D&D 5e has failed

[MGuy]

But obviously your summoned creatures will attack each other!

Clearly. That is the obvious thing to have happen and not the 3rd ass pulled ruling in a hopeless attempt to spot nerf a lazily made and played wizard.

[virgil]

I'm surprised that the DMG outsells the MM by 3 to 1. If that holds even roughly true outside of Amazon, who are all the people who buy the first but not the second?

People who only ever have their PCs kill progressively larger numbers of goblins, and spent all of 3e talking about how fighters are balanced because level 20 fighters are supposed to lose to CR 13 Ice Devils, because Ice Devils are powerful monsters that should beat PCs (but apparently not Wizards).

A theory I hold is that people who bought the DMG, their last chance at having a book with actual rules, were distraught and gave up hope of being able to run a game and never followed through on completing the set. What is more likely to be the case is the fact monster stats are provided in an adventure, and are probably super easy to get ahold of homebrew statblocks on the information super hightubeweb, making the need for MM superfluous.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Not even, basic rules provide a ton of monsters to go with.

[nockermensch]

This is baffling. I considered the 5E Monster Manual the best of the three new core books. Because at least the illustrations are rather well done, so you can leave it as a coffee table art book when you realize that the rules are shit and the flavor is bland.

In fact, I recommended just the Monster Manual for friends who asked me if "5E was worth it" and one of them even bought it.

[MGuy]

Do monster stats matter in 5e? Since it's the 'fuck the rules' edition I can see that if monster abilities matter even less than actual player abilities there's less incentive for a player to even care enough to look through the MM. There's a lot more incentive when you wanna know about all the weird ways monsters can kill you or if you're going to be summoning a good deal of'em. Didn't the MMs for 4th edition do similarly bad when they came out or was that ever even discussed?

[ishy]

Well D&D next is the next that unifies all previous D&D games into next gen. So you can just use all your previous edition monstrousus manules!

A theory I hold is that people who bought the DMG, their last chance at having a book with actual rules, were distraught and gave up hope of being able to run a game and never followed through on completing the set. What is more likely to be the case is the fact monster stats are provided in an adventure, and are probably super easy to get ahold of homebrew statblocks on the information super hightubeweb, making the need for MM superfluous.

Could just be that people play the starting adventure (and grab the phb / dmg to run it) and then realise it is the "meh, fuck it" edition.

[Lurky Lurkpants]

Of course monster stats matter in 5e, because those are the only rules they actually wrote. They may not be able to pull of their fluff, but all the stuff for stabbing or being stabbed is set. Despite all their "DM is your God-King" bullshit they still give you not only specific attack bonuses and ACs, but specific skill checks to pull out spines or eggs or whatever. It may well have more set DCs than the DMG.

That is because 5e is a combat system that is "better for roleplaying" because there are no actual rules for anything else. According to Sage Advice you may not be allowed to pick what you summon, but gosh darn it the book tells you the DM bought the book with their stats!

[MGuy]

Yea that's nice for the GM but the GM is not most of who's playing.

[CapnTthePirateG]

According to Sage Advice you may not be allowed to pick what you summon, but gosh darn it the book tells you the DM bought the book with their stats!

What?

WHAT?

[Axebird]

Holy fuck

Other spells of this sort let the spellcaster choose from among several broad options. For example, conjure minor elementals offers four options. Here are the first two:

One elemental of challenge rating 2 or lower
Two elementals of challenge rating 1 or lower
The design intent for options like these is that the spellcaster chooses one of them, and then the DM decides what creatures appear that fit the chosen option. For example, if you pick the second option, the DM chooses the two elementals that have a challenge rating of 1 or lower.

That is absolutely outrageous.

[SlyJohnny]

Why, necessarily?

I suppose it's a bit annoying you can't summon a hellhound specifically to go fetch something on the other side of the lava or whatever, or a flying creature to scout. It's not like basic summon spells were OP anyway, it was more the Calling stuff that broke the game completely.

[Kaelik]

Why, necessarily?

I suppose it's a bit annoying you can't summon a hellhound specifically to go fetch something on the other side of the lava or whatever, or a flying creature to scout. It's not like basic summon spells were OP anyway, it was more the Calling stuff that broke the game completely.

Yes, it is a bit annoying that you can't ever do any of the things you would ever want to do with any summoning spell with any summoning spell.

Want to summon water elementals to push your boat up the river? Only Fire elementals are summoned.

Want to summon Earth elementals to scout the dungeon? Only Fire Elementals.

Want to scout out fuck all anything with air elementals? Only Fire Elementals.

Want to fight Trolls? Only Air Elementals.

It's just an arbitrarly pointless DM Gateway that gives DM explicit permission to fuck the players, and never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever does anything else.

Either the DM lets you summon the thing that is actually useful, or he doesn't, and your ability is useless. Remember to Suck the DM Cock before every session players.

It never provides any actual benefit at all to have random summon choices. There is literally nothing that it adds to the game. It isn't more balanced, it doesn't give more options, it doesn't do anything but sometimes fuck the PCs.

[Username17]

Why, necessarily?

I suppose it's a bit annoying you can't summon a hellhound specifically to go fetch something on the other side of the lava or whatever, or a flying creature to scout. It's not like basic summon spells were OP anyway, it was more the Calling stuff that broke the game completely.

The DM already chooses what units Team Monster are playing with. If Mr. Cavern is also choosing what units show up for Team Player, he's basically just masturbating.

Edit:

It never provides any actual benefit at all to have random summon choices.

I disagree here. Actually random summon choices would be potentially interesting. You might say "I have a one in four chance of getting a Magmin that's way more useful than a fireball here and I think we can win if I end up with just a Dire Badger or Ethereal Filcher, so I'll take the risk." Or you might say "summoning is too risky because we are going to get stomped if I don't end up summoning one of the flyers, so I'm going to use a lightning bolt instead." Or whatever. Assuming that you set up the random chart such that it was abstractly balanced with the more useful and less useful rolls against more linear spells, you'd either want to cast it or not depending on whether you were in a situation to be screwed by tail risk or pleased by upsides.

Having the DM choose isn't random. It's just the DM playing solitaire.

-Username17

[Lurky Lurkpants]

Not only that, it is of the CR "or lower." So if you pick "Eight CR 1/8ths" you might get eight camels, and if you pick "One CR 2" you could get... one camel. Of course people say "the DM wouldn't do that," but given this rule is never even hinted at anywhere else to tell the DM what they should do that is even more meaningless than normal.


For the record: the actual reason for the ruling was that people were using Conjure Woodland Beings to get eight Pixies, which meant eight concentration batteries for Fly or Polymorph, or eight offensive spells a round, and so on. In the fine tradition of game companies rather than admit this was a problem they changed a significant rule and claimed it had always been that way.

[Covent]

Wow that's Paizotastic levels of always at war with East Asia.

[Kaelik]

I disagree here. Actually random summon choices would be potentially interesting. You might say "I have a one in four chance of getting a Magmin that's way more useful than a fireball here and I think we can win if I end up with just a Dire Badger or Ethereal Filcher, so I'll take the risk." Or you might say "summoning is too risky because we are going to get stomped if I don't end up summoning one of the flyers, so I'm going to use a lightning bolt instead." Or whatever. Assuming that you set up the random chart such that it was abstractly balanced with the more useful and less useful rolls against more linear spells, you'd either want to cast it or not depending on whether you were in a situation to be screwed by tail risk or pleased by upsides.

Okay yes, let me be clear, there are plenty of ways you could make having random summons actually meaningful and add something to the game. But absolutely nothing is added by taking a spell balanced around you picking whatever you want (so mostly not getting anything OP, except stuff that is super broken at that level, like Tome CR Replacement Polymorphing into a CR 9 Construct with at will 9th level spells isn't broken because of polymorph, it's broken because the fucking Construct is) and then just replacing "whatever you want" with "random shit" such that the best possible result would be slightly less powerful than some other spell you could have prepared, but everything else you ever get is garbage.

[ishy]

But why stop at random monsters summoned?
Just make everything random. You cast random conjuration spell, random evocation spells. The fighter randomly attacks random targets with random weapons etc.

[Longes]

But why stop at random monsters summoned?
Just make everything random. You cast random conjuration spell, random evocation spells. The fighter randomly attacks random targets with random weapons etc.

Sounds like a perfect old-school game to me! People love random stuff, right? That's why random chargen is so popular.

[erik]

But why stop at random monsters summoned?
Just make everything random. You cast random conjuration spell, random evocation spells. The fighter randomly attacks random targets with random weapons etc.

I suppose you don't roll to hit or for damage or saves either? Random monster summoning isn't terrible on first principles.

Random things that shouldn't be random are PC stats (unless everyone uses the same set of rolls to choose from) and HP. Pity that that piece of truth isn't universally accepted. I'm gonna start a 3e campaign in a month or two and the DM ruled that characters roll for stats. I almost exactly rolled the elite array and have the overall worst stats so far, so I guess it worked out okay this time but still felt dirty.

[Dogbert]

It's just an arbitrarly pointless DM Gateway that gives DM explicit permission to fuck the players, and never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever does anything else.

Why are you so surprised? About all plot-affecting spells (or the closest 5E has to "plot affecting") state implicitly in the description: The DM is free to say this spell doesn't work if you don't suck his dick.

[MisterDee]

WotC president out

Realistically (especially given who the replacement is) this is probably aimed at unfucking Magic Online (and other WotC online products) more than anything else.

As for D&D... well, getting someone from outside WotC can't make things worse. I imagine that D&D flat out wasn't part of the conversation, but if for some reason Hasbro's willing to spend money to unfuck the D&D division, the first important step was to put someone without WotC ties in control.

Personnally, I see this as a "can't be worse, could get better" situation.

[MisterDee]

Oh, and WotC decided to cut the Pro Tour attendance money for Platinum Pros. Dare we hope that the "let's give money to our friends in exchange for nothing of value" policy is over?

[CapnTthePirateG]

And then what?

Like it or not, 5e is the current flagship D&D product. Now you could reorganize the department, purge the game designers who aren't actually designing games, bring in new people with new ideas, and start releasing splatbooks with rules for shit, but you're still chained to the bad design decisions of D&D 5e and people will riot if you release a new edition after a year.

[Kaelik]

And then what?

Like it or not, 5e is the current flagship D&D product. Now you could reorganize the department, purge the game designers who aren't actually designing games, bring in new people with new ideas, and start releasing splatbooks with rules for shit, but you're still chained to the bad design decisions of D&D 5e and people will riot if you release a new edition after a year.

Change takes time, but For example, the Tennesse Titans are not going to win the Superbowl in a year. But they are taking the steps that would allow them to possibly win in 5 years. That's good.

If Wotc turns around and takes the steps that could lead to a genuinely good D&D edition in 5 years, that's something to be happy about.

[Covent]

5 years would be a stunningly small amount of time to get that done in, but yes Kaelik is right if they even start to improve in meaningful ways that would be amazing.