I do like Advantage/Disadvantage so I'm intrigued by some discussions around the "O5R", aka OSR blended with 5e.

What other 5e concepts are worth stealing?
What else from 5e works awesome at the table?

And has anyone improved upon the ADV/DISADV mechanics?

BTW, Venger Ass'Nasty Satanis was the first author I heard talking about O5R, but if anyone knows it the phrase pre-dates him, let me know. His excellent CHA'ALT setting is an example of what's intriguing me (and the description of Cha'alt as a Rifts/Gamma World setting is dead right).

Having recently shelved my 5e books, I can't really say there's anything about its mechanics that stand out all that much from earlier versions. What it has is popularity and exposure.

It came up in the hit dice versus level conversation, I don't know if it was present in 3rd or 4th because I skipped those, but different size of hit dice for Monsters gives you some flexibility.

My two favorite things about D&D 5e are Bounded Accuracy and Unified Ability Roll Mechanics.

Bounded Accuracy
I've long believed that D&D has a problem with ability ranges and success rates, even before 3e came out (which only made it worse, but didn't originate the problem). Higher level characters tend to have abilities that vastly outstrip those of the general population and gaps in ability levels become so great lower level/HD opponents become absurdly trivial. This issue always takes me back to the highest level fighter in my old 2e group (back in the 90s), who could routinely decapitate enemies using called shot to the head (-8 to hit penalties) cuz his THAC0 plus attack modifiers (from STR, weapon mastery, and magic bonuses) far outstripped most of the AC values in the game. Bounded accuracy is a consideration that seems to address this issue.

Unified Ability Roll Mechanics
By which I mean "everything is a Skill/Proficiency" instead attacks, saves, skills, etc. having completely different ways to calculate your score in them. This is sort of a double edged sword, since it basically turns everything into a skill, at which point it makes me wonder "why even have character classes or even play D&D? Lets just play a d20 skill-based game! (which would normally be my preference)", but I like it because of its simplicity and the way that all ability rolls use the exact same mechanics, making them easy to recall. Another issue with this, though, is that it contributes to the "sameification" of characters, since everyone of the same level has the exact same Proficiency Modifier, so the only way to distinguish their talent is through ability score modifiers. Actual skill-based systems don't have this problem, though, because skill levels are variable in those games. But like I said, it vastly simplifies the system and makes things easy to remember—at least as far as core mechanics are concerned (character classes are a different bloated mess, which I HATE about 5e).

After playing for a bit over 1 year, none of the other mechanics are worthy of notice. If a 5E mechanic prompts me to say "meh" that seems to be as good as 5E gets.

Somewhat off-topic: while I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic in the abstract, I've grown to really hate the implementation of advantage/disadvantage in 5E. Other systems, like Barbarians of Lemuria/Honor+Intrigue are more nuanced and flexible since they don't try to shoehorn everything into a single advantage or disadvantage.

Quote from: Bren on September 23, 2020, 08:21:55 PMSomewhat off-topic: while I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic in the abstract, I've grown to really hate the implementation of advantage/disadvantage in 5E.

What goes wrong in the implementation that you hate?

D&D 5E


Advantage / Disadvantage, simplifies the DM's job.


NOT having 47 different player classes to consider, simplifies the DM's job.


Making Multiclassing Optional, simplifies the DM's job.


Clearly stating that the DM is in charge, simplifies the DM's job.


Making Feats Optional, allows the game to have more of a Classic feel.

Bound Accuracy.

Take a squad of orcs. Give them plate armor instead of their hide armor. Bound Accuracy causes even a tier 2 group to pause, especially if there is a warchief leading the group. Not only does design become more straightforward, from a DM perspective, but it adds verisimilitude. Adding plate armor to warriors should make them meaner, and it does.

And that's not even a monster with multiattack. Not having an escalator ramp is design freedom in many ways.

Aaaaaaand Advantage/Disadvantage is Table Freedom. No, I'm not going to had out a +2, +4, -3, blah, blah, blah. Roll Advantage, moofoo. Yeah, you done messed up. That's Disadvantage.

The modular approach in 5e is well done IMO and makes it easy for the DM to build their own game without traumatising their players, depending which modules are switched on. Making Feats optional was a bit of design genius; the game feels and plays very differently without them, much more 'classic'. Also makes it practical to build NPCs with the PC rules, unlike 3e & 4e.


Edit: Talking of design genius, who actually designed this game? It clearly was not Mearls & Crawford, who seem to have almost no understanding of the system. I'm guessing the 'Lead Designers' M&C were shooting tequila while the 'Designers' did the actual work.

Quote from: S'mon on September 24, 2020, 02:44:11 AM
The modular approach in 5e is well done IMO and makes it easy for the DM to build their own game without traumatising their players, depending which modules are switched on. Making Feats optional was a bit of design genius; the game feels and plays very differently without them, much more 'classic'. Also makes it practical to build NPCs with the PC rules, unlike 3e & 4e.


Edit: Talking of design genius, who actually designed this game? It clearly was not Mearls & Crawford, who seem to have almost no understanding of the system. I'm guessing the 'Lead Designers' M&C were shooting tequila while the 'Designers' did the actual work.

Mearls was supposed to be the main designer, while Crawford was his rules lawyer.

It really doesn't bring much new to the design table, unless you've only ever played D&D before.

Best of 2 or worst of 2 wasn't a new thing- but 5E sure made it popular. During the playtest, It clicked in my head and I used it as a replacement mechanic in C&C-  Base DC always 15+ challenge level. PCs with a prime roll with advantage, otherwise, straight roll.

Many of its "unique" things were borrowed from 4E and names and mechanics changed slightly (Hit Dice vs Healing Surges, Short and Long rests vs Encounter & Daily Powers), etc.

Inspiration- again , new to D&D but the concept has been around for long before

Backgrounds- same

I think the best I can muster about 5E mechanics vs previous editions (4E back to OD&D)  is that it's probably the only version I could sit down and play without house-ruling/changing a bunch of stuff. It's "non offensive"  store brand plain vanilla ice-cream from a mechanical standpoint. As always, with every edition  I limit races/classes as appropriate to the types of games/campaigns I run.

IME you have to go outside D&D proper to find the innovative/clever mechanics in D&D type games-13th Age, a handful of OSR products, etc. The backlash to 4E killed any creativity or innovation in D&D mechanics for the foreseeable future. D&D players on the whole are weird about change: they want the same things as before, just in a new package with a minor update (and then complain when they get just that).  This is why I pretty much play only OD&D when it comes to D&D proper. I'm sick of the SOS edition after edition, book after book since 1977. I  go elsewhere for that creative/new fix.

Bounded Accuracy and the fact any character can use any skill but some are better at some than others are two excellent features of D&D 5e.


But they are only correcting what Gygax broke with Greyhawk Supplement I, AD&D, and Unearthed Arcana. Bounded Accuracy was perfectly fine in the 3 LBB of OD&D. Even added some of Greyhawk was fine as long you tone down the ability bonuses to a -3 to +3 range.


As for the latter, I had that in my Majestic Wilderlands supplement back in 2009 only I called it abilities instead of skills. Because the hallmark of the system was that any character could use any ability except some were better at specific abilities because of their attribute score or class. It worked out well and it is the spirit of the older campaign where outside of combat and spellcasting characters were on an even playing field as far as what they could try.


So I am glad 5e introduced both of these concepts to a larger audience.


What I don't like about 5e is the 20 level spread which inflates the amount of work it takes to create a new character class.


I find it interesting that how they leveraged inflated hit point totals to allow a variety of combat abilities yet still retain a similar power curve to that of OD&D.

Best part of 5e is taking a bunch of stuff that worked well in previous editions and putting them together in the main rule set.  There's very little that's unique when I think about and looking at other people's responses.


They still somehow managed to pooch the Saving Throws and how to classify spells as Saves.  Once again the spells are clustered mostly on 3 Ability scores so it's not quite as bad as 2e's Save vs Spell problem and not quite as bad as 3e with Save or Suck but it's still not great.


For me I like the Tool Proficiencies and Languages.  Having them be different than Skill Proficiencies and being able to learn them on Downtime regardless of level or number of slots or anything like that is great.  If you want to make a jack of all trades you can do so without having to be a Bard.  B.A. Baracus can be a Fighter again.

Not really specific, but for me the best thing about 5e is the supposed* modularity, where you can strip feats, multiclassing, even skills, and have your "just right" quantity of mechanical load.I also think the DMG's alternative rules are really interesting in giving insight about the malleability of many rules: like the static proficiency bonus which can be replaced with d4, d6,...,d12; adv/disadv is just a +5 with a twist; etc.
Bounded accuracy is neither here nor there with me. I like the idea of it, but the resulting "damage sponges" is something I detest.


* Supposed, because lately I've seen less and less people that would be ok with stripping something from the system instead of adding, so the whole design concept becomes moot. But I guess this is a problem of the zeitgeist, not of the system itself.

Organization of rulebooks is a great idea that I rarely see in games.

   
• Putting character creation rules in order of when they're used. The first time I played the game, never having seen the books, I created a character from scratch simply by starting at the first page of character creation and following through page by page.
• Edited Books Matter. Typos, and awkward constructions that confuse the text, in the PH are extremely rare.