this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2026
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[–] jtrek@startrek.website 91 points 1 week ago (7 children)

I enjoyed bg3, but DND 5e is not a system I enjoy nor want more of. It's surprisingly shallow.

[–] tynansdtm@lemmy.ml 43 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This is how I feel. And honestly how the developers of BG3 seemed to feel. Additional context for other readers if not necessarily for you, but 3.5 and Pathfinder have a lot of what they call the "magical Christmas Tree effect" where someone using Detect Magic on a player character would see a magical aura around every single one of your body parts. Barring specific character build decisions there was usually a best-in-slot magical item for every place you could have one, and the difficulty curve of the game assumed that you would.

5e, especially early 5e, attempted to curb this. Magic items were rare and powerful, but more importantly interesting. Strict numerical bonuses were powerful but boring so they were mostly eliminated. Flash or nothing was the name of the game, and indeed some magical items literally do nothing but enhance looks.

BG3 said no to this. Many possible character builds can only be done, or are strongly encouraged, with sets of magic items. It was an attempt to add depth and choice back in while restricted by a system that had little of it.

[–] jtrek@startrek.website 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah, but unfortunately they kept 5e's design principle of "you barely get any feats". I want my characters to be interesting because of who they are, not because of what glowing doodads they looted from more interesting dead people.

Also class + level is so coarse. I'd rather be able to, like, buy individual things I want. Get XP for doing a quest, buy more sneak attack. Or a spell slot. Maybe hit dice. Really let me mix and match.

But DND 5e is designed to have a small decision space in builds. They want the half paying attention guy's character to perform about as well as the optimizer, instead of the huge gap between those archetypes that 3e had.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

i really liked the... I think it was the Oracle class in pathfinder. that would be fun.

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I always thought it was the most interesting class because each power comes with a weakness, and they grow in power as you level up. Very X-Men like. Here's some curse examples for people who don't know what the class is about:

Clouded Vision - Your eyes are obscured, making it difficult for you to see. You cannot see anything beyond 30 feet, but you can see as if you had darkvision

Wrecker - The destructive power of the Abyss and its teeming hordes of demons seeps from your very pores and into your belongings and surroundings. Held objects gain the broken condition when you use or equip them but regain their actual condition if employed by anyone else. Disable Device becomes a class skill for you and you can make checks to destroy non-magical traps as a move action without the need to use tools or take any action beyond simply touching it.

It's one of the reasons I love Pathfinder more than DnD. So much variety and creativity in the classes. More reading

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Clouded vision was the curse/perk I wanted to pick! It looks so fun to play. And my vision sucks so I could lean into that aspect of my self for the character rather than something more annoying

[–] fushuan@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

BG3's Devs didn't feel like 5E was too shallow, iirc they said that their next game wouldn't be 5E because it was too complex and they felt it didn't correctly fit what they wanted in a game. Have you checked the divinity games? Their systems are much, much simpler than 5E is.

I'm hyped beyond belief for the next divinity game, Divinity, but I warn you, the game system will be much simpler.

[–] shroomato@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Either way it's a system designed for pen and paper, which inevitably imposes some limits compared to something custom tailored for a video game format from the get go.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 14 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It's among my favorites, and I'm nervous for whatever Divinity's got in its place.

[–] ahornsirup@feddit.org 15 points 1 week ago (3 children)

That's a controversial opinion but I agree with you. Going by the Original Sin games I prefer 5e over the rules Larian made for Divinity.

[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

While BG3 was a better game, the combat in Divinity was more fun. Not only was cheese encouraged, it was almost required at higher difficulty levels. Summoning a lava worm to shoot a laser beam at some tossed out fire traps to cause a million damage? Sure, why not?

[–] Womble@piefed.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

While BG3 was a better game, the combat in Divinity was more fun. Not only was cheese encouraged, it was almost required at higher difficulty levels.

Its so interesting how differently people view things, that sounds horrible to me (and matches my short experience with d:os). I want a game that has hard difficulty that I can beat by making smart decisions, not figuring out how to break the underlying system.

[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I like ridiculous things to happen. I also hate misses in any game. That's too realistic for me.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Given how much more likely one is to have played 5e than any other system, it's probably not all that controversial.

[–] panda_abyss@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 week ago (3 children)

5e is a great system for a “Rule of Cool” style of DMing. That’s amazing for a decent DM and inexperienced/less technical players.

But it is not a good CRPG system or a good system for experienced and technical players. There’s a lot of “can I…” and “I want to…” that slows down combat even when you know the rules.

Plus, there’s stuff like “can a centaur ride a horse?” where 5e is inconsistent. Or the infamous peasant rail gun.

[–] jtrek@startrek.website 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

5e is a great system for a “Rule of Cool” style of DMing. That’s amazing for a decent DM and inexperienced/less technical players.

It's not even that good at that. Fate, for example, is a much lighter and better system for that. Aspects are a very simple system for setting expectations and letting players do wacky things based on them.

If I was going to run a game for new players I would absolutely not reach for 5e. It provides too much fertilizer for "can I move that far?" and "if he's flying 30' up can I still shoot him?" minutia.

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone 1 points 1 week ago

Yeah to me 5e is in a weird place right now. Not quite narrative focused and not quite crunchy numbers focused either. It's like a middle ground where some parts are highly specific but others are left to interpretation. I've found people mostly get confused by this ambiguity.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

I probably had fewer "can I...?" questions in BG3 than any other CRPG, if for no other reason than that all of the enemy attributes are exposed at all times, and your spells tell you which attributes they interact with. It's that same quality that allows the technical design of Larian's engine to shine, and it made large swaths of the genre feel dated immediately. Either in the video game or the tabletop, my combats don't have many questions to bog them down.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago

I disagree. It's a poorly designed system that fails at accomplishing anything better than alternatives. The thing it has going for it is the name/marketing. There are lighter systems that are easier and cooler, there are heavier systems that are more tactical, and there are equivalent systems that are less jank. The fact that there's things like the bonus action, that was added so late in development it was never playtested, in 5e makes it pretty awful to play. There are so many exceptions you have to learn to even start too. It's not a good system for noobs and it's not a good system for experienced players.

[–] Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I've not yet played divinity 2, currently playing baldur's gate 3 for the first time and really enjoying it. So I'm actually kind of excited for divinity 3. Looks like it's a couple of years away anyway tho.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I played Original Sin 2 after BG3, and at first it leaves a huge positive impression, but then more and more problems present themselves as time goes on. The armor systems create stunlocking issues; the XP system encourages genocide; the skill system feels freeing at first but ends up landing on dominant strategies very quickly. It's still a good game, and they've said in an AMA that some of my biggest criticisms won't be in this new Divinity, but their track record thus far is that their own RPG systems are not as good as 5e.

Divinity might also be closer than you think. If they go early access, which they haven't committed to, we might be playing it next year.

[–] Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Really? Well that sounds mostly good news to me! Early access divinity would be exciting. And yeah, I know divinity 2 is an older game, I'm expecting to have some issues with it but I'll certainly give it a try.

TBH baldur's gate 3 has been the first game of this type I've played. Was never into D&D stuff, so I'm not really aware of what could be better or different. I'm only just now learning that I enjoy games like this!

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Nice! If you got used to your ability to "use X on Y" to solve problems creatively, that's Larian's special sauce, so unfortunately, you're unlikely to find that kind of depth in any other video game besides those last two Divinity: Original Sin games. As far as the combat and skill dice rolls go though, there are definitely plenty more of those.

[–] iamthetot@piefed.ca 10 points 1 week ago

The dnd 5e-ness of BG3 was among the worst parts of it.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

D&D was optimized for pencil-and-paper-and-dice play. I mean, it has to keep the math simple to keep the game going.

I think that a ruleset optimized for computer RPGs would probably look somewhat different.

[–] jtrek@startrek.website 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It's funny because while 5e has simpler math than the predecessors, it's still kind of clunky. 1d20 + proficiency + modifier isn't that bad, but I've seen a lot of players who can't correctly add 16 + 7.

I really liked the nWoD system where you roll a bunch of d10s and just count how many came up >= 8. No addition or subtraction.

Also 1d20+stuff is flat probability, which feels bad.

I think that a ruleset optimized for computer RPGs would probably look somewhat different.

But also 100 times this. You could do so many things that would be painful to do by hand at the table.

[–] TipRing@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The variance on a single d20 is miserable after playing games with better probability curves.

[–] Droechai@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I love the three d6 curve from Hero System

[–] TipRing@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I like Fudge dice, but understand if people want higher variance than that. I do like that characters tend to succeed at things they are good at (but not always) and fail at things they are bad at (but not always). Some people liken this to diceless, but my experience is that it's just enough variance to keep you on your toes and add drama.

[–] Droechai@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 week ago

Iron Kingdoms uses a nice system too, where the better your are the less variance your roll get.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

1d20 + proficiency + modifier isn’t that bad, but I’ve seen a lot of players who can’t correctly add 16 + 7.

https://old.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1jphv4b/favorite_calculator_for_the_table/

Having done a lot of digital GMing recently, I had the sudden realization that a physical calculator with buttons has sped up my play immensely.

One can grab an inexpensive calculator if it's a matter of being able to do it at all, I suppose. Or use a phone calculator app. But...even with a calculator, there are just going to be some limitations on how many modifiers one can reasonably have and how they can interact. Like, if you have, say, four or five inputs for a check that all have percentile modifiers from various equipment or spells or statuses or whatever, it just starts to become a pain to deal with. A computer won't notice that, and there, it's fine. But for TTRPGs, one doesn't want to turn a play session into a bunch of people just playing Sim Spreadsheet. Kinda bogs down the game, kills the flavor.

I bet that there are some people who won't even play D&D in its present form because of the math.

searches

https://old.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/177rybf/have_a_friend_who_struggles_at_math_what_can_i_do/

I have a friend of mine who's very interested in playing DND, and TTRPGs in general. However, he's admitted to me, and I have genuine proof, that he struggles with even the simplest concepts of math (such as addition or subtraction). Does any other DMs or players (or, hell, anyone really) have any advice to lessen the amount of math that needs to be done, or even make it a no-math sort of deal? Much appreciated!

[–] orenj@leminal.space 3 points 1 week ago

I think I'd rather see more 4e than 5e at this point. Its so one-dimensional

[–] agentTeiko@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

Yep I moved to gurps it was a game changer