Quote from AEDorsay >>

Quote from DoveArrow >>

Here are a few more.

I was not a fan of 4E from the player's side, but there were several mechanics they introduced to DMs in that system that I wish they had carried forward. Some examples include:

• Rules for scaling monsters, poisons, and traps up or down in Challenge Rating
• Monster roles (brute, skirmisher, etc.)
• Minions (1 hit point monsters)
• Skill challenges

That last one was a little difficult to understand how to implement well, but it was still a fun mechanic once you got the hang of it and I could see it being useful in 5E.

Speaking of skill challenges, chase rules have not worked under the 4E skill challenge system or the 5E rules. None of my players want to engage in a chase. They'll be like, "Well can't I just cast fireball on them?" I'm not sure what I would do to fix the chase rules. I've tried modifying them a bit, to no avail. All I can say is that they don't work as written. They don't feel dynamic at all. They just feel clunky.

 

By chase rules, I presume you mean the mechanics of a vehicle/mounted type chase. The big problem with chases in this game is that ultimately they suffer from the same fate as combat -- they become non-dynamic unless you put the effort into the description and add pressure (time, import) into them. That isn't really an issue of the game so much as it is player engagement and the fact that chases do better from a top-down narrative (no choice kind of thing).

I have some  personal annoyances about the CR system (it is opaque for the most part,  and what the hell is 1/4 and 1/2, and 3/4, or whatever).  Plus, I have a die chain handy (d2 to d24, by 2's), so I have no qualms about using one, lol. So I house ruled my own CR system so that I can do exactly that -- 1 to 50 CRs, and I can take any CR1 or CR 50 and modify the beasty up or down by adding or taking away different factors.It works, but I still need to play around with it more, as I think there are more factors I could use with it.

It meant fixing the size thing, too, lol.

The Roles segment was one of the least popular tings about 4e more broadly, but I still see it used overall. Not sure how one would assign Roles in 5e, but as a mechanic I would simply shift back to the 1e/2e days and probably use that shifting CR systems and creative design. to make individual members of a unit meet different roles. I mean, the cannon fodder are at least as capable of that kind of thinking as the PCs.

The Minions thing intrigues me -- I never toyed with 4e long enough to run into that -- but given I just introduced a swarm premise critter to my game that not only has 1 hp, they only do 1 hp of damage, I am interested in learning more there.

Skill challenges sound like an old 2e thing with proficiencies to me.  Ways of using skills that are a challenge and that focus on them as a way to get things done, I presume? IF so, Crafting rules will help with that.

 By chase rules I mean any chase. I've mostly done foot chases and unless the enemy is like... four football fields away, the players just want to pick them off with ranged weapons and long range spells.

Skill challenges kinda worked like death saving throws. You picked skills you could use to, say, negotiate with the king to send troops to a particular region and you had to make so many successes before so many failures. 

AH, yes, then they are essentially a lot like the old 2e proficiencies system.

Chase, yeah, that's a thing.  Maybe some more stuff about handling, but foot chases require the players to be in on it, lol. 

The chase rules that work really well are the Savage Worlds chase rules. They're simple, they feel dramatic, and they allow a lot of flexibility when it comes to combat options. The only problem I see with them is ranges. The spells and weapon ranges are so much further in 5E, so there's really not much that you can't hit unless they're a speck on the horizon.

Actually, you know what would work? Just using the current table. If you don't encounter a complication, you can attack and giving the quarry a chance to make an opposed roll at the end of each round to escape. Wow! That would make things so much easier. Why didn't I think of that before?

Quote from DoveArrow >>

Actually, you know what would work? Just using the current table. If you don't encounter a complication, you can attack and giving the quarry a chance to make an opposed roll at the end of each round to escape. Wow! That would make things so much easier. Why didn't I think of that before?

Too tight a focus ;)

So, my pet peeves with 5e

• The encounter building system is opaque, hard to use, and doesn't actually produce encounters that come anywhere close to matching their descriptions.
• While we're at it, the monster design rules could use some cleaning up and simplification.
• The perception system is incoherent. In particular, they really need to make a distinction between obscurement that prevents seeing into an area (such as darkness) and obscurement that prevents seeing through an area (such as fog).
• There should probably be general rules limiting or preventing bonuses (other than advantage/disadvantage) from stacking.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

• There should probably be general rules limiting or preventing bonuses (other than advantage/disadvantage) from stacking.

How come? From what I've heard, 5e has way fewer bonuses to stack than previous editions.

Quote from Quar1on >>

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

• There should probably be general rules limiting or preventing bonuses (other than advantage/disadvantage) from stacking.

How come? From what I've heard, 5e has way fewer bonuses to stack than previous editions.

 I can see it. As just an example, say you cast bless on someone and then you add bardic inspiration and the DM is using the hero points variant rule. That's a lot of bonuses going all at once.

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

So, my pet peeves with 5e

• The encounter building system is opaque, hard to use, and doesn't actually produce encounters that come anywhere close to matching their descriptions.
• While we're at it, the monster design rules could use some cleaning up and simplification.
• The perception system is incoherent. In particular, they really need to make a distinction between obscurement that prevents seeing into an area (such as darkness) and obscurement that prevents seeing through an area (such as fog).
• There should probably be general rules limiting or preventing bonuses (other than advantage/disadvantage) from stacking.

The encounter building system I tried to use for like two years and finally said screw it and went to seat of pants, because it simply doesn't work for encounters -- and I like a lot of encounters of different types. Hell, the CR system is opaque to me, so I said screw it and created my own.

Monster design is an interesting thing I hadn't thought about -- I tend to make my critters based off either a mechanic that has caught my fancy or some traditional (or, um, musical) critter. Or something from Anime. I have a lot of source materials, though, so I can run with it. But I have never thought of how I do the creation -- but now that I have a whole new CR set up, I probably could.

Perception -- across all levels -- is super strange to me. TO the point where I just made it a separate score and that's what we use for all the perception stuff -- including those distinctions between seeing into and through. Plus, I got to dump a bunch of skill stuff into the slots for it and shift new skills into others.

So, I agree on the stacking. even 1e didn't stack as much as 5e does, and we all stacked everything, lol. I will not get into 2e, although they did have that maximum stack thing going on.

A maximum stack would be ok -- it would still let folks do their minmaxing, but cut down on the 35 AC I've seen some folks claim, lol.  My problem is that the cat is out of the bag in a lot of ways around that, so it would take some effort to get it under control any other way. Say a maximum total of bonuses equal to "pick a number* (I'd say 10, but I also set up my home stuff to allow for that).

I have seen some comments and conversations off DDB about the nature of all those bonuses and the many claims of "bounded accuracy" that is repeated as if it is rote and inviolate, and the math with some of the builds shatters the notion that it still exists unless you cap total bonuses at +5 (not +3, which surprised me). But that's all stuff like five years old now, and things have gotten much worse in a lot of ways.

In short, it is not a cumulative system, but by default folks treat it as if it is. And they were using a practical cap of 30. Going down to 20? Nah, that's broken as hell.

Will add to the next collective.

Quote from Quar1on >>

Quote from Pantagruel666 >>

• There should probably be general rules limiting or preventing bonuses (other than advantage/disadvantage) from stacking.

How come? From what I've heard, 5e has way fewer bonuses to stack than previous editions.

 Fewer in number, but not in variety or in cumulative impact.

Superhero syndrome or whatever you want to call it, they have been adding more small bonuses in a lot of ways for years since they introduced 5e, and at this point things and builds can get way out of hand because they didn't always remember to lock out the cumulative effect, and minmaxers have been jumping on it.

THer ewas a lot of +5 this and +5 tht in 1e, but they usually didn't stack -- they weren't cumulative, and when they were, it capped out at that +5 unless your DM was being extra fun. And this was a game with no level cap at all, mind you -- I still have paperwork for a level 63 Cleric. The "get something at every level" way of doing things was not how it was back then, lol.

Summation as of 9/6/2023

• Crafting (!)
• Creature sizes
• Spell Casting if thens
• Spell Casting components
• Strongholds
• Moving up in the world, leadership roles
• Psionics (note: this needs to operate in a vein similar to magic, in that it has to have certain rules such as X power does X, and only X)
• Improved Economic and Trade systems
• CR Scaling (So that 1/4 CR can be buffed into a 6 CR)
• CR Transparency
• Monster Roles
• Minions
• Skill challenges -- multiple roll efforts with a present success/fail ratio.
• Chases
• Stealth

Monster Weaknesses (traditional)

The encounter building system is opaque, hard to use, and doesn't actually produce encounters that come anywhere close to matching their descriptions.

While we're at it, the monster design rules could use some cleaning up and simplification.

The perception system is incoherent. In particular, they really need to make a distinction between obscurement that prevents seeing into an area (such as darkness) and obscurement that prevents seeing through an area (such as fog).

There should probably be general rules limiting or preventing bonuses (other than advantage/disadvantage) from stacking.

Editing this is a pain on an iPad, lol, but current list is here. Once my browsers start behaving on the site, will fix.

I'm in favor of crafting rules.

I wish magic items had gp values and levels so that DMs have more guidance on how to distribute them. Also tiered magic items should be more common.

I also really liked minions and monster roles from 4e, and think that monster weaknesses are used too sparingly.

I also think that vehicle rules should have been harmonized from the beginning. I've been searching for consistency between Saltmarsh, Spelljammer, Descent into Avernus, etc. and find myself wanting.

With the economic system stuff there should probably be. Master rethink of the magic rarity system to account for “real world” usages. Let’s face it things like rings and cloaks of protection, bracers of defense etc should be among the most common (permanent) magic items ever produced not rare or very rare items. The more folks that need the item the more common it should be simply because more folks over time created them so more have even lost and “scavenged”. Even among the “common” items some are simply far more useful than others. Granted a cloak of billowing is cool looking, which would actually serve you better - the cloak of billowing  or the cloak of many fashions that can be used to ( help) look like any level of society or group you need to? So which should actually be more common? For most of my ( personal) PCs the 3 “common items I try to get ( after healing potions) are the cloak of many fashions, the clothes of mending and the tankard of sobriety (drink all night and never get drunk (poisoned) and keep all your wits and perception about you?)

I have a limited perspective because I only have played 5e but:

• Crafting Rules - talked about a lot already
• Gathering Rules - again talked about a lot already
• City govering rules - I like to make my level 10 ish characters the oligarchs of a village and let them expand it
• Aging rules - According to RAW a one year old baby should be just as profecient as a prime adult
• Better guild structure - talked about already

Well, real world basis, the baseline is simply that demand outstrips the ability to supply, creating rarity and high prices.

there needs to be a way to make them easily and cheaply, and magic ain’t easy or cheap, lol. I mean, thinking back to the wand of fireballs, in an older edition, had a dozen charges and that means casting a dozen fireball spells and getting them into and while bat guano is cheap (material component), a fancy carved wand fashioned under the searing heat of the sun in a chamber around an active volcano, maybe not so much, lol.

Which is a way of noting that magic items are hard to make for the most part. Given the existing crafting rules, they are expensive as hell to make, too, and take a long time. So, limited supply (and likely a big part of why they didn’t push into a crafting system).

That said, some of the stuff drawn from cantrips? I can see them being small maker products. 
but also, if we are dealing with “pseudo-620 CE to 1400 CE” Eurocentric stuff, then why does every game have a general store and a magic store! (Exaggeration for effect). 

However, that rarity would make them heirlooms. Dad wouldn’t grab the shotgun to fend off bandits, he’d grab grandma’s old wand of fireballs.

My list:

1. Lack of rules for crafting, gathering herbs, and harvesting monster components.  Already covered extensively here, but that's definitely my #1 request

2. Imbalance between nova damage and sustained damage.  Some classes can dump a ton of resources to destroy bosses in 1-2 turns, other classes are built around sustaining damage over a long fight that never materializes because the nova damage is infinitely more powerful.  Nova damage needs to be nerfed to the ground, this seems to be mostly addressed in the One DnD playtests so far

3. Intelligence is a worthless stat except to a couple classes that are rarely played.  Basically everyone dumps intelligence and never once feels bad about it, because there are no meaningful game mechanics based on intelligence.  Everything strategy or knowledge related is based on the intelligence of the player, not the character, which feels bad

The imbalance ting I can def see — both from a play and mechanics viewpoint. It is somewhat intentional, though if I am reading the broader issues properly, and that’s definitely a peeve in my list.

For my games, we renamed Intelligence to Knowledge. We also split Perception off to its own score. THe reasons are pretty simple: if you run into something and need to see if you know it, or if it is an attempt to do something requiring knowledge (in-world), you use it as a check. Perception was because it gets used enough it should just be its own damn score.

The reasoning was exactly the same — something we were dealing with in the 80’s and 90’s during some “play yourself” campaigns. Doing so, though, changed a lot of that stat dumping, as it turns out knowing things can be pretty important if you put it into the setting and ground the PCs there. Got an alien visitor from another D&D world? Well, they don’t know squat, so they get penalties. And for crafting, it would be an important ability, having some impact on a lot of the crafting efforts (knowing how to make something).

Plus, leaving it as Intelligence tends to do all manner of things like get it linked to IQ or other really bad ways of looking at how people think (folks don’t even know about the whole racist underpinnings intentionally worked into IQ, lol). So, all around, it needs to be shifted for sure.

Will add to the list on my next go around.

Quote from AEDorsay >>

The imbalance ting I can def see — both from a play and mechanics viewpoint. It is somewhat intentional, though if I am reading the broader issues properly, and that’s definitely a peeve in my list.

 Yeah I think it is intentional design and that's why it's such a pet peeve for me.  If players are facing 5+ combats per long rest then resource management becomes are interesting tactical decision, and the sustained damage builds get some chances to shine since nova builds can't go off every fight.  That seems to be how DnD is designed (e.g. Challenge Ratings).  But that is not at all how most players play DnD - combat is super time consuming and becomes boring fairly quickly if it's not kept to small doses that effectively serve the overall storyline.  So when you consider how DnD is actually played, nova builds are ALWAYS the correct answer, and they completely trivialize encounters that would otherwise be very challenging.  Luckily it does seem like this is being addressed to an extent in One DnD, but we'll have to see whether it is enough

I’d love to see the weapon system change, perhaps with attributes (e.g. +1, Silvered, ExtraCrit, LifeSteal.) that you can apply to weapons instead of having a ton of different items. This would allow things like Blacksmiths to be really interesting, the kind of place where you can take magical effects off of a weapon and place it on a different one. Ok that note I think forging rules could be cool too, with different metals having a very slight difference between them.

Quote from XavisDOS >>

I’d love to see the weapon system change, perhaps with attributes (e.g. +1, Silvered, ExtraCrit, LifeSteal.) that you can apply to weapons instead of having a ton of different items. This would allow things like Blacksmiths to be really interesting, the kind of place where you can take magical effects off of a weapon and place it on a different one. Ok that note I think forging rules could be cool too, with different metals having a very slight difference between them.

 
That’s…

…. A really big change.

To understand why, it helps to realize that 5e essentially says magical weapons are armor aren’t needed, and it reset all the monsters to reflect that, essentially nerfing the hell out of them. So, to add in features like “lifesteal”, “extracrit”, and “+1” without making them strictly magical, and therefore not essential and system breaking, would require redoing all the monsters and shifting things back.

Not that I personally would mind it, lol, but in order to do that they would need to nerf the hell out of the classes as well in order to justify the inclusion and use outside of story driven purposes for the weapons.

Now, I did leave something out because the rest does tie into the crafting stuff and some of the other things mentioned: Silvered.

Along with Cold Iron, Silvered weapons could be easily added into the broader system as it stands now, with minor tweaks (the monster weakness bit above), so still a lift, but a much more doable one than rejiggering the entire class system.

Those particular items did exist in 1e and 2e (having Elric’s sword is a hilarity), and probably had some form since, but the 5e ethos really makes them game breaking in a bad way if you don’t shift everything back.

But setting up a system where you could use something like a +1 sword (note, the max for 5e seems to continue to be +3, because a +4 word breaks the “bounds”, lol. Not joking, that’s why it is that way, and I have some giggles about it elsewhere) OR a silvered sword or a cold iron sword…

THose are all good.

I don’t know if you have been following the UA at all, but they have done some pretty decent stuff in the line of weapon properties, and some classes can shift them around, so you are currently looking to get something very like that — just not the magical powers.

As for crafting, well, a crafting system would incorporate both magical and non-magical stuff into it, so that would be the driver. One factor to consider is that a magical item crafting system would have to use existing spells as the basis for weapon abilities, so you probably could craft something like that under that system — but you best be a high level magic user.

Will add some of this to the list on the next update!