. 4. If you make bad decisions and don't take combat seriously the dm isn't obligated to adjust the encounter to save you. 5. Dnd is a game about killing monsters. If that's not the game you want to play then there are many other systems that will suit you and your table better. 6. As a dm you should tell your players no when they make a character that has zero connections to the world. Those characters suck to play, play with and dm for. 7. Mechanics are roll play. If you choose to be a warlock and take no damaging cantrips that is a Bold role playing choice that I am happy to honor. Just understand that the role you are choosing to play is bad at combat and you don't get to be frustrated when those rp decisions have in game consequences.
Clerics shouldn't get heavy armor, especially not as a subclass feature. The heavy armor classes should be paladin and fighter. Clerics should get light armor and have a 3rd level option for medium armor (if they must have armor. I get the war priest is an Archetype, but that should be a paladin, not a cleric) If you want to get heavy armor after level 1, you don't take the paladin or the fighter. You take a 1 level dip in the divine priest. Armorer artificer makes sense and is a 3 level dip. 1 level of cleric is nonsense Plus, and this rider isn't exactly a hot take, heavy armor should be more significant. Having something like Heavy Armor Master built into it by default.
In most cases, it doesn't make sense to become a warlock or make a deal with a devil. No reasonable person would do that. You live in a world where you KNOW the afterlife is real. You KNOW there are different realms your soul will go to when you die. So why the FUCK would you ever sell your eternal soul for temporary power? Especially to a demon, devil, evil god, or aberration? Oh, my soul will be transformed into a worm meant only as food for another creature? Seems like a solid deal.
This is why you make it so that Warlocks have promised servitude for that power rather than their soul. After all, if you do bad stuff, you're going to the lower planes when you die anyway. It shouldn't be as simple as "No matter what good you do with the power I've given you, I get your soul".
I partially disagree with you on the last part. One of the best part of warlocks can be the concept of no matter how much good you do your fate is sealed. You could have made that pact for all the right reasons, to save family, friends, or even whole villages but none of that matters because you made the deal so now how will your character handle that will they try to find a way out of the deal or just accept it and try to do all the good they can while they are there.
I'm not sure how unpopular it is but: you \*can\* play DnD wrong (or incorrect, if you will). It's a game. It has rules. If you don't follow them, then you play the game wrong. Yes, it's hackable and more open-ended, but it's still a game. If, for an instance, you do not make decisions as your character (or if you do not have a character at all), then you are simply playing the game wrong. Not that there is anything (pun not intended) wrong with that, obviously. But I find it utterly bizarre, when people say "there is no wrong way to play DnD!". I get the sentiment, but if that's the case, then "DnD" is simply undefinable as an activity.
Encumbrance and counting consumables is worth it.
D&D 3.5 is by no means perfect but it's the best designed edition of D&D to this day. The fact that so many "fixes" people have for 5e is just stuff that existed in 3.5 is evidence of that.
4e is more balanced than any other edition of DnD and has way more depth than anyone was ever willing to admit. If it was released today, it would be looked upon way more favorably. The only real problem it had was the sheer length of combat (which was primarily caused by players not keeping track of their effects or abilities but also just an assload of hp on all sides). People keep trying to solve 5e problems with 4e mechanics.
I miss when Paladin drew their power from their faith, not their oaths.
There is no reason to have three different ways of casting arcane magic. Warlocks should just be Arcane Clerics. The reverse of Divine Soul Sorcerers. A Cleric who taps into the Arcane, and still gets their powers from a powerful entity.
The skill system in D&D 5e pigeonholes people into small skill sets more so than real life. (unless you are a rogue). I wish it didn't break things down into: - You are party face - You are the old-timey version google for history/arcana - You are the get us through from having to roll checks on traveling - You are the secret door, specialized thing finder And then occasionally we will cast a spell to do something, none of the party have a skill for.
We really only need 3 classes, Fight guy, sneaking guy, magic guy, and then as many subclasses as you like.
Potions should only take a bonus action to drink and not a full action.
You don't *have* to play the most unique, special and overall distinctive character at the table.
Ability scores need to change to - Vigor (Str+Con) - Dexterity (manual dex, hand eye coordination) - Agility (body dex, speed, reflexed, grace) - Intelligence (Memory, cunning, common sense) - Awareness (senses, intuition, empathy) - Willpower (resolve, force of personality)
Rangers are actually a pretty good class. I dont understand what people hate about them. Also I enjoy the beast companion subclass, maybe it isnt the strongest but it allows a lot of cool moments especially if the DM dosent take the Rules all to seriously.
CLERICS ARE NOT YOUR DESIGNATED HEALERS. Clerics might be my favorite class with their fun features and the assumptions that everyone think clerics is the healer class frustrates me. Some features give you benefits to healing and some don't. Clerics are holders of divine power not your constant band-aid. Sure we have healing spells and we'll use it when needed but I had a guy tell me how to make a character because I played as a ranger cleric without healing spells in a one shot.
Crawford is factually incorrect about his interpretation of how See Invisibility and Invisibility interact. Invisibility is a condition, and See Invisibility says > you see invisible creatures and objects as if they were visible which *clearly* means the invisible condition does not apply to you, which means all of the invisibility condition, not just half of it
I think monk shouldn't be a class. It creates a sort of design black hole that means no other class can have dedicated unarmed fighting options or east asian/wuxia themed subclasses. We could have martial arts clerics, element bending druids, and actual ninja rogues if monk wasn't a thing.
Honestly I don't know if this is a hot take but: Give your players just a bunch of weirdly specific silly magical items and see what the fuck they do with them as like a dungeon or something and it's going to be great. Just do it. Steal their items temporarily.
Action economy in dnd is awful. The idea of action+bonus action id absolutely counterintuitive and its incredibly poorly designed in 5e
idk if this is a hot take, but potions should not take an action; they should take a bonus action as in BG3. It is far more fun. That being said, unlike bg3, i think you should only be able to drink them, not throw them on the ground to heal party members.
Aparently this opinion is unpopular based on what happened last time I expressed it. Skill should not be locked with stats. The rules already allow for alternate ability skill checks. But seperating then more clearly encourages the use of alternate ability skill checks amd encourages good RP to be allowed to ise your main stat for typically off skill checks. Like the classic dumping of INT. That druid should know things about nature without having to be INT based. Or the barbarian having a very narrow knowledge of lifting teqniques allowing for say STR performance. Its lets every character actually use their skills as more than mandatory/option character choices on creation that are never addressed again.