4E PHB vs. 5E which one is the better resource?

 I think the 4E nudges the current one by just a bit, what do you all think?

Emergent story and different modalities of D&D

image courtesy of Patrick O'Neill Riley, Britannica

 I am sorry that I have neglected this blog of late.

My goal for the balance of this last quarter of the year is to update more often with my ruminations and thoughts about the games I am running or am participating in.

These days that means D&D, 5e is still at the top of the mountain for TTRPGs as far as I am concerned and even though I will be taking a more detailed look at Wotc's UA for the new system they are going to roll out next year, or whenever, I have invested heavily into 5e, as have many others and I don't really see myself stepping away from it anytime soon, similarly to how it took a while to transition from 4e to 5e. 

Of course, things have changed a whole lot in the hobby in the last 15 years or so since we bid adieu to 4e and embraced the "new" edition.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same. In some ways, some things have not really changed. For example, today I carved out some time to play at my local game store when I found out via text message that they were offering free space and tables at which to participate in regular games. 

When I arrived however, the guy at the counter told me that no one else had shown up, and after his lunch hour he was going to reopen to see if anyone showed up for a planning session. So this illustrates how hard it is to find a regular group initially, which has traditionally been a recurring problem to a lot of enthusiasts of D&D and games of a similar ilk.

Now it is immensely easier to find a game online utilizing digital platforms such as Owlbear and Roll 20, which is exactly what I will be doing tomorrow night as I have been invited to rejoin a group which is play testing the new UA classes and mechanics in a digital format. I engaged in this once before earlier this year before things became too hectic, but now I am carving out some time to do it again before the new system drops in 2024.

Different modalities of D&D and running game sessions

Recently I have become very interested in becoming a better DM for the group I have been running game sessions for now for over a year and a half. We play every other week, which sometimes feels like a lifetime when it comes to immersion and having a pause in the narrative, but in my spare time I was doing a lot of prepping and studying how others engage in this same exercise, trying to run the perfect game session. Nowadays rather than having a strict linear adventure, I am really wanting to run games with a more emergent story. I have learned a lot and will probably elaborate more on this topic as part of a more in-depth blog post.

For now, I will leave by saying, I am not sure who, if anybody, is reading this blog on a regular basis, but to you out there who may have stumbled upon it, welcome. And may the rolls be with you.

I do however want to share with some very interesting channels and forums which expand upon these topics which I find interesting starting with: 

D&D box sets: Retro component review

 A little over a year ago I looked at the 3.5 boxed set for D&D from 2006 by Wizards of the Coast and the 2010 set which went along with the 4e Essentials line. Both really nice boxed sets in my opinion and both better than then 2022 Starter Set: Dragons of Stormwreck Isle, if you are going by components and a few other factors. The best boxed set adventure for my money remains the 2014 5e Starter set adventure, it's hard to beat that adventure for both new DMs and players getting into the hobby, but as far as starter box sets go, these are some good ones. 

I will have a new video soon going more in depth into some of these boxed sets, but for now I enjoy looking back at this video, sorry for the quality, I was having trouble focusing using my new SLR at the time. 

Combat in 5e is broken?

 

I have been playing D&D 5th edition on and off for over two years now and have been DMing in a biweekly group since last June and I can honestly say that I believe I had more fun as a player than running campaigns, primarily because I believe the 5e combat mechanics are broken in comparison to older editions of the game.

Now I am no grognard, but I will preface this post by saying that I have played first edition games and ran some basic D&D games (mostly the Meltzer or what gamers call BECMI nowadays) and this is the version I seem to like the most, outside of AD&D first edition.

Why do I say that D&D 5e's combat system is broken? Well let's take a look at page 9 of the Rule book from the new starter set (which basically just condenses some of the key rules from the 2014 PHB) where combat is covered and you will find what I think is the biggest culprit: Step 4 which states that after rolling for initiative, each participant in the battle takes a turn in initiative order. The problem is that by the higher levels, (my players are level 7 now) they have amassed so many abilities and powers, that even a single monster with a CR a level below or above will present little challenge if played as written in their stat block. 

Well you might say that the answer for the DM is to have more of the same types of monsters attacking the party, but this is not always optimal in practicality or even possible due to narrative reasons. Today the party travelled north in the Forgotten Realms and squared off against a B'rohg which was about twice the size of one of the party members, our barbarian, whose pet is a two headed hell hound, never even broke a sweat. Even though the creature has the ability to hurl boulders from a great distance and does possess multiple attacks, it was no match for the party, usually the more members of the adventuring group in a fight, the bigger the advantage they possess due to the sheer number of turns vs. the creature they are fighting, even if the creature has immunities and multiple attacks. 

So in this case, a CR6 monster against a full party of 7th level characters did not stand a chance. Granted, it was only one creature, but usually the party is so much more powerful collectively that if you have a group vs. the characters, the results will be the same, only combat may take slightly longer because you are reducing the health of monsters with slightly over 400 hp instead of the long combatant with only 136.

So even if the creature were to attack with its rend power which can make 49-85 worth of damage in a single attack, it really doesn't matter if the creature rolls low on initiative and never gets a turn at bat. 

The B'rogh doesn't stand a chance even as an expert rock hurler against a full party if he goes up against them alone, even with its large stature and fearsome frame with multiple arms and multi-attack because the players are much more powerful at higher levels and they collectively have more turns to attack it. 

Health and dying

Another problem with 5e which has been well documented and which I won't rehash too much here has to do with the relative ease in which the adventuring group can heal and recuperate health. If they have a cleric in their midst, this procedure is even easier, but let's say that the character is reduced to zero h.p. and fails its death saves (unlikely because the game is set up for recovery of health vs. permadeath), spells can always bring the character back from the brink or even from death itself. What's worse, the short rest and long rest mechanics allow for faster and more effective heals and recovery of spell slots. Of course, in older versions of the game material components were required to perform some of the more intricate spells, but that has been mostly done away with at the DM's discretion. Mostly the spell caster will use a spell focus in lieu of required components.

Lastly, spell casting classes are a bit broken too, with cantrips being powerful at times and which can be repeated over and over without the need to spend spell slots. 

But for me, the most broken mechanic is still the unbalanced combat system. So much so that it has me longing to play BEMCI or a more challenging OSR version of the game. How do all of you out there ameliorate this faulty combat mechanic?