Returning to D&D with Fifth Edition
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| Image: Wizards of the Coast |
[3 min read]
The good
- Content - coming in late to an edition and one so popular as Fifth means there is an absolute ton of content to work with, and a large community of content creators out there
- Online tools - returning in a digital age brings the convenience of online tools such as D&D Beyond to take away some of the tedium of character creation
- Ability Score Improvements and Feats - 'levelling up' ability scores or adding feats makes the character feel less dependent on good rolls and not as static in progression
- Backgrounds - these flavourful storytelling tools also add meaningful proficiencies, which is a smart way to help establish a back story for even the least invested players
- Healing - finally, a party doesn't need a dedicated healer thanks to short and long rests being much more viable ways to get back into the fight
- Advantage / Disadvantage - an elegant way to replace the mental gymnastics of calculating various modifiers to a roll. Just roll twice and take the best or worst of the two!
- Cantrips - spellcasters now have something to do every turn without using spell slots, and the limited cantrips known make for agonizing choices given how cool these level 0 spells are
- Milestone Experience - I always felt it made more sense to level up at moments that are appropriate thematically, rather than in the middle of a dungeon
The not so good
- Intelligence - for such an important trait in real life, this ability score feels under-utilised and might be a common dump stat for all but Wizards and Artificers or Investigation-heavy Rogues
- 1st level vulnerability - not 100% sure whether this wasn't always the case (my memory is foggy) but the amount of damage monsters do versus level 1 characters makes the first level feel especially deadly. Kobolds with pack tactics anyone?
- Inspiration - a cool idea that doesn't feel like DMs would want to actually use it, since it singles out players in a way that might feel arbitrary or favouritism to some players
- Action economy - movement / action / reaction / bonus action / interaction is pretty complex to manage, especially at higher levels where characters have many things competing for these
- Equipping weapons - the interaction rule does create complexity for martial or 'gish' (martial spellcasters) characters who have multiple weapons and spells to juggle. Many DMs may choose to wave away only being able to draw/sheathe one weapon to avoid this.
- Spellcasting components - honestly, with two 'gish' characters under my belt so far, it has taken me a while to understand how my characters can switch weapons and still cast spells to optimise turns. The Warcaster feat helps, but I wish it would apply to all somatic and material components.
- Death saves and healing from unconsciousness - I like death saves, but the way the rules work now means it is more efficient to heal someone after they are unconscious than preventing them going down. This ping pong of going down, coming back with low hit points to have your turn, then getting knocked out again feels unrealistic (even for a very unrealistic abstracted combat system like D&D!)
Summing up
Based on my experience so far (and seemingly from the reaction of the community at large) there are more positive changes than negative ones in Fifth Edition. From a business perspective, it makes sense to simplify the ruleset in order to reduce the barrier to entry for new players, but it is always crucial not to oversimplify and turn off your core audience. Wizard of the Coast have got it right by my account, and I suspect the next revisions will be more of a tweak (5.5 anyone?) than a full rewrite. But I do expect some of my not so good experiences will be overhauled. In the meantime, I am having a blast!
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