our gaming group has looked over the new 5.5E changes and decided they are mostly streamling systems across the board to make it simpler for players to pickup a PC and game as well as DM's not having to hunt down what spells monsters can cast and giving them abilities that mimic spells instead.  The feats were changed so you don't need sharpshooter as the most OP feat ever with Crossbow expert to shoot into combat, other "exploitable" tricks of the trade to make it so you WANT To stick with a class from 1-20 instead of dipping into Cleric for Armor feats, Sorcerer for 1 level of arcane parts, etc.

Standaradizing and Streamling.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 03, 2022, 10:37:43 AM

Quote from: Tasty_Wind on October 03, 2022, 09:35:14 AM
I imagine that 1D&D will be "backwards-compatible" with 5E material, at least in concept, but in practice it will be completely unbalanced to the point of it feeling like they didn't even bother to play test it.
5E already suffers from Race, Class, and Subclass bloat, and it seems 1D&D is just codifying that and "pushing the splinter deeper".

One man's "bloat" is another man's "necessary features."

What's especially annoying about the "bloat" argument is it invariably defines bloat as  "every player option that isn't the Tolkein Cargo Cult + Moses the Vampire Hunter."

Not everyone wants to play a LotR fanfic expy.

Nah, I argue against bloat all the time and I have zero issue with options, as long as they're meaningful ones. The problem with a lot of these classes and subclasses is that they're endless variations of the original core four (three if it were up to me)—Warrior, Specialist/Rogue, Mage and Priest (which can be folded along with Mage into just "Mystics")—with a bunch of fiddly features that don't add much, other than extra bookkeeping and filler to justify a 20 level progression that the vast majority of campaigns never come even halfway to reaching.

And this problem is further compounded by the fact that most of the current "core" classes are themselves variants of the original four (three), and should be treated as subclasses themselves, but they're not. Meaning that when it comes to making up subclasses for them they have to resort to these made up hyper-specialized variants, like Draconic Sorcerers, Elemental Monks or Snowflake Oath Paladins, that often have no basis in mythology or common archetypes and are just filler material to ensure all these already specialized "core" classes have even more specialized subclasses, cuz every class needs at least two of them.

And since subclasses are really just preset templates you don't even get real customizability in the long run, cuz all the options are already preselected for you. All you get is just ONE choice, then leveling does the rest for you. Reducing everything to just four (three!) actual core classes, then giving you a Feat every time you level (with every decent and iconic class or subclass ability, like Wild Shape and Rage, treated as a Feat), would be far more efficient, and involve less bookkeeping, while giving more meaningful options at the same time.

Quote from: VisionStorm on October 01, 2022, 09:33:52 AM


I also hate what they did to Dual Wielder. They effectively nerfed it by getting rid of the wimpy +1 to AC, and you're no longer able to use a weapon without the "light" property in each hand—the one in your off-hand HAS to be light now, cuz wielding a heavier weapon in each hand is apparently an impossible feat, I'm somehow able to pull off in real life (not that it's optimal, but it definitely is doable). You now get a +1 to Strength or Dexterity instead, which is the laziest workaround for handling weak feats I've always hated about 5e. It's like they have no clue WTF to do with dual wielding, so they had to make it worse than it already was. Meanwhile Great Weapon Masters now get a +1 to Strength on top of getting to keep their old Cleave ability, and also get to add their Proficiency Bonus to one attack per round without needing to take a penalty anymore.

Huh. Miyamoto Musashi talked about using two katanas, and how it was a good way to train. Maybe WoTC never heard of him. No wait, they'll come out with some dumb feat for that.

Who is this "we" that is doing the viewing? 

I'm off the WotC train permanently--and might have been even if they hadn't gone woke.  It's been a steady diet of uneven quality since they got the license.  Yeah, some good stuff mixed in with the bad, but they really don't reward their people with talent very well. A committee is not the way to do game design.  A schizophrenic committee running surface fluff and no concept of design off of the result of a bipolar committee design is even less appealing.

In general, my experience is that early editions are typically the most interesting, with crazy reboots being an outlier.  Sometimes a flawed gem really benefits from rework, but for the most part the only reason to get on the edition treadmill is because everyone else is doing it.  This effect is hardly limited to D&D, but we see a lot more ups and downs with them because of the different slants that have been taken, never mind all the derivative stuff from each slant.  Arguably, we've had 6 different "editions" in 10-12 'versions". 

That is why, for example, I find AD&D 1 better than 2, early BEMCI/RC stuff better than the collected RC bits (even if the one book is handy), 3E better than 3.5, and core 5E and nothing else the best way to play it.  4E Essentials is the exception that proves the rule.  I expect 5.0 to One to be even worse due to decreased competence, but I doubt it would get my attention absent that problem.