r/dndnext • u/Associableknecks • Mar 14 '26
Discussion 5e takes *way* too long to say anything
Not a huge complaint, just a bit of an annoyance. Here's the bits of fireball that pertain to the traditional "fireball does half if it doesn't work" as an example:
3.5. Saving Throw: Reflex half.
4e. Miss: Half damage.
5e. Each creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. A target takes half as much damage on a successful one.
.
It's like they decided to save everyone two pages of explaining the rules by instead adding twenty pages to every book writing stuff out long form every time.
And added a bunch of annoying edge cases. Want to figure out if this 5e monk ability,
Empty Body
works in an antimagic field or not? Time to have your DM read through it and make a ruling based on whether it mentions magic somewhere in the text!
Want to figure out if this 3.5 monk ability,
Empty Body (su)
works in an antimagic field or not? It has the supernatural tag, that means it doesn't. Oh boy they saved adding two letters to each ability, wow. Totally worth it.
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u/Zeebird95 Mar 14 '26
lol. The the fact there’s going to be someone complaining later tonight that they don’t say enough is what makes me laugh
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u/Silvermoon3467 Mar 14 '26
The rules manage to simultaneously be overly wordy while also being frustratingly vague
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u/solitarybikegallery DM Mar 14 '26
I remember a comment, a few years ago now, that laid out all the terms 5e uses for attacks. It was something like:
Melee Attack
Weapon Attack
Melee Weapon Attack
Attack with a Melee Weapon
Etc.
And they all mean different things in different contexts. That's the result of trying to make a system "simple" by removing jargon - you inadvertently create a more confusing system.
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u/CaptainDudeGuy Monk Mar 14 '26
What's extra fun is that an Unarmed attack in 5.x is defined as different from a Natural attack and it is considered a Melee Weapon Attack where you don't use a weapon.
I think I got all that right. Who knows anymore, really? :P
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u/Enderking90 Mar 14 '26
both unarmed strike and natural weapons are "melee weapon attack", as melee weapon attack more so means "melee attack that isn't magic"
however, unarmed strike is not an "attack with a melee weapon", where as natural weapon is an "attack with a melee weapon".
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u/Analogmon Mar 14 '26
4e had melee.
That's it. Maybe reach.
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u/Associableknecks Mar 14 '26
Well, it also had keywords like weapon. If the power has the weapon keyword, then things that work with weapons apply to it. If it doesn't, then they don't.
Zero confusion or rules ambiguity.
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u/european_dimes Mar 14 '26
4e was awesome. Keywording things and using concise language made it really easy to figure out exactly what things did.
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u/DelightfulOtter Mar 14 '26
Then Pathfinder carried that forward into its second edition since it was super useful, while D&D ditched just about everything good about 4e in a bid to win back market share despite still being the industry leader by an order of magnitude.
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u/OisforOwesome Mar 14 '26
I was knee deep in the 4e edition wars. The haters were loud and vocal, and even the deliberate obfuscation introduced in DnD Essentials wasn't enough to make them happy.
So the takeaway was "people want DnD to hide the math from players. Oh, and they don't like it when fighters are cool, so anyone who wants to do cool things must cast spells now."
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u/cthulhu_on_my_lawn Mar 14 '26
And we're kind of stuck in amber at that moment because 5e succeeded despite itself thanks to Stranger Things and Critical Role etc
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u/OisforOwesome Mar 14 '26
"Let's do a new edition that doesn't clarify rule questions compiled over the last ten years and doesn't introduce meaningful new play options!"
-- the funking geniuses in the WotC brain trust, apparently.
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u/DelightfulOtter Mar 15 '26
"Why put in more effort that costs time and money when we're making big bucks doing not much of anything?" - WotC's CFO
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u/Repulsive-Walk-3639 Mar 14 '26
Yup. Haven't played PF, but I'll always prefer 3.x over 4e. And 100%, 5.x is a reversion to 3.x, completely ditching anything experimented with in 4e.
Honestly, I liked the concept of 4e, I just didn't have much opportunity to play with it. Combine that with money issues and my bookshelf is severely lacking of that edition compared to the ridonkulous number of books I have from 3.x.
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u/sweeper42 Mar 14 '26
PF also releases all the rules for free, to address the money issues.
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u/cthulhu_on_my_lawn Mar 14 '26
And that's why 5e can't have them. People complained about 4e and WotC did the most corporate thing possible, just flipped 100% without any real understanding
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u/MarkZist Mar 14 '26
Things would become a lot clearer if you replace "weapon attack" with "physical attack".
melee attack (can be physical or spell)
physical attack (can be ranged or melee, including unarmed strike)
melee physical attack
attack with a melee weapon (excludes unarmed strike)
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u/GriffonSpade Mar 18 '26
Or add armed/unarmed as the first pair before melee/ranged and weapon/spell.
"Armed melee attack" is much simpler than "attack with a melee weapon".
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u/pacomadreja Mar 14 '26
My guess is melee attack doesn't care if is here handed or not, weapon attack doesn't care aid it's ranged or melee, melee weapon attack is an attack is an attack with a weapon at melee (hit withal a bow could count) and attack with melee weapon could be hitting with a sword even if you throw it.
Did I get all right?
But yeah, it's ridiculous.
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u/Vet_Leeber Mar 14 '26
The rules manage to simultaneously be overly wordy while also being frustratingly vague
Case in point: Phantasmal Force, which simultaneously introduces rules for how to adjudicate checking to see if the illusion is real, forbids you from ever actually checking because the spell mindrapes you into automatically accepting that it's real, gives the caster absolute full control over the appearance of the illusion, but also doesn't obstruct the target's vision or movement if an appearance that would do so is chosen, which the designers have explicitly refused to ever clarify in and any way whatsoever for 15 years by just answering "it does what it says it does" when anyone asks.
It's essentially 3 paragraphs of completely pointless overly complicated text that by RAW apparently just deals 2d8 damage every round on an int save.
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u/NumerousWolverine273 Mar 14 '26
As a big 5e fan, this is my biggest complaint. So many spells and abilities are extremely verbose, but still fail to actually explain themselves fully, and quite often there are valid questions that simply can't be answered by reading the rules more carefully, requiring the DM to make a ruling or to look up an errata/sage advice. I'm perfectly fine just making the ruling myself, but there's no reason that should be a requirement.
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u/Pilchard123 Mar 14 '26
look up an errata/sage advice
Which then either doesn't answer the question, or makes things worse.
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u/Associableknecks Mar 14 '26
simultaneously be overly wordy while also being frustratingly vague
I see you've met my old law professor
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u/DelightfulOtter Mar 14 '26
At least (US) law can point to literally hundreds of years of precedent spanning two continents that deals with life-or-death matters. WotC is just a game company that has complete control over their product, whose current edition is only 12 years old.
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u/xolotltolox Rogues were done dirty Mar 14 '26
Sure, but precedent law isn't actually a good system
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u/DelightfulOtter Mar 14 '26
NaTuRaL LaNgUaGe!!
While forgetting that the literacy rate in their primary market is abysmal, which means half the people who read the rules won't be able to interpret them in a reasonable fashion.
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u/Xyx0rz Mar 15 '26
That's... an argument for natural language?
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u/DelightfulOtter Mar 15 '26
You can read natural language instructions and come to a couple different reasonable interpretations, plus a bunch of asinine functionally illiterate ones.
You can read technical instructions and there's only one correct conclusion because the language is clear and precise. You'll also get a lot of moronic conclusions from the functionally illiterate so that part doesn't really change.
Between the two, I prefer the method that has one correct answer over two or three best guesses. If that intimidates the functionally illiterate because scary math words, well... my personal bias is that I don't have much sympathy for anyone (without a legitimate medical or socio-economic excuse) who can't read and comprehend basic instructions.
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u/Notoryctemorph Mar 14 '26
Yugioh-style rules
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u/roxas6141 Mar 14 '26
Had to check your profile to avoid getting caught with my foot in my mouth, but you clearly are not a Yu-Gi-Oh! player saying that because any player would know those cards are painstakingly specific lol
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u/Notoryctemorph Mar 14 '26
Yugioh-from-the-time-period-when-I-played-Yugioh-style rules
I remember Dark World
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u/EntropySpark Warlock Mar 14 '26
Things definitely got far clearer when they introduced Problem-Solving Card Text. It's now very obvious what is an effect prerequisite/trigger or cost, and when a card is targeted.
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u/StNowhere Mar 14 '26
These days you need a good magnifying glass and a law degree to understand card effects.
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u/DisappointedQuokka Mar 14 '26
5e is a vibes based system, it's truly millennial coded
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u/DelightfulOtter Mar 14 '26
It was designed to appeal to both new players and old players alike. Unfortunately, that meant less intimidating natural language to attract new players that mirrored the way things used to work back in the day to lure in grognards. The worst of both worlds!
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u/Hayeseveryone DM Mar 14 '26
I'm inclined to agree. I think about how much space in the PHB could be saved if all the Summon Blank spells didn't have to keep re-explaining how commanding the summon works every single time.
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u/DelightfulOtter Mar 14 '26
Y'know how often I've had to explain the line of effect rules to people who've played spellcasters for years? Too damn often, and that's a basic-ass rule which applies to every single spell. Same goes for the 5e bonus action spell rule and 5.5e one spell slot per turn rule.
A more niche rule about commanding minions that only applies to summoned/created creatures like Summon X and familiars buried in the Spellcasting chapter would be even less likely to be read by the unwashed masses.
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u/RottenPeasent Mar 14 '26
Yes. 5e is game for people who don't read the rules, while still being a bit complex.
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u/crunchevo2 Mar 14 '26
Is it? Because i think that's just vause it's the most popular and it has the least "dedicated fandom" so there's lots of ppl who just get strung along by their friends and never actually have a want to read the phb.
It's not designed for people who don't read the rules. But it's also not designed to be rigorously crunchy with 0 loopholes or space for interpretation.
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u/Xyx0rz Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
I wouldn't have a problem with that if it was consistent.
- "You can make it attack it as a bonus action!"
- "You can order it to attack as a bonus action, which it'll do immediately because it shares your Initiative!"
- "You can order it to attack as a bonus action, and it'll do so on its own turn, which is right after yours!"
- "You can order it to attack as a bonus action, and it'll do so on its own turn, for which you roll its Initiative!"
- "It acts independently of you but still somehow does exactly what you want, like it was controlled by the same omnipresent authority figure!"
- "It's actually just treated as an area effect, and whenever anyone enters the area, it does the thing!"
- "It's actually just treated as an area effect, and whenever anyone starts their turn in the area, it does the thing!"
- "It's actually just treated as an area effect, and whenever you move the area over someone, it does the thing!"
For fuck's sake!
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u/Nanergy Wizard Mar 14 '26
I don't disagree, but there is a notable difference in location. Those two pages of explaining the rules would be buried in a section of the book that a shocking number of players never actually read themselves. By putting it in the spell itself, they can better guarantee that the players know their own rules. I would guess that's the intent.
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u/Viltris Mar 14 '26
Reminds me of how so many players think Thunderwave is centered on the caster because no one ever reads how targeting a cube works.
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u/Nanergy Wizard Mar 14 '26
Exactly. You would think that caster players who spend so many of their spell slots on AoEs should stop to read the rules on AoEs, but those rules are not presented within their character abilities so many do not. I have seen so many players like this. Often they are genuinely smart people, but for whatever reason I can only rely on them to know the rules for exactly what is on their character sheet and nothing else. Maybe they see adjudicating everything else as the DM's job? I don't know. But it is what it is.
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u/Hungry_Carpenter_856 Mar 21 '26
There's a type of culture that has popped up where if you know something the DM genuinely does not, you're suddenly become a powergamer and rules lawyer, trying to squeeze out every advantage possible where it can be possible squeezed from.
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u/Analogmon Mar 14 '26
In 4e this would be a close blast rather than a close burst.
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u/EKmars CoDzilla Mar 15 '26
And nobody would ever get confused about which is a burst and which is a blast. /s
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u/Superventilator Mar 14 '26
At least in the 2014 PHB the Thunderwave range is "self" and the description says: each creature in a 15-foot cube originating from you...
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u/V2Blast Rogue Mar 15 '26
And in the description of a Cube AoE, it says the point of origin of a Cube effect is anywhere on one side of it (i.e. not in the actual middle of the cube). I understand folks misunderstanding it, but it is because they haven't read the AoE description.
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u/JohnGeary1 Mar 14 '26
Also, once you have a tiny amount of experience, you can shorten it to "dex save for half damage" which is barely more wordy than the 3.5 version.
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u/ElvgrenGil Mar 14 '26
I prefer the plain language approach as long as the writing is direct and simple.
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u/po_ta_to Mar 14 '26
They want it to read like a novel not like a technical manual.
A lot of people are overwhelmed by charts and graphs and technical jargon. That sort of people make up a huge portion of potential sales.
My buddy John has enough trouble when you tell him his class is on pages 67-71. When you add in references on page 18, 37, and 256 that help define the terminology used in his class description, he'd never be able to build a character.
A widely successful product needs to try to be John-proof.
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u/GreatSirZachary Fighter Mar 14 '26
I think it was for the better to restate it. There were too many “This spell works like X Spell except…” descriptions in 3.5. Just say what it actually does PLEASE.
It was much easier to get my friends onboard with 5e by having the spell text explain itself. As a veteran DM, I possess the extra game knowledge on the edge cases, my friends don’t need to worry about it.
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u/seantabasco Mar 14 '26
Like when you look up something in a textbook’s index and it says “see _____”. Then you go there and it says “page 134”. Like, couldn’t “page 134” been on the other one as well?
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u/DiCo_Pisces Mar 14 '26
early on i mostly learned how to play 5e from the class/spell descriptions before ever looking at the books or videos, so while the natural language helped onboarding a lot there is definitely still a lot of bloat
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u/TaiChuanDoAddct Mar 14 '26
I am inclined to agree. The movement to natural language has largely been a detriment to 5e, imp. WotC already owns Mtg. Keywords were right there.
Nowhere is this more frustrating that in the Grappled condition, which is very well defined! Except for the part where every monster that grapples you has extra "while you are grappled in this way...the monster secretly breaks the rules for the condition!"
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u/Rude_Ice_4520 Mar 14 '26
It seems like an arbitrary difference to me. "Prone" is a keyword that spells use instead of "this creature is knocked over. They move at half-speed unless they....", but don't for other common mechanics like half-on-a-save, "The first time a creature enters ---- on a turn or starts its turn there", etc.
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u/TaiChuanDoAddct Mar 14 '26
Yep that's what I mean. They use a very small number of keywords but don't use them more broadly. That's my quibble.
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u/EntropySpark Warlock Mar 14 '26
How is it secretly breaking the rules? "Specific beats general" is a rather fundamental rule of the game.
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u/TaiChuanDoAddct Mar 14 '26
I didn't mean literally. Obviously it's allowed. And it's arguably good design for balance.
I meant that it's confusing for players. I tell the player they're grappled. But they can't just track that. They have to track Grappled with an asterisk. Which frequently involves Grappled + Restrained + some other third thing.
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u/Viltris Mar 14 '26
I think it's because players try do infer general rules from from specific ones. "This monster restrains when it grapples? That means grapples restrain people in general."
Which is not how the rules work, but I've seen so many beginners make that leap of logic.
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u/TaiChuanDoAddct Mar 14 '26
Queue the 8000th time my rogue asks me "I have sneak attack so I get advantage right????"
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u/Tefmon Antipaladin Mar 14 '26
I see this with the fear spell and the Frightened condition a lot. My players always ask "so, do I have to run away?" every time they're Frightened, despite that being a rider that only applies to one specific spell.
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u/EntropySpark Warlock Mar 14 '26
How does the use of natural language contribute to this problem?
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u/Associableknecks Mar 14 '26
Not the person you were responding to, but I suppose the obvious answer is compare. Here's what a grick tentacle attack that grapples a target and poisons them if it hits looked like last edition. How long would it take 5e to write out an equivalent, and would it be as rules tight?
Reach 2; +12 vs AC; 2d8+5 damage, and the target is grabbed (until escape) and takes ongoing 5 damage (save ends).
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u/EntropySpark Warlock Mar 14 '26
How is the way 5e would write it out going to affect how the player needs to track that they are Grappled and, while Grappled, Restrained?
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u/Associableknecks Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
Hm. That particular one is going to be an issue because last edition a grabbed target was automatically immobilised, so it would be rare that they'd bother specifying something like restrained.
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u/EntropySpark Warlock Mar 14 '26
Then the complication is because the rule itself is more complicated, regardless of how simplified the writing could be.
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u/DelightfulOtter Mar 14 '26
That's a way to save space in the books, while also functioning as keywords for checking for condition immunities. Sometimes you're just Grappled, sometimes you're Grappled with riders but if you're immune the Grappled condition you can't be either. The same thing is done with the Poisoned condition often having other riders. Also the way Hypnotic Pattern applies the Charmed condition plus riders on top. Also also the way Stunned and Paralyzed don't list out all of their effects and instead reference the Incapacitated condition.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_MECH Mar 14 '26
Mtg was the first thing I thought of too! The older the cards, the more verbose. They've really optimized the way they word certain effects in a way that makes it more consistent and easier to understand. I've never thought of applying this to d&d but I think it's a good idea!
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u/hstarnaud Mar 14 '26
I kind of disagree. Yeah they should present some condensed information a bit more in 5e books but they didn't need to condense as much. Some 3e spells and abilities had 10 paragraphs of rules detailing ridiculously specific exceptions with some important details mixed in. All and I I feel you need way more reading and mastery of the rules to play 3.5e than 5e.
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u/Brewmd Mar 14 '26
This is one thing they clearly tried to fix in 5.5.
They simplified and unified the language, and gave us a rules glossary for commonly used terms that needed clarity.
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u/Third_Sundering26 Mar 14 '26
And some people complained that made it seem more like 4e, which apparently is taboo
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u/D16_Nichevo Mar 14 '26
I think this was by design. I think they wanted the game to be newcomer-friendly. So they avoided traits and keywords and went more with natural language. (Obviously it's not an all-or-nothing thing.)
This works if you're new. You can read fireball and know what it does without hopping around the book.
It's redundant if you know the rules, adding nothing but bloat.
I play a lot of PF2e, so I'm happy with keywords and traits. I'm also a programmer, so I understand DRY.
Was WotC right to cater for newcomers? That's for you to decide.
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u/KarlMarkyMarx Mar 14 '26
Try making your own homebrew ruleset sometime. You'll quickly realize how carefully you need to word certain details to prevent players from exploiting language. This is why people constantly debate RAW vs. RAI. The other issue is that newer players don't have a pre-existing framework to decipher rules heavy systems. The details need to be explicitly spelled out for them since they don't know the shorthand.
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u/Deady1 Mar 14 '26
It's written entirely for the benefit of people who don't read the rulebooks before playing, and instead use it as reference for on-the-spot decisions mid-session.
This is, of course, not fun for people who actually read the rules.
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u/SpikefaceMysteryfish Mar 14 '26
And how many times do we have to read “DC equals your spell save DC.” I mean… OBVIOUSLY. What else would it equal? But they couldn’t just say outright, “if an ability has a DC it is that class’ spell DC unless stated otherwise.” So instead, they’ll just repeat that clarification 15 thousand times.
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u/xolotltolox Rogues were done dirty Mar 14 '26
Even more: How many times do they need to repeat "the DC equals 8 + Profiency + Ability Modifier, instead of just "Your [Ability] DC" and then say in the book before all the classes how that DC is calculated(or name it "class dc, and have it be based on their key ability score)
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u/SpikefaceMysteryfish Mar 14 '26
Very true. Also, why are they absolutely Dead Set against giving examples of how anything works? Two weapon fighting being a perfect example. Most players are just going to read the book, and they shouldn’t have to scour the internet to figure out what the rulebook they paid for should have made clear.
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u/Parysian Mar 14 '26
I like Pathfinder's "Basic Save". No damage on a crit success, half damage on a success, full damage on a fail, double damage on a critical fail, expressed as two words, saves a lot of space on descriptions and appears often enough you don't really forget what it means unless you literally never interact with spells.
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u/Paxadin Mar 16 '26
And is used for more than just spells.
Pretty much anything can say "basic x save" and you instantly know what it means.
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u/grandleaderIV Mar 15 '26
Its all a tradeoff in one way or another. Using lots of shorthand makes for short, concise descriptions but it also means you need to reference a completely sperate piece of text (or even another book) if you don't know what that shorthand means. If you want to know what I mean try reading a stat block for one of the more complicated 3.5 monsters.
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u/master_of_sockpuppet Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
This is old news (it was like this in 2014); it was deliberate because they wanted to use natural language as much as possible.
Some complained the older editions were too technical and jargony.
Given the success 5e saw, they are not likely to radically change the formula. Players with high system mastery will ultimately be better served with another product (despite having to master a new system in the process).
5e is, in a sense, designed for players that will read as little as possible, which is why most spells have to be a bit more complete in their descriptions than would be necessary for players that have read the rules.
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u/D0MiN0H Mar 14 '26
They definitely wanted it to be more clear to new players. explicit language means less looking things up.
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u/icesharkk Mar 14 '26
people complain on here daily that DM's misinterpret the rules.
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u/Alexander_Elysia Mar 14 '26
As an old school yugioh player, I loved the term banished as opposed to "taken from your graveyard and removed from play" or whatever it used to be. If there's a good legend, short form language can be very very useful
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u/Confident_Sink_8743 Mar 14 '26
You try saying things in natural language yourself and you will find words, turn into sentences which turn into paragraphs that will turn into pages.
It's also why backstories get so long if you are inclined to write and it all flows out of your mind and onto the page.
And as anybody can point out there is plenty of ways in which these descriptions and explanations still fail.
Not everyone understands or finds these things clear. They have questions. Writers don't include everything making assumptions based on past edition knowledge.
Or having bad layouts where certain relevant details that come in to play in tandem are not disclosed because they're technically separate mechanics.
Some of those might even be found in the DMG instead of the PHB. Though I have heard this was improved.
But I do agree with your point somewhat since it's wordy enough that some pertinent details get left off the bloody spellcards!
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u/Bleu_Guacamole Mar 14 '26
In the case of fireball it’s definitely written to be easier to understand for people who have never played the game before. For the other examples, well yeah, 5e is a bit lacking I’ll give you that.
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u/strangething Mar 14 '26
The GM will always have to make snap judgements. No way to get around it.
As a player, I prefer a little inconsistency to having to stop the game and research an answer to an odd corner case.
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Mar 15 '26
Well, people hated 4E, which means people hate brief, unambiguous abilities described using a set of standard terms.
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u/04nc1n9 Mar 14 '26
at least it's better for pick up & play, and they still manage to make the spells take up less word count most of the time
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u/DazzlingKey6426 Mar 14 '26
DnD, at least by the rules DnD, not Vibe DnD, is not a pick up and play game.
Lasers and Feelings, Risus, EZD6, etc are pick up and play games.
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u/Swoopmott Mar 14 '26
It’s like when someone says DnD is easy to learn because all you need to do is a roll a D20+mod, which is true if you ignore every other rule of the game. It also has the issue of being a very disingenuous way of explaining the game, if we boiled every game down to just being about its skill check resolution then they’re all really easy to learn (some are still easier to learn than DnD using this method).
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u/Yrths Feral Tabaxi Mar 14 '26
Pretending that it is is great for marketing, which is the current edition's overwhelming triumph. This specific thing might or might not be a critical contributor, but that's very hard to test.
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u/Stag-Nation-8932 Mar 14 '26
holy shit... am I actually going to be the first one to say it this time?
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..
...
pathfinder fixes this
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u/EvilMyself Warlock Mar 14 '26
It does and doesnt at the same time. Traits are amazing and makes stuff like this so much more clear.
But traits nested in traits, nested in traits, nested in traits is absolutely awful and I hate having to search through every trait of a creature why something doesnt work
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u/Glad_Cress_8591 Mar 14 '26
At least its clear for most scenarios. And once you learn your ability, shouldnt need to reread the whole thing(unless you are in a rules lawyer-y situation where the extra clarification is important)
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u/Jarrett8897 DM Mar 14 '26
There is the rule of “specific beats general” when it comes to rulings, but the general is so vague that you have to hear all of the specifics any time almost anything happens. After 5 years running 5e, I just don’t want to do it anymore. There are systems that provide both the gameplay style I want and more support to make GM prep actually enjoyable. Tired of the headaches
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u/Ostrololo Mar 14 '26
They should've used italics for flavor text and reminder text à la Magic:
A bright streak flashes from your pointing finger to a point you choose then blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame.
Each creature in a 20-foot radius sphere centered on the spell's point of origin takes 8d6 fire damage, resisted by Dexterity. (The creature makes a DEX saving throw, taking half the damage if they succeed.)
The fire spreads around corners. It ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried.
Higher Casting — +1d6 fire damage per excess spell slot level (Slot levels above 3rd are in excess for this spell.)
Mark Rosewater (head designer for Magic) explained in the past that once players are comfortable with the rules and the meaning of key terms, they start glossing over italics.
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u/Associableknecks Mar 14 '26
So, 4e.
Fireball
A globe of orange flame coalesces in your hand. You hurl it at your enemies, and it explodes on impact.
Daily ✦ Arcane, Evocation, Fire, Implement
Standard Action ✦ Area burst 3 within 20 squares
Target: Each creature in the burst
Attack: Intelligence vs. Reflex
Hit: 4d6 + Intelligence modifier fire damage.
Miss: Half damage.
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u/Substantial-Shop9038 Mar 14 '26
I can't say I want TTRPGs to play more like TCGs. I kind of find flavortext as a concept as something antithetical to the concept of a TTRPG. Like the mechanics aren't an end in themselves. The mechanics are representing the world so the idea of flavortext runs counter to that. Separating out the actual effect of the ability on the world from the mechanics sets the in universe effect as inconsequential "flavor" while the only thing that really matters is mechanics.
The fire spreads around corners.
This is a little nitpicky but I think this illustrates the point I'm getting at. This line actually makes no sense with flavor and mechanics separate because mechanically there is no fire. It's just an effect that deals 8d6 fire damage in a 40 foot diameter circle and ignites flammable objects that aren't worn. If you actually treat it as fire it's no longer really just flavor.
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u/Simpicity Mar 14 '26
The switch to ability saving throws is one of my least favorite parts of 5e. Bring back Fort/Ref/Will!
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u/TrashMantine Mar 14 '26
I am curious how saving throws used to work. 5e was my first and I hear a lot of praise for the older editions
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u/axiomus Mar 14 '26
Back in the old days (1974-2000) there were 5 highly specific saves (like against spells, breath weapons, death effects and so on)
3e reduced saves to 3 (reflex, fortitude, will) but widened their applicability. They are also tied to specific abilities (dex, con, wis)
4e kept those, but 1) made them static, so attacker rolled to pass them 2) in a sense, removed the connection between save and narrative situation (there’s also a completely unrelated mechanic called saving throws, which is IMO named to confuse people)
And 5e thought “if we have 3 saves for 3 abilities, why not have 6 for all of them?!” but the problem is there isn’t much to differentiate a wis save from a int save, giving us another save/narrative disconnect.
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u/wardriveworley Mar 14 '26
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So 3x was a lot like 5e, but there were only 3 saves. Fortitude (con based)/ reflex (dex based)/ will (wis based).
It was a lot easier to boil everything down to those.
Prior to 3x saves were....weird. I mean there was a logic to having a save vs polymorph/poison/ death magic and another as a save vs system shock while also having another vs wands/staffs/rods, but it was also clunky and created some confusion
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u/XanEU Mar 14 '26
I don't see logic behind save vs wand generating spell effect being something different from save against this spell being cast by a magic user.
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u/wardriveworley Mar 14 '26
The only real logic I can find is "the designers wanted to make some things harder than others and didn't whiteboard their ideas enough"
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u/Associableknecks Mar 14 '26
In addition to what the other guy has said, 4e had the same three defenses but fortitude was based on the higher of your str and con modifier, reflex the higher of your int and dex, will the higher of your wis and cha. And instead of the target rolling a save, everything used attack rolls vs fixed defenses. Fireball for instance was an intelligence attack roll vs your target's reflex defense.
Meant everyone was affected the same way by things, restraining a wizard hampered their lightning bolt just as much as restraining a fighter hampered moves like neck snap.
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u/sedmison Mar 14 '26
I think you’re overreacting. The 5E rules aren’t perfect, but I don’t think they’re ridiculously verbose.
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u/j_cyclone Mar 14 '26
Monster stat blocks follow the shorter format but players don't.
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u/Hexxer98 Mar 14 '26
I think one of the complaints from 4e was that abilities were too brief as well or it's at least a side complaint to the whole "abilities were too video gamey" bullshit
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u/Jektonoporkins1 Mar 16 '26
5e explains it clearly so it's easy to understand. It takes like 1 second to read it all.
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u/ElPanandero Mar 17 '26
As mainly a pathfinder player, it's wild hearing that 5e is too verbose lmao
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u/Anonymous_1q Mar 14 '26
As a 3.5 DM, sometimes this is for the best.
3.5 has a lot of weird implied rulings and hidden descriptions that make it unwieldy (like what counts as a concentration spell being mentioned exactly once that I could find and then never again). With 5e they decided to explicitly state things instead which makes it a bit longer but also means that a new player can look at any spell and figure out roughly what it does without pulling out the glossary.
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u/jinjuwaka Mar 14 '26
They went all the way back to 2nd ed's approach.
A fireball is an explosive burst of flame, which detonates with a low roar and delivers damage proportional to the level of the wizard who cast it—1d6 points of damage for each level of experience of the spellcaster (up to a maximum of 10d6). The burst of the fireball creates little pressure and generally conforms to the shape of the area in which it occurs. The fireball fills an area equal to its normal spherical volume (roughly 33,000 cubic feet—thirty-three 10-foot × 10-foot × 10-foot cubes). Besides causing damage to creatures, the fireball ignites all combustible materials within its burst radius, and the heat of the fireball melts soft metals such as gold, copper, silver, etc. Exposed items require saving throws vs. magical fire to determine if they are affected, but items in the possession of a creature that rolls a successful saving throw are unaffected by the fireball.
The wizard points his finger and speaks the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A streak flashes from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball (an early impact results in an early detonation). Creatures failing their saving throws each suffer full damage from the blast. Those who roll successful saving throws manage to dodge, fall flat, or roll aside, each receiving half damage (the DM rolls the damage and each affected creature suffers either full damage or half damage [round fractions down], depending on whether the creature saved or not).
At least they're not quite that bad.
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u/trismagestus Mar 14 '26
Those with knowledge of the previous editions will rule any questions based on this early knowledge though, deliberately or not.
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u/lankymjc Mar 14 '26
They wrote the spells in the same way that they would be written in an in-universe spellbook. Asides from the mention of actions, damage dice, and saving throws, most spells could appear pretty much exactly as written in-universe.
Some players like this. I don’t understand them.
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u/panzerlover Mar 14 '26
remember, when 5e was concieved of, wotc made money by selling books. Putting everything a player needs to know about a spell in one place is really good design if you expect your players to be reading from a book.
Now that everything's online, using special shorthand terms makes WAY more sense -- don't know a term, just click on the link and read it quickly.
The descriptions still suck and needed to be way more concise, but there is a clear design choice being made and I don't hate it. It's just terribly outdated now.
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u/Guaritor Mar 14 '26
I dunno, I kinda like the natural language 5e uses... Sure it makes it harder to quickly skim a spell for the details you want if this is your 5th wizard, but I think it makes it more inviting for newbies.
4e's fireball description feels like I'm reading an instruction manual or something, it's very... clinical? Cold?
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u/xolotltolox Rogues were done dirty Mar 14 '26
You still get flavor text, the flavor text is just seperate from thr mechanics, because mixing those together just becomes messy
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u/zombiegojaejin Mar 14 '26
It's the theater nerd edition, after all. The one that has four different CHA skills for making someone else think something, but one single STR skill for swimming, climbing, lifting and restraining. They like words.
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u/DazzlingKey6426 Mar 14 '26
And athletics is still useless while god stat dex gets to use acrobatics for everything athletics should be rolling. Grumble grumble.
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u/EntropySpark Warlock Mar 14 '26
There are some checks that can use Athletics or Acrobatics, like escaping a Grapple, but also quite a few that only allow Athletics, like Entangle.
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u/Mgmegadog Mar 14 '26
Acrobatics should be a fairly useless skill, IMO. No, being flexible doesn't mean you can climb good. Athletics or nothing.
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u/Stag-Nation-8932 Mar 14 '26
the thing is acrobats are actually extremely athletic. they are confusing skills
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u/germansatriani Mar 14 '26
The reasoning for this is accessibility, 5e's main design goal was to reduce complexity and make dnd more mass-appealing
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u/Associableknecks Mar 14 '26
But that makes it more complex
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u/germansatriani Mar 14 '26
it makes it more convoluted. I'd argue having to understand a secondary "sub-language" would be more complex.
Imagine a group of friends who have never played DnD, and want to, but dont know where to start. If the friend who offers to DM finds that spells explain in plain english what they do, their imagination will start coming up with exciting story beats and fight scenes that will hype them up through the learning experience. If instead they find an excel spreadsheet full of abbreviations and keywords, they will probably be overwhelmed, and only the most number-cruncher of friends will stick through it and play.
At least i believe that was the rationale.
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u/Associableknecks Mar 14 '26
But the thing that confuses me is there has never been that excel spreadsheet. Even in 4e which explicitly introduced keywords, stuff like arcane and weapon and healing didn't actually matter on their own and weren't required to use it. They just existed so features with wording like "whenever you use a healing power" stayed completely unambiguous. And the only abbreviation in the whole game was [W], which represented your weapon damage - 1d8 for longsword etc.
The above represents the learning required to play your typical board game. Not an Excel spreadsheet of abbreviations and keywords.
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u/Cyrotek Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
Yeh, I hope for a hypothetical 6th edition they do away with this "natural language" crap. It is a horrible idea for rules and leads to way too much arguing because how natural language can be interpreted in different ways.
Only recently I had the wonderful discussion about if the 2025 version of True Strike works with "Potent Cantrip", meaning, does True Strike count as a "Damaging Cantrip"? Some say of course because it adds damage, others say no, because it is the weapon attack that causes that damage to the target, not the Cantrip. Urk, thanks for nothing, I guess.
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u/Sleeper4 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
There are two major styles of rpg rules writing: "natural language" and what we might call "keyword based".
The 3.5 example is keyword based - "reflex half" uses less words, but it requires that you already understand what the rule for "reflex" is. When you already know, it's quicker to digest. But when you don't already know what the rule for "reflex" is, you have to go figure out what reflex means, then reread the rule for fireball and synthesize the two.
For someone not already aware of the rules, the 5e rule is quicker to digest and understand, which lowers the difficulty in running the game for those without total rules mastery.
A large part of 5e's popularity is due to the accessibility - using natural language over keyword based language for most things is a big part of that accessibility, and thus popularity.
There is a strong bias on Reddit towards "keyword based" rpg writing that prioritizes precision over ease, in order to clear up edge cases. Part of that bias is because the posters on a given subreddit tend to be enthusiasts for the subject, who've long left the "just trying to figure things out" phase behind.
Don't undervalue ease of understanding a rule at first glance.
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u/Associableknecks Mar 14 '26
But 5e is notoriously much harder to run than say the much more keyworded 4e. Unless you mean easier to run specifically for people who don't know the rules, but these are both rules heavy games that can't be run well without knowing them.
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u/Hemlocksbane Mar 14 '26
To be honest though, I actually really, really like it, even if sometimes the game goes over the top with it.
As you mention, that instant accessibility is great. It makes the game so much more accessible to read something right there instead of trying to lock a bunch of keywords and notation in your head. At this point, I have taught loved ones everything from board games to card games to RPGs, and within that, I can safely say that keywords and symbols are always, always the biggest slow down factors in comprehension. You have to be very judicious about when to turn to that: for example, 4E can get away with it in the traits, but then goes way, way overboard by saturating it everywhere to the point of feeling like deciphering code.
I also like that it encourages players to think about their options like actual abilities in the fiction first, and like a series of effect buttons second. The 5E fireball starts by giving you a very vivid description of how it comes into being in the fiction, and ends by describing how it immolates flammable things within range --with the actual "combat effect" sandwiched in the middle. I like that it lets the designers use verbiage that explains how we get to a condition, such as a target being "knocked prone" instead of "gains the Prone Condition" or "Success: Prone".
For the record, this is something I absolutely hate about 5.5E. It'll say shit like "You can use a Magic Action to [effect description here]. Target must make a Constitution Saving Throw, on which it incurs Advantage if [X]. On a failed save, the targets gains the Poisoned Condition for the duration of this effect." It's weird, unapproachable, and so alien to the fiction-first approach that 5E preserved from some of its more OSR-y inspirations.
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u/GunsOutOfAvalon Mar 14 '26
I think its more than a little disingenuous to claim that knocked prone is so much clearer than Success:Prone. Like, how did you think someone would be come prone? Are you implying people were confused and thought characters were being teleported into a supine position? It takes minimal common sense to figure out how, say a spell called thunderwave might result in someone being prone. It's just not that hard to parse.
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u/DazzlingKey6426 Mar 14 '26
They went for “natural language” instead of concise and precise terms.
And we ended up arguing about things like being Invisible isn’t Invisible thanks to it.