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  1. - Top - End - #1141
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by Grundy View Post
    So I'm late to the party, and undoubtedly this has been discussed upstream, and i understand that dnd doesn't simulate real world situations perfectly. But I just noticed the weight and carrying rules in the packet, and I have a huge problem with them.
    There's the neat formula- simple, direct. Str x 10 = encumbered. Encumbered weight x5= Max lift. Well, the current deadlift record is 1015 lbs. That works out to a 20 Str. Cool.
    So the average guy, by this formula, isn't encumbered until 150 lbs, and can deadlift 500. Hmmm... That's awfully high. I am a carpenter by trade, so I lift large heavy objects all day. 150 lbs is a lot to ask of a laborer- ie a strong person- just to lift. I'd say that a person of above average strength IRL gets encumbered at around 75 lbs. That's like a large bag of concrete.
    I also lift weights, and I know that I can deadlift 300 lbs. Now, I'm not the strongest guy in town, but I am a big strong guy. In 5e terms, I have a Str of 6.
    I don't expect perfect rules, but this is just stupid. It totally takes my head out of the game.
    I agree its stupid. I really liked the progression in 3e. Attempting to make strength gains linear ends up with either really wimpy strongmen, or way too strong weak guys.
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  2. - Top - End - #1142
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    @Mentieth

    You're taking the quote out of context. Number of options != power of character. Extra options can affect the power of a character, but they are not the same. Everything you've said here is a stated goal of DnD 5e.

    @Seerow

    No, you don't. First off, a level 5 wizard has exactly 9 spells as per the most recent playtest. Second, a fighter's maneuvers are at-will, rather than daily. If a fighter had the same number of maneuvers as a wizard, that would be a problem, because it would mean that the fighter has the same number of options every single round that the wizard gets over the course of a day.
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  3. - Top - End - #1143
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by AgentPaper View Post
    @Seerow

    No, you don't. First off, a level 5 wizard has exactly 9 spells as per the most recent playtest. Second, a fighter's maneuvers are at-will, rather than daily. If a fighter had the same number of maneuvers as a wizard, that would be a problem, because it would mean that the fighter has the same number of options every single round that the wizard gets over the course of a day.

    Wrong. A Wizard has 9 spells per day, but he has 30 spells known, because he has no meaningful limits on how many spells he can have on his spellbook. And that's not counting cantrips which adds at minimum 2 more spells to that, potentially up to 5.

    40 was an exaggeration, but not much of one. Trying to compare how many spells a Wizard has prepared at any given time against the sum of a Fighter's abilities is entirely missing the point of how potent a Wizard's flexibility is.


    Edit: If on the other hand you are suggesting that the Fighter should get access to 40 maneuvers and pick 5 of them at the start of the day, then sure, I will be more open to that particular comparison.

    edit2: Put my edit in the middle of the post instead of the end. woops.
    Last edited by Seerow; 2012-09-21 at 10:16 PM.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by ghost_warlock View Post
    On the other hand, getting killed by random rat #3384 isn't fun. God, I hate fragile characters - every combat is reduced to luck of the die. That may be a good game design for a board game or poker, but it's crap design for a RPG that's supposed to be telling a story.
    It all has to do with the over all lethality of the creature attacking you. Odds are that you will not get killed by a rat, but if a human comes at you with a weapon, no matter how powerful you are, I want you to feel like the person is a threat. Imagine if you will a lone man with a shotgun versus a gang of guys with tire irons & other clubs. Yes the advantage is clearly to the guy with the gun, but he could still screw up & get hit in the brainpan & die.

    Shadowrun is one of the few systems I've seen where no matter how powerful you were. If you were were dumb & got caught in the open & surrounded you were pretty much hosed. I want to at least see a module to make my games more lethal, as well as curbing the games exponential increase of HP & damage overall in the core rules.

    Level one character's aren't heroes. Not yet, they are professionals yes, competent & able to handle themselves, yes. Heroship comes after, no one should start a hero at level one.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by Anderlith View Post
    It all has to do with the over all lethality of the creature attacking you. Odds are that you will not get killed by a rat, but if a human comes at you with a weapon, no matter how powerful you are, I want you to feel like the person is a threat. Imagine if you will a lone man with a shotgun versus a gang of guys with tire irons & other clubs. Yes the advantage is clearly to the guy with the gun, but he could still screw up & get hit in the brainpan & die.
    I presume that he was referring to the Q&A session from the previous page, where James Wyatt seriously said that being able to die to a rat attack was a feature, not a bug.
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  6. - Top - End - #1146
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by AgentPaper View Post
    @Mentieth

    You're taking the quote out of context. Number of options != power of character. Extra options can affect the power of a character, but they are not the same. Everything you've said here is a stated goal of DnD 5e.
    Number of options is absolutely indicative of power. The ability to deal with a wide range of situations effectively is the way power is most readily evaluated in 3.5, and with good reason - the ability to hit ridiculously hard (or another highly specialized talent) is pretty low power as such a character is ineffective in a wide range of situations. Outside of situations specifically tailored to prevent a Wizard's dominance (specifically disallowing magic via Dead Magic/Antimagic, using specific effects to nullify a Wizard's advantages such as Anticipate Teleport or Vecna Blooded, etc) a Wizard will be able to contribute to every encounter. As they've previously stated they do not have an effective fix for the 10 minute adventuring day (if I recall correctly, they're attempting to shift the burden of solving it onto the DM - if I'm mistaken on this, please correct me), I see little reason why Wizards in D&D Next, with access to "iconic" spells, will not be magnitudes more powerful than the Fighter in many situations, even if the Fighter is effective in a single situation.

    Additionally, I really don't think I'm taking the quote out of context. I could type up a complete transcript rather than what I've done already, where the somewhat frustrated person asking the question continues to press him for more information, before they interrupt him and move on to a different question, but I'd rather not have to do it. In the context of the question, in the context of the panel, the creative lead on D&D Next states that the design of the game is that the Fighter will have less options than the Wizard purely "because its magic".

    EDIT

    My primary objection isn't that the Fighter is really low power. I mean, I'd love to see a mechanically sophisticated mundane character with a wide range of options, both on a tactical battlefield and out of combat, and I hope that they'll deliver on that still, but there's a bigger issue. I would have liked to have seen a serious decrease in the scope of a Wizard's powers as compared to 3.5. If they're ceding that Wizards inherently need to have way more options than other classes "because magic"....well, that's sort of horrible.
    Last edited by Menteith; 2012-09-21 at 10:56 PM.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by Seerow View Post
    Wrong. A Wizard has 9 spells per day, but he has 30 spells known, because he has no meaningful limits on how many spells he can have on his spellbook. And that's not counting cantrips which adds at minimum 2 more spells to that, potentially up to 5.

    40 was an exaggeration, but not much of one. Trying to compare how many spells a Wizard has prepared at any given time against the sum of a Fighter's abilities is entirely missing the point of how potent a Wizard's flexibility is.


    Edit: If on the other hand you are suggesting that the Fighter should get access to 40 maneuvers and pick 5 of them at the start of the day, then sure, I will be more open to that particular comparison.

    edit2: Put my edit in the middle of the post instead of the end. woops.
    No, I'm not suggesting that. That kind of homogenization is what 4E did, and while I love 4E, that's not what Next is going for. The fighter and the wizard are supposed to be different.

    I'd also like to point out that the number of spells you could potentially cast is FAR less important than the number of spells you actually can cast at any given point in time. It is an advantage when the wizard can prepare in advance, but that doesn't happen all the time.

    It's also an advantage that the wizard needs much more than the fighter. Spells are much more specific and situational, by and large, than maneuvers are.

    The solution to fighter/wizard balance isn't to make everyone into wizards. It's to make the fighter and the wizard balanced.
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  8. - Top - End - #1148
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by Anderlith View Post
    It all has to do with the over all lethality of the creature attacking you. Odds are that you will not get killed by a rat, but if a human comes at you with a weapon, no matter how powerful you are, I want you to feel like the person is a threat. Imagine if you will a lone man with a shotgun versus a gang of guys with tire irons & other clubs. Yes the advantage is clearly to the guy with the gun, but he could still screw up & get hit in the brainpan & die.

    Shadowrun is one of the few systems I've seen where no matter how powerful you were. If you were were dumb & got caught in the open & surrounded you were pretty much hosed. I want to at least see a module to make my games more lethal, as well as curbing the games exponential increase of HP & damage overall in the core rules.

    Level one character's aren't heroes. Not yet, they are professionals yes, competent & able to handle themselves, yes. Heroship comes after, no one should start a hero at level one.
    That's all fine and good, but not entirely relevant given that Wyatt has been quoted as saying 'Mike, our boss, has been steering us very clearly toward an experience that is more like the classic feel of "I'm fragile, I could go into this dungeon and be killed by a giant rat."'

    The designers aren't trying to build a system reminiscent of the Shadowrun experience you describe but instead one where they're intentionally pitting low level characters against the odds of a dice roll instead of having good/bad decisions on the part of the player/character decide their fate. Unless you want to make the argument that adventuring itself is a bad decision, which may be valid, but essentially undermines the entire purpose of the game.

    I'm fine with low-level characters being significantly weaker than high level ones, but there's no need to intentionally make them more fragile when, typically, the inherent randomness of low modifiers on dice rolls makes them more vulnerable to begin with.

    Exceptionally fragile low-level characters are no more fun for me than playing rocket tag with save-or-dies. Some people enjoy games where a single bad roll can end their character's career, but it shouldn't be the default for 5e. Especially when the majority of games take place at low level. I don't really want to return to the days where I had to bring 4-5 characters to a session simply to stay in the game after having characters die from essentially nothing more than bad luck.

  9. - Top - End - #1149
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by AgentPaper View Post
    No, I'm not suggesting that. That kind of homogenization is what 4E did, and while I love 4E, that's not what Next is going for. The fighter and the wizard are supposed to be different.
    You can have similar numbers of abilities available while having different resource/ability usage structures. Claiming it's all in on the 4e side or all in on the pre-4e side is a bad argument.

    I'd also like to point out that the number of spells you could potentially cast is FAR less important than the number of spells you actually can cast at any given point in time. It is an advantage when the wizard can prepare in advance, but that doesn't happen all the time.
    It happens often enough to make it a very notable advantage. Having complete access to a large spell list is FAR more valuable than you are giving it credit for.

    It's also an advantage that the wizard needs much more than the fighter. Spells are much more specific and situational, by and large, than maneuvers are.
    Some are, some aren't. There's a number of spells that are very generally useful. On the other hand, Fighters have no capability at all outside of combat, while Wizards have plenty of spells that contribute there.

    The solution to fighter/wizard balance isn't to make everyone into wizards. It's to make the fighter and the wizard balanced.
    Giving everyone similar numbers of options doesn't make everyone wizards. If you need magic to have more options to feel magical then that's a personal issue, not some universal truth.
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  10. - Top - End - #1150
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    The problem with 3.5 casters isn't technically the number of spells they can cast, or the variety of spells they can cast, but rather, the strength of the spells they cast. When the power of individual spells are so high, adding the ability to cast many of them, as well as giving access to a variety of them simply exacerbates the problem.

    Consider that the 4e Wizard has more "options" than your average character (due to their spellbook giving them "twice" the number of abilities, even if they're limited to the same AEDU system), but that the "extra" spells aren't particularly useful compared to past editions.

    This is because there isn't a huge advantage in 4e to picking between two different abilities, as powerful situational abilities (i.e. Dimensional Anchor, Ray of Stupidity) and powerful "save or lose" abilities (i.e. Dominate Person, Otto's Irresistible Dance) are absent from the system.

    Furthermore, the overall power "disparity" of spells on a particular level isn't very high, and even when there are "clear" winners, the system rarely punishes a particular choice. Unless the character goes out of their way to focus too heavily on either a particular NAD attack (i.e. all of their abilities attack the Will defense) or unless they focus too heavily on a particular "type" of power (i.e. Fire keyworded spells), the chances that they will be punished for picking the "wrong" spells is low.

    If 5e insists on giving Wizards the ability to cast a "lot" of spells, as well as allowing them pick and choose from a list in their spellbook when preparing, then what must be tackled is the overall "strength" of the spells they cast. I believe they've mentioned the desire to cut down on the strength of the "utility" spells (i.e. 3.5 Invisibility, Knock, Silent Image, etc.), but they also must cut down on the "save or lose" spells. This doesn't mean they can't have something similar to the old' 3.5 Dominate Monster or Disintegrate, but that they should probably follow 4e's lead in reducing the overall lethality (and duration) or spells that cause a player/monster to "lose".

  11. - Top - End - #1151
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
    Sure. Nevertheless, you suggested earlier that a game with poor mechanics cannot have staying power. Exalted proves that yes, it can. There are numerous other examples; for example, the card game Munchkin has rather bad mechanics (which is quite possibly intentional), but it's just sheer fun and its sales figures are through the roof.
    To be fair, 2e Exalted has not been out long, it's already generated fan fixes and a massive errata document, and is already getting a third edition. This is bad even for WW.


    I'm sure that there are some games where you can replace one fluff by another without affecting the game quality. But this clearly isn't what makes a game good, because there are many popular games (e.g. Settlers) where the fluff is not so easy to change. Settlers is also vastly more popular than Ninja vs Ninja. This underlines the claim that having fluff and crunch rely upon each other makes for a more popular game than having the fluff "tacked on" to some mathematical model.
    You could change settlers of catans fluff to anything. Those resource cards could have anything on their picture. The settlements, cities, and roads could be changed to anything as well, so long as they somehow generate cards. Farming and territory aquisition happens to be popular in German games, so that's the direction they went.

    The difference is that a game with intertwined fluff and crunch is immersive, whereas a game with tacked-on fluff is moving pieces of wood around a table. Mind you, there is nothing wrong with moving pieces of wood around a table (e.g. playing chess) but you'll cater to a bigger audience if you can do both. You don't choose between fluff and mechanics, the key is doing both.
    For experienced players, weak fluff is little problem. Fluff is primarly a way to draw new players in, and rarely says much about the actual quality of a product.


    There is nothing clashing between the mechanics of jumping and the fluff of jumping. You are talking about things that aren't possible in real life, but that has nothing to do with fluff/crunch clashes. This debate has been done to death already so I'm not going to repeat it here; just look in the earlier 5 threads for examples if you want.
    Hey, I just brought up an example where the rules, fighters can perform supernatural feats, counter the fluff, fighters have no supernatural abilities.

    No, but being popular does stop a game from being bad - at least, from a marketing point of view. It's a philosophical debate whether quality is decided by popular demand, but from a sales point of view: yes it is. WOTC does not want a game that the critics love but the players won't buy.
    I don't care about marketing. Walmart has great marketing, but it's still bad store that sells sub-par products. People buy cigarettes constantly, but that doesn't mean that they are not a completely horrible product. Unfortunately, quality does not always mean profit(though it helps), and profit does not always mean quality.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by Ashdate View Post
    If 5e insists on giving Wizards the ability to cast a "lot" of spells, as well as allowing them pick and choose from a list in their spellbook when preparing, then what must be tackled is the overall "strength" of the spells they cast. I believe they've mentioned the desire to cut down on the strength of the "utility" spells (i.e. 3.5 Invisibility, Knock, Silent Image, etc.), but they also must cut down on the "save or lose" spells. This doesn't mean they can't have something similar to the old' 3.5 Dominate Monster or Disintegrate, but that they should probably follow 4e's lead in reducing the overall lethality (and duration) or spells that cause a player/monster to "lose".
    It also means cutting down or removing absolutes and auto successes. Stuff like Mind Blank or Foresight lose the "X is no longer capable of succeeding" clauses. Gate would no longer compel called creatures to capitulate to the casters commands (if, by a stroke of luck it actually kept the calling function at all).

    It's essentially reducing depth of power in exchange for width and breadth of power.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Regarding the maneuvers vs. spells thing, as far as the posted quote is concerned I don't really care about how many maneuvers fighters get, how many spells a wizard can scribe into his spellbook, whether and when you can swap things out, and so forth. I'm concerned that they're anticipating there being as many fighter maneuvers in all of 5e as there are wizard spells in the 5e PHB. That's pretty much the 3e situation, actually, if you look at the over 2000 arcane and divine spells throughout 3e vs. the almost 270 ToB maneuvers published. Look how many homebrew ToB disciplines have been (and are still being) made to increase options, add support for a particular theme, etc. while "there's a published spell for that" is long past being cliché.

    Just as important as power of a particular character's build is the flexibility of a class in making different build. Your stock 3e wizard can be built as a summoner, a blaster, a crowd controller, a trickster, and many more roles, plus tighter themes like ice mage or holy wizard or the like, and pretty much all of them will be fun to play, effective, and valuable, even if they're not the absolute best option out there. Meanwhile, there are a handful of fighter builds that are effective (charger, dungeoncrasher, tripper, intimidator, AoO lockdown, and a few niche ones) and a handful of more "fun" builds (shield bashers, mounted warriors, etc.), and the two don't tend to overlap much and/or are outdone by other classes (rangers and archery, barbarians and PA).

    If there aren't enough fighter maneuvers to pick from--particularly if they're as unimpressive as the ones in the playtest--then building a fighter will once again come down to either aiming for effectiveness and coming up with one of a handful of "good" builds, or aiming for uniqueness and fun and not being able to make something too unusual, or both. The wizard will get to keep its insane flexibility in build to let you build whatever sort of wizard you want to play. Even if individual fighter builds are "better" than individual wizard builds or they have more options than individual wizards do, if we start running out of interesting things to do with fighters because they have such meager material released for them they'll have a big problem.

    Ideally, I'd like to see classes have the versatility in build of 3e casters and the versatility in play of 3e martial types: you have a few bazillion options to choose from in building your character, but once you pick what you want you get a more tightly-themed power set. When you finish building your wizard it looks like a beguiler or dread necro, when you finish building your fighter it looks like a knight or marshal, and in both cases there are plenty more characters to explore. The sorcerer and warlock are different enough from the wizard to make me optimistic that individual classes will have plenty of ways to differentiate themselves, but we'll have to see how the next set of martial classes to be released turn out.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    I really don't mind if first-level characters are fragile. In any campaign where I don't want that, I can simply start at level 3 or 4 instead.


    Quote Originally Posted by AgentPaper View Post
    The solution to fighter/wizard balance isn't to make everyone into wizards. It's to make the fighter and the wizard balanced.
    Also, this. While wizards have lots of effects that sound powerful, it's up to the rules to actually make them powerful. For example, they could rule that magical flight has an altitude limit of 5 feet; or that polymorphing an enemy into a frog only makes him unable to attack for one turn; or that invisible creatures can be automatically located unless they're good at stealth checks.
    I'm not saying that's the right solution, but it's not all that hard to make spells less powerful than they were in 3E.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by AgentPaper View Post
    Fighters don't need 50 pages of Maneuvers to be complex, deep, and fun to play. Maneuvers aren't spells, and comparing the to spells isn't going to help anyone.
    I really disliked Tome of Battle. Especially because it's explicitly called "Blade Magic", and yet people claim it's the fix for mundane classes.

    Quote Originally Posted by Seerow View Post
    They aren't spells, but they are the Fighter's answer to them. If a level 5 Wizard has 40 spells in his spell book while a level 5 Fighter has 5 Maneuvers, 3 of which he gets to choose himself, you have a very big problem.
    In my opinion, the solution is to power down the Wizard. If Fighter's can't keep up while staying mundane, then slow down the Wizard's advancement. Make them a little stronger at low levels, when Fighters tend to win out, but slow down their advancement. Also, make fewer combat spells, so yes, they'll have more options, but most of those will be utility spells or support spells so they actually have to think and roleplay that Int score.

    Quote Originally Posted by Grundy View Post
    So I'm late to the party, and undoubtedly this has been discussed upstream, and i understand that dnd doesn't simulate real world situations perfectly. But I just noticed the weight and carrying rules in the packet, and I have a huge problem with them.
    There's the neat formula- simple, direct. Str x 10 = encumbered. Encumbered weight x5= Max lift. Well, the current deadlift record is 1015 lbs. That works out to a 20 Str. Cool.
    So the average guy, by this formula, isn't encumbered until 150 lbs, and can deadlift 500. Hmmm... That's awfully high. I am a carpenter by trade, so I lift large heavy objects all day. 150 lbs is a lot to ask of a laborer- ie a strong person- just to lift. I'd say that a person of above average strength IRL gets encumbered at around 75 lbs. That's like a large bag of concrete.
    I also lift weights, and I know that I can deadlift 300 lbs. Now, I'm not the strongest guy in town, but I am a big strong guy. In 5e terms, I have a Str of 6.
    I don't expect perfect rules, but this is just stupid. It totally takes my head out of the game.
    Well, encumbrance depends vastly on how you're carrying the weight. I can carry a 100-lb girl on my back for a couple of miles, keeping up with everybody else and chatting, easily. Carrying her in my arms, I wouldn't be able to go even a quarter of a mile without dropping her.
    Average Str is 10-11. So the average guy is encumbered between 100-110 lbs. I'm probably a little above average in terms of strength, and I was fine carrying a 100-lb girl on my back with my legs supporting most of the weight, but I couldn't run more than 100m like that, at about half speed (based on experience). So you're probably right that the average guy would be encumbered at around 75-80 pounds of well-distributed mass.
    I don't know what I can deadlift (the time I would have tried, I had a badly injured right hand and it couldn't take more than five pounds), but I can squat nearly my body weight (I weigh 180 lbs) when I'm out of shape.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by noparlpf View Post
    I really disliked Tome of Battle. Especially because it's explicitly called "Blade Magic", and yet people claim it's the fix for mundane classes.
    Yes, I think you've got it now!

    In my opinion, the solution is to power down the Wizard. If Fighter's can't keep up while staying mundane, then slow down the Wizard's advancement. Make them a little stronger at low levels, when Fighters tend to win out, but slow down their advancement.
    All this can possibly do is make high levels play exactly like low levels but with bigger numbers being traded back and forth. The Fighter 20 is still only adept at melee-ing big, fleshy monsters, that's literally all he can do. That's exactly what he was doing at level 1.

    The Wizard is flying, traveling between dimensions, going invisible, transforming, creating walls of stone or steel, summoning other beings, communing with deities, seeing the future and re-writing matter, let alone what he can do in combat. The Wizard's game expands into a whole different beast by mid levels, and then again at high levels. And if you're going to have 20 levels, that's honestly as it should be.

    If the answer is to reign in the Wizard to the Fighter's pace, then the game needs to stop at level 6, tops, because any advancement at the Fighter's pace is largely meaningless numeric bonuses which are just off-set by the new CR's AC and saves, anyway.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    You sit around and pretend to be adventurers going into a dangerous environment and killing stuff and performing heroic quests and all this and people don't look back on the adventure they played three years ago and say "remember when I moved three squares that way and did a Tide of Iron and forced the guy four squares back into the fire?" They talk about "Remember when we went into that tomb and there was that monstrosity with six arms and three heads, and you cast that spell that made it blind?"
    I know I shouldn't, but I read into this as "no one remembers when the fighter did a cool thing, they only remember it when you cast cool spells!"

    In regards to the current discussion, I think maneuvers for the fighter are great. They work well with their current expertise dice mechanic, and I'm fine with having a lot to choose from. As long as they don't feel too "magical" I don't see why anyone should complain about them, but perhaps there should be some semi-magical ones for people who want to play that way.

    So far, the options for spellcasters in Next are very easily comparable to stuff that other classes can do. I kinda hope they stay that way. Which isn't to say I hope they all stay direct damage, because I love battlefield control. I'd just be irritated if ONLY spellcasters can do battlefield control. No, the fighter being able to push/prone creatures one size category larger doesn't count.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by Seerow View Post
    You can have similar numbers of abilities available while having different resource/ability usage structures. Claiming it's all in on the 4e side or all in on the pre-4e side is a bad argument.
    You're dealing in dodgy statistics.

    Take a fighter with the manouevre "kill anything and everything you want dead within 10,000 feet. Things with fighter levels are immune, but no other recourse is permitted." That's one manouevre. Massively underpowered, right?

    Take a wizard with the spells "summon fluffy bunnies", "feed hamster", "summon inflatable mallet", "summon discarded banana peel" and "wet tissue paper armour". That's five spells. Five times more spells than the fighter gets manoeuvres. That's ridiculously overpowered, right?

    Now obviously, this is an extreme pair of examples, but you should be able to see the point: simply having 40 spells doesn't make you more powerful than a guy with five manoeuvres, or even necessarily more versatile. It depends on what the spells are and what the manoeuvres are.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by lesser_minion View Post
    You're dealing in dodgy statistics.

    Take a fighter with the manouevre "kill anything and everything you want dead within 10,000 feet. Things with fighter levels are immune, but no other recourse is permitted." That's one manouevre. Massively underpowered, right?

    Take a wizard with the spells "summon fluffy bunnies", "feed hamster", "summon inflatable mallet", "summon discarded banana peel" and "wet tissue paper armour". That's five spells. Five times more spells than the fighter gets manoeuvres. That's ridiculously overpowered, right?

    Now obviously, this is an extreme pair of examples, but you should be able to see the point: simply having 40 spells doesn't make you more powerful than a guy with five manoeuvres, or even necessarily more versatile. It depends on what the spells are and what the manoeuvres are.
    Okay now think this through seriously and tell me you honestly believe that the Fighter's 5 maneuvers will be more varied in use and utility than even 5 of the Wizard's spells, much less 40 of them.

    Yes, power level matters. But number of options does as well. Right now the current design is Wizards get more powerful spells, that are more versatile, and a greater number of them, because "magic". Even if you made sure all of the fighter maneuvers had the same diversity and power as spells, the Wizard still has a greater number, and is better (see: Wizard vs Sorcerer).

    The only way for the argument to work out in your favor is if, as you posit, the spells are made MUCH weaker than the maneuvers, and have a very limited scope. You and I both know that isn't going to happen, so why do you even bother trying to put it forward as a possibility?
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by lesser_minion View Post
    Now obviously, this is an extreme pair of examples, but you should be able to see the point: simply having 40 spells doesn't make you more powerful than a guy with five manoeuvres, or even necessarily more versatile. It depends on what the spells are and what the manoeuvres are.
    Okay, then how about this: assuming a equal or near-equal range of power, more options is better than less. If maneuvers were more powerful than spells, but spells were more versatile, then there would be a balance. But I think there's a rather fat chance of that happening.

    Of course, the common assumed balancing factor is how often you can use spells against how often you can use a maneuver. I honestly feel this is the trickiest way to balance, because I've seen a lot of GMs run adventures where you have maybe 1-2 combat encounters per day. Obviously daily powers are more useful and potent in such a setting.

    Now, one thing scares me, and it's the reaction of certain players to "encounter" and "at-will" wizard spells, which are said to be an optional thing. In order to truly balance powers you can use on a regular basis, and powers that you need to take a long rest to get back, you have to make an assumption about the typical adventuring day. I do not feel that Next will ever make such an assumption. Therefore, the most logical way to maintain a balance is to give everyone something they can do on a regular basis, which can be optionally included to maintain balance in situations where only having daily options is too weak(ideally you'd also give everyone something they can do on a daily basis, but we all know how strong the opposition is to "fighter dailies"). Of course, that's operating under the assumption that spells stay as straight-forward as they are in the current iteration of Next, which isn't likely.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by Grundy View Post
    So I'm late to the party, and undoubtedly this has been discussed upstream, and i understand that dnd doesn't simulate real world situations perfectly. But I just noticed the weight and carrying rules in the packet, and I have a huge problem with them.
    There's the neat formula- simple, direct. Str x 10 = encumbered. Encumbered weight x5= Max lift. Well, the current deadlift record is 1015 lbs. That works out to a 20 Str. Cool.
    So the average guy, by this formula, isn't encumbered until 150 lbs, and can deadlift 500. Hmmm... That's awfully high. I am a carpenter by trade, so I lift large heavy objects all day. 150 lbs is a lot to ask of a laborer- ie a strong person- just to lift. I'd say that a person of above average strength IRL gets encumbered at around 75 lbs. That's like a large bag of concrete.
    I also lift weights, and I know that I can deadlift 300 lbs. Now, I'm not the strongest guy in town, but I am a big strong guy. In 5e terms, I have a Str of 6.
    I don't expect perfect rules, but this is just stupid. It totally takes my head out of the game.
    Well, the thing is that a carpenter doesn't carry heavy loads the way an adventurer does.

    An adventurer is more like a soldier. They are used to carrying things over long distances inside containers like backpacks. The rules assume some of that load will be armor, worn on the body, and weapons strapped to the body in various manners.

    A carpenter usually only carries a heavy load a short distance, not miles, or even hundreds of yards, at a time, so putting things in that kind of configuration would waste your time.

    150 lbs is a considerable, but not unheard-of load for a paratrooper and while infantry soldiers are generally stronger than an average person, they usually aren't incredibly strong. Modern E-SAPI-plated body armor can easily weight well over 50 lbs all by itself. My body armor, all told, weighed in around 70 lbs. That's including ammunition and water for a day, but not the rifle itself, or things like the helmet, elbow pads, etc. I could still move around almost as well as I could with nothing on because it was well-distributed. My ability to run for long distances or at high speeds would ahve been more severely reduced, but not to walk, and you don't usually run long distances in combat; the "Mogadishu mile" was an abberition.

    150 lbs encumbered is a little high for an average person, but not outlandish at all. Encumbered is the point at which a person's ability to move and fight would be significantly degraded, not just inconvenienced. A really realistic system would base it on load configuration not just weight, but that system would be an awful lot of bookkeeping.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by Diamondeye View Post
    Well, the thing is that a carpenter doesn't carry heavy loads the way an adventurer does.

    An adventurer is more like a soldier. They are used to carrying things over long distances inside containers like backpacks. The rules assume some of that load will be armor, worn on the body, and weapons strapped to the body in various manners.

    A carpenter usually only carries a heavy load a short distance, not miles, or even hundreds of yards, at a time, so putting things in that kind of configuration would waste your time.

    150 lbs is a considerable, but not unheard-of load for a paratrooper and while infantry soldiers are generally stronger than an average person, they usually aren't incredibly strong. Modern E-SAPI-plated body armor can easily weight well over 50 lbs all by itself. My body armor, all told, weighed in around 70 lbs. That's including ammunition and water for a day, but not the rifle itself, or things like the helmet, elbow pads, etc. I could still move around almost as well as I could with nothing on because it was well-distributed. My ability to run for long distances or at high speeds would ahve been more severely reduced, but not to walk, and you don't usually run long distances in combat; the "Mogadishu mile" was an abberition.

    150 lbs encumbered is a little high for an average person, but not outlandish at all. Encumbered is the point at which a person's ability to move and fight would be significantly degraded, not just inconvenienced. A really realistic system would base it on load configuration not just weight, but that system would be an awful lot of bookkeeping.
    Which is the issue--the encumbrance rules might be more or less okay because of that assumption (bolded bit), but the rules for lifting and carrying things? A 500-lb dead lift is not average strength.
    Jude P.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by noparlpf View Post
    Which is the issue--the encumbrance rules might be more or less okay because of that assumption (bolded bit), but the rules for lifting and carrying things? A 500-lb dead lift is not average strength.
    Not average in today's world, but it makes much more sense in a medieval world where the average person has to work in the fields doing strenuous labor 12 hours a day.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by AgentPaper View Post
    Not average in today's world, but it makes much more sense in a medieval world where the average person has to work in the fields doing strenuous labor 12 hours a day.
    So encumbrance should fit moderately active humans, but lifting should fit highly active humans? You can't have it both ways.
    If the game assumes farm labourers as the "default" human, and the 10-11 average score is based on those humans, one, you're strictly restricting character background, and two, you're basing "average" on highly active people (a minority) as opposed to moderately active people (most people).
    Besides, a couple of us just gave examples where we can carry about what the equation suggests for carrying capacity, but we can't dead-lift what the equation says we should.
    Last edited by noparlpf; 2012-09-22 at 12:37 PM.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by AgentPaper View Post
    Not average in today's world, but it makes much more sense in a medieval world where the average person has to work in the fields doing strenuous labor 12 hours a day.
    Actually it doesn't. The sort of work the farmer was doing would be more akin to endurance training than strength training. Would (with todays current body structures and nutrition) a man who was a farmer be stronger than some slob who did nothing all day, sure, yes of course. But a 500 lb dead lift is quite a lot.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by Dienekes View Post
    Actually it doesn't. The sort of work the farmer was doing would be more akin to endurance training than strength training. Would (with todays current body structures and nutrition) a man who was a farmer be stronger than some slob who did nothing all day, sure, yes of course. But a 500 lb dead lift is quite a lot.
    There's also the problem of malnutrition being a frequent problem that isn't exactly good for muscles, and a diet that generally pushed people towards the lower end of their genetic size range (height being the most easily measured segment of this).
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by Knaight View Post
    There's also the problem of malnutrition being a frequent problem that isn't exactly good for muscles, and a diet that generally pushed people towards the lower end of their genetic size range (height being the most easily measured segment of this).
    I did try to make note of this with the (with todays current body structure and nutrition) side but yeah, definitely agree. If anything people from the middle ages should look small and weak to us, peasants and farmers especially.

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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Stories about medieval farmers aside, what I don't like here is WOTC's approach to numbers. It would have taken them all of 15 minutes to google up something reasonable, but instead they went with "it doesn't matter so let's make up something arbitrary".

    The same applies to weapon weight. No, it won't affect most campaigns at all whether a longsword weighs 3 or 30 pounds. On the other hand I see no reason (other than laziness) to go with a random number instead of a real one.
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    hmm. reading over this discussion, and based on my own impressions of the playtest, I agree with the suggestion that either spells should be powered down, or maneuvers should be powered up.

    Personally, I love the combat expertise mechanic. it's excellently varied from spellcasting and other mechanics, provides tactical choice from one moment to the next, and allows for an easily discernable edge for fighters.

    I feel like higher level maneuvers CAN be adjusted to allow for the same advancement style as wizards. Abilities like spell disruption, keeping creatures out of an area, period, moving through swaths of enemies and knocking them all down, and delivering covering rains of arrows are all things that are within the bounds of reality, but allow for some more battlefield control and variety. perhaps these are some lackluster examples, but I feel like it's entirely possible to tone up the scope and ability of maneuvers to approach wizard level, especially if there was some additional cost placed onto spells like Gate or Disintigrate. perhaps casting some of the more broadly reaching ones decreases your general spellcasting effectiveness for the rest of the day, or they require some more specific circumstances, or take longer to cast.

    the out of combat ability question is still a thorny problem. does anyone have any suggestions?
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    Default Re: D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

    Quote Originally Posted by Kurald Galain View Post
    Stories about medieval farmers aside, what I don't like here is WOTC's approach to numbers. It would have taken them all of 15 minutes to google up something reasonable, but instead they went with "it doesn't matter so let's make up something arbitrary".

    The same applies to weapon weight. No, it won't affect most campaigns at all whether a longsword weighs 3 or 30 pounds. On the other hand I see no reason (other than laziness) to go with a random number instead of a real one.
    This is a good point. Here are the results of thirty seconds Googling: link, link.
    I'll pop by the gym a bit later before I get dinner, and see what I can dead-lift. I'm pretty out of shape right now, and I've never trained dead-lifting, so I'll count myself as untrained. Will report back.
    As for weapons, a longsword (arming-sword) ought to weigh about two to three pounds (source: about a minute Googling). A five-pound sword would be longer, and two-handed. Or excessively wide for some weird reason.
    Jude P.

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