Making 5E D&D Suck Less Without Huge Changes (p1)
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- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- There will no doubt be many additions to this series as my campaign continues.
This video is all about what I'm doing to make the 5E game I'm running more meaningful without a metric ton of house rules.
Everything I talk about with few exceptions is in the 5E DMG.
I don’t think restricting players’ options in races, classes, or abilities (skills, feats, or spells) qualifies as “taking something away from them.” That implies that they have an intrinsic right to play any of the standard options found in the PHB. They don’t have that right. They aren’t owed anything. If they take it personally, that’s too bad.
The 5e rules are built to be modular. The core mechanics were designed so that you don’t need to include any of the optional rules (including multiclassing, feats, or magic items). The game is designed to work completely fine without them - and it does. I would argue that old school D&D leans more on magic items than 5e because ability score modifiers and hit points are all lower/flatter.
As an old school DM, I’ve only run 5e a couple of times (one-shots), but I’ve been toying with starting a 5e sword & sorcery campaign at some point. The adjustments I would make wouldn’t be an attempt to “fix” the game. I would just be engaging with the baked-in modularity of the system. Page 38 of the 5e DMG brings up running sword & sorcery and low-magic limits to player options and magic items, so this is completely in line with the intentions of the game. However, the game (I think correctly) assumes most people will overwhelmingly want to play in a high magic, high fantasy game. But I don’t think you have to fight the system to do the opposite. You just need to be selective of what you would allow.
For my sword & sorcery game, I plan to only allow human PCs (there aren’t Tolkien-esque elves and dwarves in Lankhmar or the Hyborian Age) and probably only two classes: Fighters (Champions only) and Wizards. I wouldn’t use feats or allow multi-classing. The backgrounds and skill system allow you to make all kinds of different characters with just those two classes. A lot of the other classes feel too superheroic to me. I’d change the Wizard class so that the player could choose either INT, WIS, or CHA as their spell-casting ability. I’d also open up access to some non-Wizard spells. That said, I would cut out at least half of all the spells and casters would need to find spells in game - no getting them automatically upon levelling up. Magic items of permanence would be rare. And I’d award xp for treasure - probably on a silver standard, so 1 g.p. = 10 xp. Using the variant short/long rest rules in the DMG seem to be a good fit for sword & sorcery too.
I'd probably invert that GP to XP ratio, unless you're going to play with small amounts of coin. 5E's XP markers for leveling are pretty low.
I'm also curious about why you'd want to make it so that casting can be done with the other mental stats.
Everything sounds cool, regardless!
I think I would keep treasure fairly low. LotFP uses the silver standard and I think it works pretty well for lower magic fantasy while still providing a non-combat goal.
Allowing the other mental stats could give the player some flexibility to make a naturally wise or charismatic Wizard instead of just a bookish intellectual. It injects a little different flavor. They could play a WIS-based "priest" or "druid" or a CHA-based "witch" or "warlock." Mechanically it would follow the Wizard class though. I'm still toying with ideas for various small mechanical differences. Maybe something like only INT-based Wizards can use/write/copy scrolls and create magic items. Maybe WIS-based Wizards don't need spellbooks, but can only cast spells consistent with their alignment (my call). CHA-based Wizards could cast past their daily spell slot allotment, but have to make a save or take damage. Again, might tie spell use to alignment. Stuff like that. I'd probably take out damage-dealing cantrips. I'd allow for light, non-metal armor and simple martial weapon use. Mostly small changes in my opinion.
I think you would love old swords reign, it's 5e but built for swords and sandals
@@DAEDRICDUKE1 I haven’t bought Olde Swords Reign, but the little I’ve seen of it looks good. I’m really just happy playing White Box OD&D, so I’m not looking for a replacement.
The easiest "fix" I've found for 5e is to not use character sheets with the skills listed. That one change shifted the players from the button pushing to engaging the world.
Next videos on the subject will likely touch on multiple PC play, henchmen, running traditional dungeon crawls in 5E, limiting decision time in combat, players "unlocking" races and subclasses, etc.
Very cool. Will look forward to it.
5e isn't bad at its core. I am also running a 5e concurrent with my 1e and OSE games... testing out some tweaks to give it an old school feel.
It's more than just the core, it's the philosophy of play that the newer systems seem to be imparting - prioritizing story beats and epic, pre-planned narratives while suggesting that completing the narrative is paramount to the success of the game. A guest player in a recent OSE session was personally put out because his character died and completely disrupted his desired arc.
Yep. It's all about the expectations. I told them from the start they get nothing they don't earn, and I'll do nothing to save their PCs.
I have feats as magically revealed in magic items. A magic bow with sharp Shooter feat as an example
Eliminating the challenge rating and it’s askew version of ‘balance’ is probably the best way to make a 5E world more fun, thrilling and generally less sucky. Also, give your players one thing they, not their characters, need to resolve as a group early on to get players in an old school mindset.
I actually really like the gritty realism rules, like, how in the world a mage can prepare all that stuff in a night? it creates a more interesting approach and caution towards the resources the party have and makes the game worth playing at higher levels (of course if you have players good enough to remember his character skills)
Heck yeah. There is some pretty solid stuff in there. In classic D&D, it takes a certain number of hours by spell level. That’s a lot to calculate IMO, but stretching out the recovery isn’t a bad way to go.
Option A:
Corebooks and Xanathar's only (No Tieflings or Dragonborn but Lizardfolk and Goliaths from Volo's are allowed). No optional rules (such as Feats or Multiclassing). Meat Grinder mode for Death Saves (from TOA). No Long Rest until you have had at least 8 encounters that use resources. No Healing Word.
Option B:
Play a better edition/system
In the sword and sorcery adventure I'm writing, I've added morale to all monsters as a rule, and changed it slightly from the DMG. This will add more dynamic experiences to monster encounters I feel. I also include a henchman NPC that the players have full command over with random charts determining what he can do for them.
Thank God. The morale mechanic in 5E is actual throwaway garbage.
@@AaronthePedantic Agreed. Each mob will have their own different morale score and it's not tied to Wisdom at all. Plus the DM controls the monster's response... they might not flee, there's a variety of things they can do.
I did 7 days of downtime to level up in my games. If I hadn't done this, my players would have been level 5 in 3 sessions.
I'm currently contemplating using the hours as a measure of hp and spell regeneration.
Every hour of rest, you regain the average of your HD value. (round down) to your hp. So a level 20 fighter still regains 5hp per hour.
Furthermore, you regain spell slots at the rate of 1 hour per level of the slot. So 3 hours to recover a 3rd level spell slot. Etc. (I'd let short rest casters regain their spells as per normal if it becomes a problem at your table.)
Hmmm. With the way 5E treats spell slots, that might be a solid way to go. Sometimes I forget that 5E is extremely not-Vancian.
This is where the game feels really "gamey". I started a game in November (2021) with level 1 characters. That's seven months in real time and we've played almost every week--finishing session 21 just today. I calculate our travel time properly and I give the characters downtime. I recently even had them spend the winter helping out a town without incident to line us back up with spring season IRL. Even after all that In game time has only been about six weeks. It doesn't feel like the characters should be 5th level...but after 7 months it feels like the players had better be at least that if I want them to stick around.
@@guapounggoy tbh, I'm thinking of multiplying all the required XP by 10 because I hate the level up speed in 5e.
My biggest personal issue with 5E can be fixed with one rule change: No death saves... zero HP = death.
That's one way to go. Due to how massive 5E damage can be, I might add a little more granularity than that though. Could make it so that one failure causes death. That makes any hit on a downed character a coup-de-grace.
Nah. I'm not a fan of the "super-immortal, unstoppable, indomitable" characters and gameplay that 5E's endless death saves encourages. It starts to feel silly & cartoony after a while. It removes all danger & gravitas from the game.
@@catfishcooler1566 I've experienced that before, but I think one of the biggest issues there is that the action economy is often stacked with the PCs. I see a lot of groups up against solo monsters, so the monster may nearly kill someone, but then the players have an entire round to stabilize them. I think making sure anybody who should have minions/bodyguards does have them, and I give solo monsters legendary actions pretty liberally.
The "1 failure = death" fix I was talking about could still be quite brutal. Especially if they have to make a save just to survive the blow. Then they'd have to pass a 50/50 check 2 more times in a row or be healed to survive.
I enjoyed death @ 0 in BX for a while, but I like the way I'm doing things in AD&D now. If you land on 0 or up to your HP CON bonus in negative HP, you begin to bleed out. There's still a mandatory week of bedrest before they can do anything if they survive.
When I ran 5e, I don't use multiclassing, feats or the mechanics from backgrounds.
I had ran it with the kitchen sink and included everything, it works for the players I have.
Encumbrance and training are often overlooked or rather unused, diffidently use them.
I don't use attunement. I don't shower the characters in magic items but it seems dumb that you cant hand off your magic item to an ally.
My biggest problem with 5E is that I don't want to support the parent company. WOTC supports IRL charities that stand against my beliefs. I liken myself to some lefty that doesn't want to go to Hobby Lobby or Chick-fil-A. I did buy Witchlight because it's right up my alley, but I continue to resist supporting WOTC whenever I can. It's a matter of principle. Obviously, WOTC isn't the only company doing these things. Disney has gotten so bad--and I hate that I have to do it--that I won't let my daughter watch anything coming out of the company without my vetting it first--especially if is labeled as being for children. As that saying goes, I can't keep the birds from flying over my head, but I can stop them from making a nest in my beard.
As long as they keep making PODs of TSR stuff available, I'll keep giving them money. That's all I buy from them these days.
Multi classing requires finding someone to train them in my campaigns.
That's how I'm going with non-PHB subclasses!
If you want to see how to make 5e great, just take a look at Adventures in Middle Earth and Beowulf Age of Heroes.
Have you added XP for treasure? It doesn't sound like it. If they steal the dragons treasure do they gain any XP for the sneaking or outsmarting the dragon? If magic items are available earlier I could see why no XP doesn't matter since the treasure will equal a power boost anyway. Just interested in what you award XP for.
As it stands, I've been using XP for combat and objectives. I was concerned with using gp for XP at first, but I think if you cut combat XP down to 1/10th and give 10gp=1xp, I think it'd work fine. My biggest issue was how low the bar is from 1st to 2nd, 2nd to 3rd (300, 900 respectively).
@@AaronthePedantic If you are going to do XP for gold I've found that it is better to award XP for gold spent rather than gold found. It incentivizes the characters to haul all that loot back to town and blow it. Plus, it's fun. I've had characters blow a thousand gold buying rounds for the house and carousing just because they needed a hundred XP to level.
One of my groups started a Tomb of Annihilation 5e campaign after 2 years of playing 5e. We're ruling that a long rest in town/safe place is 8 hours uninterrupted. But if you're in the wilderness or whatnot, you have to spend 24 hours camping to gain a long rest. The up side is that you get all your hit dice back on a long rest. These two changes has greatly added to our games in a "old school" way of resources/time management and decisions. Is it worth to stick to this place, try find a good camping space and risk being interuppted? Should we just take a nights sleep (a short rest) and use some hit die and keep pushing? Etc
I like this! Though I still like the PCs only getting half their hit dice back on long rests, but I think making camping in the wilderness more of an ordeal is a great balancing mechanism
@@AaronthePedantic Yes I get what you're saying! Why I decided to do all hit dice is because that makes the players lean towards more days without a new long rest. If they only get half, they might try and take another full day of downtime since they have this camp now and all, might be worth risking it, or it might be worth just going back to town since they feel worn down. Getting all hit dice back after 24 hours ( night - full day - night) of downtime, often makes them get on with the adventure, but it still taxes their resources. Now they have hp and all of their hit dice, but the next opportunity for a long rest might be five days away, better take care of those hit dice we just got. It tips the scale a bit towards them feeling they are in control, and that makes them press on.
Last week I purchased my first 5e product. Stargate sg1 ( I also ordered entromancy).I would like to bring some stuff over to my 2e game.. not the mechanics but some little cool other things.
I've been bingeing SG1. I forgot how much I love Stargate.
@@AaronthePedantic At first I was a little shocked at the sg1 series. I was expecting something more like the movie. It took me a long while to get with the program, but I did and understood that a lot of love was put into the series and the changes were smart.
So I cracked the rpg book open and it is pretty good ( IMO). There is a lot of stuff I will be able to take to 2e. Also if I really wanted to, converting 5e monster stats to 2e is doable. I am definitely not an rpg expert as a matter of fact ( long story short) I am still relatively new. You and I are in the same age range more or less I believe. cheers n keep rollin ;)
@@midnightshadowz12 Cheers! Watch out for those pesky symbiotes!
Every time I’ve tried to play 5e I eventually hate it and modify it. By the time I’m done it’s not 5e anymore. I grew up with 2e, most people want 5e. I grew up with EverQuest, most people want Final Fantasy. I’ve just come to terms with it. I’m part of a niche, not the main stream.
My AD&D collection is BECMI, 1E and 2E where it pretty much stopped because I haven't had the time or the money to get back in to any gaming, but when I do, I'm strongly considering just diving back into my old 2E homebrewed with BECMI and 1E rules and concepts and play the game like I used to with some Final Fantasy stuff mixed in. Final Fantasy 9 would make an interesting "light/minimal violence" setting to re-flavor for a kids group. Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy 12 are both set in the same world of Ivalice and could either be a full AD&D setting on its own or included as a separate continent in an existing game world. I've seen a lot of 5E stuff on RUclips, not particularly impressed, and I definitely don't like the way a lot of 5E players (and the resulting influence on the WotC game's design) tend to inject political aspects into the gameplay.
To say “to make it suck less” means…..it sucks.
More clicks! 🤣 (maybe?)
@@AaronthePedantic 🤣
You filthy normy.
But in all seriousness, 5E is a very mutable system with a lot in the DMG. Telling players no is so difficult to do, but that is WotC's fault. They went and opened everything up.
As for lethality, I've said it on the Discord, and I'll say it here too. If the DM wants to, he can kill the PCs. The game is built to prevent accidental TPKs.
“You filthy normy” 🤣
There's an argument to be made for changing (Let's admit: fixing) the rules, but I'm also concerned with the culture at the table and in the game world. I see you tagged (p1) on the video, so I'll be staying tuned to this channel!
Best fix I've found for 5e is not play 5e.
It's genuinely not that bad. The better I get at DMing, the more I'm able to challenge them (even in 5E). For some people, that's the only hope of getting a table.
@@AaronthePedantic I hear you.
Hardcore Mode...lol
Nahhh I'm not doing that
Hardcore was suggested by one of my player/DM. I actually have a narrative that I created that I have learned DCC uses (mercurial magic). So, I see you are not tweaking the system but utilizing what is already there. Unlike you Aaron I need to be more disciplined. lol
🤣 Nothing wrong with tweaking stuff! I'm all for it. I just took it as a personal challenge to make 5E work for me with as little tweaks as possible.
Mercurial Magic with 5E would be pretty badass, no lie. 5E is so generous with spells that I wouldn't mind them getting those "you'll basically never cast this now" effects
Just play C&C as it's FAR more D&D that 5th edition.
If you need to add a small book of homebrew to a system to make it playable you should not play that system.
Notice that nothing I proposed is not in the 5E DMG (except the idea that magic items can break)
You cant fix her, you a dummy, etc etc
Blah, blah, blah
In seriousness, have fun my dude
Every kid thinks they have the answer LOL.... BRO, I played since the 80s and I own 800+ D&D modules. Anything you think you have the answer for was already solved by players before you. The average 5E player/DM has less than 100 hours of experience. Legacy players have 20 years of experience.
You know, I've been doing the OSR thing for several years now and you're the first one to try to discard what I'm saying due to my relative inexperience.
Is there something in particular you disagreed with?
Any player/Ref/DM worth their salt at the table keeps reading, experimenting and exploring gaming ideas pertanant to the table...even if these never "hit" the table...You, young sir (Aaron) are doing a fine job...(I've been a DM since 1987,btw)
STEADY AT THE HELM SIR! STEADY ON!!!
Damit Aaron, just play Pathfinder 2... much easier. ;)
PFFT
5E the ruleset is fine as longs you embrace the Saturday morning cartoon physics of the system. There is nothing wrong with the 5E SRD/Core ruels.
The addition of so many splat books and counterintuitive new stuff definitely bogs down the game to the point it is at now but as Crawford said, don't use it if you don't want to. It's not set in stone-Think for yourself! (he said this while sitting on a throne of Money).
You can try to fix 5E but since 2014 I have played in over 12 5E games run by people who were trying to fix 5E or make it something it was not. And as Blade once said "Ther is always some Mother Trucker trying to ice skate uphill"
Fixing it made it worse, i still have yet to play 5E As written because everyone is trying to fix it, which has a lot to say about the expectations placed on the system by you tube phenomenon i won't mention and maybe people really just want a different game.
As of today, i do not know what 5E is, I will defend that it is fine the way it is and does not need to be fixed as long as you embrace how silly it is. Otherwise
Play a different game>
Why do peopel keep wanting to fix it, is it just that they are not aware other games exsist. Makes you wonder?
First