D&D 5th Edition
| Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition | |
| Created by | Wizards of the Coast |
| Published | 2013 |
| Genres | Fantasy |
| Dice | d20, d12, d10, d8, d6, d4 |
The 5th edition of Dungeons & Dragons is the current edition of the game, obliquely referred to as "the world's most popular roleplaying game". It reversed the changes in 4th edition and pared down the system substantially, being often considered a weaker edition of D&D, but was popularised by heavy marketing and integration with podcasts.
5th Edition made the following changes:
- All 4th Edition changes were reversed, except class paths. D&D 5th edition is based primarily on the 3rd Revised Edition.
- All math was reduced to smaller ranges (referred to as "bounded accuracy").
- All six stats technically now have their own saving throws, although only the three that were used for saves in the previous editions (Constitution, Dexterity and Wisdom) are regularly used.
- Character generation decisions were spread among the first few levels rather than concentrated on the first level.
- Combat manuevers were placed in optional rules for all but one particular class.
- Feats and multiclassing became optional rules, with single feats having much more substantial effects but only taken by giving up an ability scorebonus.
- The majority of quantified uses of skills were removed, with skills being treated as modifiers to ability scores as they were in Second Edition and earlier.
Negative Development Strategy
A signsificant complaint about D&D Fifth Edition is that it represents a step backwards for the role-playing hobby as a whole, as its strategy has been to strong-arm the market via Hasbro's marketing budget and the D&D name, rather than improving the game.
D&D Fourth Edition was a highly innovative system which actively attempted to address previous issues with the game and with the whole nature of RPGs. Not everybody liked it, but that is in the nature of innovation. D&D Third Edition was also highly innovative at the time it was released.
D&D Fifth Edition has only very small beneficial innovations compared to Third Edition, but also takes multiple steps backwards. Any issues with the Third Edition system were not addressed or developed in Fifth Edition, but simply removed from the system and left up to the judgment of the DM. At the same time, D&D Fifth Edition has had the lowest level of support from the publishing company of any edition, but the highest level of marketing support, especially with regard to the burgeoning podcast market.
These make it quite apparent that Wizards Of The Coast now considered D&D so entrenched in the market that it does not need to be developed or improved on any more, and need only be maintained in order to retain that entrenchment. In other words, it's as if Microsoft had not developed or improved their operating system after Windows ME, but poured all their money into putting it fromt-and-centre in the market and squeezing out anyone with a lower budget or who applied any part of that budget to innovation. This is potentially destructive to the whole industry. Playing D&D 5e as the "default" game is the purest endorsement of this strategy.
Benefits
- 5th Edition has been primarily designed to be easy to learn and the simplified mechanics and broken-up character generation make it much easier to start playing.
Problems
- Caster supremacy all over the place, facilitated significantly by the removal of quantified skill uses driving permissions supremacy.
- Contradictory statements in the GM's guide on how certain situations are supposed to be handled.
- Weak game balance: the Bard is by far the best class in the game, and the Ranger by far the worst.
- Very confusing wording: most notably, a "bonus action" is not actually an action, but a modification to an action. Likewise, the magical "instrument of the bards" can actually only provide a benefit to a single spell because it is the only one with a verbal component.
| d20 systems |
| 13th Age • Dungeons & Dragons (3rd and 3.5 Edition, 4th Edition, 5th Edition) • Gamma World • Lancer • Level Up • Mutants & Masterminds • Pathfinder (1st Edition, 2nd Edition), Shadow of the Demon Lord |
