There are quite a few articles and rants on the web explaining why Dungeons & Dragons sucks. So...

There are quite a few articles and rants on the web explaining why Dungeons & Dragons sucks. So, let's take that statement at a face value — D&D gargles balls, plain and simple.

That said, most of the arguments I've seen focus too much on the details. They talk about alignment, about how classes are set up, about the amount of rules to handle or the number of books you need to buy. Some even point out the player mentality which, granted, is greatly damaged by the play style the system encourages, but I've never really seen anyone cutting the issue to the bone and getting to the core. Here's my attempt to lay out the four main reasons I don't use D&D:

>1. Power level.
It would make a lot of sense for a system define a certain power level and stick to it throughout the game. In D&D it’s impossible, because if you want to improve your character in any way, you get a damn package of abilities with every level. The guard dogs you feared in the beginning of the game will be helpless pups after a couple of “adventures”.

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>2. Restrictiveness.
Rather than make the character you want, you have to mix and match options to get the closest idea you were striving for. If you want to be a proficient brawler, you have to take a level in a certain class (monk). The character progression is pre-set — why did my back-street brawler suddenly become immune to all diseases (monk class ability)? And why can my witchdoctor take animal forms now (druid class ability)? You can pay an instructor to take riding lessons, but then you can't increase the Riding skill until you gain a level (which can take months in-game, or more, if you’re higher level). You cannot make up your own spells. Many character concepts are banned at starting levels (this is especially true with magic-users). And no, you cannot be a good singer because you chose the Fighter class.

>3. Mystery killing.
How many times have you seen, or thought yourself: “The guy touched my sword. The blade rusted and crumbled to pieces. This must be the Rusting Grasp spell (obvious, right?), which means that we’re dealing with at least 7th level druid. His Wisdom must be at least 14 to cast that spell, so, his Will save bonus is +7 or greater. He also has a good Fort save, so we better use some spell against him that requires Reflex, which is probably his worst. We gotta keep him away from the bushes too, as he’s got no movement penalties there and he can Entangle us if we follow. He also leaves no tracks behind. Druids also have animal companions, so we better be ready for surprise, and if he starts to lose, he’s got an ability to turn into eagle and fly away. Better watch out for that one, as we need information for him.”

Okay, I must state I don’t do this on purpose, but this kind of information just comes to me during the play. In essence, one tiny detail tells me VAST knowledge about the character we’re dealing with. No mystery at all — I know pretty well of what the character is capable of. And if GM modifies things that it isn’t as I think, this is to possibly cause scorned reaction from players: “Hey, why didn’t you tell you allowed such class? I would have really liked to play such a character,” etc.

>4. Logic holes/silliness.
Weapons have damage caps. Roll 1d4 point of damage for hit using a hand crossbow. WTF!? Any crossbow should be a dangerous weapon, and this four damage doesn’t even account for a scratch on most non-starting characters.

Okay, while never mentioned in the books, I can understand that Hit Points are meant to represent also stamina and dodging, not just taking wounds. However, this makes an arrow just as easy to avoid as a punch. Although using this representations is better than having barbarians running around with a dozen of arrows in their chest, it’s still silly. But hey, that’s what D&D is — silly. A friend of mine explained me once how he can make a character who dishes out 1d6+4 damage with a random twig picked up from the forest (don’t remember the mechanics, sorry, but it didn’t require exceptional Strength). It is also amusing that a single shuriken can CONSTANTLY make just as much damage as an average "longsword" (1 damage + 1 point blank shot + 2 weapon specialization = 4 automatic damage). Have fun combining it with the Flurry of Blows and you get a character whose biggest problem is that he cannot physically carry enough shurikens… They just run out before the combat ends.

Also, have you ever-ever seen any PC take cover in D&D against a single archer? Their defence trait vs. bullets/arrows is the same as in melée, so it would be stupid to take cover, as there’s no additional danger in charging ahead to hack the archer down. (Some firearms-based settings have upped the base damage of ranged weaponry to address this issue, but it’s not evident in D&D.)

This chapter also covers the impact of a the d20 roll has on a skill/ability checks. In case of the latter, your characters capabilities make up a miniscule part in the final result. Yes, this means that people with no training can outshine professionals time-to-time, and that arms wrestling contests between Strength 8 and 18 characters are mainly resolved with luck.

And as someone has very wisely said — though the skill ranks certainly help to succeed in tasks, they have more to do with qualifying for a prestige class.

There are more and more detailed issues on it, but they tend to fall into the four categories presented above.

...

>It would make a lot of sense for a system define a certain power level and stick to it throughout the game. In D&D it’s impossible, because if you want to improve your character in any way, you get a damn package of abilities with every level. The guard dogs you feared in the beginning of the game will be helpless pups after a couple of “adventures”.
You're missing the entire point.
Going from literal nobody to a badass is the main appeal of the genre.

>main appeal of the genre.
Nope.

I accept your concession.

I just wanna go on adventures. I don't really care about the zero to hero bit

Autism doesn't mean "wrong", though. Everything OP listed is correct, and the only real response is that people who play D&D play it because they are either in ignorance of those issues, or that they don't care care about them, or that some or all of those issues are actually a net draw for those players.

It's only an issue when it comes to sunk costs and refusal to either modify D&D to what they want it to be, or to us another system when those issues come up. D&D is what it is, and people just need to suck it up and deal with that or use a different system.

>There are quite a few articles and rants on the web explaining why Dungeons & Dragons sucks. So, let's take that statement at a face value — D&D gargles balls, plain and simple.


Can you, unironically, never post on this site again?

>Power level
One of the main appeals of D&D in specific, and RPGs in general, is a gradual increase in power level. This is not unique to D&D - in World of Darkness you get experience and power up over time, as well, eventually reaching a point where things that terrified you when your character was first created, are now laughably easy. Most other RPGs do this as well. While you may find it problematic, I'll thank you to acknowledge that this is a "problem" with the majority of RPGs, not simply D&D or even d20 games.

>Restrictiveness
Leaving aside feat choices, skill choices, and multiclassing...you've basically got a point. It's part of the way the system works. Having said that, D&D is a game that openly encourages DMs to customize it, and players to customize it with DM permission. If you don't like shifting forms as a druid, for example, it shouldn't be hard to gain an alternate feature with DM permission.

Re-fluffing is also always an option. Your brawler is immune to diseases due to being tough as nails, rather than any mystical bullshit.

This isn't a bug, by the way it's a feature - the game isn't broken, it just doesn't do what you want it to do by default, but it can be adapted to. The game is intended to run a certain way, but it's more than flexible enough to have that way be changed to better suit your specific variant.

What character concepts are banned at starting levels that are "especially true" of magic users?

>Mystery killing
This is inevitable in any system as you gain system mastery. While classless systems might theoretically cut down on it, functionally a classless system still tends to have characters building towards a *theme* and so you can make pretty good guesses about what they possess anyway. A big ol' black knight is probably not going to call down lightning on you, but he will probably have taken the feature that lets him sunder weapons.

(cont'd)

>Mystery killing (cont'd)
Additionally, many classes and monsters of different power levels share abilities. You might be dealing with a 7th level druid, or perhaps just a monster that has access to 7th level druid spells, or perhaps even just a monster with access to that one specific spell. Equally, it's possible that multiple spells have similar visual effects. Perhaps it wasn't Rusting Grasp, but Disintegrate.

>Logic holes
>Weapons have damage caps.

The weapons themselves, sure, but various modifiers and effects will apply additional damage.

By the way, your overall main problem seems to be that you're still stuck in 3rd Edition. Move on, man. Move on to 5e. Things are better here.

>If you don't like shifting forms as a druid, for example, it shouldn't be hard to gain an alternate feature with DM permission
That's a pretty drilled in mechanic. It would be very hard to just cut that whole aspect out and build something entirely new to replace it. And at that point, it's not even really the same class

>Move on to 5e. Things are better here.
They aren't. 5e is just as fundamentally broken as 3.PF.

>in World of Darkness you get experience and power up over time
That takes a whole lot longer than it does in D&D, and is, above all else, far more gradual than it is in D&D where you're instead handed down prepackaged deals each levels, and only when you level up.

Let me give my stance.
D&D has flaws. So fucking what? Every game has those. Literally every one. Just pointing out that X system has issues won't stop me playing it unless you can find a system that feels the same but doesn't have those issues.

If you're not going to suggest an alternative or a solution, this discussion is pointless.

I'm not fond in D&D but i must say that your criticism is unfounded. I just need one counterargoument for each of your points: you are playing it wrong.
>power level
I assume from your example that in your games characters earn new levels IN PLAY. Wrong: new levels are applied after a Time Skip that justifiy the new earned power

>restrictivness
You assumed that D&D works as a generic framework for every fantasy genre or character archetype. Wrong: d&d is tyed to a genre (dungeon crawling) and to a set of pregenerated archetypes, if you don'f find a fitting one well, shit... you have to play a different one or develop and playtest the one you want.

>Mystery killing
Oh rly?? That's a problem with every rulesystem involving 'rules'. Once you mastered the metagame is automatic

>logic holes/sillynes
You assumed D&D works mechanically as a simulationist game. Wrong: it's a gamis prevalent one, so all mechanics are to be expresses as 'plot devices'

And why is that a bad thing, not being the same class anymore? You didn't even want to be a druid in the first place, you wanted to be a witch-doctor. Druid was the closest thing you could find to that, so we start with that, and then modify it until we had what you wanted.

3rd Edition right from the get-go had an example of this in the DMG, by modifying the Ranger class so that it was more focused on hunting undead; or modifying the wizard spell list to be more "witchy" so that you could have a witch. Pages 174-176 of the 3.5 DMG, if you're curious, though I distinctly remember it in the 3.0 one as well.

>you are playing it wrong.
I specified in the second paragraph that these are the reasons I don't use the system.

>in your games characters earn new levels IN PLAY
In between sessions, which is, I believe, how the books specify that they should be doled out.

>new levels are applied after a Time Skip
This is not something I have ever experienced or heard about people doing.

>You assumed that D&D works as a generic framework
No. I want a system that isn't restrictive enough that you can only play one type of game with it.

>That's a problem with every rulesystem
No, it isn't. Most other RPGs aren't that transparent about their mechanics and bonuses, and many others in fact encourages GMs to not use monsters, for example, as written and instead only use them as guidelines.

>You assumed D&D works mechanically as a simulationist game
No. If I'm going to play a game with crunch I want it to be simulationist. If I'm going to play a game without crunch I want it to be narrativist. D&D is an over-complex system that over-abstracts the one thing that it spends the most of its rules on.

>I specified in the second paragraph that these are the reasons I don't use the system.
Then why shitpost about it if it's just not the system for you?

nothing is stopping you from making your own spells.

>Move on to 5e. Things are better here.
No they aren't, it's the same bullshit just a little less obvious your first time playing.

Either you're bored because you played three campaigns and realized that there isn't that much shit to do when advancing your character or you're breaking shit over your knee because you read through the book and realized that there's still some way to abuse the game to work in your favor.

>Power level.

The game does define it by tiers of play in 5E from Local-Regional-Global-Cosmic. If you don't like that nothing stops you from playing within one level range only. I'd say it's actually a strength of the system that you can play anything from a peasant to a demigod. This is a feature not a big and allows you to see your character progress from weak to strong.

>Restrictiveness

This can be said for any class based game and for the most part the classes and options provided in the various editions of the game provide enough options for most players.

>Mystery killing

Your example assumes a high level of metagaming. I agree that metagaming can ruin the mystery of any game, so don't play with players who metagame. Heck when D&D came out players were expressly forbidden from reading anything but the players guide for this reason. I also don't think most players know enough about the system to make the deductions presented anyway.

Likewise on the flip side it can also be kind of cool that the game builds it's own mets narrative if you obtain system mastery as you can actually become more invested since you can put clues like that together to form a bigger picture. Though this only applies if you do have that mastery of course.

>Logic holes/silliness
Hand crossbows are useful back up weapons and can become more powerful with certain classes and certain feats. Likewise 1d4 damage is enough to kill most commoners who only have 1d4 hitpoints . I.E most of the population of the world. Heroes within the game are simply the exception to the rule and through their training, fortune, resilience etc can suffer a few more blows before dying. Although at low levels a wizard could die to one hand crossbow shot as well in 3.5 at least.

>>you are playing it wrong.
>I specified in the second paragraph that these are the reasons I don't use the system.

Good, but my point it's not about your taste or the game experience you find to have more 'sense', it's about you criticism as is

>>in your games characters earn new levels IN PLAY
>In between sessions, which is, I believe, how the books specify that they should be doled out.

That doesn't matter: you may say that D&D rules sucks 'cause they don't make sense' or use said rules in a way that make sense

>>new levels are applied after a Time Skip
>This is not something I have ever experienced or heard about people doing.

So? I did, and now you heard that from me

>>You assumed that D&D works as a generic framework
>No. I want a system that isn't restrictive enough that you can only play one type of game with it.

And i assume you founded. By the same logic it's like you are complaining that in monopoly you can 't roadkill the other playes when passing in the same square

>>That's a problem with every rulesystem
>No, it isn't. Most other RPGs aren't that transparent about their mechanics and bonuses, and many others in fact encourages GMs to not use monsters, for example, as written and instead only use them as guidelines.

And since you acknowledge that what's preventinh to do the same on D&D games?

>>You assumed D&D works mechanically as a simulationist game
>No. If I'm going to play a game with crunch I want it to be simulationist. If I'm going to play a game without crunch I want it to be narrativist. D&D is an over-complex system that over-abstracts the one thing that it spends the most of its rules on.

So why complain about a system that is a gamist one? That doesn't make sense. Nobody is forcing you to play D&D

Cover has always given you some kind of bonus to AC or defences all editions of the game.

>That doesn't matter
Of course it does. If I have to fix a system for it to make sense or play the way I want to, I could just as well make my own one. Presumably I bought the books to not have to put in that extra work.

>So?
So you're like the only person to have ever done it.

>And i assume you founded. By the same logic it's like you are complaining that in monopoly you can 't roadkill the other playes when passing in the same square
Did you just develop a brain tumor or something? I can't understand any of this.

>what's preventinh to do the same on D&D games?
Player mentality, primarily, as I stated in point 3. Mystery killing.

>So why complain about a system that is a gamist one?
Because it does it poorly.

>and realized that there isn't that much shit to do when advancing your character

There's tons of shit to do, it's just that not all of it is tied into the explicit mechanics of the game. It's not my fault you've never wanted to gradually create a thieves' guild or found a knightly order.

>How many times have you seen, or thought yourself: “The guy touched my sword. The blade rusted and crumbled to pieces. This must be the Rusting Grasp spell (obvious, right?), which means that we’re dealing with at least 7th level druid. His Wisdom must be at least 14 to cast that spell, so, his Will save bonus is +7 or greater. He also has a good Fort save, so we better use some spell against him that requires Reflex, which is probably his worst. We gotta keep him away from the bushes too, as he’s got no movement penalties there and he can Entangle us if we follow. He also leaves no tracks behind. Druids also have animal companions, so we better be ready for surprise, and if he starts to lose, he’s got an ability to turn into eagle and fly away. Better watch out for that one, as we need information for him.”
Literally never.

First of all, who the hell memorizes the spell list of every class, much less every spell description?

Second of all, what kind of DM stats enemies using player rules?

>>That doesn't matter
>Of course it does. If I have to fix a system for it to make sense or play the way I want to, I could just as well make my own one. Presumably I bought the books to not have to put in that extra work.

That's not a way to 'fix it', it's a different interpretation of the very same rules. It's just plain lateral thinking

>>So?
>So you're like the only person to have ever done it.

But it make more sense? I had to change a mechanic rule? I repeat myself: it doesn't matter since know you heard from me

>>And i assume you founded. By the same logic it's like you are complaining that in monopoly you can 't roadkill the other playes when passing in the same square
>Did you just develop a brain tumor or something? I can't understand any of this.

Phoneposting, sorry. I'll rephase that statement: "and i assumed you founded it (a rulesystem better than d&d). Complainig about the mechanics of a system designed on a concept that YOU find senseless it's the same as complain about the mechanics of 'monopoly' since said mechanics prevent your piece (character) to roadkill the others players pieces"

>>what's preventinh to do the same on D&D games?
>Player mentality, primarily, as I stated in point 3. Mystery killing.

Thats more a game premise problem than a system related one

>>So why complain about a system that is a gamist one?
>Because it does it poorly.

It 'exposes' it poorly

Damn. I think the government made the game on purpose.

>just as fundamentally broken as 3.PF
5E is still heavily flawed in some of the same areas, but you've forgotten how bad 3.PF is. It was the edition that necessitated a differentiation between "practical optimization" and "theoretical optimization" because even the munchkins recognized that there was a point at which you would be thrown out of the nearest window.

>this is a complete roleplaying game
>except the spells suck and you need to make your own because the ones we made are broken

>This is inevitable in any system as you gain system mastery. While classless systems might theoretically cut down on it, functionally a classless system still tends to have characters building towards a *theme* and so you can make pretty good guesses about what they possess anyway. A big ol' black knight is probably not going to call down lightning on you, but he will probably have taken the feature that lets him sunder weapons.

No, happens in rules-heavy systems only.

Not saying they're shit, but it does happen only there.

Have you tried playing 4e?

You mean the edition that focuses the heaviest on combat and which bloated HPs like a motherfucker?

This is literally just copied and pasted from this thread.

grandheresyforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=271

>There's tons of shit to do
Oh yeah, I can be an Battle Master, an Eldritch Knight, or dead weight. So many options, that's like, at least more than two!

In this case, I would say it's in the firmly 'not caring' category. OP's complaints mainly center around the fact that D&D is class based and primarily uses HP as a method of scaling. The other bits vary from edition to edition, but it's a very opinionated complaint. He's correct that D&D does these things, but that's the sort of game it is. Even the most elaborate overhauls to D&D I've seen still keep classes and HP

He's suggesting you can do stuff in role play (which is bullshit because you can do the same thing in almost any other system)

You realized they fixed HP bloat in 4e right? In fact, it's the only modern edition of D&D that attempted to fix the HP bloat problem from 3.PF.

Besides, I'd rather the game focused on meaningful options in combat and than dedicate the bulk of the PHB to spells that only mages truly benefit from.

It's also just promoting freeform which is a concept D&D players otherwise hate.

Then he's a fool, because anything that has to do with roleplay will always depend on the quality of the table, assuming you even get such things at all.

>You mean the edition that focuses the heaviest on combat
You mean all of them?

4e doesn't focus any more or less on combat than any other edition, it just makes it good.

>Also, have you ever-ever seen any PC take cover in D&D against a single archer?
Yes. Me. I play DnD like I play XCOM. Fire and maneuver wins fights.

Please stop posting this, it's wrong. The guy who made it went back later and redid the math, and you actually want 3 less health per level across the board.

That's still overall less HP than what you'd see in 3.PF or 5e relative to the damage you could deal.

Also, can you actually provide evidence or are we just going to awkwardly dance around it until the thread auto-sages?

Consider that in 5e, even playing the most bare bones champion Fighter still nets you plenty of skills and the ability to contribute to fights in a meaningful way, unlike 3.5 where you get no skills and the presence of a Druid's animap companion will make you wonder why you even showed up.

5e isn't perfect, but it narrowed the gap by enough to actually be a team based game. It's only if a spellcaster actively tries to use all their spell slots to replace you that any problem occurs, and that's still better than 3.5 where a caster can replace everyone without really trying.

>My anecdote is totes evidence guys.

Y'know, every time I read the corebook for an RPG, they always have an example of play. Usually goes like this.

"Here is an example of play that doesn't get into the rules (we'll leave that for a later chapter) but rather demonstrates roleplaying. The DM is Chris, John is playing Urthden, a Human Fighter, Giles is a Dwarven barbarian, Gwen is an Elven Ranger, and Billy is playing a Human Wizard! They've just come to the entrance of Malik Hur, a terrible tomb of a lich that buried eons ago!

Chris: The crypt awaits before, a large stone slab of a door taunting you with its immobility.
Billy: Blast! How shalt we get through this door? King Darod and his Kingdom are depending upon us to retrieve the cure!
Gwen: Don't worry, I have an idea! Remember earlier when we were interrogating that skeleton? He mentioned that the water moves when the stone strikes it...
John: And that stones move when water touches them! Brilliant! Alright, I'll go and grab some water from that creek that Chris mentioned earlier-"

And on and on in perfect harmony. Who has ever REALLY played a game like that? ITT we write more realistic game session transcripts.

DM: You're at the crypt. There's a door.
John: I open the door.
DM: Can't there's no handles or anything.
Billy: I fucking break it down then, I thought it was implied if the door doesn't open the first time we BREAK IT DOWN.
Giles: Hey, hey can I lockpick the door?
DM: We-
John: No, you're a goddamn barbarian *Snort*, that, that's like me rolling to cast magic missile.
DM: Hey! HEY! Pay attention. Anyway, the doors made of stone.
Billy: I can break stone.
DM: What.
Billy: I can fucking do it, I have a magic +1 hammer, it doesn't break.
DM: So you're going to spend all day hitting a chunk of stone with your hammer.
John: Yeah, and by my measurements, if my calculations are correct, and assuming this door is like, two feet thick, it'll take thirty two hours to bust down, we can do this.
Giles: Hey, hey, hey, I have an axe, I can, I can help!
Billy: No, no you friggin' can't, it's a plain axe and you made a shitty barbarian so, like, you'd make it worse.
DM: Look, maybe GWEN might remember that interrogation- Wait, where's Gwen?
Billy: She showed up one game, and hasn't come back you've been playing her character dingus.

The only things in DnD, specifically 5E, that really detract from the type of game that DnD is meant for are that one mundane combat doesn't have enough depth for a game that's so combat heavy, that casters have so much more utility, and that the game isn't that versatile in the types of settings it can run

>I choose not to see it or do it so it doesn't happen!
Well, this bait thread was fun for a bit.

>One person doing a thing that's uncommon automatically makes it the rule, not the exception
Whatever senpai.

5e's real problem is that it fixed combat, but nothing else. If you're not a caster, you're not going to contribute to dick when it comes down to problem solving.

I actually had a pretty solid conversation yesterday about how I thought DW just ignored all of 5e's problems and that made it a bad game. Having thought about it, I think DW is better in a lot of ways because it gives characters as many out of combat utilities as combat utilities. If not more.

Anecdotes are poor arguments because there is no state of disproof. I can PROVE nobody uses the cover rules by going on twitch and finding 4-5 cancerous D&D streams where in their entire run nobody uses cover.

Yeah. I'd argue the biggest thing 5e needs is to really expand on maneuvers and make them more widely available. I do think some of the optional rules in the DMG and feats can help alleviate things further, but overall I don't think OP was complaining as much about mundane combat being boring.

>If you're not a caster, you're not going to contribute to dick when it comes down to problem solving
That's retarded. You're retarded.

I agree that the state of fairs is retarded, but I dont see how that reflects on me at all.

Fell's Five got you covered, senpai.

In two parties, one that's all martial and one that's all mages, the former is going to have way more trouble dealing with out-of-combat shit than the mages.

Searching for food
>Martials use survival to find and prepare food and hope to god that nobody fails a check to avoid predators, find a nice place to sleep, or know what is or isn't poisonous.
>Between Tiny Hut, Create Food and Water, Alarm, Locate Object, as well as the benefits of having WIS, the casters manage to safely thrive in the wild without worrying about danger.

Depends on the amount of combat encounters your players experience, if your players had to drain there spell slots for combat they can't use magic to solve every problem

Or one person took Outlander and the entire thing is trivial either way.

Excepting, of course, that they've just blown a bunch of spell slots. What happens when the random encounter comes along, as is inevitable?

Sure, but they can just rest and then solve the problem. Sure in a pinch a strong set of arms is important, but you cant deny that casters have always had much, much more utility. It doesnt help that they're not pushovers in combat.

Nothing stopping the Druid from taking Outlander either, and you're ignoring the fact that you'd still have to make the rolls as a martial character while the mage just goes "meh, I cast X and do the thing."

You're right, which is why the whole problem could be solved if casters had about half the spells they do, making each one an important or even a desperate choice. But they didnt do that, so the problem remains, outside of encounter structures specifically designed to fuck up casters.

Even then, its still a bad situation when martial's only utility is acting as caster's bodyguards in case they run out of spells.

You cast those spells at the end of the day and generally, shit like Tiny Hut or Alarm basically means that you're rarely going to get attacked in your sleep by a random predator.

Even then, Wild Shape will cover most of your combat needs.

You're right but the problem varies in size depending on the style of campaign, (don't play 5E if you don't want 7-8 combat encounters every in game day)

An Outlander can't get lost and can find food for 6 people without a check.

You're acting like Wilderness survival in 5e is some big excruciating challenge when it really isn't.

A group of mages will be relying on the Druid to do all this, and having to do it fairly often since theyre blowing all their spells on Easy or trivial skill checks. A group of Martials can have a Rogue, Ranger, and Barbarian and survive just fine for extended periods while also not having to atop and sleep every 5 minutes because they ran out of spells.

That sounds like such a drag. Are you being hyperbolic or is that what the game is actually balanced around?

Old thread too.

I haven't crunched the numbers but I've found throwing that at your players keeps the classes balanced

The game assumes 6-9 encounters per default, the more deadly the fewer you can have.

It is certainly a pace most people wouldn't like. I usually recommend the gritty rest variant for that reason. It essentially lets you pace out those encounters over the course of a week rather than a day. A few fights along the road where you're going, the, a dungeon crawl of 2-4 fights and you've got it covered.

>An Outlander can't get lost and can find food for 6 people without a check.
Cool, then that's one less spell to spend on Create Food and Water.
>A group of Martials can have a Rogue, Ranger, and Barbarian and survive just fine for extended periods while also not having to atop and sleep every 5 minutes because they ran out of spells.
Until the Ranger goes to bed and the Barbarian/Rogue has to wrestle with their shit WIS scores. Then they all end up dying in an ambush because they missed a pack of wolves stomping into their camp ground.

>state of fairs

Can you explain gritty rest.

I really thought they got away from pigeonholing the game as being all combat. Guess I was wrong.

Im using a bluetooth keyboard from like 5 meters away. Sometimes it skips a letter.

>Rogue
>Shit wis

A Rogue literally only needs Dex to function, and can put their second stat basically anywhere for whatever skills they want.

Enjoy Expertise Perception Rogue seeing absolutely everything ever.

And you're still acting like any of this is difficult.

Both the barbarian and rogue could reasonably have high wisdom, of course rolling perception instead of simply casting alarm is the worse option

He doesn't understand 5E but that doesn't mean caster aren't better than martials

I love 4e, but yeah, the health numbers need to get fixed on that.
blogofholding.com/?p=782

DM: Alright, the man with the rifle looks at you angrily.
Zack: Probably jewish.
DM: He says "What the hell are you doing on my farm?"
Daniel: How much HP do you think he has?
DM: You can't ask that.
Daniel: Well, does he have armor?
DM: No.
Zack: Hey guys, have a look at this thing I got on my mobile phone.
Tom: Hey, that's awesome. Gimme that.
Daniel: I covertly draw my pistol and shoot him in the head.
DM: Why?
Daniel: He's got money and he's in my way.
DM: That's stupid.
Tom: I agree. Daniel, you're a fag.
Daniel: Total 18, 16 to hit, 15 damage.
DM: ...He doesn't see you... you hit him, he dies.
Zack: Ha, the jewish guy died.
Daniel: I loot his body.
DM: A young boy runs out of the house and sees you searching the corpse on the ground. He looks at you in horror.
Daniel: I shoot him too.
DM: No, you can't do that. It's against your alignment.
Daniel: Chaotic Neutral.
DM: That's not what CN means.
Daniel: My character acts on an impulse. He doesn't realise what he's doing until it's done.
Tom: So, I heard Daniel was a fag.
Daniel: What? Well, you're fat.
Tom: Oh, you did not just say that. Right, I shoot Daniel. Roll for initiative.
Daniel: It's on, fatass.
DM: Goddamn it, both of you shut up. You can't fight unless your characters have some reason to.
Daniel: Well fine, I just shoot the kid then.
DM: There are other people who heard the shot, too. They'll see you.
Daniel: Well, I point at Tom and say he did it.
Tom: Oh, you bitch. That's a motivation. I shoot Daniel in the head.
DM: You don't actually say that, do you, Daniel?
Tom: I got a 19. That's a hit. Damage... 19.
Daniel: What the fuck? I'm on low HP.
Tom: Ooops. Oh well, I loot your body.
Zack: Wait, what happened? I was just doing stuff on my mobile.

The gritty rest variant essentially makes Short Rests 8 hours, and Long Rests 1 week.

Thus, rather than setting off on the morning, fighting one thing on the road, and getting a long rest, you sleep and get a short rest instead.

This means that fighting things while travelling is actually meaningful, and it also means you can have a handful of encounters each day, rather than needing 8. Long Rests are effectively restricted to towns and downtime, which is also nice so players have breaks between adventures.

It also has the added bonus of making some spells less viable. A tiny hut to sleep in for 8 hours isn't as amazing if you only get a short rest and not a long one. The only major flaw in that regard is Mage armor, which lasts a full day normally, but now won't be to useful throughout the week, but even then it's still handy to save for days where you know there will be many fights.

Generally, it vastly improves the pacing and,makes D&D function more like people seem to be used to, with wandering monsters and a few fights each day

>You cast those spells at the end of the day

I feel you don't understand the concept of "random" encounter.

>shit like Tiny Hut or Alarm basically means that you're rarely going to get attacked in your sleep by a random predator.

No, it means you're rarely going to be SURPRISED. You're by no means immune.

Tiny Hut in particular is not as useful as you think it is, since nothing prevents a creature from entering it, and in 3.5...

>Although the force field is opaque from the outside, it is transparent from within. Missiles, weapons, and most spell effects can pass through the hut without affecting it

In 5e the Hut prevents creatures you don't want from entering it, but that would suit some creatures just fine: it just means that they wait outside until the Hut disappears, and set up a trap outside the Hut's entrance.

Well that is literally entirely your fault, isn't it?

People do use cover though, and it does give bonuses. You're just an idiot.

I never said they weren't, but people vastly overexaggerate the gap. In 3.5, an all caster party could probably breeze through a dungeon that would be a near TPK for an all martial group. In 5e? Not as much. The casters might have things easier, but both would still end,up challenged but victorious

Yeah, if it means that much to you I can get my cat'o nine tails

1. Runquest. CoC. Aberrant. WoD (two dots is the difference between barely survivable and UNSTOPPABLE - literally). Rolemaster (percentile based system, with 1-100 levels in spells and combat techniques for every class).
This is literally one of the stupidest attempts at a complaint in the universe.

2. FantasyCraft. Runequest. WoD (holy fuck does having to fight the system to fit your character into WoD happen). Exalted.
Basically, any system that isn't either next to free form or utterly generic has this issue. In fact, his is exactly NOT a problem in D&D. Most systems force you into a strictly linear progression you can never, ever break out of.

3. Like that's not a problem in any game that doesn't have 15 splatbooks. The only time you DON'T run into this problem is when you use monsters and tools from a book your players don't have or you make it up whole cloth. Fate and Amber Diceless are the only two systems this CAN'T happen in, because you literally have to make everything up for them. You can do this in EVERY. SINGLE. GAME. EVER. All you have to do is have a good memory and read the books.

4. You want logic holes and silliness? Play a game of Vampire the Requiem. You literally have to make rolls not to attack your fellow vampires because they're fellow vampires upon meeting them. god help you if you have to enter another vampires territory to talk to them. You need to make a fear check to enter a room with an open and lit fireplace. Oh, how about Exalted? You're demigods who have been cursed to fail miserably at your long term goals. You literally cannot defeat this curse. If you do, you're literally not playing the game as intended. At least having weapon damage as a function of class levels is something that does have a logic to it, unlike you presupposing it, compared to say, weapon damage being a function of how well you can crit with said weapon, like in Rolemaster.

Thats interesting, but it still assumes a fairly on-rails encounter progression. If you give your players any freedom to choose the pace they'll just slow down everything to cast the spells that trivialize certain aspects of their goals.

Thats why I suggested just cutting number of spells in half.

This copypasta is made from 2007 and is one person's personal rant.

Problem 3 isnt that big of a deal in games which allow for greater freedom in abilities and how they're represented. BoL being a great example of this.

I'd argue it offers the players more freedom of pace, since while resting 8 hours for a Wizard to get a slot for a spell back is reasonable sometimes, resting for an entire week rarely is.

It gives you a lot of flexibilitt with time constraints, simlnce most things the players will want to accomplish will take more time than that.

And of course, a random encounter in the middle of those 7 days of rest will force them to start again.

It basically does the same thing as cutting spells in half, since it's easier to consistently offer the proper number of fights to actually put strain on the caster's utility.

I mean, in a normal adventure, you could have a canyon each day and the Wizard could fly over each. With Gritty rests, he'll run out of spells halfway into the week.

You can put pressure on your players by limiting the amount of time they have, it still puts an emphasis on combat though

It definitely helps to be sure, but it still has its problems. It basically takes control of when players can rest reasonably away from the players and puts it entirely in the GMs hands. You can make preparations and figure out if an area will be safe for the night, but no such preparations could be made for an entire week on the fly. Its basically up to GM discretion if the party EVER gets spells back, which I think is a bit too domineering. When you're resting you're not actually committing to anything, you're just asking the GM if you can get away with it, and he has much less reason not to just say "no".

I agree. Its a decent solution, but I still dont see how its necessarily better than simply scaling back how many spells players have. They're going to TRY to rest whenever they can anyway.

I am surprised that this thread is so civil right now, probably because "DnD is a versatile system" user isn't here

I'd argue you'd be equally domineering by simply slashing the number of spell slots in half across the board.

Unless a DM is a really big control freak, then the expectation is that you'd be able to safely stay in towns or cities, with the wilderness being a danger zone. This cuts out the 5 minute workday and a lot of master's dominence in utility by simply putting a more easily enforced reasoning behind it.

And of course, any DM who would interrupt your sleep in a safe city with a dragon attack or what have you still can, but they'd probably do it anyway.

Do some googling. OP doesn't care, it's a troll thread, go home.

>Then they all end up dying in an ambush because they missed a pack of wolves stomping into their camp ground
Yeah, because wolves have totally been known to just sneak their way into camps of armed men and fuck their day up.

Once again, this sounds more like a "shit DM" issue.