Things I Dislike About 5e

My issues with the 2014 version of D&D are well-documented. At this point, it's almost become a separate hobby, wondering how I can fix the game.

I once compared modern D&D to Old School D&D to a Chevy Silverado and a Bicycle; one is easy to maintain and modify, and the other is not. Modern (i.e. non-old school) D&D is much like the truck in this scenario, and one shouldn't pop the hood unless he is willing to make a mess and get his hands dirty.

…And possibly break something important.

For today, there are a few things I'd like to call your attention to. Namely:

1. Lack of challenge for players
2. Lack of long-term consequences
3. Lack of survival mechanics (even though they SEEM to be present)
4. The overpowered nature of spells and cantrips (see point 3)
5. The lack of a consistent economy
6. The overpowered nature of magical items, especially weapons
7. Lack of meaningful/useful CR system
8. Outrageous power curve after level 6

It's only fair to list things that I do like about 5e. Since I keep coming back to it, there must be something I like about it, right?

1. The ubiquity of the system (i.e. "lingua franca")
2. The simple d20+mod system
3. The subclass system
4. "Crunchy enough" for most players
5. The D&D "feeling"

Let's break it down point by point and try to find some solutions.

Lack of challenge for players

Over the last decade of playing this game, I've found there is a certain disconnect between player power and monster power. As players get higher in level (especially past level 6), monsters become less threatening. Now, I recognize the game is meant to be played and beaten by player characters. After all, it wouldn't be much fun to get into fights you had no hope of winning. But I think most people would prefer to watch a close sports game, rather than one whose outcome is determined in the first 20 minutes.

One way I'd like to make D&D more challenging is by making condition "stickier." Currently, health pools and debuffs are easily remedied by a good night's sleep. Drakkenheim tried to create a more permanent condition by using the Corruption mechanic, but by the end of the game, it was little more than an afterthought.

For the record, Dungeons of Drakkenheim is the best 5e campaign I've run to date.

 

Player Tools Too Strong

Being a power fantasy game, Dungeons and Dragons is designed to make players feel like the Avengers. Between class features, spells, magical items, etc., players quickly become virtually unkillable. And death itself is not only hard to achieve, but easy to recover from, with very minimal penalties for being resurrected. I tend to prefer a lower-level game (i.e. pre-level 6) for this reason; it's easier to create challenges using the monsters. At a certain level, a DM must throw hordes of demons, angels, and other cosmological horrors at the party to even remotely provide a challenge.

I find that most players connect better with the fantasy of being a rough-and-tumble knave slinging spells and arrows at goblins in a forest. Compare that with being a semi-omnipotent demi-god who is permanently flying and invisible. It may be hard to imagine oneself in that scenario, outside of video games.

Monster Tools Too Weak

Monsters don't have many buttons to push, in regard to tactical decisions. I've run hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours of D&D since 2014, and I can say with some authority that a majority of monsters hew closely to the "claw/claw/bite" or "sword attack" or "bow attack" routine. Very rarely do monsters push, grapple, swallow or otherwise disrupt player plans. Tactical positioning is an afterthought. At least Pathfinder 2e grants a bonus for flanking.

Unless you're running Matt Colville's monsters from Flee, Mortals!, combat is painfully routine and unlikely to challenge a party. Sure, I can throw a horde of 2d6 goblins their way, but random encounters are rarely fun in modern D&D, and combat generally takes too long to resolve. I would like to see a game with more monster spells and spell-like abilities.

Lack of long-term consequences

"I broke my leg!" "I got poisoned by a snake bite!" "I've gone blind from getting acid splashed in my face!"

These are all examples of conditions and debilities that can be cured by 8 hours of sleep in this game. Yes, it's ridiculous, but we are playing a game here.

Look, I understand that players want to "get to the good part" and get back to adventuring, but there's something about struggling that makes victory all the sweeter. Just once, I would like to see a curse or poison that is harder to remove than a simple Healing or Medicine roll. Something that takes multiple days, or multiple spells, to get rid of. We can make every disease take several weeks, or an equal number of Cure Disease spells to resolve.

Ultimately, and sadly, D&D 5e is not this game. This is a heroic action game, not a game of struggling against the elements. This concept is fundamental to its game design, and is baked into its very DNA. I understand that disease isn't "fun," for players, but solving problems IS fun. This game's lack of struggle means there are fewer dials for a DM to turn to engage players.

Lack of survival mechanics (even though they SEEM to be present)

Why does this game include options for 50 feet of rope, a 10 foot pole, rations, torches, etc.? These are vestigial components of the game D&D was built upon, and exist only for flavor. A crafty DM can attempt to make up reasons for players to use these items, perhaps by granting advantage on various skill rolls, but ultimately, they don't need to do that. Without mechanical incentives to use survival gear, it will not be used.

Let's look at the oft-maligned Ranger class, whose abilities simply undo the (extremely limited and minimal) challenges of traversing the wilderness. I believe this is because traveling the wilderness is considered boring, and the Ranger is a way to "skip to the good part" of D&D, which is mostly fighting monsters and talking to NPCs.

For the DM who wants a more survival-focused game, you've got two options:

A). Play a different game

B). Heavily modify the mechanics of this game (i.e. tinker with the Chevy Silverado)

Both options require a lot of reading and will result in your players experiencing a different sort of game.

Once upon a time, I bought Tomb of Annihilation, an official adventure that, as it turns out, isn't particularly good. Despite it being sold as something of an exploratory hex crawl, the game is essentially a railroad, with survival mechanics simply nodded to. It could have been much better if it had been willing to pressure players with survival mechanics; limiting long rests, creating better rules for carrying items, and altering the Ranger's favored terrain perk, so as to introduce even a modicum of challenge to the proceedings.

I think the adventure truly embodies many of the problems the core 5e system has with exploration and survival mechanics; they are vestigial. Unused, unwanted, shrunken and forgotten mechanics from another time. Many (if not most) of these survival mechanics have been subverted by easy-to-access spells, which brings me to my next point...

The overpowered nature of spells and cantrips

Why track rations when the druid can cast Goodberry?

Why worry about torches when the spellcasters have Light?

Why worry about fresh water when the Cleric can create it from nothing? (Or even just purify existing water?)

What is the risk of exploring when the Ranger cannot become lost?

For me, it seems that any time an interesting gameplay decision would come up, a player has a one-stop solution to overcome it. Once upon a time, I found this design extremely vexing, even at time, infuriating. Sadly, I've come to accept my fate on the matter, and I no longer throw these types of challenges at players due to the following realization: Any challenge that can be overcome without spending a resource is a waste of time.

If some of these solutions cost spell slots (and Goodberry does, but is too powerful for what it does), then it leads to interesting decisions. If the Cleric must decide between creating water and healing an ally, and if long rests are in short supply, then the PC must make a compelling decision.

If the Wizard must choose between casting Light and offensive spells, they're more likely to carry torches to minimize the issue. If carry weight is low, the party must decide if torches are more important than other food.

So you see, there is an interlocking relationship between these survival mechanics. This relationship is ruined by the existence of cantrips. We could solve some of this by doing the following:

• Light is a level 1 spell
• We use the Alternative Carry Rules, to slow players down
• We make travel more dangerous, so players want to travel quickly
• We make Long Rests harder to get in the wilderness (perhaps limiting recovery of spells or HP?)