D&D 5th Edition: the fifth edition of the discussion thread

[obryn]

The thing is, a +x weapon could still easily add to damage rather than both hit and damage. This would fulfill the "+x weapons must exist" sacred cow.

That's what's kind of baffling about "bounded accuracy." With only a range of maybe 10-15 standard DCs/ACs/whatever, I can't see how getting a +1 to-hit will ever be optional for mathematical advancement.

-O

[Craft (Cheese)]

Umm, it came as part of the character sheet for the wizard when playtesting 5e. Did you play yet?

Ah, you're right. None of my players wanted to play the wizard, unfortunately.

With the math gone, the problem becomes limiting "low cost" magical items that have extraordinary benefits. Removing the ability to buy/create magical items (at least, without jumping through hoops) would solve that nicely.

You could, possibly, take an alternative solution: My homebrew system I've been working on allows players to freely obtain any magic items that they're capable of using. (E.g., you can't use a +6 sword until you have 6 ranks in Swordplay.) So there's no reason to use the only slightly wimpier +1 version to save yourself some gold.

The problem instead becomes based around skill ranks: If the benefits from 6 ranks aren't really worth all that much compared to 5 ranks, then players will only put 5 ranks into Swordplay and put their other ranks into something else. Still working on a solution for that.

[Stubbazubba]

The problem instead becomes based around skill ranks: If the benefits from 6 ranks aren't really worth all that much compared to 5 ranks, then players will only put 5 ranks into Swordplay and put their other ranks into something else. Still working on a solution for that.

That's a problem? I thought most point-buy systems suffered from the opposite problem; people hyper-specializing in a very narrow focus to the neglect of all else, meaning a party attempting to make the same Jump or Climb check will either have specialists not challenged by the difficulty at all if its set to challenge the normals, or normals who don't have a chance at making it if the difficulty is set for the specialists. If players reach the point where the marginal utility of another point in their specialty is no longer greater than another point in a non-specialty, that's a successfully balanced system, IMO.

[Craft (Cheese)]

That's a problem? I thought most point-buy systems suffered from the opposite problem; people hyper-specializing in a very narrow focus to the neglect of all else, meaning a party attempting to make the same Jump or Climb check will either have specialists not challenged by the difficulty at all if its set to challenge the normals, or normals who don't have a chance at making it if the difficulty is set for the specialists. If players reach the point where the marginal utility of another point in their specialty is no longer greater than another point in a non-specialty, that's a successfully balanced system, IMO.

In my view, a game system is balanced when the answer to every question is "maybe."

Should you dump all of your points into a single skill, or spread them out more evenly?

If the answer is obviously to spread them out, and specializing is never worth it, then that's just as bad as a system where specialists win at everything.

(And actually my system turns out even worse than my example problem, as the point to stop investing in melee weapon skills seems to be around rank 3, even though the ranks go up to six.)

[Stubbazubba]

Sure, and by definition, when the marginal utility of either further specialization or diversification are equivalent, the answer to which one you should take is, indeed, maybe.

And if skill rank 3 is where that balance point is at chargen, then IMO that's great, it'll be a long while before characters feel they need to raise it in order to stay competitive. I think 3 is a good place to start. If that's at mid-game, then that's a little wonky, but couldn't you just make the opposition scale up a little bit to encourage higher numbers at that point?

Edit: And what I mean is that if someone feels comfortable enough with what they want to be good at at skill rank 3, to the point that at that point they feel comfortable branching out and diversifying, then so long as the opposition is scaled down to that level, that's a good balance point, it leaves plenty of upward movement to attain later, while maintaining a relatively small (but hypothetically meaningful) difference between specialists and generalists. But I guess without knowing your dice/RNG mechanics, I certainly can't say for certain. It just "feels" right, :P.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Even if you're at max level, it's more worthwhile to have just 1 or 2 ranks in every weapon skill available than to try to max out anything. Just making the higher-ranked abilities more powerful to compensate for this and try to make them worthwhile hasn't turned out so well; they either get completely ignored or snap the game in half.

But this deserves discussion in another thread: I plan on putting up the basic skeleton of the system here in the homebrew forums eventually, so I should quit derailing.

[Draz74]

If it didn't stack with the character's Strength bonus, could you potentially end up with situations where say a rogue is a better "fighter" than a fighter?

For example, a fighter with Str 18 (+4 bonus) picks up +4 short sword and because the bonus doesn't stack, he gets no advantage to hit or on damage, except now he can get through some DRs I suppose.

If a rogue with Str 10 (+0 bonus) picks up the same weapon, he now has the same to hit and damage bonus as the Fighter (with or without the magic weapon), plus his sneak attack bonus.

So, in this case high powered magic weapon is almost useless to the Fighter, but extremely advantageous to the Rogue, who is also now more dangerous than the Fighter because he can sneak attack on top of fighting exactly as effectively as the Fighter.

I know I'm not taking into account BAB, which for a high level fighter may be somewhat (but not much) higher than a rogue (remember, this is a system with bounded accuracy), but I think the rogue would still fair better in battle than the fighter in this situation.

But I'm probably missing something and someone will point out what a dunderhead I am!

Obviously the non-stacking idea would have to be used in a system in which the Fighter does, in fact, get something worthwhile compared to the Rogue's Sneak Attack.

The thing is, a +x weapon could still easily add to damage rather than both hit and damage. This would fulfill the "+x weapons must exist" sacred cow.

That's an excellent point, and it's exactly what 5e should do, assuming it sticks with its "bounded accuracy" and "+'s for magic items" intentions.

[HMS Invincible]

I want a second opinion with people who have played before. Say you have a healing kit, but you got time for a short rest. Can you heal yourself without needing a healing kit or using a spell, or potion?

[Craft (Cheese)]

IIRC, you need a healing kit for natural healing to work without an extended rest. I just houseruled healing kits out though so I'd have to look up the exact details.

[JoeMac307]

IIRC, you need a healing kit for natural healing to work without an extended rest. I just houseruled healing kits out though so I'd have to look up the exact details.

Why'd you house rule out healing kits? Thought they were stupid or no one wanted to play Cleric of Pelor? Just curious.

[obryn]

You know, between how the designers said they'd handle AC improvements (buy the better one!) and +x to-hit items, I think we're back in a wealth-by-level situation where the DM will need to tightly control access to money.

-O

[Ashdate]

I want a second opinion with people who have played before. Say you have a healing kit, but you got time for a short rest. Can you heal yourself without needing a healing kit or using a spell, or potion?

You would need to be more specific (I'm not 100% sure what you're asking); you could use potions or a cleric spell to heal hitpoints (as per the spell description), but to use a characters "hit dice" you would need a healing kit.

The problem with healing kits is that they're very arbitrary, in the same way that keeping track of carrying capacity is. Since kits have limited uses (20 if I recall) you need to keep track of how many times you've used it. They're somewhat expensive (50gp), but this would seem more to be an issue at level 1 than at level 2.

Another note: per the test rules, if no one took the Cleric of Pelor, the party would be without a healer's kit until they could scrap up 50gp.

[HMS Invincible]

IIRC, you need a healing kit for natural healing to work without an extended rest. I just houseruled healing kits out though so I'd have to look up the exact details.

I got into an argument with someone, he kept insisting that you can healing up to your hit dice every time you get a short rest.
Yea, we had to steal, and cajole our way into getting our hands on healing kits extra healing kits.
How does everyone feel about the time restricted healing? Healing is unlimited if you get a 8 hour rest, but it's pretty restricted if you don't, at least early on.

[Ashdate]

I got into an argument with someone, he kept insisting that you can healing up to your hit dice every time you get a short rest.

You "spend" hit dice to heal, and don't get them back without a "long" rest.

I think how random hit dice are for healing is pretty dumb; 4e had the right idea: make them a percentage of your total hit points. It would be extremely irritating to me, as a player, if we had to do a "long" rest because the fighter rolled a 1 on his d12 and didn't feel comfortable continuing.

[Rummy]

Do you guys have a list of things that you really want to see in 5e? My list goes something like this...

1. Pre-made modules that have maps and minis. Minis for all of the baddies would be AWESOME. I have a one year old, so I really need to keep the prep time to a minimum.

2. Faster combat.

3. Better integration of later material. In 4e, later stuff often made earlier stuff pointless (Ex. Rod Expertise was not compatible with Superior Implement (Defiant Rod). 3.5e was even worse... I loved Hexblades, but they never received any support after their initial publication.

3a. At the very least, make new stuff backwards compatible (or fix the old stuff with a revision)

3b. Build flexibility into the system... i.e. future Hexblades can access certain types of wizard spells.

4. Munchlin resistant game designs. When 4e came out, it was immediately obvious that the game designers were not obsessive character optimizers (Orb Wizards that could make it impossible to save at paragon level... really?). Granted that most of the ridiculous results were fixed by errata, but I really hope that they do a better job with the initial publication of 5e.

[Yora]

Something different than spellpoints and a nature priest without plate armor or shapeshifting.

[HMS Invincible]

I was hoping for some combination of 4th ed powers/Tome of battle stuff for the fighter/nonmagic classes.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Why'd you house rule out healing kits? Thought they were stupid or no one wanted to play Cleric of Pelor? Just curious.

Because the entire stated purpose of hit dice was to give you the ability to have limited self-healing without having to spend resources, just to help you get from one encounter to the next. Healing kits completely negate that.

[Draz74]

Because the entire stated purpose of hit dice was to give you the ability to have limited self-healing without having to spend resources, just to help you get from one encounter to the next. Healing kits completely negate that.

Well, you could just give healing kits unlimited charges. That preserves a modicum of verisimilitude without requiring "spending resources."

[Craft (Cheese)]

Well, you could just give healing kits unlimited charges. That preserves a modicum of verisimilitude without requiring "spending resources."

For all intents and purposes that's what I did.

[JoeMac307]

Do you guys have a list of things that you really want to see in 5e? My list goes something like this...

1. Pre-made modules that have maps and minis. Minis for all of the baddies would be AWESOME. I have a one year old, so I really need to keep the prep time to a minimum.

That sounds really cool, but would it be expensive? How many mini's would need to be packaged with the module? A dozen or more? That could add quite of bit of cost to a module. I am quickly guessing a boxed module with all the minis for the bad guys may run $50 or more... or am I way off in my guestimate? It seems like a worthwhile investment, if the module is good... but what if it is not-so good?

[Rummy]

I'd definitelybe willing to pay 50 to 60 bucks for a module with minis. Actually, I'd pay $100 if it was a long module, like Revenge of the Giants. My group has been chipping away at RotG for months, so it would be a good investment for us. Still... it couldn't be that expensive to make... I bet they could bring the expense to $40. Especially if they repurpose existing minis, and thus do not have to design new ones.

I am really surprised that WoTC has not done this yet. What better way to attract new players than a module that requires almost zero prep time?

[navar100]

I'd definitelybe willing to pay 50 to 60 bucks for a module with minis. Actually, I'd pay $100 if it was a long module, like Revenge of the Giants. My group has been chipping away at RotG for months, so it would be a good investment for us. Still... it couldn't be that expensive to make... I bet they could bring the expense to $40. Especially if they repurpose existing minis, and thus do not have to design new ones.

I am really surprised that WoTC has not done this yet. What better way to attract new players than a module that requires almost zero prep time?

$50+ is a lot of investment for a game. Some board/card games can go that high, but if they're fun enough and have high replay value, the money is worth it. Yay Dominion. However, a module tends to be played just once. Maybe a DM will run it for another group, but a third time is asking too much of a customer. The miniatures of a module can be reused, but what of the next module and its miniatures raising the price?

Best just leave it as is. Players who want miniatures will get them and will reuse them. The modules are only needed for the plots and statistics. Any game is going to have prep time. If you're that lazy . . .

A DM should want to spend the prep time.

[Seerow]

$50+ is a lot of investment for a game. Some board/card games can go that high, but if they're fun enough and have high replay value, the money is worth it. Yay Dominion. However, a module tends to be played just once. Maybe a DM will run it for another group, but a third time is asking too much of a customer. The miniatures of a module can be reused, but what of the next module and its miniatures raising the price?

Best just leave it as is. Players who want miniatures will get them and will reuse them. The modules are only needed for the plots and statistics. Any game is going to have prep time. If you're that lazy . . .

A DM should want to spend the prep time.

People drop 50 bucks on games they play through just once all the time. Hell, my brother is a chronic buyer of random video games that catch his eye, he's got hundreds of dollars worth of games that he's probably only put 5-10 hours into each, never coming close to finishing the game.

Besides, it's not like the minis from the module couldn't then be recycled into other things in the future.

It's not something Id be personally interested in, because I dont care a lot about minis, but I don't think that 50 dollars for a couple of months (for a decent length module) of game time plus minis is a bad deal.

[Rummy]

Some DMs relish the prep time, some dread it. Why not have one module that is ready to go from the start?

[Craft (Cheese)]

People drop 50 bucks on games they play through just once all the time. Hell, my brother is a chronic buyer of random video games that catch his eye, he's got hundreds of dollars worth of games that he's probably only put 5-10 hours into each, never coming close to finishing the game.

I'm even worse: I've got at least 6 games installed on my PC right now that I haven't bothered to even open yet, let alone finish <.<

[Menteith]

I'm even worse: I've got at least 6 games installed on my PC right now that I haven't bothered to even open yet, let alone finish <.<

Ditto, except mine are generally either Steam games, or emulated stuff like Shining Force II, Final Fantasy 6, I Wanna Be the Guy, and other free/cheap things. The only thing that I've paid over $20 for in the last few years are Starcraft 2 and Dragonage 2, if I remember right.

[holywhippet]

You know, between how the designers said they'd handle AC improvements (buy the better one!) and +x to-hit items, I think we're back in a wealth-by-level situation where the DM will need to tightly control access to money.

-O

That could be tricky if the sample module is any guide. All normal kobolds have daggers for throwing (I don't think the rules even give them a limit, but my DM decided they have 2 each). A dagger is worth 2 gold, you can sell them for 1/2 price so each kobold you kill is worth at least 1 gold. They are about the lowest level monster you will come across also.

[Clawhound]

Wealth accumulation was an issue in previous edition. What do you do with all that gold when magic items just aren't available? So, you pulled your money and bought ships, built fortresses, and did other RP things. Either that, or your DM houseruled a Magic Mart, which was pretty common.

When 3rd brought in the magic item bazaar to the game, it "solved" the problem by allowing players to buy and sell magic items. That is, it just adopted the house rule that many people already used. However, it introduced the new problem that the only logical use for gold was increasing your character's power. Any other use was sub-optimal, even for the average player. It brought in the additional problem that buying items meant that you could plan to buy items for your character and build the character around the item, adding yet another path for optimization.

Returning to the old paradigm, we will again run into the problem of wealth accumulation. I expect the magic bazaar to become a common houserule again.

[JoeMac307]

Some DMs relish the prep time, some dread it. Why not have one module that is ready to go from the start?

I think the work around would be to have two versions of the module - one without any minis, and one with minis, like a standard and premium edition. Or, they could package all the minis into one package (or a few packages) and sell it apart from the module.