I do agree that dex based builds should really be a lot less tanky than heavy armour builds and that is a big flaw in how 5e is designed, but I do think that dex based paladins and fighters are really important to have (and strength based rangers).
Not everyone wants to play their paladin as a knight in shining armour. Having light armoured builds is vital for the character many people design in their head even before class mechanics are put on. An oath of glory paladin who uses leather armour and a gladius with a greek theme, or an oath of the crown paladin who uses a hand crossbow (or firearm is they're in your game) and prefers his drinks shaken and not stirred are fun concepts which should not be barred from play just because they don't fit the stereotypical heavy armour paladin build.
DnD 5e is already god awful for character customisation, so removing even more is an awful idea. I personally want muticlass ranger and paladins to be able to use either strength or dex as their score for multiclassing, rather than having to build to the stereotype if you want to multiclass.
Hot take: if the guidelines and DM's didn't make Full Plate like some holy grail that shouldn't ever be given to the player before level 10, we'd have much fewer dex based paladins and fighters.
There is a lot to this argument.
Okay, I am lost. Maybe in Adventure League where recent Seasons have limited cash. But plate is 1,500. Icewind Dale has one quest in the first chapter that gives out 5,000 gp. Or have I played AL so long, that I have forgotten the guidelines. If so Book and Page number please.
Check out the Dungeon Master's Guide and look at the chapter on Treasure. Consider the suggestions for loot based on Challenge Rating. 1500 in gold will take a lot of monster slaying to achieve. (The D&D Beyond DMG doesn't have Page Numbers.)
Paying for plate armor basically means that all strength based martial characters (save barbarians) have a 1500 gold piece tax.
Which is different from casters paying to learn spells, how? But yes, the cost of some things, particularly compared to daily skilled wages, seems a bit much. Also Splint is only 200 gp, so you are paying that last +1,300 for 1 extra AC.
Only Wizards really have to pay for their spells, and Splint is much cheaper. But still, if you want to get 20 AC, which most martials want, you have to pay a lot of gold. Most of the time characters in my campaign salvage and retrofit plate from enemies.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
The combo of rapier and dex being just as good for armour as heavy armour really does cause a lot of the issues. Rapier should definitely be doing 1d6 imo. Dex just gives so much compared to strength, and there is so little incentive to go down a strength route except for RP/flavour purposes.
All ranged weapons being dex doesn't help either. Longbows irl require insane amounts of strength, so tying them to dex seems really odd. A minimum strength requirement for shortbows and longbows could help here, with dex still being used to aim? STR 11 for shortbows and STR 13 for longbows?
The combo of rapier and dex being just as good for armour as heavy armour really does cause a lot of the issues. Rapier should definitely be doing 1d6 imo. Dex just gives so much compared to strength, and there is so little incentive to go down a strength route except for RP/flavour purposes.
All ranged weapons being dex doesn't help either. Longbows irl require insane amounts of strength, so tying them to dex seems really odd. A minimum strength requirement for shortbows and longbows could help here, with dex still being used to aim? STR 11 for shortbows and STR 13 for longbows?
The bow issue is also why I suggested separating damage out from Dex. Dex for accuracy, Str for damage. If you do not have the strength, you cannot fully draw the bow and thus cannot get full damage out of it.
This would require ability scores to be more like PF2e though as you would be hamstringing DEX fighters too much then as they would need STR, DEX, CON. This means they will have terrible mental stats and without mental save proficiencies will be affected disproportionally by those mental effects especially late game.
I think the better idea is just to up the damage on STR weapons.
1d8 Longsword becomes 1d10 or 1d12 if two handed. Maul/Greatsword/ become 2d8
Greataxe requires special proficiency given to certain fighters and barbarians and becomes 3d6.
OR
You make Great Weapon Fighting give a static bonus = half proficiency rounded down
Either way making the Dex/Str thing work would be too complicated for the 5e model IMO
STR characters could dump DEX and see 0% change to their playstye
DEX characters would need to have both STR and DEX or drastically decrease their damage output. You would need to go from an 8 in STR to it being your secondary stat likely.
As a fighter you wouldn't sacrifice your CON for this increase you would dump a mental stat meaning that you have 3 poor mental stats. I am not sure how you wouldn't see this as hamstringing as you have effectively changed the playstyle completely for no real discernable reason.
Personally I'd have liked one fixed and one floating ASI, and the floating ASI can't be put in the same score as the fixed one.
I understand peoples issues with the negative scores on orcs and kobalds, but I don't think Tasha's has fixed anything. It's just made it so builds can be even more OP.
Despite liking point buy, I do think it's part of the issue. With rolled scores you would happily settle for 15 or even 14 in the top score. With point buy the mentality seems to have shifted to '16 or it's an unviable build'.
Armor differentiation is better done by differentiating armor, rather than fidgeting with weapons or attributes. Medium and heavy armor should come with integral damage reduction, rather than it being nothing but a very bad feat for heavy armor only.
Strength immediately becomes far less of a dump stat once a DM grows the balls to enforce encumbrance on her games. It will astonish you to see how quickly players stop automatically dumping Strength when a DM says "variant encumbrance is on, coin weight is in effect, container weight limits will be tracked". Many players see all of that as just needless, pointless Accounting and Dragons...but it's also a significant reason why a character wants to be strong. I've seen it more than once - Strength is a dump stat until everybody in the party dumps Strength and nobody in the group has an ST score above 8. Strength could use a boost, but it's not as awful as folks think when the DM enforces the rules meant to make Strength better.
The issue with providing extra proficiencies based on Intelligence modifier is that (condensed under spoiler because this is wordy and nobody likes me being wordy anymore).
D&D has exactly nineteen proficiencies that matter over the course of nineteen in every twenty campaigns - the eighteen core skill proficiencies and Thieves' Tools. Everybody will have an anecdote about how their knowing a given language Saved A Session, or how their creative use of cobbler's tools gave their party an edge, but in the broad scope of things almost all tool proficiencies are superfluous flotsam (even for artificers, who only need proficiency with ONE toolset for their shit to work, however much we all lament otherwise), and languages are just mildly nice-to-haves. Those nineteen proficiencies are the ones that will decide almost every noncombat situation a character finds herself in, and even then an argument can be made that a number of skill proficiencies (Animal Handling, Medicine, Nature, Performance, and Religion) are esoteric and largely superfluous unless a DM goes well out of her way to gear her campaign otherwise.
This means that most campaigns are decided based on the use of roughly fourteen skill proficiencies. Any given character is given four skill proficiencies to start with, and most will contrive a way for those proficiencies to be on the list of fourteen 'Good' proficiencies. Some players may opt for one 'Bad' proficiency for story purposes, but almost nobody takes Nature or Religion when they could take Investigation, instead. Considering the average four-player party, this means sixteen proficiency selections, allowing the characters to cover all their bases with two overlap points, or two points dedicated to 'bad' skills. Further, it's extremely common for one's species to offer bonus proficiencies, and less common but still fairly so for one's class or background to do so. An elven rogue begins the game with eight key proficiencies - four plus Thieves' Tools from Rogue, two from background, one from Keen Senses. That's over half of the 'good' proficiencies in one character. Many background options offer the chance at Thieves' Tools. Many feats grant additional proficiencies.
It is already largely trivial to build a character that has proficiency in over half of the game's core skills as well as several tools and languages. Many players hate playing with someone who builds their character like this, considering it Spotlight Hogging of the worst sort. I've even heard proposals to put an upper limit on the number of skills one character can gain proficiency with, simply to ensure that skills are forced to be spread out amongst the party and thus allow everyone to have their specialties and moments to shine.
There is simply not enough room in 5e's oversimplified, extremely limited skill system for Intelligence to grant additional proficiencies. Being able to add up to five new skills over the course of a character's life would allow certain characters to approach proficiency in every skill, and people would scream. High elf Arcane Tricksters become skillmonkeys so extraordinary they break the game - Reliable Talent with 13+ proficiencies means the DM just stops bothering to put any sort of skill check in their game. It's a great idea in theory, but once again 5e's oversimplification of the game engine comes back to bite us in the ass. There's nothing really left to give Intelligence to make it matter in any meaningful context that doesn't end up overtuned. Nothing I've seen, anyways.
As for Constitution? Just get rid of it. Just...get rid of it. Either tie bonus HP to Strength (and rename Strength to 'Body', 'Fitness', or similar) because one's physical fortitude is inextricably linked to one's fitness and swolitude, taking care of one's body just handles all of that, or eliminate stat-based bonus HP altogether and leave it up to feats or class abilities to determine your health. I know, I know, I know - Constitution is one of the Six Sacred Scores and thus can never be mucked with, but if I were allowed to make a second change to D&D? It would be to completely rejigger how ability scores work. Constitution, Wisdom, and possibly Charisma would all just disappear, and in their place an expanded skill system would cover the gaps. If an ability score cannot be used as the foundation for several different types of specialized skill training, it has no business being an ability score. The Six Sacred Scores are holding this game back and have been for multiple editions now.
Never going to happen...but man, wouldn't it be nice?
Why make it this needlessly complicated? Just add more damage to STR and be done with it. 5e strives for simplicity and this makes it painful to remember what to add when.
This makes STR the winner in damage as it should be.
3. This is the problem... They have to pick between being good at their class stuff or at least having one good mental stat. This is bad design.
I fully agree the mental stats matter that is why it's terrible to force that choice.
Armor differentiation is better done by differentiating armor, rather than fidgeting with weapons or attributes. Medium and heavy armor should come with integral damage reduction, rather than it being nothing but a very bad feat for heavy armor only.
Strength immediately becomes far less of a dump stat once a DM grows the balls to enforce encumbrance on her games. It will astonish you to see how quickly players stop automatically dumping Strength when a DM says "variant encumbrance is on, coin weight is in effect, container weight limits will be tracked". Many players see all of that as just needless, pointless Accounting and Dragons...but it's also a significant reason why a character wants to be strong. I've seen it more than once - Strength is a dump stat until everybody in the party dumps Strength and nobody in the group has an ST score above 8. Strength could use a boost, but it's not as awful as folks think when the DM enforces the rules meant to make Strength better.
As for Constitution? Just get rid of it. Just...get rid of it. Either tie bonus HP to Strength (and rename Strength to 'Body', 'Fitness', or similar) because one's physical fortitude is inextricably linked to one's fitness and swolitude, taking care of one's body just handles all of that, or eliminate stat-based bonus HP altogether and leave it up to feats or class abilities to determine your health. I know, I know, I know - Constitution is one of the Six Sacred Scores and thus can never be mucked with, but if I were allowed to make a second change to D&D? It would be to completely rejigger how ability scores work. Constitution, Wisdom, and possibly Charisma would all just disappear, and in their place an expanded skill system would cover the gaps. If an ability score cannot be used as the foundation for several different types of specialized skill training, it has no business being an ability score. The Six Sacred Scores are holding this game back and have been for multiple editions now.
Never going to happen...but man, wouldn't it be nice?
It seriously sounds like you need to play something different.
I'm attacking your desire to want change in your game but the changes you want are already present in other games.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Uh Third, if you would notice, the title is if you could change one thing, emphasis on one. You had like eleventeen things on that post.
I am aware of that. A lot of others have, as well. That's my last one for awhile, besides supporting it. If the Original Poster requests, I will stop listing new things. (I also think that it's better to change the topic from its previous direction to this, as it's less hostile.)
I am not against power gaming. I've engaged in power gaming from time to time. It can be a lot of fun.
What I object to is a set of labyrinthine rules requiring a foot high stack of rule books and the ability to exercise while RPing. I object to rules which either intimidate the newbie or make them feel like an outsider because they don't have the depth of knowledge the player next to them has and can't even begin to understand, let alone play, what the player next to them is playing. I object to the cost of an ever-increasing rule set. I object to the GM being pressured to either buy yet another book or let his player play a feat/class which the GM cannot evaluate because it is contained in or uses rules contained in yet another book.
That's what Pathfinder is about.
That's why I left Pathfinder.
It is why I *hated* 3E bloat.
5e game design is to keep things simple. If you do not wish to keep things simple, then there is a database of user-created content on dndbeyond which is available to anyone who wants to use it.
If that is not enough for you, Pathfinder is still out there and is designed for your tastes in gaming.
I am not against power gaming. I've engaged in power gaming from time to time. It can be a lot of fun.
What I object to is a set of labyrinthine rules requiring a foot high stack of rule books and the ability to exercise while RPing. I object to rules which either intimidate the newbie or make them feel like an outsider because they don't have the depth of knowledge the player next to them has and can't even begin to understand, let alone play, what the player next to them is playing. I object to the cost of an ever-increasing rule set. I object to the GM being pressured to either buy yet another book or let his player play a feat/class which the GM cannot evaluate because it is contained in or uses rules contained in yet another book.
That's what Pathfinder is about.
That's why I left Pathfinder.
It is why I *hated* 3E bloat.
5e game design is to keep things simple. If you do not wish to keep things simple, then there is a database of user-created content on dndbeyond which is available to anyone who wants to use it.
If that is not enough for you, Pathfinder is still out there and is designed for your tastes in gaming.
5e may be a simpler form of D&D that previous versions, but it is STILL an extremely complicated game. And so it should be. The game is designed to encompass a parallel universe, and fully populate all aspects of that universe. There have to be myriad rules to cover that. And as for a new player being intimidated by playing D&D, might I suggest you look at chess, where new players are overwhelmed by experienced players, even though the "rules are simple". And let's not even begin to discuss who knows how many wargames.
New players can get into D&D if the other players and DM are considerate of their lack of basic knowledge. But never, ever, should that lack of knowledge be allowed to let some rule be relaxed. Constant education of the rules make all players better.
And that is the secret: No, you don't. You don't need rules for everything. Really. You only need rules for the situations that you encounter. And starting from a simple framework, the DM can adjudicate what happens. I have played RPGs with very, very simple rules. Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game has four attributes and a very simple rule, whoever has the highest attribute wins. And we played years-long incredible campaigns about universes which are much more complex than the ones in D&D.
I agree with this on the most part. However, for things that the community desperately wants additional crunch on (Survival, Crafting, etc...) we do need at least some guidelines for that have more meat. The DMG/Xanathars are good for a lot but there is a lot to be desired from a DM standpoint on guidance on these issues.
Better knowledge of rules (beyond basic knowledge) does not make a better player. Having a more optimised character does not make a better player. This is not a boadgame, this is not a wargame, it's a roleplaying game and what makes a player better is when he can better live the story while playing his character. All the other ideas that distract him from this make worse players.
That does make sense but the other side of the coin also does make sense. Players who do not know what their character can do or the basic rules ("How many actions do I get??") are just as likely to derail a game as the optimizers. When you have a session 0 you get to dictate these things but if you engage in a social contract to play a game with a group of people you should take the responsibility to know the game and your character. Coming unprepared to play is as bad as not engaging in RP.
I do agree that dex based builds should really be a lot less tanky than heavy armour builds and that is a big flaw in how 5e is designed, but I do think that dex based paladins and fighters are really important to have (and strength based rangers).
Not everyone wants to play their paladin as a knight in shining armour. Having light armoured builds is vital for the character many people design in their head even before class mechanics are put on. An oath of glory paladin who uses leather armour and a gladius with a greek theme, or an oath of the crown paladin who uses a hand crossbow (or firearm is they're in your game) and prefers his drinks shaken and not stirred are fun concepts which should not be barred from play just because they don't fit the stereotypical heavy armour paladin build.
DnD 5e is already god awful for character customisation, so removing even more is an awful idea. I personally want muticlass ranger and paladins to be able to use either strength or dex as their score for multiclassing, rather than having to build to the stereotype if you want to multiclass.
Okay, I am lost. Maybe in Adventure League where recent Seasons have limited cash. But plate is 1,500. Icewind Dale has one quest in the first chapter that gives out 5,000 gp. Or have I played AL so long, that I have forgotten the guidelines. If so Book and Page number please.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
Check out the Dungeon Master's Guide and look at the chapter on Treasure. Consider the suggestions for loot based on Challenge Rating. 1500 in gold will take a lot of monster slaying to achieve. (The D&D Beyond DMG doesn't have Page Numbers.)
<Insert clever signature here>
Paying for plate armor basically means that all strength based martial characters (save barbarians) have a 1500 gold piece tax.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
Only Wizards really have to pay for their spells, and Splint is much cheaper. But still, if you want to get 20 AC, which most martials want, you have to pay a lot of gold. Most of the time characters in my campaign salvage and retrofit plate from enemies.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
The combo of rapier and dex being just as good for armour as heavy armour really does cause a lot of the issues. Rapier should definitely be doing 1d6 imo. Dex just gives so much compared to strength, and there is so little incentive to go down a strength route except for RP/flavour purposes.
All ranged weapons being dex doesn't help either. Longbows irl require insane amounts of strength, so tying them to dex seems really odd. A minimum strength requirement for shortbows and longbows could help here, with dex still being used to aim? STR 11 for shortbows and STR 13 for longbows?
This would require ability scores to be more like PF2e though as you would be hamstringing DEX fighters too much then as they would need STR, DEX, CON. This means they will have terrible mental stats and without mental save proficiencies will be affected disproportionally by those mental effects especially late game.
I think the better idea is just to up the damage on STR weapons.
1d8 Longsword becomes 1d10 or 1d12 if two handed.
Maul/Greatsword/ become 2d8
Greataxe requires special proficiency given to certain fighters and barbarians and becomes 3d6.
OR
You make Great Weapon Fighting give a static bonus = half proficiency rounded down
Either way making the Dex/Str thing work would be too complicated for the 5e model IMO
STR characters could dump DEX and see 0% change to their playstye
DEX characters would need to have both STR and DEX or drastically decrease their damage output. You would need to go from an 8 in STR to it being your secondary stat likely.
As a fighter you wouldn't sacrifice your CON for this increase you would dump a mental stat meaning that you have 3 poor mental stats. I am not sure how you wouldn't see this as hamstringing as you have effectively changed the playstyle completely for no real discernable reason.
Personally I'd have liked one fixed and one floating ASI, and the floating ASI can't be put in the same score as the fixed one.
I understand peoples issues with the negative scores on orcs and kobalds, but I don't think Tasha's has fixed anything. It's just made it so builds can be even more OP.
Despite liking point buy, I do think it's part of the issue. With rolled scores you would happily settle for 15 or even 14 in the top score. With point buy the mentality seems to have shifted to '16 or it's an unviable build'.
Armor differentiation is better done by differentiating armor, rather than fidgeting with weapons or attributes. Medium and heavy armor should come with integral damage reduction, rather than it being nothing but a very bad feat for heavy armor only.
Strength immediately becomes far less of a dump stat once a DM grows the balls to enforce encumbrance on her games. It will astonish you to see how quickly players stop automatically dumping Strength when a DM says "variant encumbrance is on, coin weight is in effect, container weight limits will be tracked". Many players see all of that as just needless, pointless Accounting and Dragons...but it's also a significant reason why a character wants to be strong. I've seen it more than once - Strength is a dump stat until everybody in the party dumps Strength and nobody in the group has an ST score above 8. Strength could use a boost, but it's not as awful as folks think when the DM enforces the rules meant to make Strength better.
The issue with providing extra proficiencies based on Intelligence modifier is that (condensed under spoiler because this is wordy and nobody likes me being wordy anymore).
D&D has exactly nineteen proficiencies that matter over the course of nineteen in every twenty campaigns - the eighteen core skill proficiencies and Thieves' Tools. Everybody will have an anecdote about how their knowing a given language Saved A Session, or how their creative use of cobbler's tools gave their party an edge, but in the broad scope of things almost all tool proficiencies are superfluous flotsam (even for artificers, who only need proficiency with ONE toolset for their shit to work, however much we all lament otherwise), and languages are just mildly nice-to-haves. Those nineteen proficiencies are the ones that will decide almost every noncombat situation a character finds herself in, and even then an argument can be made that a number of skill proficiencies (Animal Handling, Medicine, Nature, Performance, and Religion) are esoteric and largely superfluous unless a DM goes well out of her way to gear her campaign otherwise.
This means that most campaigns are decided based on the use of roughly fourteen skill proficiencies. Any given character is given four skill proficiencies to start with, and most will contrive a way for those proficiencies to be on the list of fourteen 'Good' proficiencies. Some players may opt for one 'Bad' proficiency for story purposes, but almost nobody takes Nature or Religion when they could take Investigation, instead. Considering the average four-player party, this means sixteen proficiency selections, allowing the characters to cover all their bases with two overlap points, or two points dedicated to 'bad' skills. Further, it's extremely common for one's species to offer bonus proficiencies, and less common but still fairly so for one's class or background to do so. An elven rogue begins the game with eight key proficiencies - four plus Thieves' Tools from Rogue, two from background, one from Keen Senses. That's over half of the 'good' proficiencies in one character. Many background options offer the chance at Thieves' Tools. Many feats grant additional proficiencies.
It is already largely trivial to build a character that has proficiency in over half of the game's core skills as well as several tools and languages. Many players hate playing with someone who builds their character like this, considering it Spotlight Hogging of the worst sort. I've even heard proposals to put an upper limit on the number of skills one character can gain proficiency with, simply to ensure that skills are forced to be spread out amongst the party and thus allow everyone to have their specialties and moments to shine.
There is simply not enough room in 5e's oversimplified, extremely limited skill system for Intelligence to grant additional proficiencies. Being able to add up to five new skills over the course of a character's life would allow certain characters to approach proficiency in every skill, and people would scream. High elf Arcane Tricksters become skillmonkeys so extraordinary they break the game - Reliable Talent with 13+ proficiencies means the DM just stops bothering to put any sort of skill check in their game. It's a great idea in theory, but once again 5e's oversimplification of the game engine comes back to bite us in the ass. There's nothing really left to give Intelligence to make it matter in any meaningful context that doesn't end up overtuned. Nothing I've seen, anyways.
As for Constitution? Just get rid of it. Just...get rid of it. Either tie bonus HP to Strength (and rename Strength to 'Body', 'Fitness', or similar) because one's physical fortitude is inextricably linked to one's fitness and swolitude, taking care of one's body just handles all of that, or eliminate stat-based bonus HP altogether and leave it up to feats or class abilities to determine your health. I know, I know, I know - Constitution is one of the Six Sacred Scores and thus can never be mucked with, but if I were allowed to make a second change to D&D? It would be to completely rejigger how ability scores work. Constitution, Wisdom, and possibly Charisma would all just disappear, and in their place an expanded skill system would cover the gaps. If an ability score cannot be used as the foundation for several different types of specialized skill training, it has no business being an ability score. The Six Sacred Scores are holding this game back and have been for multiple editions now.
Never going to happen...but man, wouldn't it be nice?
Please do not contact or message me.
1. And 2.
Why make it this needlessly complicated? Just add more damage to STR and be done with it. 5e strives for simplicity and this makes it painful to remember what to add when.
This makes STR the winner in damage as it should be.
3. This is the problem... They have to pick between being good at their class stuff or at least having one good mental stat. This is bad design.
I fully agree the mental stats matter that is why it's terrible to force that choice.
It seriously sounds like you need to play something different.
I'm attacking your desire to want change in your game but the changes you want are already present in other games.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
(I didn't read whole thread)
The fine folks over at Enworld are working on 'Level Up' "A crunchier, more flexible version of the 5E ruleset which you know and love."
They have already released playtest documents for Fighter and Rogue, makes for interesting reading for sure.
https://www.levelup5e.com/features
thats is just... pure amazing!
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
Okay, excuse my impudence.
: Systems Online : Nikoli_Goodfellow Homebrew : My WIP Homebrew Class :
(\_/)
( u u)
o/ \🥛🍪 Hey, take care of yourself alright?
I am not against power gaming. I've engaged in power gaming from time to time. It can be a lot of fun.
What I object to is a set of labyrinthine rules requiring a foot high stack of rule books and the ability to exercise while RPing. I object to rules which either intimidate the newbie or make them feel like an outsider because they don't have the depth of knowledge the player next to them has and can't even begin to understand, let alone play, what the player next to them is playing. I object to the cost of an ever-increasing rule set. I object to the GM being pressured to either buy yet another book or let his player play a feat/class which the GM cannot evaluate because it is contained in or uses rules contained in yet another book.
That's what Pathfinder is about.
That's why I left Pathfinder.
It is why I *hated* 3E bloat.
5e game design is to keep things simple. If you do not wish to keep things simple, then there is a database of user-created content on dndbeyond which is available to anyone who wants to use it.
If that is not enough for you, Pathfinder is still out there and is designed for your tastes in gaming.
5e may be a simpler form of D&D that previous versions, but it is STILL an extremely complicated game. And so it should be. The game is designed to encompass a parallel universe, and fully populate all aspects of that universe. There have to be myriad rules to cover that. And as for a new player being intimidated by playing D&D, might I suggest you look at chess, where new players are overwhelmed by experienced players, even though the "rules are simple". And let's not even begin to discuss who knows how many wargames.
New players can get into D&D if the other players and DM are considerate of their lack of basic knowledge. But never, ever, should that lack of knowledge be allowed to let some rule be relaxed. Constant education of the rules make all players better.
I agree with this on the most part. However, for things that the community desperately wants additional crunch on (Survival, Crafting, etc...) we do need at least some guidelines for that have more meat. The DMG/Xanathars are good for a lot but there is a lot to be desired from a DM standpoint on guidance on these issues.
That does make sense but the other side of the coin also does make sense. Players who do not know what their character can do or the basic rules ("How many actions do I get??") are just as likely to derail a game as the optimizers. When you have a session 0 you get to dictate these things but if you engage in a social contract to play a game with a group of people you should take the responsibility to know the game and your character. Coming unprepared to play is as bad as not engaging in RP.
I would add more levels so you could go over the 20 level limit.
I agree. I've made most of a levels 21-30 system, and wish that it was officially supported like in previous editions.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms