It used to be that if you wanted to play an arcane caster able to cast fireball (let's say), you needed to play a wizard. Now there are actually very few 'wizard only' spells, and you can still get access to them without having to play a Wizard.
I tallied up all the PHB (2014) + SCAG + Elemental Evil spells a couple of years back and these were the totals for each class's spell lists:
Wizard: 256
Sorcerer: 164
Druid: 143
Bard: 125
Cleric: 106
Warlock: 88
Ranger: 50
Paladin: 45
Not only are the 4 arcane casters not interchangeable (warlock and bard spell lists are very distinct), you can fit the warlock's entire spell list in the gap between wizard and everyone else.
I'm surprised clerics are so far behind druids. I would've guessed the other way around. I suppose they've got heavy cleric overlap, plus all the naturey spells.
If anything, it's the sorcerer that has very few signature spells; they mostly work with a pared down version of the wizard spell list plus a handful of extras like Chaos Bolt and the new Sorcerous Burst.
Sorcerer is the one place the initial complaint really has legs, but that's more an argument for rebuilding sorcerers than eliminating them.
Edit: I went and did a quick look-over at the 2024 spell lists, and it's not great for the sorcerers. I think their list is entirely subsumed by the wizard list after level 3, and they have all of ~4 spells wizards don't.
I guess whether it's an issue or not is subjective, but I think the sorcerer at least lives up to the "wizard on steroids" design goal better in 2024 with Innate Sorcery, and having a signature cantrip is a pretty good distinguishing factor flavor-wise. After all, Eldritch Blast is the first thing a lot of people think of when you say Warlock. I'm a fan of the improved Draconic and Wild Magic subclasses too.
(1) The addition of skills has seen the game become less and less about player skill and more and more about character abilities. You yourself said D&D is a game. If you need to be reminded. It is. And now it is one in which far too many players of that game stare at their character sheets for aeons looking at what their characters can do instead of using what pulses between their ears to come up with something their characters might attempt.
What you say "doesn't work reliably" is a core feature not only of old games but also of new games that simulate them. Perhaps it doesn't work for you. But perhaps that is you and not the feature.
D&D is a game where the players take on the role of a character that is not them. This cannot be done if success and failure on many activities hinge upon the player's skills. Social skills are the archetypal illustration of why this doesn't work. If the GM determines the result on how persuasive the player is, then players who aren't good at being persuasive cannot play a character who is. The player who is not clever cannot play a character who is.
You seem to think that's just fine, or even to be encouraged.
It's not. It's objectively a failure of the design.
Now, you can have a perfectly enjoyable experience playing a game with these flaws, because it's possible for the GM to fix it on the fly. But the system is offloading its flaws onto the GM, and not every GM is going to handle it well.
I guess whether it's an issue or not is subjective, but I think the sorcerer at least lives up to the "wizard on steroids" design goal better in 2024 with Innate Sorcery, and having a signature cantrip is a pretty good distinguishing factor flavor-wise. After all, Eldritch Blast is the first thing a lot of people think of when you say Warlock. I'm a fan of the improved Draconic and Wild Magic subclasses too.
Yeah, it's a bit better, it's still a poor design, but at least they have something more than metamagic.
In the rebuild of all the classes that I'm never going to do, the Sorcerer has the most flexibility, able to pull the right spell for the job out on the fly, but the least raw power. (Warlock has most power, least flexibility, with wizard living in between, while bard leans harder into the dilettante thing.)
It used to be that if you wanted to play an arcane caster able to cast fireball (let's say), you needed to play a wizard. Now there are actually very few 'wizard only' spells, and you can still get access to them without having to play a Wizard.
I tallied up all the PHB (2014) + SCAG + Elemental Evil spells a couple of years back and these were the totals for each class's spell lists:
Wizard: 256
Sorcerer: 164
Druid: 143
Bard: 125
Cleric: 106
Warlock: 88
Ranger: 50
Paladin: 45
Not only are the 4 arcane casters not interchangeable (warlock and bard spell lists are very distinct), you can fit the warlock's entire spell list in the gap between wizard and everyone else.
If anything, it's the sorcerer that has very few signature spells; they mostly work with a pared down version of the wizard spell list plus a handful of extras like Chaos Bolt and the new Sorcerous Burst.
You forgot to add in Fighter, Rogue, and Monk, all that have caster subclasses. And let's not forget that Bards have the ability to learn spells from ANY class, especially Lore Bards. 5e has many many serious problems. But chief among them are far too many spells available to far too many different casters, with huge overlap. It results in analysis paralysis, at so many tables. Not just when players are choosing options during downtime when a PC levels up, but even worse, during gameplay and some player just sits there trying to figure out what the spellcaster PC is going to do.
An 18 Int Wizard at 6th level has 10 different spells that can be "memorized" every morning. If the game is played as it should be, the player must choose that 10 game day. 10 is not that big a number. But I has seen so many tables, where that is "not fun", and DM's allow the player to choose from ANY of the spells that PC has in spell book. That leads to chaos as the player sits there trying to peruse a vast list to figure out what to do. And Clerics...oh man. With all the subclass always known spells, my 9th level Cleric has 24 spells "known" each day. If a DM does not force the player running the Cleric or Wizard to choose the spells known at the beginning of each game day, it is a totally unwieldy mess.
A smaller group of caster classes and subclasses, a smaller list of spells available to choose from, and a smaller quantity that can be used each day, would simplify the game, make it move way way faster during game play, which would actually improve the enjoyment for all involved.
I didn't forget, I just don't see how it's salient. Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters don't have dedicated spell lists, and the Four Elements Monk (which was widely considered bad) not only had an incredibly tiny "spell list", it missed out on a ton of spells that came out in the Elemental Evil Player's Companion that would've been perfectly thematic for it.
A smaller group of caster classes and subclasses, a smaller list of spells available to choose from, and a smaller quantity that can be used each day, would simplify the game, make it move way way faster during game play, which would actually improve the enjoyment for all involved.
Except for the people that weren't able to fulfill the idea they had for their character.
Also, making newbies go through convoluted multiclassing rules to do something as basic as making a magic swordsman, something you can do in just about any video game RPG from the past 50 years is insane. You bring up analysis paralysis as if the multiclassing rules don't do just that by forcing you to consider all the permutations of level ups for your fighter/wizard.
Also, making newbies go through convoluted multiclassing rules to do something as basic as making a magic swordsman, something you can do in just about any video game RPG from the past 50 years is insane.
They should've just played Elf, like we did back in the Good Old Days.
A smaller group of caster classes and subclasses, a smaller list of spells available to choose from, and a smaller quantity that can be used each day, would simplify the game, make it move way way faster during game play, which would actually improve the enjoyment for all involved.
Let's be very, very clear. What this user means to say is "would actually improve the enjoyment for me." As should not be surprising from five decades of people getting excited about new character options, people tend to like having more options so they can create a character that fits the vibe they are going for.
What actually improves enjoyment for all involved? Wizards providing options and players doing what they have been for the past fifty years--choosing which options to use. If you are an experienced DM and play in a group of experienced players who enjoy options and can move fast on their turn? Perhaps you allow a great number of options. If you are an inexperienced DM or a DM that gets overwhelmed easily (as this user has regularly said they are on other threads) and/or if you have players who are slow? Perhaps you limit the options.
Wizards providing lots of options helps both groups as the group can decide what option to use. Wizards providing few options, on the other hand, helps the second group but leaves the first group dangling in the wind. This is particularly true as saying "no" (the option for the group who wants fewer options) is a heck of a lot easier than forcing the group who wants more options to homebrew and deal with the hassle of balancing self-created content.
As should be obvious, the right choice for Wizards to provide the solution that can work for both groups. Does it make it slightly more difficult for one of those options than being spoon-fed a simplistic game? Sure - but they are the least cost avoider and thus are the ones who should bear the burden of utilizing a monosyllabic word. Frankly, saying "I don't want options, therefore, rather than use the word 'no' I want Wizards to deny everyone options" is a fairly selfish and silly position to take.
A smaller group of caster classes and subclasses, a smaller list of spells available to choose from, and a smaller quantity that can be used each day, would simplify the game, make it move way way faster during game play, which would actually improve the enjoyment for all involved.
Let's be very, very clear. What this user means to say is "would actually improve the enjoyment for me." As should not be surprising from five decades of people getting excited about new character options, people tend to like having more options so they can create a character that fits the vibe they are going for.
What actually improves enjoyment for all involved? Wizards providing options and players doing what they have been for the past fifty years--choosing which options to use. If you are an experienced DM and play in a group of experienced players who enjoy options and can move fast on their turn? Perhaps you allow a great number of options. If you are an inexperienced DM or a DM that gets overwhelmed easily (as this user has regularly said they are on other threads) and/or if you have players who are slow? Perhaps you limit the options.
Wizards providing lots of options helps both groups as the group can decide what option to use. Wizards providing few options, on the other hand, helps the second group but leaves the first group dangling in the wind. This is particularly true as saying "no" (the option for the group who wants fewer options) is a heck of a lot easier than forcing the group who wants more options to homebrew and deal with the hassle of balancing self-created content.
As should be obvious, the right choice for Wizards to provide the solution that can work for both groups. Does it make it slightly more difficult for one of those options than being spoon-fed a simplistic game? Sure - but they are the least cost avoider and thus are the ones who should bear the burden of utilizing a monosyllabic word. Frankly, saying "I don't want options, therefore, rather than use the word 'no' I want Wizards to deny everyone options" is a fairly selfish and silly position to take.
Just stop with the insults and lies. You will have to go back a long way, like ever, to find a post where I said I was "overwhelmed" by DM'ing. In actual fact, I am the DM that says "no" quite a bit, to quell the nonsense that comes with quite literally an infinite amount of char builds, thanks to the explosion in classes, and all the other stuff associated with building a PC. You seriously believe that new DM's can handle all the options that are thrown at them by a bunch of players who are bent on creating "the perfect build"? THAT is overwhelming for a new DM. And I know DM's who can't say no, because of the DM's emotional makeup, or worse, is a paid DM and is terrified of a bad review.
Agreed! Having just skimmed this thread I’ll add a few comments from the peanut gallery. The OP clearly wants a simpler game more focused on melee than on magic. Such a game actually exists - original basic and danced pamphlets and/or 1e/AD&D. Very limited classes, (ranger and Paladin were subclasses of fighter, Druid was a cleric subclass, etc) many fewer spells, many more discrete weapons and armors, adjustments to weapon hits/damage based on foes armor etc. of course a lot of that was to be expected given what I understand was the origin of the game - historical war gamers trying to add magic to their war gaming. Why do we have such a different game today? Because those of us that played back then wanted more classes, more magic, less complex combat rules etc. the game has evolved to meet the needs and desires of the majority of its players. I fully expect it to continue to evolve in the next 50 years just as it has in the last 50. Those portions of the game that most folks don’t use will fade away (whether I like it or not) and new features ( classes, subclasses, features, species etc) will appear. There are now 5+ versions of official “D&D” and some number of unofficial variants (pathfinder etc) to choose from to play. After playing and DMing for 40+ years I run an a very open ended campaign with pretty much everything “official” allowed but I’m not “fully satisfied” but then I don’t expect to be - I can accept and have fun with “good enough” and then homebrew anything I either can’t stand or have to have in or out of it.
A smaller group of caster classes and subclasses, a smaller list of spells available to choose from, and a smaller quantity that can be used each day, would simplify the game, make it move way way faster during game play, which would actually improve the enjoyment for all involved.
Simpler isn't always better (this version of simplicity would sacrifice a ton of depth), debatable at best (fewer options at chargen speeding up moment-to-moment gameplay, is a considerable leap), and hard no, removing these options from the game would negatively impact lots of people's enjoyment, myself included. If you think there are too many classes in the game, ban some at your table, that's what houserules are for.
This thread grew bigger than I expected it to after having returned to it a few days later.
I apologize for causing any arguments; I was frustrated and wanted to vent a bit.
I still enjoy playing the older editions and most OSR games I can get my hands on, notably Shadowdark and Lion and Dragon.
I find myself very much attracted to the idea of introducing the possibility of spellcasting failure as a core mechanic an appealing one. I loved the way GURPS Fantasy handled it.
I am an unrepentant medievalist, and it was, in fact, exposure to Gygax's profusion of polearms and armour that started me down that path. I wouldn't be the dedicated lifelong roleplayer and medieval combat reenactor I am today if not for D&D piquing my interest in such during my formative years.
So, yeah--I lament the absence of the myriad polearms and Weapon vs. Armour Type rules, etc; all those elements added flavor to the game for me, and I savored the tactical considerations they introduced that are absent from the game's modern version.
Which isn't to say that I dislike the modern version; I fully intend to keep playing it because I live in a college town, and it's what my regular group agrees to continue playing--I bought a hard copy of the new PHB as soon as my FLGS started selling them. But I do wish they'd favor the casters a bit less and give some love to the martials and give us more delicious medieval flavor like the old game used to have.
This thread grew bigger than I expected it to after having returned to it a few days later.
I apologize for causing any arguments; I was frustrated and wanted to vent a bit.
I still enjoy playing the older editions and most OSR games I can get my hands on, notably Shadowdark and Lion and Dragon.
I find myself very much attracted to the idea of introducing the possibility of spellcasting failure as a core mechanic an appealing one. I loved the way GURPS Fantasy handled it.
I am an unrepentant medievalist, and it was, in fact, exposure to Gygax's profusion of polearms and armour that started me down that path. I wouldn't be the dedicated lifelong roleplayer and medieval combat reenactor I am today if not for D&D piquing my interest in such during my formative years.
So, yeah--I lament the absence of the myriad polearms and Weapon vs. Armour Type rules, etc; all those elements added flavor to the game for me, and I savored the tactical considerations they introduced that are absent from the game's modern version.
Which isn't to say that I dislike the modern version; I fully intend to keep playing it because I live in a college town, and it's what my regular group agrees to continue playing--I bought a hard copy of the new PHB as soon as my FLGS started selling them. But I do wish they'd favor the casters a bit less and give some love to the martials and give us more delicious medieval flavor like the old game used to have.
Never apologize for having an opinion and don't worry about starting an argument, truth is, this fight over what D&D should and shouldn't be has been going on since the early 70's when the two people who created D&D didn't agree on the matter, in particular about the role magic-users played in the game. Gygax and Arneson had very different ideas about the role Magic-Users should play in D&D, this is just a continuation of that argument that has been going on for 50 years.
One thing I can say at least from my very early preview of the revised editions is that I think this version of the game is actually a bit more modular than the previous one.
I believe, again, just a very early opinion based on reading that, in the Revised edition it will be possible to remove sub-classes to streamline the game and set the clock back. I think this will be possible because there is more front-loading of abilities for classes and the addition of feats gives player characters some additional flexibility as they level up, being less reliant on sub-class ability to produce flavor, making the sub-classes almost an optional way to power up the game to the power fantasy modern D&D is today.
I also think there is a lot you can do with game setup in general. For example, Ability Scores have a considerable impact on power levels, so if you go 3d6 down the chain, or just 3d6 you are going to cut the power level in half.
Species has become an aesthetic choice and has little impact on mechanical optimization so I think players will be less aggravated by DM's setting selection limitations when they do setting design or choose to use classic versions of settings like 1e Forgotten Realms or something like that for example. I think this is really good design, it gives DM's some of their creative control back without having what were previously pretty valid complaints when species selections were reduced.
Background design has also opened the door to creating new mechanical connections to setting. As a DM you can scrap the official backgrounds and replace them with custom backgrounds that can create new limitations and narrative directions for players. As I'm building my setting for the next edition of the game, I'm finding this to be a very powerful tool that will sort of enforce narrative beats. Also a really great redesign in this new edition.
I think the big issue with the next edition is self-healing, I definitely see a need to create some house rules to nip the power level. As written, I think self-healing at higher levels will make player characters indestructible and it will eliminate any need for party roles of any kind. To me this is the one thing I see as a problem that will need some fixing but I think it can be fixed with a single house rule. For example a house rule that says that "any healing that is not a spell, counts as having 1d4 hit dice" would probably be sufficient to make all those self-heal abilities considerably less useful and reliable. I also will probably institute the if you down you are out rule, meaning if you go to 0 hit points, even if healed you remain unconscious, so if you go to 0 in a fight, you are out of the fight even if you survive it. That is one very effective way to eliminate the "when I get knocked down, I get up again" effect.
Anywho, my point is that I think the game has become a lot more modular and flexible in this edition. I look forward to seeing if the new DMG follows suit and gives us well-thought-out official variants for alterations. I always felt like the old DMG had the right ideas, but poorly designed versions for optional rules, but I think after the OSR has shown us the way, we might see more effort in the area of adjustments to the game to support a wider range of playstyle. It was the one weird thing about the old DMG, it clearly recognized that there were other playstyles, even describing them quite well in the text, but provided very weak optional rules to support them if any. I'm hoping after the OSR has shown us how to do it with games like Shadowdark and Five Torches Deep for example, that there will be better care taken in the DMG to bring those optional rules into the arena of official support as this premise of official support is very important for the modern D&D community. We saw a considerable design improvement of the DMG with 3rd edition when it shifted to 3.5 and it was also because there was so much great 3rd party content upon which to update the DMG. I hope the same will be true here.
I think the big issue with the next edition is self-healing, I definitely see a need to create a lot of house rules to nip the power level. As written, I think self-healing at higher levels will make player character indestructible and will eliminate any need for party roles of any kind. To me this is the one thing I see as a problem that will need some fixing but I think one it can be fixed with a single house rule.
With the exception of fighters using second wind, most self-healing is tactically irrelevant, and a healer is much better than anything feasible by spending hit dice at higher levels. This is not to say that PCs at higher levels aren't indestructible, but that's mostly because healing magic scales a lot faster than monster damage.
Mid combat I've yet to see a way to spend hit dice where the juice is really worth the squeeze. For out of combat the entire point of more effective self-healing options is to prevent the need for a truly dedicated healer who's expected to invest a lot of their spell slots into keeping the rest of the party going. And notably spending hit dice mid combat then reduces that option out of combat, so from a dungeon crawl perspective such features don't actually improve and arguably even reduce the net staying power (iirc most ways to spend hit dice in combat are "X dice + mod" whereas out of combat it's "X dice + (X)mod").
It's also worth keeping in mind that a level appropriate challenge overwhelmingly favoring the party is by design in service of the game being about telling a story with the characters that are the PCs. If a level appropriate encounter even had a 25% chance of TPK, then there's only about a 31% chance a party will make it through 4 encounters (.75^4). Even only a 10% chance of failure just puts the odds of making it through those 4 encounters slightly above even at 65%. The baseline for PCs surviving an encounter really does need to be pretty close to "indestructible", because otherwise any long-running campaign is going to run up against the Law of Averages often enough to be disruptive to trying to tell a coherent story with a particular set of characters. And, notably, the 2014 DMG already has rules for throttling back the power of rests or increasing the intensity of combat if a group wants to use them.
I think the big issue with the next edition is self-healing, I definitely see a need to create a lot of house rules to nip the power level. As written, I think self-healing at higher levels will make player character indestructible and will eliminate any need for party roles of any kind. To me this is the one thing I see as a problem that will need some fixing but I think one it can be fixed with a single house rule.
With the exception of fighters using second wind, most self-healing is tactically irrelevant, and a healer is much better than anything feasible by spending hit dice at higher levels. This is not to say that PCs at higher levels aren't indestructible, but that's mostly because healing magic scales a lot faster than monster damage.
That may very well be the case, as I said, this is based on a few hours reading the book, I don't think anything useful can be said about Revised 5th edition from that. Until we have all had a chance to run some campaigns and see how it plays out, its just a lot of theorycrafting, which is fun for the purposes of discussion, but it is just theory-crafting. My preferred way to start with a system is to run it RAW initially and see how many of these theories about what I need to change to get the tone I'm looking for are actually needed.
One thing I can say about it is that there are no objective truths here, everything is a matter of opinion. For example, I consider the self-healing in 5th edition RAW to be too much and I found it very necessary to cut a lot of it out which actually also included some healing spells which I felt were very broken.. but that is just an opinion, a reflection of what I experienced compared to the tone of the game I want. As everyone is looking for a different tone, I don't think we can ever say what is and isn't tactically relevant, it depends on what kind of game you are running. As a general rule for example, i don't want any self-healing at all if I had it my way. Healing in my opinion should be the exclusive domain of magical healing and only a few select classes should have it available (Paladin, Cleric, Druid... maybe a Bard but even that I consider a major stretch). Healing should be something unique.. a rare power. The game should be balanced with the assumption of no healing at all which I would consider to be almost the norm in a medieval fantasy, the tone I'm looking for.
Mid combat I've yet to see a way to spend hit dice where the juice is really worth the squeeze. For out of combat the entire point of more effective self-healing options is to prevent the need for a truly dedicated healer who's expected to invest a lot of their spell slots into keeping the rest of the party going. And notably spending hit dice mid combat then reduces that option out of combat, so from a dungeon crawl perspective such features don't actually improve and arguably even reduce the net staying power (iirc most ways to spend hit dice in combat are "X dice + mod" whereas out of combat it's "X dice + (X)mod").
It's also worth keeping in mind that a level appropriate challenge overwhelmingly favoring the party is by design in service of the game being about telling a story with the characters that are the PCs. If a level appropriate encounter even had a 25% chance of TPK, then there's only about a 31% chance a party will make it through 4 encounters (.75^4). Even only a 10% chance of failure just puts the odds of making it through those 4 encounters slightly above even at 65%. The baseline for PCs surviving an encounter really does need to be pretty close to "indestructible", because otherwise any long-running campaign is going to run up against the Law of Averages often enough to be disruptive to trying to tell a coherent story with a particular set of characters. And, notably, the 2014 DMG already has rules for throttling back the power of rests or increasing the intensity of combat if a group wants to use them.
Again these are preferences and dependent on a style of play. For example in my game, you are going to get in a fight maybe once or twice out of 3-4 sessions. In such an environment, the chance of failure and the risk of a fight should always be extreme. I also don't like reset buttons which is why I have always used Gritty Realism rules for out of combat healing.
Its a question of pace, tone and style of play. 5e has a default, but that default serves only one style of play, other styles of play always require adjustment. I for example would never want fights to be a "common" occurrence, I want fighting to be something lethal and dangerous, something to be avoided and used only as a result when one has no choice and then when a fight breaks out I want it to be an anxiety-filled, dramatic moment. That is a preference and I think 5e can be adjusted to support that preference.
I think the big issue with the next edition is self-healing, I definitely see a need to create a lot of house rules to nip the power level. As written, I think self-healing at higher levels will make player character indestructible and will eliminate any need for party roles of any kind. To me this is the one thing I see as a problem that will need some fixing but I think one it can be fixed with a single house rule.
With the exception of fighters using second wind, most self-healing is tactically irrelevant, and a healer is much better than anything feasible by spending hit dice at higher levels. This is not to say that PCs at higher levels aren't indestructible, but that's mostly because healing magic scales a lot faster than monster damage.
That may very well be the case, as I said, this is based on a few hours reading the book, I don't think anything useful can be said about Revised 5th edition from that. Until we have all had a chance to run some campaigns and see how it plays out, its just a lot of theorycrafting, which is fun for the purposes of discussion, but it is just theory-crafting. My preferred way to start with a system is to run it RAW initially and see how many of these theories about what I need to change to get the tone I'm looking for are actually needed.
One thing I can say about it is that there are no objective truths here, everything is a matter of opinion. For example, I consider the self-healing in 5th edition RAW to be too much and I found it very necessary to cut a lot of it out which actually also included some healing spells which I felt were very broken.. but that is just an opinion, a reflection of what I experienced compared to the tone of the game I want. As everyone is looking for a different tone, I don't think we can ever say what is and isn't tactically relevant, it depends on what kind of game you are running. As a general rule for example, i don't want any self-healing at all if I had it my way. Healing in my opinion should be the exclusive domain of magical healing and only a few select classes should have it available (Paladin, Cleric, Druid... maybe a Bard but even that I consider a major stretch). Healing should be something unique.. a rare power. The game should be balanced with the assumption of no healing at all which I would consider to be almost the norm in a medieval fantasy, the tone I'm looking for.
Mid combat I've yet to see a way to spend hit dice where the juice is really worth the squeeze. For out of combat the entire point of more effective self-healing options is to prevent the need for a truly dedicated healer who's expected to invest a lot of their spell slots into keeping the rest of the party going. And notably spending hit dice mid combat then reduces that option out of combat, so from a dungeon crawl perspective such features don't actually improve and arguably even reduce the net staying power (iirc most ways to spend hit dice in combat are "X dice + mod" whereas out of combat it's "X dice + (X)mod").
It's also worth keeping in mind that a level appropriate challenge overwhelmingly favoring the party is by design in service of the game being about telling a story with the characters that are the PCs. If a level appropriate encounter even had a 25% chance of TPK, then there's only about a 31% chance a party will make it through 4 encounters (.75^4). Even only a 10% chance of failure just puts the odds of making it through those 4 encounters slightly above even at 65%. The baseline for PCs surviving an encounter really does need to be pretty close to "indestructible", because otherwise any long-running campaign is going to run up against the Law of Averages often enough to be disruptive to trying to tell a coherent story with a particular set of characters. And, notably, the 2014 DMG already has rules for throttling back the power of rests or increasing the intensity of combat if a group wants to use them.
Again these are preferences and dependent on a style of play. For example in my game, you are going to get in a fight maybe once or twice out of 3-4 sessions. In such an environment, the chance of failure and the risk of a fight should always be extreme. I also don't like reset buttons which is why I have always used Gritty Realism rules for out of combat healing.
Its a question of pace, tone and style of play. 5e has a default, but that default serves only one style of play, other styles of play always require adjustment. I for example would never want fights to be a "common" occurrence, I want fighting to be something lethal and dangerous, something to be avoided and used only as a result when one has no choice and then when a fight breaks out I want it to be an anxiety-filled, dramatic moment. That is a preference and I think 5e can be adjusted to support that preference.
5e was built on the concept of attrition in resources in-game, be it food, weapons, any consumables, and ESPECIALLY HP. But the implementation of other game mechanics totally ruins any potential implementation of attrition. I know of NO ONE who runs 6-8 encounters in an actual in-game day. And while Gritty rules in the DMG help a ton, they pretty much destroy any PC that is built around a short rest. That conflict rests solely on the shoulders of the game designers. And with the new rules, the designers have decided to double down, triple down, on "it is not fun when PC's have to deal with resource management", as opposed to altering rules to make that more important to the game.
I think the big issue with the next edition is self-healing, I definitely see a need to create a lot of house rules to nip the power level. As written, I think self-healing at higher levels will make player character indestructible and will eliminate any need for party roles of any kind. To me this is the one thing I see as a problem that will need some fixing but I think one it can be fixed with a single house rule.
With the exception of fighters using second wind, most self-healing is tactically irrelevant, and a healer is much better than anything feasible by spending hit dice at higher levels. This is not to say that PCs at higher levels aren't indestructible, but that's mostly because healing magic scales a lot faster than monster damage.
That may very well be the case, as I said, this is based on a few hours reading the book, I don't think anything useful can be said about Revised 5th edition from that. Until we have all had a chance to run some campaigns and see how it plays out, its just a lot of theorycrafting, which is fun for the purposes of discussion, but it is just theory-crafting. My preferred way to start with a system is to run it RAW initially and see how many of these theories about what I need to change to get the tone I'm looking for are actually needed.
One thing I can say about it is that there are no objective truths here, everything is a matter of opinion. For example, I consider the self-healing in 5th edition RAW to be too much and I found it very necessary to cut a lot of it out which actually also included some healing spells which I felt were very broken.. but that is just an opinion, a reflection of what I experienced compared to the tone of the game I want. As everyone is looking for a different tone, I don't think we can ever say what is and isn't tactically relevant, it depends on what kind of game you are running. As a general rule for example, i don't want any self-healing at all if I had it my way. Healing in my opinion should be the exclusive domain of magical healing and only a few select classes should have it available (Paladin, Cleric, Druid... maybe a Bard but even that I consider a major stretch). Healing should be something unique.. a rare power. The game should be balanced with the assumption of no healing at all which I would consider to be almost the norm in a medieval fantasy, the tone I'm looking for.
Mid combat I've yet to see a way to spend hit dice where the juice is really worth the squeeze. For out of combat the entire point of more effective self-healing options is to prevent the need for a truly dedicated healer who's expected to invest a lot of their spell slots into keeping the rest of the party going. And notably spending hit dice mid combat then reduces that option out of combat, so from a dungeon crawl perspective such features don't actually improve and arguably even reduce the net staying power (iirc most ways to spend hit dice in combat are "X dice + mod" whereas out of combat it's "X dice + (X)mod").
It's also worth keeping in mind that a level appropriate challenge overwhelmingly favoring the party is by design in service of the game being about telling a story with the characters that are the PCs. If a level appropriate encounter even had a 25% chance of TPK, then there's only about a 31% chance a party will make it through 4 encounters (.75^4). Even only a 10% chance of failure just puts the odds of making it through those 4 encounters slightly above even at 65%. The baseline for PCs surviving an encounter really does need to be pretty close to "indestructible", because otherwise any long-running campaign is going to run up against the Law of Averages often enough to be disruptive to trying to tell a coherent story with a particular set of characters. And, notably, the 2014 DMG already has rules for throttling back the power of rests or increasing the intensity of combat if a group wants to use them.
Again these are preferences and dependent on a style of play. For example in my game, you are going to get in a fight maybe once or twice out of 3-4 sessions. In such an environment, the chance of failure and the risk of a fight should always be extreme. I also don't like reset buttons which is why I have always used Gritty Realism rules for out of combat healing.
Its a question of pace, tone and style of play. 5e has a default, but that default serves only one style of play, other styles of play always require adjustment. I for example would never want fights to be a "common" occurrence, I want fighting to be something lethal and dangerous, something to be avoided and used only as a result when one has no choice and then when a fight breaks out I want it to be an anxiety-filled, dramatic moment. That is a preference and I think 5e can be adjusted to support that preference.
5e was built on the concept of attrition in resources in-game, be it food, weapons, any consumables, and ESPECIALLY HP. But the implementation of other game mechanics totally ruins any potential implementation of attrition. I know of NO ONE who runs 6-8 encounters in an actual in-game day. And while Gritty rules in the DMG help a ton, they pretty much destroy any PC that is built around a short rest. That conflict rests solely on the shoulders of the game designers. And with the new rules, the designers have decided to double down, triple down, on "it is not fun when PC's have to deal with resource management", as opposed to altering rules to make that more important to the game.
See my point above; they most likely deliberately designed for a wide margin on HP because attrition there is ultimately disruptive to a campaign and the typical player’s enjoyment of the game. And really, the gritty rules are harder on long rest PCs than short rest ones; a Warlock or Monk replenishes their key resources after a day under those rules, while a Wizard or Cleric needs a week to get theirs back.
And with the new rules, the designers have decided to double down, triple down, on "it is not fun when PC's have to deal with resource management", as opposed to altering rules to make that more important to the game.
Honestly, D&D would be a better game if they gave up on the resource depletion model. They've been trying to cram the multi-encounter day down gamers' throats since 3e, and it's been failing to work for just as long (the five minute workday has been a problem since Basic D&D, but prior to 3e there weren't encounter building rules, and thus nothing was specifically balanced around resource depletion). If you really want to have resource management be a thing, don't base it around a time-based resource, base it on a non-replenishing resource (money, experience points, etc).
I think the big issue with the next edition is self-healing, I definitely see a need to create a lot of house rules to nip the power level. As written, I think self-healing at higher levels will make player character indestructible and will eliminate any need for party roles of any kind. To me this is the one thing I see as a problem that will need some fixing but I think one it can be fixed with a single house rule.
With the exception of fighters using second wind, most self-healing is tactically irrelevant, and a healer is much better than anything feasible by spending hit dice at higher levels. This is not to say that PCs at higher levels aren't indestructible, but that's mostly because healing magic scales a lot faster than monster damage.
That may very well be the case, as I said, this is based on a few hours reading the book, I don't think anything useful can be said about Revised 5th edition from that. Until we have all had a chance to run some campaigns and see how it plays out, its just a lot of theorycrafting, which is fun for the purposes of discussion, but it is just theory-crafting. My preferred way to start with a system is to run it RAW initially and see how many of these theories about what I need to change to get the tone I'm looking for are actually needed.
One thing I can say about it is that there are no objective truths here, everything is a matter of opinion. For example, I consider the self-healing in 5th edition RAW to be too much and I found it very necessary to cut a lot of it out which actually also included some healing spells which I felt were very broken.. but that is just an opinion, a reflection of what I experienced compared to the tone of the game I want. As everyone is looking for a different tone, I don't think we can ever say what is and isn't tactically relevant, it depends on what kind of game you are running. As a general rule for example, i don't want any self-healing at all if I had it my way. Healing in my opinion should be the exclusive domain of magical healing and only a few select classes should have it available (Paladin, Cleric, Druid... maybe a Bard but even that I consider a major stretch). Healing should be something unique.. a rare power. The game should be balanced with the assumption of no healing at all which I would consider to be almost the norm in a medieval fantasy, the tone I'm looking for.
Mid combat I've yet to see a way to spend hit dice where the juice is really worth the squeeze. For out of combat the entire point of more effective self-healing options is to prevent the need for a truly dedicated healer who's expected to invest a lot of their spell slots into keeping the rest of the party going. And notably spending hit dice mid combat then reduces that option out of combat, so from a dungeon crawl perspective such features don't actually improve and arguably even reduce the net staying power (iirc most ways to spend hit dice in combat are "X dice + mod" whereas out of combat it's "X dice + (X)mod").
It's also worth keeping in mind that a level appropriate challenge overwhelmingly favoring the party is by design in service of the game being about telling a story with the characters that are the PCs. If a level appropriate encounter even had a 25% chance of TPK, then there's only about a 31% chance a party will make it through 4 encounters (.75^4). Even only a 10% chance of failure just puts the odds of making it through those 4 encounters slightly above even at 65%. The baseline for PCs surviving an encounter really does need to be pretty close to "indestructible", because otherwise any long-running campaign is going to run up against the Law of Averages often enough to be disruptive to trying to tell a coherent story with a particular set of characters. And, notably, the 2014 DMG already has rules for throttling back the power of rests or increasing the intensity of combat if a group wants to use them.
Again these are preferences and dependent on a style of play. For example in my game, you are going to get in a fight maybe once or twice out of 3-4 sessions. In such an environment, the chance of failure and the risk of a fight should always be extreme. I also don't like reset buttons which is why I have always used Gritty Realism rules for out of combat healing.
Its a question of pace, tone and style of play. 5e has a default, but that default serves only one style of play, other styles of play always require adjustment. I for example would never want fights to be a "common" occurrence, I want fighting to be something lethal and dangerous, something to be avoided and used only as a result when one has no choice and then when a fight breaks out I want it to be an anxiety-filled, dramatic moment. That is a preference and I think 5e can be adjusted to support that preference.
5e was built on the concept of attrition in resources in-game, be it food, weapons, any consumables, and ESPECIALLY HP. But the implementation of other game mechanics totally ruins any potential implementation of attrition. I know of NO ONE who runs 6-8 encounters in an actual in-game day. And while Gritty rules in the DMG help a ton, they pretty much destroy any PC that is built around a short rest. That conflict rests solely on the shoulders of the game designers. And with the new rules, the designers have decided to double down, triple down, on "it is not fun when PC's have to deal with resource management", as opposed to altering rules to make that more important to the game.
See my point above; they most likely deliberately designed for a wide margin on HP because attrition there is ultimately disruptive to a campaign and the typical player’s enjoyment of the game. And really, the gritty rules are harder on long rest PCs than short rest ones; a Warlock or Monk replenishes their key resources after a day under those rules, while a Wizard or Cleric needs a week to get theirs back.
There are many game systems where players are essentially unkillable gods and player derive their enjoyment in being able to steamroll anything placed in front of them. D&D has never been that type of game.
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I'm surprised clerics are so far behind druids. I would've guessed the other way around. I suppose they've got heavy cleric overlap, plus all the naturey spells.
Sorcerer is the one place the initial complaint really has legs, but that's more an argument for rebuilding sorcerers than eliminating them.
Edit: I went and did a quick look-over at the 2024 spell lists, and it's not great for the sorcerers. I think their list is entirely subsumed by the wizard list after level 3, and they have all of ~4 spells wizards don't.
I guess whether it's an issue or not is subjective, but I think the sorcerer at least lives up to the "wizard on steroids" design goal better in 2024 with Innate Sorcery, and having a signature cantrip is a pretty good distinguishing factor flavor-wise. After all, Eldritch Blast is the first thing a lot of people think of when you say Warlock. I'm a fan of the improved Draconic and Wild Magic subclasses too.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
D&D is a game where the players take on the role of a character that is not them. This cannot be done if success and failure on many activities hinge upon the player's skills. Social skills are the archetypal illustration of why this doesn't work. If the GM determines the result on how persuasive the player is, then players who aren't good at being persuasive cannot play a character who is. The player who is not clever cannot play a character who is.
You seem to think that's just fine, or even to be encouraged.
It's not. It's objectively a failure of the design.
Now, you can have a perfectly enjoyable experience playing a game with these flaws, because it's possible for the GM to fix it on the fly. But the system is offloading its flaws onto the GM, and not every GM is going to handle it well.
Yeah. I don't consider myself obligated to answer every single point you try to make. I don't expect it of you, either.
That one wasn't worth my time.
Yeah, it's a bit better, it's still a poor design, but at least they have something more than metamagic.
In the rebuild of all the classes that I'm never going to do, the Sorcerer has the most flexibility, able to pull the right spell for the job out on the fly, but the least raw power. (Warlock has most power, least flexibility, with wizard living in between, while bard leans harder into the dilettante thing.)
You forgot to add in Fighter, Rogue, and Monk, all that have caster subclasses. And let's not forget that Bards have the ability to learn spells from ANY class, especially Lore Bards. 5e has many many serious problems. But chief among them are far too many spells available to far too many different casters, with huge overlap. It results in analysis paralysis, at so many tables. Not just when players are choosing options during downtime when a PC levels up, but even worse, during gameplay and some player just sits there trying to figure out what the spellcaster PC is going to do.
An 18 Int Wizard at 6th level has 10 different spells that can be "memorized" every morning. If the game is played as it should be, the player must choose that 10 game day. 10 is not that big a number. But I has seen so many tables, where that is "not fun", and DM's allow the player to choose from ANY of the spells that PC has in spell book. That leads to chaos as the player sits there trying to peruse a vast list to figure out what to do. And Clerics...oh man. With all the subclass always known spells, my 9th level Cleric has 24 spells "known" each day. If a DM does not force the player running the Cleric or Wizard to choose the spells known at the beginning of each game day, it is a totally unwieldy mess.
A smaller group of caster classes and subclasses, a smaller list of spells available to choose from, and a smaller quantity that can be used each day, would simplify the game, make it move way way faster during game play, which would actually improve the enjoyment for all involved.
I didn't forget, I just don't see how it's salient. Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters don't have dedicated spell lists, and the Four Elements Monk (which was widely considered bad) not only had an incredibly tiny "spell list", it missed out on a ton of spells that came out in the Elemental Evil Player's Companion that would've been perfectly thematic for it.
Except for the people that weren't able to fulfill the idea they had for their character.
Also, making newbies go through convoluted multiclassing rules to do something as basic as making a magic swordsman, something you can do in just about any video game RPG from the past 50 years is insane. You bring up analysis paralysis as if the multiclassing rules don't do just that by forcing you to consider all the permutations of level ups for your fighter/wizard.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
They should've just played Elf, like we did back in the Good Old Days.
Let's be very, very clear. What this user means to say is "would actually improve the enjoyment for me." As should not be surprising from five decades of people getting excited about new character options, people tend to like having more options so they can create a character that fits the vibe they are going for.
What actually improves enjoyment for all involved? Wizards providing options and players doing what they have been for the past fifty years--choosing which options to use. If you are an experienced DM and play in a group of experienced players who enjoy options and can move fast on their turn? Perhaps you allow a great number of options. If you are an inexperienced DM or a DM that gets overwhelmed easily (as this user has regularly said they are on other threads) and/or if you have players who are slow? Perhaps you limit the options.
Wizards providing lots of options helps both groups as the group can decide what option to use. Wizards providing few options, on the other hand, helps the second group but leaves the first group dangling in the wind. This is particularly true as saying "no" (the option for the group who wants fewer options) is a heck of a lot easier than forcing the group who wants more options to homebrew and deal with the hassle of balancing self-created content.
As should be obvious, the right choice for Wizards to provide the solution that can work for both groups. Does it make it slightly more difficult for one of those options than being spoon-fed a simplistic game? Sure - but they are the least cost avoider and thus are the ones who should bear the burden of utilizing a monosyllabic word. Frankly, saying "I don't want options, therefore, rather than use the word 'no' I want Wizards to deny everyone options" is a fairly selfish and silly position to take.
Just stop with the insults and lies. You will have to go back a long way, like ever, to find a post where I said I was "overwhelmed" by DM'ing. In actual fact, I am the DM that says "no" quite a bit, to quell the nonsense that comes with quite literally an infinite amount of char builds, thanks to the explosion in classes, and all the other stuff associated with building a PC. You seriously believe that new DM's can handle all the options that are thrown at them by a bunch of players who are bent on creating "the perfect build"? THAT is overwhelming for a new DM. And I know DM's who can't say no, because of the DM's emotional makeup, or worse, is a paid DM and is terrified of a bad review.
Agreed! Having just skimmed this thread I’ll add a few comments from the peanut gallery. The OP clearly wants a simpler game more focused on melee than on magic. Such a game actually exists - original basic and danced pamphlets and/or 1e/AD&D. Very limited classes, (ranger and Paladin were subclasses of fighter, Druid was a cleric subclass, etc) many fewer spells, many more discrete weapons and armors, adjustments to weapon hits/damage based on foes armor etc. of course a lot of that was to be expected given what I understand was the origin of the game - historical war gamers trying to add magic to their war gaming. Why do we have such a different game today? Because those of us that played back then wanted more classes, more magic, less complex combat rules etc. the game has evolved to meet the needs and desires of the majority of its players. I fully expect it to continue to evolve in the next 50 years just as it has in the last 50. Those portions of the game that most folks don’t use will fade away (whether I like it or not) and new features ( classes, subclasses, features, species etc) will appear. There are now 5+ versions of official “D&D” and some number of unofficial variants (pathfinder etc) to choose from to play. After playing and DMing for 40+ years I run an a very open ended campaign with pretty much everything “official” allowed but I’m not “fully satisfied” but then I don’t expect to be - I can accept and have fun with “good enough” and then homebrew anything I either can’t stand or have to have in or out of it.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Simpler isn't always better (this version of simplicity would sacrifice a ton of depth), debatable at best (fewer options at chargen speeding up moment-to-moment gameplay, is a considerable leap), and hard no, removing these options from the game would negatively impact lots of people's enjoyment, myself included. If you think there are too many classes in the game, ban some at your table, that's what houserules are for.
This thread grew bigger than I expected it to after having returned to it a few days later.
I apologize for causing any arguments; I was frustrated and wanted to vent a bit.
I still enjoy playing the older editions and most OSR games I can get my hands on, notably Shadowdark and Lion and Dragon.
I find myself very much attracted to the idea of introducing the possibility of spellcasting failure as a core mechanic an appealing one. I loved the way GURPS Fantasy handled it.
I am an unrepentant medievalist, and it was, in fact, exposure to Gygax's profusion of polearms and armour that started me down that path. I wouldn't be the dedicated lifelong roleplayer and medieval combat reenactor I am today if not for D&D piquing my interest in such during my formative years.
So, yeah--I lament the absence of the myriad polearms and Weapon vs. Armour Type rules, etc; all those elements added flavor to the game for me, and I savored the tactical considerations they introduced that are absent from the game's modern version.
Which isn't to say that I dislike the modern version; I fully intend to keep playing it because I live in a college town, and it's what my regular group agrees to continue playing--I bought a hard copy of the new PHB as soon as my FLGS started selling them. But I do wish they'd favor the casters a bit less and give some love to the martials and give us more delicious medieval flavor like the old game used to have.
Never apologize for having an opinion and don't worry about starting an argument, truth is, this fight over what D&D should and shouldn't be has been going on since the early 70's when the two people who created D&D didn't agree on the matter, in particular about the role magic-users played in the game. Gygax and Arneson had very different ideas about the role Magic-Users should play in D&D, this is just a continuation of that argument that has been going on for 50 years.
One thing I can say at least from my very early preview of the revised editions is that I think this version of the game is actually a bit more modular than the previous one.
I believe, again, just a very early opinion based on reading that, in the Revised edition it will be possible to remove sub-classes to streamline the game and set the clock back. I think this will be possible because there is more front-loading of abilities for classes and the addition of feats gives player characters some additional flexibility as they level up, being less reliant on sub-class ability to produce flavor, making the sub-classes almost an optional way to power up the game to the power fantasy modern D&D is today.
I also think there is a lot you can do with game setup in general. For example, Ability Scores have a considerable impact on power levels, so if you go 3d6 down the chain, or just 3d6 you are going to cut the power level in half.
Species has become an aesthetic choice and has little impact on mechanical optimization so I think players will be less aggravated by DM's setting selection limitations when they do setting design or choose to use classic versions of settings like 1e Forgotten Realms or something like that for example. I think this is really good design, it gives DM's some of their creative control back without having what were previously pretty valid complaints when species selections were reduced.
Background design has also opened the door to creating new mechanical connections to setting. As a DM you can scrap the official backgrounds and replace them with custom backgrounds that can create new limitations and narrative directions for players. As I'm building my setting for the next edition of the game, I'm finding this to be a very powerful tool that will sort of enforce narrative beats. Also a really great redesign in this new edition.
I think the big issue with the next edition is self-healing, I definitely see a need to create some house rules to nip the power level. As written, I think self-healing at higher levels will make player characters indestructible and it will eliminate any need for party roles of any kind. To me this is the one thing I see as a problem that will need some fixing but I think it can be fixed with a single house rule. For example a house rule that says that "any healing that is not a spell, counts as having 1d4 hit dice" would probably be sufficient to make all those self-heal abilities considerably less useful and reliable. I also will probably institute the if you down you are out rule, meaning if you go to 0 hit points, even if healed you remain unconscious, so if you go to 0 in a fight, you are out of the fight even if you survive it. That is one very effective way to eliminate the "when I get knocked down, I get up again" effect.
Anywho, my point is that I think the game has become a lot more modular and flexible in this edition. I look forward to seeing if the new DMG follows suit and gives us well-thought-out official variants for alterations. I always felt like the old DMG had the right ideas, but poorly designed versions for optional rules, but I think after the OSR has shown us the way, we might see more effort in the area of adjustments to the game to support a wider range of playstyle. It was the one weird thing about the old DMG, it clearly recognized that there were other playstyles, even describing them quite well in the text, but provided very weak optional rules to support them if any. I'm hoping after the OSR has shown us how to do it with games like Shadowdark and Five Torches Deep for example, that there will be better care taken in the DMG to bring those optional rules into the arena of official support as this premise of official support is very important for the modern D&D community. We saw a considerable design improvement of the DMG with 3rd edition when it shifted to 3.5 and it was also because there was so much great 3rd party content upon which to update the DMG. I hope the same will be true here.
With the exception of fighters using second wind, most self-healing is tactically irrelevant, and a healer is much better than anything feasible by spending hit dice at higher levels. This is not to say that PCs at higher levels aren't indestructible, but that's mostly because healing magic scales a lot faster than monster damage.
Mid combat I've yet to see a way to spend hit dice where the juice is really worth the squeeze. For out of combat the entire point of more effective self-healing options is to prevent the need for a truly dedicated healer who's expected to invest a lot of their spell slots into keeping the rest of the party going. And notably spending hit dice mid combat then reduces that option out of combat, so from a dungeon crawl perspective such features don't actually improve and arguably even reduce the net staying power (iirc most ways to spend hit dice in combat are "X dice + mod" whereas out of combat it's "X dice + (X)mod").
It's also worth keeping in mind that a level appropriate challenge overwhelmingly favoring the party is by design in service of the game being about telling a story with the characters that are the PCs. If a level appropriate encounter even had a 25% chance of TPK, then there's only about a 31% chance a party will make it through 4 encounters (.75^4). Even only a 10% chance of failure just puts the odds of making it through those 4 encounters slightly above even at 65%. The baseline for PCs surviving an encounter really does need to be pretty close to "indestructible", because otherwise any long-running campaign is going to run up against the Law of Averages often enough to be disruptive to trying to tell a coherent story with a particular set of characters. And, notably, the 2014 DMG already has rules for throttling back the power of rests or increasing the intensity of combat if a group wants to use them.
That may very well be the case, as I said, this is based on a few hours reading the book, I don't think anything useful can be said about Revised 5th edition from that. Until we have all had a chance to run some campaigns and see how it plays out, its just a lot of theorycrafting, which is fun for the purposes of discussion, but it is just theory-crafting. My preferred way to start with a system is to run it RAW initially and see how many of these theories about what I need to change to get the tone I'm looking for are actually needed.
One thing I can say about it is that there are no objective truths here, everything is a matter of opinion. For example, I consider the self-healing in 5th edition RAW to be too much and I found it very necessary to cut a lot of it out which actually also included some healing spells which I felt were very broken.. but that is just an opinion, a reflection of what I experienced compared to the tone of the game I want. As everyone is looking for a different tone, I don't think we can ever say what is and isn't tactically relevant, it depends on what kind of game you are running. As a general rule for example, i don't want any self-healing at all if I had it my way. Healing in my opinion should be the exclusive domain of magical healing and only a few select classes should have it available (Paladin, Cleric, Druid... maybe a Bard but even that I consider a major stretch). Healing should be something unique.. a rare power. The game should be balanced with the assumption of no healing at all which I would consider to be almost the norm in a medieval fantasy, the tone I'm looking for.
Again these are preferences and dependent on a style of play. For example in my game, you are going to get in a fight maybe once or twice out of 3-4 sessions. In such an environment, the chance of failure and the risk of a fight should always be extreme. I also don't like reset buttons which is why I have always used Gritty Realism rules for out of combat healing.
Its a question of pace, tone and style of play. 5e has a default, but that default serves only one style of play, other styles of play always require adjustment. I for example would never want fights to be a "common" occurrence, I want fighting to be something lethal and dangerous, something to be avoided and used only as a result when one has no choice and then when a fight breaks out I want it to be an anxiety-filled, dramatic moment. That is a preference and I think 5e can be adjusted to support that preference.
5e was built on the concept of attrition in resources in-game, be it food, weapons, any consumables, and ESPECIALLY HP. But the implementation of other game mechanics totally ruins any potential implementation of attrition. I know of NO ONE who runs 6-8 encounters in an actual in-game day. And while Gritty rules in the DMG help a ton, they pretty much destroy any PC that is built around a short rest. That conflict rests solely on the shoulders of the game designers. And with the new rules, the designers have decided to double down, triple down, on "it is not fun when PC's have to deal with resource management", as opposed to altering rules to make that more important to the game.
See my point above; they most likely deliberately designed for a wide margin on HP because attrition there is ultimately disruptive to a campaign and the typical player’s enjoyment of the game. And really, the gritty rules are harder on long rest PCs than short rest ones; a Warlock or Monk replenishes their key resources after a day under those rules, while a Wizard or Cleric needs a week to get theirs back.
Honestly, D&D would be a better game if they gave up on the resource depletion model. They've been trying to cram the multi-encounter day down gamers' throats since 3e, and it's been failing to work for just as long (the five minute workday has been a problem since Basic D&D, but prior to 3e there weren't encounter building rules, and thus nothing was specifically balanced around resource depletion). If you really want to have resource management be a thing, don't base it around a time-based resource, base it on a non-replenishing resource (money, experience points, etc).
There are many game systems where players are essentially unkillable gods and player derive their enjoyment in being able to steamroll anything placed in front of them. D&D has never been that type of game.