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

[Seerow]

Why are we saying that the 5th edition rules allow for this whole variance problem? They DON'T, because they say to not use the rolls when inappropriate. The rule to use common sense instead of allowing unnecessary variance due to dice-rolling is also part of the rules.

The dice-roll system has a problem, and the rules address it. You can dislike how it's being addressed, but just because it isn't a mathematical solution for the problem doesn't let you ignore it and continue complaining.

Level and DC scaling is a problem that makes skills less meaningful in 4e. Lack of DC scaling in comparison to bonus increase is a problem that makes skills less meaningful in 3e. Both of those are being avoided, and without removing the d20. I'd call that a win.

This was addressed upthread, but in the DM Guidelines, it specifies a roll is inconsequential enough to not roll it when the DC is 5 lower than your attribute. In an opposed contest there is no DC so it's never inconsequential enough to not roll.

Anything beyond that is DM fiat, and has nothing to do with the system.

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Barbarian
Druid
Ranger

I'm separating these guys out because they all share a thing in common of being the "close to nature guy." (That is, if you consider the aspect of the Barbarian as the tribal warrior, rather than the other aspect of being a fighter who works off of instinct and natural talent rather than years of training.) For somewhat personal reasons that would be inappropriate for this discussion, I've always absolutely despised these type of fantasy tree-hugger characters and I wouldn't shed one tear if these three classes (and elves) were removed from 5E entirely.

Meh, for the Barbarian I'd just rename him to "Berserker" if you want to get rid of the tribal flavor. I mean very little in the class lends itself towards nature in the same way that Ranger and Druid does, and "Guy who is really tough and busts things" I think is arguably a viable class concept.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Meh, for the Barbarian I'd just rename him to "Berserker" if you want to get rid of the tribal flavor. I mean very little in the class lends itself towards nature in the same way that Ranger and Druid does, and "Guy who is really tough and busts things" I think is arguably a viable class concept.

Fair enough, though I still think this Beserker is better handled as Fighter + Rage-based theme. But many people were very upset when the Barbarian was missing from the 4E PHB, so we know WotC's not going to do that again. Ah well.

Also, I can't believe I completely forgot about the Bard!

[demigodus]

This was addressed upthread, but in the DM Guidelines, it specifies a roll is inconsequential enough to not roll it when the DC is 5 lower than your attribute. In an opposed contest there is no DC so it's never inconsequential enough to not roll.

Anything beyond that is DM fiat, and has nothing to do with the system.

Ah, thank you for that clarification.

Still, now we have the amusing result where, if your Str is 20 (+5 mod), you auto-succeed on anything DC 15 or lower. DC 16? You have a 50% failure chance. Skills could change that probably, but I found that idea amusing that 55% success rate = so trivial you always succeed.

That guideline would work if your stat mod was rewritten to be your stat - 10 (without the divide by 2 part that 3.5/4e has)

[TheAbstruseOne]

Warlord is hands down the class I do not want to see in Next. The entire function of the class is subsumed by the cleric and it only really made sense in 4e due to the power source/role dynamic.

Same thing for paladins. There's two threads on ENWorld right now where I just cannot get someone to give me a good reason for the paladin as a stand-alone class. The paladin is a holy knight in shining armor. You take away the "holy", "knight", or "armor" and you no longer have a paladin. You have something else entirely. That means there's just not enough difference in "style" of paladin to justify a class. Also, pretty much every D&D campaign world (save Dark Sun, Dragonlance during certain points, Ravenloft depending on who you ask, and probably a few of the others I never looked at) is a polytheistic world. The archetype of the paladin is firmly rooted as the idea of the Christian Soldier. What would a paladin of Melora look like? And wouldn't a cleric of Bahamut or Kord look a lot like a paladin?

Assassins are a class I've always loved...but I'll be the first to admit they'll work far better as a theme or multiclassing than they ever would as a stand-alone class. If I could figure out how to pull the pregens apart, I could probably make an assassin. Fighter with the thief theme = brutish combat-oriented assassin ready to fight toe-to-toe. Rogue with the slayer theme = combat pragmatist who strikes from the shadows and takes every advantage to drop his opponent as soon as possible so he doesn't have to fight toe-to-toe. Hell, rogue with the arcane dabbler theme and you'd get something pretty close to the "mystic ninja" style assassin.

Rangers I'm on the fence about. I can see them working very well as a class + theme, but they'd still be missing something. An archery or two-weapon theme and woodland background on a fighter would get you something that feels like a ranger, but it'd be missing that mystical aspect...it'd only work if fighters are allowed two themes so they could take the combat theme and then the healer/herbalist theme from the Pelor cleric.

Barbarians? Give fighters two themes and tack one onto the Slayer that gives him a rage ability. That simple.

Sorcerers might work as a theme, but would require a bit of finessing to shoehorn in using the existing rules. Using the Next rules, you'd have to have a wizard's spell list that casts like a cleric does. Not sure if a theme will be able to re-write a class like that, but I don't think that's enough to warrant and entire new class.

Bards = Wizard class + healer theme + performer background. Done.

Avengers...oh I love avengers...but really a cleric with a roguish theme or a rogue with a clericy theme would do all the work.

I'm not going to talk about druids because I can't stand the damn things. Never played one, never had one in one of my games by luck alone, the fluff doesn't interest me, and the class abilities range from useless to completely and utterly broken depending on edition.

And with that, I can't really think of any other classes off the top of my head. Everything else can easily and obviously be covered by a theme (Warlock? Wizard with a theme. Swashbuckler? Fighter with a theme. Invoker? Cleric with a theme.)

[Seerow]

Ah, thank you for that clarification.

Still, now we have the amusing result where, if your Str is 20 (+5 mod), you auto-succeed on anything DC 15 or lower. DC 16? You have a 50% failure chance. Skills could change that probably, but I found that idea amusing that 55% success rate = so trivial you always succeed.

That guideline would work if your stat mod was rewritten to be your stat - 10 (without the divide by 2 part that 3.5/4e has)

Yes, it likely would. But characters with a +10 mod on their roll just from attribute are already too high to fit into WotC's 'bounded accuracy' system.

[Seerow]

Warlord is hands down the class I do not want to see in Next. The entire function of the class is subsumed by the cleric and it only really made sense in 4e due to the power source/role dynamic.

This, combined with the later stuff in the post reads to me as "I want a Cleric as the healer in the group, nobody else should be healing it just doesn't make sense".

Which really sucks for any group who wants to, y'know, survive, without having a cleric or access to magic items like wands of CLW/LV.

Seriously, the Warlord was far and away one of the most popular additions to 4e, I know a lot of people who absolutely despise 4e who still liked the class. Scrapping it simply because you don't like the thought of a healer who isn't fueled by gods isn't a good idea.

[TheAbstruseOne]

This, combined with the later stuff in the post reads to me as "I want a Cleric as the healer in the group, nobody else should be healing it just doesn't make sense".

Which really sucks for any group who wants to, y'know, survive, without having a cleric or access to magic items like wands of CLW/LV.

Seriously, the Warlord was far and away one of the most popular additions to 4e, I know a lot of people who absolutely despise 4e who still liked the class. Scrapping it simply because you don't like the thought of a healer who isn't fueled by gods isn't a good idea.

I like 4e and I like the class. I just don't like the class outside of 4e. Outside 4e, it's just a reskinned cleric. The cleric says, "The light of Pelor heals you!" The warlord says, "Get up, it's only a flesh wound!" Then they each heal 1d8 + Wis mod damage and their turn is over.

And saying that I don't like the warlord because I think only clerics should heal is like saying I don't like alchemists because I think only wizards should get to throw around fireballs. Not true. I just don't think that there's enough difference between what the cleric and the warlord do mechanically to justify being a separate class. I'm also championing the idea of combat healing outside the cleric on various forums as well, either by using a healer's kit during combat or taking a second wind like action that allows you to spend hit dice (at a penalty of some sort...like paying 2 for 1 or rolling them with Disadvantage).

And I don't like the alchemist because I don't like the idea of Crazy Harry from the Muppet Show playing in my D&D game.

I could be won over by the warlord if they managed to do it right, though. If they can find a way to make the warlord feel mechanically unique and still tie into the rest of the game world thematically, I'd be thrilled. I'm not sure if they'll be able to pull it off though.

Side note: What's LV? Wracking my brain and I can't figure it out...

[Seerow]

LV would be Lesser Vigor. Editing in response to the rest in a minute.



Edit: Okay, the thing about the warlord is the warlord's schtick isn't just healing. He's just capable of doing that well. Which is good, because having a guy around who can make you get better is good. And yes, having a different class for someone to be able to heal without having to be religious is a good idea. I mean in 3.5 there were work arounds (frequent refluffings of Clerics/Favored Souls/Crusaders at low level, and just packing wands and someone having UMD at high levels), but not needing to refluff is nice.

What's more, the Warlord fills a niche beyond just healing. He is the martial commander. Your tactical strike leader. The guy who may not be as personally badass as everyone else, but that's okay because he can direct everyone else to be that much better. Think Captain America in the Avengers, he's not the most powerful character in the group by a long shot, but he earns his keep by being the leader, providing direction and helping others be more effective. That is the role that the Warlord fills.

I can hear the argument for that having significant overlap with the Fighter (and indeed, with my list I took out the Fighter and dispersed him between the Warlord and the Barbarian), but because of overlap with the Cleric? No.




Honestly though, judging by how many classes you specified you would remove, it seems you fall closer to the "only 3 classes with lots of specializations" from the beginning of my class rambling post. So maybe this whole point is moot. However it is important to note in a system where you have so few classes, each class needs to be able to represent a large variety of archtypes and roles, which means if you have Fighter/Cleric/Wizard, then you can't say "Only clerics can heal", you should be able to get an approximation of the Warlord through use of options of the Fighter class.

[russdm]

My two gold, er copper...

Barbarians have always been weird. They happen to be rather strange. So far, from my playing experience, Barbarians have been basically beserkers. They rage to fight better in combat, and they can't read or write. They rarely have any of their nature side come up.

Bards make sense as a separate class mainly because you need to have a class for elan. other than that, i can't see much of the appeal. "I can sing to make my allies hit better, and i am a wannabe rogue. Oh, i also have this nifty ability to find stuff out, which is nearly the same as a skill. Oh, i can cast magic through music."

Druids: I think i like the concept, but i think the implentation went a little crazy. The stuff is decent, but the fluff is kinda meh. They do get animal companions, plus being able to have a bunch of spell-casting. The combination of Natural spell with wildshape made them broken, but its somewhat understandable. What they could have done was to make some spells not castable in wildshape with natural spell anyway or maybe make spells a little harder to cast? I don't know.

Paladins are falling more towards clerics on the scale of clerics to fighters. A theme/build for clerics allowing them to pick some stuff to make the cleric play like a paladin makes sense.

Rangers act more like a druid/fighter mix that is limited in what it can done. Maybe if having the druid class, then the ranger could be a build for it?

I won't cover the 4e classes because i don't recall enough to discuss them.

Sorcerors and wizards were two sides of the same coin. They were basically opposites, but nearly all presentation of wizards in the books (dragonlance, Forgotten Realms) treated them as being sorcerers. I think maybe if they had something to make them unique it could work, otherwise it should be a subset of wizard.

I like the idea of having an Assassin class, mainly because it sounds cool. It could have some specialized stuff, plus a mix of fighter/rogue stuff. Being a theme could work also.

I think alot of classes currently available could be made into themes for classes. I think that the classes should be more unique, in that they fill a certain niche and don't have as much overlap. Being a fighter should be something that matters from first to twentieth level and you should be able to do more than 'make sandwiches for the wizard' to quote the idea of what a high level fighter could do according to one of my power gamers.

I think 4e's attitude towards classes was a step in the right direction, but it went overboard. They didn't do the best job of balance but then trying to balance fighters agaisnt wizards is nearly impossible.

Would it be too much to ask for the rules to be made in such as way as to prevent absurd Munchkinery? No more Pun-Puns? Ways to make it fun to DM without having to worry about power gamers or bizarre encounter design?

Please???

Also, you (this is directed at no one) remind me of my bird.

[Craft (Cheese)]

I could be won over by the warlord if they managed to do it right, though. If they can find a way to make the warlord feel mechanically unique and still tie into the rest of the game world thematically, I'd be thrilled. I'm not sure if they'll be able to pull it off though.

Let it work how it does in 4E: A class that specializes in letting other characters take extra out-of-turn actions. It's good enough, and separate enough from what the cleric does, that it'd definitely see play.

(Personally though I'd just give the wizard spells to do that instead of making a whole nother class)

[Kerrin]

I honestly thing the two of you are the only ones who know at this point...

New topic! What classes from previous editions do you think work better as stand-alone classes and which work better as themes or multiclass builds?

Two chassis: mundane and magical

5e is supposed to be built on modular bones so they should prove it by building all the classes from these two chassis by adding modules, themes, kits, whatever.

I like modular, reusable building blocks that can be combined invarious ways. I think it could be done.

[TheAbstruseOne]

Honestly though, judging by how many classes you specified you would remove, it seems you fall closer to the "only 3 classes with lots of specializations" from the beginning of my class rambling post. So maybe this whole point is moot. However it is important to note in a system where you have so few classes, each class needs to be able to represent a large variety of archtypes and roles, which means if you have Fighter/Cleric/Wizard, then you can't say "Only clerics can heal", you should be able to get an approximation of the Warlord through use of options of the Fighter class.

Except I specifically said I don't think that only clerics should heal. I want there to be tactical options for combat healing that don't involve the cleric. I want to be able to have a fighter, a thief, and a wizard go into a dungeon and not have it be an automatic death sentence. I don't want to have run a game where one player ends up saying "Fine, I guess I'll be the cleric this time..."

I just want each class to feel unique and cover enough ground that there's multiple build options.

Let it work how it does in 4E: A class that specializes in letting other characters take extra out-of-turn actions. It's good enough, and separate enough from what the cleric does, that it'd definitely see play.

Like that. See, that's a mechanic I can get behind. It's unique enough that it doesn't fit neatly into any of the other classes, but it's got a lot of room for variations in different builds. I still wouldn't want it as one of the "core" classes in the PHB, but I'd love to see something like that in a sourcebook.

[TheAbstruseOne]

Two chassis: mundane and magical

5e is supposed to be built on modular bones so they should prove it by building all the classes from these two chassis by adding modules, themes, kits, whatever.

I like modular, reusable building blocks that can be combined invarious ways. I think it could be done.

That might be going a bit too far in that direction. You abstract that far out and you're starting to get away from one of those "iconic D&D" mechanics and getting into the sort of bland, generic system that d20 Modern was when it first came out. You're also back to the power source/role system from 4e which means they'll have to create a class that meets every combination of the two for the OCD types and then you get weirdo classes no one ever plays like Runepriest or those off-the-wall psionic ones.

And for the record, I think it should be Fighter/Cleric/Wizard/Rogue if you're only using "core" classes. Fighter = attack, Cleric = divine magic, Wizard = arcane magic, Rogue = skills.

[Draz74]

If they do a "Warlord" class right, I actually think the class it will overlap with dangerously isn't the Fighter or the Cleric -- it's the Bard. The Bard's the one who's always had the schtick of "I radiate some kind of aura (not a spell) that makes my allies more effective."

I actually wouldn't mind if they basically just made the Bard a Theme/Background combination based on the Warlord class. But I don't think they'll do that, since Bard is more "iconic."

[Seerow]

If they do a "Warlord" class right, I actually think the class it will overlap with dangerously isn't the Fighter or the Cleric -- it's the Bard. The Bard's the one who's always had the schtick of "I radiate some kind of aura (not a spell) that makes my allies more effective."

I actually wouldn't mind if they basically just made the Bard a Theme/Background combination based on the Warlord class. But I don't think they'll do that, since Bard is more "iconic."

Well like I mentioned, anything more than Fightin' Man, Holy Man, and Magic Man is going to have some overlap in themes and roles. The question of where to draw the line is highly subjective (as evidenced by the arguments over the last page!)

While Warlord and Bard, may share similar roles within the party, I think they're distinct enough flavor-wise; and that can be extrapolated mechanically to remain separate. And clerics... well they overlap with everyone, in much the same way that a wizard overlaps with everyone, except clerics get told up front they're supposed to, because who their god is is supposed to change their role. (You may not have gotten the idea yet that I'm not particularly fond of the cleric class...)

[Craft (Cheese)]

If they do a "Warlord" class right, I actually think the class it will overlap with dangerously isn't the Fighter or the Cleric -- it's the Bard. The Bard's the one who's always had the schtick of "I radiate some kind of aura (not a spell) that makes my allies more effective."

I actually wouldn't mind if they basically just made the Bard a Theme/Background combination based on the Warlord class. But I don't think they'll do that, since Bard is more "iconic."

I actually think they could fix this by borrowing yet another idea from 4E: Bards are the ultimate dabblers and have the unique ability to multiclass as much as they want without penalty.

My idea was that a Bard can basically gestalt themselves with another class whenever they take a Bard level, but only for the first 1-3 levels of that class. So a 2nd level Bard can be Gestalted with 2 levels of fighter, having all of their 2nd level bard abilities (whatever those are) in addition to the Fighter's better BAB, damage, and Fighter's Surge ability. Then at level 3, they can gestalt in a level of Cleric to get orisons and more 1st-level spells (assuming the 5e bard will have spells like the 3e bard did).

Problem with this is that it makes a 2nd level Bard strictly better than a 2nd-level Fighter, but I'm sure there's some way to work that out. Maybe don't allow gestalting to start until level 3? Either way, it'd probably make the Bard the most fun core class to just mess around with the various build types, just like the 4E bard was.

[blackseven]

Again, I don't find the argument against "reasonable" to be compelling. Yes, "reasonable" is subjective, but it's not as wildly subjective as people seem to think. If we can't agree that a STR 16 person beating a STR 1 person in an arm wrestling match without a roll is "reasonable", I'm pretty sure I'm not going to want to play with that person.

Yes, the rules SHOULD provide more guidelines to establish a rough benchmark of what is reasonable, especially in regard to opposed check. NO, the list will NOT be exhaustive, nor will it be "objective" in the same sense that arithmetic is objective. There WILL be DM judgement calls, and players WILL disagree with them at times. You can and should lower the occurrence of this within the rules, but ultimately it becomes a question of minutiae. What's a good threshold for "DM calls over player objections?" I think about 5% is acceptable for me. Others seem to put the threshold at something like 0.01%.

The idea that rules have to be airtight is simply untenable. You are going to have to trust a DM to make calls. The rules cannot, ultimately, be detailed and thorough enough to eliminate this.

This is not a "binary" choice. We will all have a favored ranged within the continuum of "discretion" versus "explicit."

That might be going a bit too far in that direction. You abstract that far out and you're starting to get away from one of those "iconic D&D" mechanics and getting into the sort of bland, generic system that d20 Modern was when it first came out.

It's not right for D&D, but I happen to think that the "bland/generic" D20 modern base classes were brilliant. It better reflects the people you would find in world it was trying to emulate (2000+ AD Earth). The Advanced Classes allowed you specialization and strong flavor if you wanted, but you could easily just be some sort of everyman thrust into a situation.

And for the record, I think it should be Fighter/Cleric/Wizard/Rogue if you're only using "core" classes. Fighter = attack, Cleric = divine magic, Wizard = arcane magic, Rogue = skills.

Well like I mentioned, anything more than Fightin' Man, Holy Man, and Magic Man is going to have some overlap in themes and roles.

Although Seerow is right that the very easelier iteration of D&D only had those 3 classes, I think that, by now, the four (Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Thief) are *irreducibly* iconic.

[Clawhound]

If they can keep the core classes simple, and keep the "special widgets" that each class gets modular enough, then I'm all for as many iconic classes as possible.

[Clawhound]

As you can't create a perfect rules system, then you will certainly wind up with corner cases. Your tolerance for those corner cases greatly influences your system. The fewer the corner cases that you want, the more rules that you need, but more rules requires more testing and produces even more places where the rules can run wrong.

3.X certainly proved that enough rules still leads to weird results. So more rules, by themselves, are not guaranteed to be better, even if they are more "realistic." Look at the long thread elsewhere on these boards with "common sense" interpretations for the 3.X rules. In many cases, all the extra rules only masked the fact that behind them still sat weird results.

You can simplify the rules, which greatly reduces the number of possible interactions, and reduce breakage, but that also codify the existence of those absurdities. Unexpected breakage is reduced at the cost of unrealism.

That's it. Those are the tensions that exist in any design. Nothing will get rid of that tension, for there is no perfect game.

The only real question is what flaws are you willing to accept.

[Kerrin]

That might be going a bit too far in that direction. You abstract that far out and you're starting to get away from one of those "iconic D&D" mechanics and getting into the sort of bland, generic system that d20 Modern was when it first came out. You're also back to the power source/role system from 4e which means they'll have to create a class that meets every combination of the two for the OCD types and then you get weirdo classes no one ever plays like Runepriest or those off-the-wall psionic ones.

And for the record, I think it should be Fighter/Cleric/Wizard/Rogue if you're only using "core" classes. Fighter = attack, Cleric = divine magic, Wizard = arcane magic, Rogue = skills.

To clarify a bit, they could take this approach internally within the design team to produce the iconic four classes: fighter, cleric, mage, thief ... and put those in the players handbook. Then they could use the same process to produce the other classes for the players handbook, for example barbarian, monk, bard, etc.

Then they include some set of themes, kits, whateve that players can use to customize their personal flavor of the classes, for example the warrior cleric, the mystic assassin, etc.

[Seerow]

Again, I don't find the argument against "reasonable" to be compelling. Yes, "reasonable" is subjective, but it's not as wildly subjective as people seem to think. If we can't agree that a STR 16 person beating a STR 1 person in an arm wrestling match without a roll is "reasonable", I'm pretty sure I'm not going to want to play with that person.

Okay, and when it's a str 10 (+0) person against a str 18 guy with training (+7), is it still reasonable? What about when we leave the realm of physical behind and it's a 16 int Wizard's illusion against someone with 6 wis? Or a Bard's bluff against a low wis guard? Are these also reasonable?

And if you say yes to all of these examples, and any case where the modifiers are 7-8 points apart is in fact different enough for it to be reasonable for an auto success, why do the rules not support that? Because the rules as written tell me that with that 8 point difference, the better character is running with a 20% chance of failure. Why is it up to the DM and group to decide "no that doesn't make sense" rather than the rules telling me up front where the line of "This is easy enough to ignore" is drawn.

The idea that rules have to be airtight is simply untenable. You are going to have to trust a DM to make calls. The rules cannot, ultimately, be detailed and thorough enough to eliminate this.

The problem is we're not even looking at really weird corner cases. We're looking at numbers that are explicitly attainable taking actions that are very basic, and generating results that make no sense. I mean I don't care if the rules don't cover every possible situation, but when the rules tell me the strongest most skilled man in the world will fail to break down an average dungeon door about 40% of the time, and the weak frail wizard will actually succeed at it 10% of the time, that is a resolution system that makes no sense and should never have been allowed to be printed by a designer with half a lick of sense.

Although Seerow is right that the very easelier iteration of D&D only had those 3 classes, I think that, by now, the four (Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Thief) are *irreducibly* iconic.

I disagree. The design space between the Fighter and the Rogue traditionally have a lot of overlap, as the two main Mundane classes. Note how with the three specified, each one has a different power source, and will clearly represent different concepts. On the other hand, the only real reason to separate the Fighter and Rogue is if you believe that the Fighter can't do dex based combat (something I disagree with), that the Fighter can't take advantage of underhanded tactics (something I disagree with), or that the Fighter shouldn't be allowed to be skilled (something I heavily disagree with).

The two CAN be represented as separate classes, but ultimately the Fighter is capable of filling the rogue's role in and out of combat, and in a minimalistic game it should. Mainly because making the rogue separate and making something like skill usage a Rogue primary ability gimps the Fighter out of being able to be skilled... leaving him with basically no way to interract with the world out of combat (see: 3.5)

[TheAbstruseOne]

If they do a "Warlord" class right, I actually think the class it will overlap with dangerously isn't the Fighter or the Cleric -- it's the Bard. The Bard's the one who's always had the schtick of "I radiate some kind of aura (not a spell) that makes my allies more effective."

I actually wouldn't mind if they basically just made the Bard a Theme/Background combination based on the Warlord class. But I don't think they'll do that, since Bard is more "iconic."

The bard's overlap is going to be with the rogue. They both tend to be the jack-of-all-trades type character. If a warlord has an aura, it's going to have a different feeling. The warlord, if done right (and I have been convinced it can be), would be best served as support - sacrificing his own actions to give the rest of the party extra actions or buffs. His flavor will be pointing out weaknesses in enemy lines and things like that which make other characters more effective. Some builds will be more hands-on, while others will be the "lazy warlord" build. They could do something like "Make an attack with disadvantage. If it hits, an ally adjacent to the creature can make an attack with advantage." Or they spend their action to let others attack on their turn. Or they spend action to give their allies advantage next turn. Any healing they do should be built around the current system, though. Instead of the cleric's CLW/HW, they should allow characters to spend hit dice while still in combat. Fits with the feel of the warlord being a non-magical healer and leader.

A bard, on the other hand, should focus on the other side of combat - debuffing enemies. Using an illusion spell to distract enemies giving them disadvantage on attacks. Using a performance aura that as a bit of range to it (20ft or 30ft) that gives +1 to hit or +1 damage or something like that. Immobilize and trip up and distract enemies. 4e was one of the only editions to make bards an actual playable useful class that made sense, and they should build on that success. Give the bard a definable role. Where they're going to overlap is with rogues and illusionists, though. They should have a lot of out-of-combat usefulness as that sort of jack of all trades, especially in social situations (which can step on a lot of rogue builds).

Both of these classes, though, should be in a sourcebook. Their usefulness is solely as support classes. They're never going to be on the front lines of a fight and it's even more true with the warlord that they're rarely going to take front and center in a story (bards at least can dominate social encounters). They're going to be best in large groups, with 6 or 8 players like the old school games used to be sometimes. When you've got more players than your one cleric can keep up with, when there's a lot of tactical options, when your wizard's a blaster build rather than a controller build or the one controller can't keep up with the hordes. Somewhere that one character frequently giving out advantage and disadvantage isn't going to completely break the game, but at the same time is going to be able to do it in critical spots to turn the tide of a battle.

[prufock]

I just told everyone I'd be running an extra session for playtest on Memorial Day afternoon and anyone who wanted to show up could.

I'd love it if it were this simple, but my gaming group is only 4 people including me. Scheduling is a problem:
- One player works until around 7 every weeknight. We can't play late on weeknights because I work at 830 in the morning and another player works 8 or sometimes 6 am shifts.
- One player has an odd-scheduled job which includes some nights on the weekends, and is doing a course or two at university. Some weekends we don't get together at all, including this coming weekend.

I know we could have a bigger group, but we are picky over who joins us and we prefer to keep the group small (6 would be my absolute max number of players). We've had others join us before, but often our playstyles don't match, personalities don't match, it creates even MORE scheduling conflicts, etc. So we're sticking with 4 for now, unless a good option comes along.

That said, NEXT weekend, we are going to try to do 2 sessions if we can make it work: one for a game of Mutants and Masterminds, one for the Next playtest!

[Fatebreaker]

For the discussion over mechanics and modeling scenarios, let's back up a step and re-establish some basics:

• Mechanics influence play.
  
  
• Mechanics resolve conflicts within the narrative of the game.
  
  
• Good mechanics model system intentions.
  
  
• System intentions should be clearly expressed.

D&D uses a d20 as its most basic method of conflict resolution. Roll a number, beat another number. Because it's a twenty-sided die, it allows for 5% increments with regards towards failure or success. If it was a d100, it would allow for 1% increments, and if it was a d10, it would allow for 10% increments. So, because the system uses a d20, anything the system intends to be reliably (even if infrequently) modeled by the mechanics is something with a 5% or greater chance of success.

As a result, anything which the mechanics claim has a 5% or greater chance of success is something which becomes a legitimate option within the scope of the system.

If the mechanics allow for the reliable repetition of outcomes which are contrary to the intentions of the system, then the mechanics are flawed.

Now, sometimes we'll find weird examples where the rules don't quite interact properly. Hopefully these will be the true "corner cases" at the extremes of the system. But that's not the case here. The values are extreme, yes, but the mechanic itself is not -- from a game design point of view, the mechanic and it's functionality are very much central to the system as a whole!

The real issue is that you are selectively rejecting actions which are mechanically identical but thematically different within the core conflict resolution mechanism of the game.

Take the problem we've been examining, and strip all the fluff from it. It looks like this:

(Attribute) 1 vs. (Attribute) 20 = (d20-4) vs. (d20+5) = 11% or greater chance for (Attribute) 1 to succeed.

This holds true for all (Attribute) values which produce a modifier difference of 9.

The problem here is that the core conflict resolution mechanism of the game claims that this scenario is well worth rolling for -- it has more than a 10% chance of success for the weaker party! Whether it's the cripple out-wrestling Conan or a brain-damaged troll outwitting the Wizened Sage is irrelevant -- your group will find some iteration of this math problem which is fluffed as worth rolling for and some iteration of this math problem which is fluffed as not rolling for. When you start axing some of these scenarios as "unreasonable" and not worth rolling for, you're basically saying that the most fundamental aspect of the game does not work.

It's a playtest. Finding the flaws now and pointing them out in a clear, rational manner is one of the primary points of the exercise. Having a core mechanic return results so ridiculous that the "solution" is to hand-wave them away is indeed a flaw, because it undermines some of the most basic assumptions about the game.

Rule Zero should be an option. The DM and the players should always be able to tailor their game to fit their table. But Rule Zero should be the means by which they customize the game, not the means by which they fix basic mechanical flaws within the core of the system.

Or, put another way, you can Rule Zero and houserule and "be reasonable" with both good systems and bad systems. But wouldn't you rather have a better system to start with than a bad one?

[Scots Dragon]

One thought in that area I had, though it'd require some careful rebalancing, would be to have every number have its own adjustment, with 10 as a +0, 11 as a +1, 12 as a +2, and each ascending number adding a larger figure. 9 would be a -1, 8 would be a -2, etc.

The end result would be that 18 is a +8 and a 1 is a -9, a distance of 17 rather than 9. It's not a perfect result, but it does reduce the percentage somewhat drastically, and another way of handling it on top of that is to use bell curve rolls (2d10 or 3d8) in place of the sacred cow of d20 rolls.

While providing a similar range of possible results, it has a much lower chance of insane results that make the game impossible to work with. A maximum or minimum roll in either case is a 1-in-100 or 1-in-216 chance, depending on the specific dice used.

[Fatebreaker]

One thought in that area I had, though it'd require some careful rebalancing, would be to have every number have its own adjustment, with 10 as a +0, 11 as a +1, 12 as a +2, and each ascending number adding a larger figure. 9 would be a -1, 8 would be a -2, etc.

The end result would be that 18 is a +8 and a 1 is a -9, a distance of 17 rather than 9. It's not a perfect result, but it does reduce the percentage somewhat drastically, and another way of handling it on top of that is to use bell curve rolls (2d10 or 3d8) in place of the sacred cow of d20 rolls.

Either of these (alternate bonuses or alternate dice) would be interesting, especially swapping out the d20 for something else. I also liked the suggestion to incorporate Advantage/Disadvantage is you had a modifier some number higher than the DC/your opponents modifier, since that plays into their new Advantage/Disadvantage system, and makes success or failure in extreme cases more unlikely without skewing the math on more equally contested rolls.

For fun, it might be interesting to run the playtest scenario while tweaking the basic parameters of the Attribute Check system. What happens when you use 2d10? 3d8? 4d6? What happens when you scale modifiers in a different sort of way? What happens when you use Advantage/Disadvantage when you have a modifier of +4? +5? Where is the sweet spot, or is there not a sweet spot at all?

Fun questions. I'd be curious to see the answers.

[Clawhound]

There are a number of different kind of challenges in this game, each with its own measure of randomness/variability/uncertainty. How do you measure that uncertainty? How do you model it?

One way is bonuses. One side gets larger bonuses than the other, then a die is rolled accounting for uncertainty.

One way is situational bonuses. The side that get advantage or disadvantage skews the numbers either favorably or disfavorably.

One way is repetition. We don't measure combat in one hit. Combats take multiple rounds. One lucky roll may influence the combat, but mostly it the static bonuses that influence combat.

One way is verisimilitude. There is no way that sneezing hard hurts you opponent, no matter how well you roll.

So, let's taking bowling as an example. In one round of bowling, a complete amateur can outbowl a seasoned professional just by getting lucky. In no way does the seasoned professional look bad, because bowling is not measured in single throws. All bowlers know that there is variability in the game. That's why bowling measures ten sets. In those ten sets, the likelihood of the far worse player winning is infinitesimal.

Combat is a place where wild whims of luck can work in your favor, or against it. Even a seasoned warrior can make a mistake and get hit by a nobody. However, over the course of the battle, the seasoned warrior's hit points, equipment, and skill will overcome the amateur.

Single rolls are best for short actions. Do you hit? Do you open the door? Did you pick the lock? There's a yes/no answer for this.

Multi-rolls are best against results where randomness must be tempered with skill, such as combat, challenges, diplomacy, and group knowledge rolls. In these situations, luck may help you, but it's not substitute for competence or ability.

Maybe you need to combine systems. The ladder system in most sport combines luck (single games) with endurance (winning many games in a row). This gives the contest uncertainty but still rewards excellence.

What does this mean for D&D? It means that the DMs choice of conflict resolution greatly influences how correctly or incorrectly the conflict resolves. There's no game design way to avoid that.

[NichG]

Another solution, though I think its one that doesn't feel very D&D, is to have a 'Stat Rank' thing in addition to the numbers. Only characters/creatures with the same Stat Rank in the given statistic of comparison need to roll against eachother. An advantage or disadvantage is Stat Rank creates an auto-succeed/auto-fail situation.

So, if Fighters should just be Strong compared to everyone else, they would get Strength Rank 2 at a certain level, whereas normal humans have Strength Rank 1 (and small animals like cats have Strength Rank 0). That way you can decouple fluffed strength with out-of-control numerical scaling needed to represent those numbers in an opposed contest with the d20 as the core resolution mechanic (since it'd mean that someone who can auto-defeat a human is also probably dealing an extra 30 points of damage per attack, which is undesirable).

Lets say then from this point of view that humanoids default to Rank 1 in all stats. Smaller animals have Str Rank 0, Int Rank 0, Wis Rank 2 (if we take Wis to be perception and assume that animals all have a better sense of smell). Ogres, trolls, and giants have Str Rank 2. Dragons, Kraken, etc have Str Rank 3. Illithids might have Int Rank 2. And so on.

A bad disease might lower your Stat Rank instead of just lowering your stat (therefore modeling the diseased commoner example). Infants and children might just have Str Rank 0, so no they can't beat the trained soldier at a Str contest.

Also, if Fighters are the only people to get stuff like Str Rank 2, it does help make them be (slightly) more quadratic, in that there's a point where impossible feats of strength open up to them. Though it doesn't nearly fix the versatility problem.

[Stubbazubba]

Again, I don't find the argument against "reasonable" to be compelling. Yes, "reasonable" is subjective, but it's not as wildly subjective as people seem to think. If we can't agree that a STR 16 person beating a STR 1 person in an arm wrestling match without a roll is "reasonable", I'm pretty sure I'm not going to want to play with that person.

Then, as I've already suggested, change it to a non-STR or even any physical-based scenario. Let's say the guard has a 10 in his WIS (human average) and the level 1 Bard has a 20 in CHA (human limit). Now, the Bard is trying to bluff his way past the guard. Going on sheer reasonableness, the guard might catch a lucky break and see through the Bard (the Bard's only level 1, and these sorts of challenges are supposed to be, well, challenging), so you call for a roll. In fact, that is only a 5-point difference (d20+0 vs. d20+5) on that roll! That means there's over a 1 in 4 chance that the dice will favor the guard. Clearly this is not a foregone conclusion by any means.

But now let's change the fluff; that same Bard is now level 20, and trying to bluff his way into Olympus, and a god is standing guard outside the gate. This god's WIS is 30 (god limit), vs. the Bard's 20 CHA (human limit). At this point, you're dealing with a supernatural creature with the power to re-write physics with divine magic, who has been guarding this gate from infernal threats for millennia; there's no way some human Bard, even the best of human Bards, who had to actually roll against that not-a-Rhodes-Scholar guard, and his ability to Bluff hasn't increased since, is going to just turn-a-phrase and convince him he's actually a god in disguise. Reasonableness demands that no roll be allowed, you fail automatically. But, you guessed it, this is only a 5-pt. difference on the actual roll, and the Bard, in reality, has a 26.25% chance of succeeding, and that's not a foregone conclusion at all.

So within the same class, between levels, the rule is wont to be applied inconsistently.

But let's change it up again; a level 20 Fighter (STR 20, +2 on grapples) is locked in epic combat with a dragon (STR 30), who grapples him to the ground with a single paw. The Fighter says he wants to try and pry one or two of the the claws off of him so he can escape. The DM laughs at him and dismisses it; no mortal can just lift a giant's claw off of himself. As a matter of fact, assuming the absence of size bonuses (which are absent from the playtest docs), there was only a difference of 3 on that roll! The Fighter had almost a 40% chance of success! But it was unreasonable because the DM considered the image it would produce unreasonable.

But then, level 20 Bard is trying to trick the same dragon into leaving his lair, and he has a CHA of 20, but a +2 to bluff checks when he casts a certain Illusion spell. The dragon has a WIS of 32. The Bard says he wants to cast an illusion and bluff the dragon out. The DM, not realizing that, mechanically, the Bard's odds are less than the Fighter's, looks at it and says, "Ooh, that's clever. Go for it." And the Bard succeeds!

Man, wasn't that heroic? Isn't everyone having fun? But guess which class just got hosed because it's not magic, and the rules are very prone to be applied inconsistently, based on what's "reasonable"? So the rule isn't likely to be consistently applied between different classes of the same level, either. And we're talking very small differences in actual modifier, here. This kind of thing could come up every session possibly multiple times, ergo it is not a .01% deal. This is like 1/3 of the game is completely up to the DM's arbitration instead of using any mechanics whatsoever.

The idea that rules have to be airtight is simply untenable. You are going to have to trust a DM to make calls.

And I totally agree. But the DM making a call should not be the first rule for all skill checks. That's not Rule 0 anymore, that's Rule 1. The mechanics are there to make the vast majority of things fair and workable, and fun; the DM's job is to arbitrate in corner cases, which should come up maybe, maybe once a session, at the very most, but this? This is no longer a corner case; trying to grapple a dragon isn't a corner case, nor is bluffing a guard, be he mundane or celestial. This is what your class does, and the DM is encouraged to deny you your own schtick if it seems fishy when he pictures it. Which will be different for every DM. It throws a huge portion of the game out, and replaces it with DM fiat instead. If that's the case, then I don't need to pay WotC or anyone else $150 to ask another human being if my character can auto-succeed at this, 'cause hey, he's like Hercules and that guy's a cripple.

When Rule 0 is the only way the rules actually work, you're paying for vaporware. Rule 0 is the only rule you need, then. Rule 0 is and ought to remain a last resort, when mechanics have failed for whatever rare scenario, not built into the mechanics to remove all responsibility from the designers. This is what's left.

EDIT: Put another way: The mechanics of the game form a bridge across a wide chasm. It's imperfect, but 95/100 times you can get across safely; Rule 0 is a team of firefighters with a giant trampoline on the ground far below, ready to catch you on the off-chance that you fall through. If, however, the bridge is missing 1/4 or 1/3 of the chasm's length, then Rule 0 is forced to become part of the bridge itself, and do a lot more heavy lifting than is appropriate. That's not good for the game, but it is explicitly what Next has done; built an incomplete mechanic, and then stapled on Rule 0 to make it complete. They've hard-coded the Oberoni fallacy into the rules themselves, which I think is a harbringer of the last days, IIRC from the last time I read the Book of Revelations.

So either the d20 is a completely incompatible RNG for the numbers they're using, or the skill system, if nothing else, needs to be overhauled and auto-successes/failures determined in some consistent, objective way, at least by RAW.

[kyoryu]

This is what your class does, and the DM is encouraged to deny you your own schtick if it seems fishy when he pictures it. Which will be different for every DM. It throws a huge portion of the game out, and replaces it with DM fiat instead. If that's the case, then I don't need to pay WotC or anyone else $150 to ask another human being if my character can auto-succeed at this, 'cause hey, he's like Hercules and that guy's a cripple.

And I believe this is the crux of the argument, the role of the DM in the game.

I'm a bit more on the old-school side in this, I guess. I don't worry about bad DMs, because in the end, bad DMs will make bad games no matter what. If the DM assumes the world knows what the PCs are up to, have unlimited resources, and magically can think of everything the PCs come up, then it will be a pretty terrible game no matter what. The DM screwing me on a couple of skill checks is pretty minor compared to that.

Essentially, I view the primary interaction as players and DM. Others view the primary interaction as the players and DM interacting through the rules. They're both valid approaches.