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

[Fatebreaker]

Apparently I'm not making myself clear.

No, you are being clear. Understand that there is simply no level of clarity which will make your point suddenly become convincing.

Even if we leave out the issue that even reasonable people can have very legitimate disagreements about what, exactly, "reasonable" is, the mechanical aspects alone are deeply flawed.

The rules of the game act as a series of conflict-resolution mechanic. That's why we have them. When we encounter a scenario where rolling would be ridiculous, but the mechanics produce an effect whereby failure is a reasonably likely outcome, then we have a flawed mechanic, and since we're talking about a product which we pay money for, we have a very real financial investment in whether or not the mechanics are any good.

In a game which uses a d20 as a conflict-resolution generator, any action with a chance of success or failure equal to or greater than 5% is worth rolling for. If the game tells me that a Strength 20 Barbarian loses an arm wrestling contest with a Strength 1 Diseased Commoner 5% (or more!) of the time, then mechanically that's worth rolling for, even though we know that's blatantly ridiculous.

Out of 400 potential combinations on two d20's, 45 result in the Strength 1 Diseased Commoner winning, and 11 result in a draw. That's an 11.25% chance of winning, and a 2.75% chance of a draw, for a combined total of a 14% chance to not lose for the Diseased Commoner -- well worth rolling for!

Is it silly? Yes. Is that why people are objecting to the mechanic? Yes.

The answer is not to ignore the mechanic. The answer is to get a better mechanic.

Put another way, if I'm the Diseased Commoner, and you tell me that I can't arm-wrestle the Barbarian because the odds of me winning are just unreasonable, I'm going to be very pissed when another character gets to make a roll with a 14% or less chance of victory.

And again, this is before we even enter into whether or not reasonable people will always agree on what is reasonable, or whether or not our table of reasonable people even have the information necessary to make a reasonable ruling, or whether or not "wing it and hope you get lucky" is a mechanic worth paying real money-dollars for.

You'd have less of a problem if you interpret "Rules Light" as "Rules Light 'Iconic' D&D".

Slapping the phrase "iconic" on something doesn't make it good.

On another note, I wonder what development process they are using.

I would also be rather curious to have sat in on their development process. I'm sure it would have been fascinating.

I would especially have loved to hear any discussion where disagreement was either very strong or absent. I'm sure there were fascinating debates with disagreement on all sides which ended amicably, but I'm especially interested in cases where they encountered mutually exclusive design goals (and which ones they picked as winners vs. which ones they picked as losers), and cases where they didn't even question whether something should be changed.

I have absolutely no interest in a game where the default assumption is people who don't cast spells are second rate characters.

I have absolutely no interest in a game where the default assumption is people who don't cast spells are second rate characters and the game pretends that the two are equal.

I'm okay with a game saying "this is better than that," so long as the game actually says it. Pretending otherwise is dishonest and poor game design.

Peoples' ideas of "D&D" are very different. The 1e grognard is *not* playing the same game as the 3.x high-powered gamer, is *not* playing the same game as the 4e player.

This is so true it baffles me why anyone would believe that a unified system is even possible. Basic assumptions about the game have changed to such a degree across editions that they can't realistically exist at the same table because they're simply not the same game.

[obryn]

(he wanted a friggin' revolver for his ranger)

Well, in fairness, that's not completely out of the question for Greyhawk. (See: Murlynd; also: Barrier Peaks)

-O

[demigodus]

Then you have 5 people playing 5 different games and even having explicit rules aren't going to solve that because rule 0 is that the DM can override any rule.

Hyperbole are not going to convince anyone of your point.

Rule 0 does not exist so that the DM can use it at every opportunity things don't go his way. It CAN be used that way, yes, but a) that isn't reasonable b) that is horrible DM'ing. Having explicit rules does solve such problems, because when a rule covers a situation, you don't HAVE TO use rule 0 on it.

And no, that isn't 5 people playing 5 different games. That is having 5 people who's instincts are different.

That's why I keep saying everyone at the table needs to come to an agreement about the type of game being played ahead of time.

To the point of covering scenarios that even the game designers who spent months/years of paid time couldn't be bothered to? You say that character creation is a slog fest, and yet a discussion anywhere near substantial enough to make sure issues like this don't come up with either a) involve numbers that can then be simplified into such characters anyways b) be so long, they are a slog fast compared to what character creation would be in 3.5.

Without the game providing guidelines, you can either hope your instincts agree, or make them up yourself. The problem with instincts, is the game running on knee jerk reactions is, in my opinion a horrible game. I like to play a game where I know what my character can do. I don't like to play a game where I have to guess at my DM's instincts to figure out what I can do. Alternative is to go through a very long list of options asking if I can do them, what is the DC, etc. But that tends to annoy people very quickly, very understandably.

Sorry, if your player says "I want to be a grapple master" and you just say yes without getting an idea for what the player had in mind, that's a mistake on your part as a DM.

Or a mistake on the part of the system where I can't just look at the player's grapple mod, and tell exactly what the term means there.

Your options at that point are either to negotiate with the player when your visions disagree (as reasonable adults do)

You argue for a rules light system to avoid a slog fest in making a character. All I see here is multiplying the size of that slog fest, and shoving it straight into valuable game time.

give the player what they want for now, and talk to them about it after the game (as reasonable adults do), state that you are the DM and for now you are making a ruling, and you will discuss it with the player after the game (as reasonable adults do)

I'm not sure how a system that forces you to go with these options is considered a good system...

Do you people seriously sit down to game with your players and never discuss anything about the world or the power level of the game?

Out of curiosity, how do you discuss power levels with your players? 3.5 has terms like "level" "character-tier" "high/mid/low-op", etc. that make such discussions quick and simple. How would you do such a discussion in a rules light system? And remember, rules light is supposed to cut down on character creation time, so this power level discussion + character creation has to be faster then the 2~3 minutes you spend describing the power level for 3.5 rather accurately (if you know the system), followed by its character creation.

[TheAbstruseOne]

Well, in fairness, that's not completely out of the question for Greyhawk. (See: Murlynd; also: Barrier Peaks)

-O

I treat those modules like I do the Matrix sequels and the Shadowrun game for the 360 - they don't exist in my world and no amount of arguing is going to make it so.

Frankly, I shoved the party in Ravenloft three sessions ago just because I got sick of their monkeying around (my "good-vs-evil traditional classic style game" ended up with a LN monk, CN cleric, LE wizard, NE rogue, NE ranger, TN sorcerer who acts Chaotic Stupid, and a CN barbarian who managed somehow to find the random obscure rulebook that put the broken-ass Monkey Grip feat back into Pathfinder...and that's after I talked four of them out of their original characters which were a drow sorcerer (when I'm running a Vault of the Drow conversion), a gunslinger, a ninja/assassin, and a necromancer). Greatest setting ever made for an annoyed DM with frustrations against the players to work off outside Paranoia.

[Menteith]

That is the sort of player that Rule Zero and a mechanical way to prevent the 10 Minute Workday is needed for. Most reasonable players either won't play that way or they'll see quickly the sort of frustrations that can cause. But for some players, it's really the only option other than just threatening to kick them out of the group.

I've never had anyone that bad, but that's not an issue with the 10m day, that's an issue with an incredibly irritating munchkin. When someone says a 10m adventuring day, I think of DMs not taking things like Rope Trick or Teleportation into account, or thinking that a player will never retreat. If you don't take them into account for X/day abilities, then you end up with poorly balanced encounters. But it's not that difficult to account for ways to refresh X/day abilities, and I don't have an issue with them for a game' balance. S'all I'm saying.

Yes, a traditional dungeon crawl isn't an appropriate adventure for people with these capabilities. But if a Wizard knows his limits, why would he continue after he's exhausted himself? It's not metagaming, that's common sense for a character.

[kyoryu]

Huh? MY CHARACTERS want to live and save the town/city/country/continent/world, they do not want to be party number 23 that failed and died as an example for party 24.

It's totally in character and not metagaming at all to rest when you're obviously impared and a relatively short easy rest will fix this. I rest if I think it will help more than pushing on in real life all the time.

The fix is SIMPLE and EASY, it can be implemented almost trivially.

Long term resources don't come back overnight! Seriously, does ANYONE who believes that recovery is that fast ever been tired? Hint, overnight does not give 100% recovery to real people. Pulling back and resting is a negligable benefit, the adrenaline will wear off and you'll stiffen up and you'll probably perform WORSE the next day.

The fundamental problem with the 10 minute workday is that in many games, "days" are useless resources. Think about how many times we've been told that "things happen at the speed of plot."

If the bad guys don't shore up their powers, and partially invaded castles don't rework and reinforce, and there's no timeframe, and there's no resources such as food to manage, then there's absolutely *no* reason not to have a ten minute workday.

Unfortunately, most of these aspects have been discarded because they're "not fun", without removing other daily resources.

So long as you can exchange a worthless resource (days) for a resource with value (spell slots), players will do so at every opportunity.

Random encounters are another possible fix, as they force the characters to fight with depleted resources without even really getting anywhere for it - all of hte risk, none of the reward.

Your solution works so long as "more days" has more of a cost than just "days".

[Oracle_Hunter]

Random encounters are another possible fix, as they force the characters to fight with depleted resources without even really getting anywhere for it - all of hte risk, none of the reward.

This is the worst way to fix 15 minute work days.

Frame it this way:

Spoiler

Show

Problem: My Players use up all their resources in the first encounter of the day and then rest.

DM Solution: Force my Players to have additional encounters so that they fight on diminished resources.

Player's Response: Rest more frequently to be at top efficiency for random encounters.

[Menteith]

I try to find ways so that my players want to continue past their limits. Sometimes this is accomplished by having a strict timeline - the palace guards are distracted by the festival tonight, the demon lord's ritual will be complete at the end of the week, the curse upon you will take your life by the end of the month, etc; sometimes with variable environments - if the Lord of Pain is attacked, he'll retreat into his impregnable fortress, so you only have one chance, if the evil mage learns who you are he'll use Scry and Die tactics, meaning you can't be discovered; and sometimes it's by letting the characters provide their own motivations - your father's killer is but a day's travel away, you must leave now!

Random monster encounters seem like a poor way to do it.

[Scowling Dragon]

Frame it this way:

Spoiler

Show

Problem: My Players use up all their resources in the first encounter of the day and then rest.

DM Solution: Force my Players to have additional encounters so that they fight on diminished resources.

Player's Response: Rest more frequently to be at top efficiency for random encounters.

Games are more complex then that and a scenario like that would rarely play out.

[kyoryu]

I try to find ways so that my players want to continue past their limits. Sometimes this is accomplished by having a strict timeline - the palace guards are distracted by the festival tonight, the demon lord's ritual will be complete at the end of the week, the curse upon you will take your life by the end of the month, etc; sometimes with variable environments - if the Lord of Pain is attacked, he'll retreat into his impregnable fortress, so you only have one chance, if the evil mage learns who you are he'll use Scry and Die tactics, meaning you can't be discovered; and sometimes it's by letting the characters provide their own motivations - your father's killer is but a day's travel away, you must leave now!

Random monster encounters seem like a poor way to do it.

I agree in general. The best way to handle the problem is to make "days" a valuable resource - which is everything you've described above.

Random encounters are the weakest way to solve the issue, and only even work when there's an overriding goal anyway, and especially if you've given "days" some amount of value in the first place.

[TheAbstruseOne]

Most players will actually avoid the 10 Minute Workday by playing in a smart and effective way. And in many cases, the plot itself will impose limitations such as a time limit. But that's not always the case.

Also, the 10 Minute Workday problem isn't just the players saying "Oh, the wizard and cleric are out of spells, we have to rest" and the DM replying "NOOOO! You must keep fighting because I finally have you on the ropes and then my monsters will win!" It's also not the cast if the party goes into one room and meets a very strong monster, then goes into another room and meets a different very strong monster and, due to the difficulty of the two encounters, have already expended all their healing and spell resources for the day.

It's a specific tactic in which a party who has the abilities and resources to beat an encounter while still holding high level spells in reserve for later still insist on using all their highest level spells and daily abilities in one burst immediately in order to more easily clear a room and then immediately stop and rest (spending the 16 hours they have to wait to sleep for 8 hours taking security precautions against wandering monsters and the like) to recover those spells. Not because the encounter demands it because of its difficulty, but because it's easier and less dangerous than actually attempting to face encounter as it was designed.

Regardless of whether or not it is a sound tactic, it's game-breaking as it will either remove all challenge from the game or it will force the DM to make every single encounter a make-or-break deadly fight in order to maintain the challenge to the players. It's also cheesy, munchkiny, and it makes no sense in-character. No party of adventurers would ever spend a month going through a dungeon one room per day, spending 1 minute or less fighting what's in the room and then 23 hours and 59 minutes sitting around in a locked, barricaded, and alarmed room before heading to the next room.

[Fatebreaker]

Games are more complex then that and a scenario like that would rarely play out.

Really? Why not? All you've done is given them an even greater incentive to be ready for anything at any moment. Random encounters encourage resource hoarders to hoard more resources.

If a group rests after every encounter, and your response is random encounters, then all you've done is given the group a non-plot-relevant encounter to rest after.

This is the beginning of a hilariously vicious cycle.

I agree in general. The best way to handle the problem is to make "days" a valuable resource - which is everything you've described above.

Random encounters are the weakest way to solve the issue, and only even work when there's an overriding goal anyway, and especially if you've given "days" some amount of value in the first place.

Very much agreed. If days are not a valuable resource, then they will be sacrificed in the name of resources which are valuable.

[Menteith]

Regardless of whether or not it is a sound tactic, it's game-breaking as it will either remove all challenge from the game or it will force the DM to make every single encounter a make-or-break deadly fight in order to maintain the challenge to the players. It's also cheesy, munchkiny, and it makes no sense in-character. No party of adventurers would ever spend a month going through a dungeon one room per day, spending 1 minute or less fighting what's in the room and then 23 hours and 59 minutes sitting around in a locked, barricaded, and alarmed room before heading to the next room.

I think we just have very different playstyles. If there's literally no pressures on the players, it's not their fault for taking the safest, more effective tactics. I can honestly say that I've never had a problem with the strategy, since I will almost always have a dynamic environment that responds to the players, and in the odd situation I don't, it's really unlikely that the situation is a straight dungeon crawl (Do people actually do straight no plot dungeon crawls still?)

[kyoryu]

Regardless of whether or not it is a sound tactic, it's game-breaking as it will either remove all challenge from the game or it will force the DM to make every single encounter a make-or-break deadly fight in order to maintain the challenge to the players. It's also cheesy, munchkiny, and it makes no sense in-character. No party of adventurers would ever spend a month going through a dungeon one room per day, spending 1 minute or less fighting what's in the room and then 23 hours and 59 minutes sitting around in a locked, barricaded, and alarmed room before heading to the next room.

Part of what's missing is also the reactivity of the world - those goblins that were killed (or whatever) aren't just a static encounter - they're part of an ecosystem. Other critters know them, and will be aware of the noises. Sitting in a room and waiting 24 hours is a good way to, eventually, bring down the whole "dungeon" on your head.

[Scowling Dragon]

Really? Why not? All you've done is given them an even greater incentive to be ready for anything at any moment. Random encounters encourage resource hoarders to hoard more resources.

If a group rests after every encounter, and your response is random encounters, then all you've done is given the group a non-plot-relevant encounter to rest after.

This is the beginning of a hilariously vicious cycle.

Because its metagaming. No roleplayer would go "Its OK to rest in the Volcano of mount voldoom because the GM will not send anything after us". Most people try to avoid this stuff in my experience.

[TheAbstruseOne]

I think we just have very different playstyles. If there's literally no pressures on the players, it's not their fault for taking the safest, more effective tactics. I can honestly say that I've never had a problem with the strategy, since I will almost always have a dynamic environment that responds to the players, and in the odd situation I don't, it's really unlikely that the situation is a straight dungeon crawl (Do people actually do straight no plot dungeon crawls still?)

Yes, they do. I don't run them very often, but I have run them before when I couldn't figure out a good story or was running short on time before the session.

However, in many of my games, there are times in which there is no time pressure on the players built into the plot. If they have to rush to defeat the evil whatever before it does whatever or gets the MacGuffin, sure. But sometimes there are long stretches in which either nothing is going on, or the players don't know there's something going on.

For example, my current game is a Pathfinder game where I'm running a conversion and modification of the old D1-3 Vault of the Drow module. It started with the players retaking a keep from a bunch of goblins who took it over (no time limit as they could route out the goblins whenever they felt like it). The goblins had been displaced from their home in the Underdark by a troglodyte army which was preparing for an invasion of the surface world (time limit - they only had so many days until the army marched and the battle started, or they only had so much time to accomplish tasks during the siege or the keep would fall). They found out that the troglodytes were being supplied and encouraged by a specific drow house and went into the Underdark to investigate or retaliate against them.

This is the plot they've currently been in since sometime in March in a weekly session. They've made it to the drow city, scouted around, then picked up on a side plot thread. They're under no time pressure whatsoever right now. They are monitoring the drow house through bribed spies so they'll know if they mobilize or otherwise pose a threat to the village. They don't know that the drow plans for the troglodytes was a test run for an invasion of their own (including a ritual to darken the skies) that's on a 15 year timetable. They also don't know the only pressing clock is political tensions between their "home base" village and a city that's several days' ride away. So they're justifiably taking their time as there's no story-based time limit. I could flat out tell them about the brewing tensions between the city and the village or I could have the drow army ready to invade in a few days, but either one of those would break the story ideas I have in mind for future plots.

So even though I'm telling an intricate and involved story with several narrative threads, there's not really any time pressure whatsoever on the PCs at the moment (well, kind of...I dumped them in Ravenloft to take a break from tromping around the Underdark and I haven't decided when I'm going to bring them back yet). If I didn't have a few players (including the wizard) who feel as strongly as I do about the 10 Minute Workday, the ranger's player and possibly the cleric would probably take advantage of it on the few times I do present them with more traditional dungeon crawls.

[Craft (Cheese)]

If your players are pulling tactics like that, they're not acting in-character because no one who chooses the adventuring life would approach it that way.

Unless you're trying to roleplay someone with a death wish, it's perfectly reasonable to rest, regroup, and prepare for the next battle after every fight. So reasonable, the only time where it's even thinkable to do that is when you can't due to the circumstances. Which is how the old RPGs handled the problem: You couldn't regain your resources unless you went all the way back, and you'd fight a bazillion random encounters again anyway so the only way to advance further was to just play better.

The real problem is that daily resources just no longer make sense in the modern style of game.

[kyoryu]

The real problem is that daily resources just no longer make sense in the modern style of game.

Lots of things don't make sense in the post-DragonLance game style. Many, if not most, of the "problems" we see in D&D is the impedance mismatch between a game designed around pre-DL assumptions, and games run with post-DL assumptions.

This is actually one of the things I *liked* about 4e - it worked better in the post-DL world. It's also one of the things I hope that 5e clarifies - what the "overall game structure" is *supposed* to be, and ensuring that the game mechanics support that structure.

[Scowling Dragon]

The real problem is that daily resources just no longer make sense in the modern style of game.

Yes they do.

[Menteith]

snip

I don't have a good answer for you, then. All I can say is that I've never been in a session or DMed a session where it was a gamebreaking issue. /shrug

[TheAbstruseOne]

Lots of things don't make sense in the post-DragonLance game style. Many, if not most, of the "problems" we see in D&D is the impedance mismatch between a game designed around pre-DL assumptions, and games run with post-DL assumptions.

Sorry, not seeing where Dragonlance gets involved...could you explain it to me? I don't mean that in a rude or condescending way, I literally don't see where the Dragonlance campaign setting fits into the debate...

[Fatebreaker]

Because its metagaming. No roleplayer would go "Its OK to rest in the Volcano of mount voldoom because the GM will not send anything after us". Most people try to avoid this stuff in my experience.

*shrug* Some roleplayers will legitimately argue that, as a professional adventurer, they will behave in the manner most conducive for both survival and profit, and of the two, survival is more important. If that means going nova, then escaping to an alternate dimension where they are can recover their expended resources, and then chipping away at a dungeon at their leisure, then that's what they'll do. If they have no incentive to go quickly, why take the risk?

You could just as easily argue that pressing onwards in spite of a) no need to so and b) depleted resources is metagaming, because it relies on thinking, "Let's bank our lives on the leniency and sense of fair-play of the Great Dungeon-Master in the Sky!" It presumes that things like "encounter levels" and "challenge ratings" are a thing, or that they'll always find just enough monsters to be challenging without actually being a danger, which is a fairly game-aware attitude to take, don't you think?

Either way, if you have a group which is already prone to resting after encounters, then yes, more encounters will only encourage them to rest more, because that's what they do -- rest after encounters. If you want to kill the 10-minute workday, you need to give a reason for the party to not indulge in it. The plot is a good place to start.

--

Shadowrun features the Renraku Arcology, a huge "dungeon" in the middle of Seattle controlled by a rogue A.I. and his machine-army. How is the military taking back the Arcology?

Ten minute workdays, man. Ten minute workdays.

Go in, chip away at a section. Claim it. Secure it. Rest, rearm, recover. It's not fast, it's not pretty, but it's the best hope for survival and victory. That kind of attitude makes total sense when it's your life on the line.

[kyoryu]

Sorry, not seeing where Dragonlance gets involved...could you explain it to me? I don't mean that in a rude or condescending way, I literally don't see where the Dragonlance campaign setting fits into the debate...

Because it's not the campaign setting. It's the campaign.

DragonLance was the first set of adventures that really took a party from 1st level through high levels, with a set plot, to a finish. It even introduced plot armor - giving DMs guidelines on how to bring players back into the game if "dead".

It's also the first case that I'm aware of where the *plot* took precedence over the *world*. The plot of the first novels was paramount, and the world existed primarily to support it. This differs from previous settings where the setting existed first, and had stories *within* it.

In many ways, it is the prototype for the modern game, and broke away from many, many core assumptions of earlier play styles. That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad, just that the rules were originally not designed with that in mind.

Really, look at the number of debates even in these forums about whether characters should be allowed to die. In a heavily story-based game, it doesn't make sense - and so the rules *shouldn't allow it to happen*. In a more simulationist game (which pre-DL was), of *course* it makes sense. Nobody's a special snowflake. Some number of people that go exploring in dangerous areas *will die*.

Even things like association rules make more sense in a game where you might have multiple characters, each of which is presumed to be mortal. Bob wants to play a paladin, and you want to be an assassin? No problem! We'll do one group one week, another group at another time. Problem solved! These rules don't work if you assume that you will have exactly the same set of characters, and no others, throughout the whole campaign.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm not espousing the superiority of pre- or post-DL styles of gameplay. I'm stating that the rules need to be written with one style or the other in mind, and they need to support that style, and that style of game needs to be relatively explicit in the rules. Even since 1st edition, the rules have been focused on running combats and encounters, with comparatively little information on what it means to run a campaign.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Sorry, not seeing where Dragonlance gets involved...could you explain it to me? I don't mean that in a rude or condescending way, I literally don't see where the Dragonlance campaign setting fits into the debate...

I don't know enough to tell you how Dragonlance fits in, but I was referring to the shift from encounters-as-taxes to encounters-as-puzzles. In the former, encounters are basically the same thing used over and over again, and your challenge is to find a strategy that lets you stay alive through as long of a slog as possible. While in the latter, the experience of fighting a monster is supposed to be interesting and exciting all by itself, and the challenge is figuring out how to "solve" the given encounter rather than a meta-encounter strategy.


Daily resources make sense in the former system because the challenge isn't getting through 1 Kobold with 3 Magic Missiles, it's getting through 100 Kobolds with just 3 Magic Missiles. If you got your Magic Missiles back after every kobold you slaughtered then the game would be trivial (which is why the 15-minute adventuring day is a problem).


EDIT: Aaand Ninja'd. His explanation is better than mine anyhow, so I defer you there.

[darkelf]

I haven't seen anyone who's just over the top gushing with praise right now (bearing in mind that I've been watching reactions via GitP forums and Enworld, not WotC's forums).

you could count me in that camp. but its not fashionable and some fellow gamers are dreary buzzkills.

[kyoryu]

you could count me in that camp. but its not fashionable and some fellow gamers are dreary buzzkills.

I wouldn't say I'm gushing, but I like where they're heading with the system. There's too many open questions to gush, just yet.

And these forums are very heavily 3.x-biased. Any deviation from 3.x is likely to be spat upon . The only real way I'd expect to see mass gushing here is if 5e were essentially a revision of 3e.

[Fatebreaker]

you could count me in that camp. but its not fashionable and some fellow gamers are dreary buzzkills.

It's a playtest. This is exactly the time to express dislike, exchange ideas for improvement, and provide feedback.

If you like something, say what you like. Maybe you found something which other people did not.

[Petey7]

I really don't see the issues that some of you see. To use an example previously mentioned, a Str 1 Commoner arm-wrestling a Str 20 Fighter. Naturally it seems silly for the Commoner to win, so just say the fighter automatically wins. Even if the commoner does technically have a, what was it, 11% chance of winning when you consider nat 1s and nat 20s, its still easy to say that the commoner winning sounds rediculous. In fact, the possibility of the commoner winning by getting a nat 20 or the fighter getting a nat 1 is exactly why it says in the DMs guide to sometimes just say whether someone automatically succeeds or fails.

I think they need to go into more detail about the ability check system, but I'm not a big fan of the skill system from 3.X.

[TheAbstruseOne]

Enh, from what I've seen, it's been a mixed reaction. I haven't seen anyone who's just over the top gushing with praise right now (bearing in mind that I've been watching reactions via GitP forums and Enworld, not WotC's forums). I don't know how the modules will affect it, and I'm hoping that they do a lot to make it more attractive for me.

I'm on WotC, Reddit, Enworld, RPGnet, and here. Pretty much every discussion I've seen in every...single...friggin'...thread...has gone pretty much like this one has. Or worse. I've had to explain how clerics cast spells in Next something like 15 or 16 times at this point (not counting the four or five times I had to explain it to the same person) because no matter how I stated it, he could not understand that they cast like sorcerers in 3.x did.

The reaction's pretty much what you'd expect, though. Some people like it but agree it's got kinks if not major problems that need to be worked out, some people don't like what they're seeing but are keeping an open mind, some people flat out can't stand it, and a very vocal minority is threadjacking every discussion they can to rant about how horrible it is and how D&D is dead and how Wizards of the Coast killed their puppy and so on and so forth. Frankly, this has been the most civil and informative discussion I've participated in the past two weeks.

[demigodus]

I really don't see the issues that some of you see. To use an example previously mentioned, a Str 1 Commoner arm-wrestling a Str 20 Fighter. Naturally it seems silly for the Commoner to win, so just say the fighter automatically wins. Even if the commoner does technically have a, what was it, 11% chance of winning when you consider nat 1s and nat 20s, its still easy to say that the commoner winning sounds rediculous. In fact, the possibility of the commoner winning by getting a nat 20 or the fighter getting a nat 1 is exactly why it says in the DMs guide to sometimes just say whether someone automatically succeeds or fails.

I think they need to go into more detail about the ability check system, but I'm not a big fan of the skill system from 3.X.

that 11% success rate is without assuming nat 1s are auto-fails, or nat-20s are auto successes. The commoner could win without either of them rolling a nat 20 or a nat 1. So not really sure why you are bringing up nat 20's or nat 1's.

Also, you seem to be completely missing the point of the example. The point is that, the system as written, allows for ridiculous situations, and then tells you to rule 0 it if gives ridiculous results. Saying "use rule 0 when our rules suck" doesn't make the rules suck less. Not to mention, an 11% chance of success is a pretty decent chance. A lot of times you will be doing stuff that aren't obviously auto-fails, where your chances might be that low. Why is it fair to the commoner that he gets to auto-fail, but at a different time, someone with similar chances gets to make a check?