Sorry, I meant to save the world but I stubbed my toe getting out of bed this morning . . .
D&D General What Is D&D Generally Bad At That You Wish It Was Better At?
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
These things happen. No one is guaranteed success.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
More perhaps "I helped save the world today but it wasn't easy, thanks in part to this annoying head cold I've caught..."
GrimCo
Hero
Or "Yes, that Sthrad guy was tough, but you know what real challenge was? Trying not to soil my pants. No,no, i wasn't afraid, faced worse than him before. You see, i ate some suspicious vistani burek night before, and explosive diarrhea was my wake up in the morning. "
These kind of things might be realistic, but it's boring and it breaks that "larger than life action hero" vibe 5e ( 3e and 4e also) have above certain levels. Characters are above it. No need to spell it, you can deduce it from reading character abilities.
These kind of things might be realistic, but it's boring and it breaks that "larger than life action hero" vibe 5e ( 3e and 4e also) have above certain levels. Characters are above it. No need to spell it, you can deduce it from reading character abilities.
Paul Farquhar
Legend
It obviously is going to be controversial, since it comes down hard on the side of "heroic fiction simulator" and against "reality simulator".
W'rkncacnter
Hero
okay, but the idea of rolling con saves to avoid crapping yourself while fighting strahd is pretty funny, ngl
GrimCo
Hero
Sure, you can do it for shits and giggles
But it drastically changes tone of the game from heroic to comedic. If you wanna go that route, Ryan Reyndols scene from Blade 3 comes to mind ( eat lots of garlic, rip one out, silent and deadly, vampire destroying cloud kill without spending spell slot). Point is, mundane things are low level stuff and have been since 3e came out some 25 years ago. Even in 3e, create water and purify food and water were 0 level cleric spells. Know direction is 0 level druid. By the level 4-5, you have rope trick, tiny hut, create food and water, goodberry, remove disease/poison/curse/blindness/paralysis, water breathing, water walking. 3.5 added Endure elements as 1st lv spell to whole lot of spell lists (cleric,druid, ranger, paladin, sorcerer, wizard). Standard party has enough tools among themselves to negate them pretty easy using magic.
AnotherGuy
Hero
The challenge/impact of travelling is lessened proportionately by every Tier of play. This is how 5e has been designed.
If you want to ensure travelling remains challenging or impactful at higher levels it needs to be in areas/locations where supernatural energies and auras increase the difficulty of the travel or that the area is so unstable with residue of foul magic energies that Teleport and Teleport Without Error are less reliable or in fact do not work at all (refer Undermountain).
DMs have plenty of ways to make the game more challenging and slow down the OP of characters - adjusting the rest mechanic is the obvious example, other options includes (not an exhaustive list):
- Start with fewer ability points
- Multi-classing costs a feat
- Rituals have a HD cost
- Degrees of Failure
- Hit Point cap
- Level cap, requires supernatural event to exceed.
- No cantrips or limitation of cantrips or effectiveness of cantrips reduced
Last edited:
None of thsoe things ahve anything to do with the inherent difficulty of fighting through the wilderness to the monster's lair -- you know, the kind of things you see in the myths, legends, a literature that are the foundation of fantasy adventure. Heroes should be impressive BECAUSE they can do the very hard thing like climb a mountain no one else has climbed before.
But you are right, 5E is the MCU version of D&D and the design only cares about your next big fight.
Similar Threads
