D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

[Stubbazubba]

As far as skills go, I say they broaden the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic so there are stackable degrees of both (capped to a max of 3 either way), and then say that Skill Training gives you +1 Advantage on any use of that skill. This keeps the focus on Abilities since your range is defined by your Abilities, but your distribution is derived from your training.

Once you are trained in a skill you'll essentially never roll in the lowest 10-15% of your range unless you are facing particularly challenging scenarios, i.e., ones that give Disadvantage. That seems to fit; a master rogue ought not to worry about low die rolls on a run-of-the-mill skill check, only when there's something out of the ordinary mitigating his stealth ability.

Re: "Rogues fighting by making Skill checks," this has been promised in many games, including several that Mearls has designed, but has never really come about. As Excession pointed out, rolling to see if you can roll your attack is just asking for trouble.

[1337 b4k4]

As Excession pointed out, rolling to see if you can roll your attack is just asking for trouble.

Seems to me the obvious answer is ditch the double roll. Rather than roll an attack, when the rogue is using his "ability attacks" then the roll is a straight opposed check. The trade off being that the rogues ability attacks should never deal direct damage (or deal minimal direct damage) and that they're rolls against a shifting target rather than a fixed DC. As a consequence, the rogues abilities can be a bit more powerful than other status effect applying abilities without being massively overpowered.

[Seerow]

Seems to me the obvious answer is ditch the double roll.

You mean like ToB did with Jump/Concentration checks replacing hit-rolls? But that's magic!

[Stubbazubba]

Seems to me the obvious answer is ditch the double roll. Rather than roll an attack, when the rogue is using his "ability attacks" then the roll is a straight opposed check. The trade off being that the rogues ability attacks should never deal direct damage (or deal minimal direct damage) and that they're rolls against a shifting target rather than a fixed DC. As a consequence, the rogues abilities can be a bit more powerful than other status effect applying abilities without being massively overpowered.

Yeah, I'm OK with this. Give Rogues the ability to inflict a lot of one-round status effects and SA for spike damage, as opposed to Fighters having the ability to inflict longer-lasting status effects as well as consistent high damage.

[ThiagoMartell]

You mean like ToB did with Jump/Concentration checks replacing hit-rolls? But that's magic!

I don't remember ToB doing that, it uses those as well as hit rolls.

[Yora]

Yeah, I'm OK with this. Give Rogues the ability to inflict a lot of one-round status effects and SA for spike damage, as opposed to Fighters having the ability to inflict longer-lasting status effects as well as consistent high damage.

Which I think would have to be an optional rules module. The core rules need to be simple and without option paralysis. If some groups want to bother with it, it's of course fine. But it shouldn't be something everyone has to bother with or jump through hoops to remove it.
I do make an exception for Fighter Expertise, as fighters lack any active class features and need other options than making a standard attack. But for rogues who have sneak attacks, stealth, and other skills, or for monks and rangers who have class features of their own, special attack customization is not neccessary.

[Cavelcade]

Which I think would have to be an optional rules module. The core rules need to be simple and without option paralysis. If some groups want to bother with it, it's of course fine. But it shouldn't be something everyone has to bother with or jump through hoops to remove it.
I do make an exception for Fighter Expertise, as fighters lack any active class features and need other options than making a standard attack. But for rogues who have sneak attacks, stealth, and other skills, or for monks and rangers who have class features of their own, special attack customization is not neccessary.

I'm not sure I agree with this logic - why shouldn't attack lists look like spell lists, at least to a degree? It definitely leads to imbalance if you have half a book dedicated to spells and then the rest to general use rules - of course spellcasters are going to end up more interesting in that environment.

If you want to play them simple, you should be able to, absolutely. Maybe a suggested route for each level would be good to publish? But you definitely should, straight out of the box, be able to play a melee character who is as interesting as a magic character is, without having to depend on fiat or rping. I can rp an interesting character, but I would like it if the mechanics could be interesting too.

[Yora]

Sure it can be in the PHB, but then class descriptions should have first the basic class featured and then follow with boxes for optional rules.
The problem isn't so much picking a class ability at level up, but being swamped with class features during gameplay.

In AD&D fighters had passive bonuses to their attack and damage rolls depending on their weapon proficiencies, and thieves could backstab when they join a fight and for the most part that was perfectly fine.
It doesn't have to be that simple. Having three maneuvers and two attacks per round as a 7th level fighter and rogues being able to sneak attack every round for 2d6 extra damage is fine. If you keep it that simple and allow people to play such a simple game, and also giving the option to play a more complex game, everyone can be happy.
If you cram everything in the basic non-optional rules, only the battle chess players are happy.

I think rules creep is the greatest threat for 5th Edition becomming a good game.

[Seerow]

Sure it can be in the PHB, but then class descriptions should have first the basic class featured and then follow with boxes for optional rules.
The problem isn't so much picking a class ability at level up, but being swamped with class features during gameplay.

In AD&D fighters had passive bonuses to their attack and damage rolls depending on their weapon proficiencies, and thieves could backstab when they join a fight and for the most part that was perfectly fine.
It doesn't have to be that simple. Having three maneuvers and two attacks per round as a 7th level fighter and rogues being able to sneak attack every round for 2d6 extra damage is fine. If you keep it that simple and allow people to play such a simple game, and also giving the option to play a more complex game, everyone can be happy.
If you cram everything in the basic non-optional rules, only the battle chess players are happy.

I think rules creep is the greatest threat for 5th Edition becomming a good game.

What you just described is a Fighter who has fewer special abilities than a 3.5 fighter. (3 maneuvers? Really? In 3.5 you have a bunch of baseline maneuvers even if most of them aren't any good, and at least 4 feats), and a Rogue that is just as boring and even weaker than the 3.5 rogue.

You have in fact described everything that is wrong with the current DDN design and say that is what you want. While I won't tell you wanting that is WRONGBADFUN, I will say that viewpoint is especially likely to not get a lot of traction around here, and it is definitely not a way to address LF/QW problem. Unless the intention is to also write magic rules in a similar way (A Wizard has roughly 3 spells. A Sorcerer has one situational utility that he gets to use a couple times a fight, that sort of thing)

[Kaervaslol]

Sure it can be in the PHB, but then class descriptions should have first the basic class featured and then follow with boxes for optional rules.
The problem isn't so much picking a class ability at level up, but being swamped with class features during gameplay.

In AD&D fighters had passive bonuses to their attack and damage rolls depending on their weapon proficiencies, and thieves could backstab when they join a fight and for the most part that was perfectly fine.
It doesn't have to be that simple. Having three maneuvers and two attacks per round as a 7th level fighter and rogues being able to sneak attack every round for 2d6 extra damage is fine. If you keep it that simple and allow people to play such a simple game, and also giving the option to play a more complex game, everyone can be happy.
If you cram everything in the basic non-optional rules, only the battle chess players are happy.

I think rules creep is the greatest threat for 5th Edition becomming a good game.

I agree.

I like playing a fighter because you get to fight and do cool feats of strength and the like. If I wanted to have to read pages upon pages of special effects and other stuff I would be playing a magic user.

And for all it's worth, check the mighty deed of arms from Dungeon Crawl Classic.

Basicaly, with every attack you can declare a mighty deed and do something cool (blind someone, open a wooden door using a goblin, disarm, inscribe a Z in your foe's clothing, basically anything cool that has to do with the situation at hand). Then you roll your attack and your deed die. If you attack hits and your die is higher than 3, you succeed. The higher you are in level, the bigger the die. It basically solves the need for maneuvers leaving it to the playe to come up with cool stuff and resolving it with one die.

[Cavelcade]

Again, I have no problem with their being a generic template fighter. But why is it wrong to want to be a fighter who gets to read pages and pages of stuff to see what cool things he can do? I know plenty of people who wanted to do that in 3.5 and were frustrated when playing core classes because they couldn't. That's not good game design.

[Yora]

What you just described is a Fighter who has fewer special abilities than a 3.5 fighter. (3 maneuvers? Really? In 3.5 you have a bunch of baseline maneuvers even if most of them aren't any good, and at least 4 feats), and a Rogue that is just as boring and even weaker than the 3.5 rogue.

You have in fact described everything that is wrong with the current DDN design and say that is what you want. While I won't tell you wanting that is WRONGBADFUN, I will say that viewpoint is especially likely to not get a lot of traction around here, and it is definitely not a way to address LF/QW problem. Unless the intention is to also write magic rules in a similar way (A Wizard has roughly 3 spells. A Sorcerer has one situational utility that he gets to use a couple times a fight, that sort of thing)

My point is that you can please both groups by writing the classes as a basic chasis with optional additions, but only one group if you hardwire the additional class features into the basic rules.

[Seerow]

I agree.

I like playing a fighter because you get to fight and do cool feats of strength and the like. If I wanted to have to read pages upon pages of special effects and other stuff I would be playing a magic user.

And for all it's worth, check the mighty deed of arms from Dungeon Crawl Classic.

Basicaly, with every attack you can declare a mighty deed and do something cool (blind someone, open a wooden door using a goblin, disarm, inscribe a Z in your foe's clothing, basically anything cool that has to do with the situation at hand). Then you roll your attack and your deed die. If you attack hits and your die is higher than 3, you succeed. The higher you are in level, the bigger the die. It basically solves the need for maneuvers leaving it to the playe to come up with cool stuff and resolving it with one die.

And you're right back to "mother may I". When one DM thinks "cool thing" for a high level fighter means "cut a Z into your opponent's clothes" while the player thinks "cool thing" means "Pick up that Troll and throw him at the castle so hard it knocks a hole through the wall" you have a very big disparity between what the two parties involved believe is reasonable/fun. Codified options get rid of this issue altogether by saying "This is what a character of this level can do", making it clear for everyone from the start, rather than having negative feelings when people come into the game with very different expectations.

Basically every argument that applies to having codified spells rather than players just describing "something magical they want to do" also applies to having codified martial abilities. There's just this strange double standard against non-caster characters because people have this continued insistence that a 20th level Fighter should be something that fits realistically into the real world.

[Seerow]

My point is that you can please both groups by writing the classes as a basic chasis with optional additions, but only one group if you hardwire the additional class features into the basic rules.

And my point is we are never going to see a game called Dungeons and Dragons that anybody will accept that does not include a long list of spells in the core rules. As long as this remains true, you need a counterpart for non-caster characters to keep up. Seriously you saw the outcry against 4e from people saying casters no longer felt magical. Imagine how much worse it would be if Wizards got 3 spells total by level 7.


The basic chasis you ask for isn't something that can be accepted as D&D, because D&D is traditionally a very rules heavy game. People who want to pretend like it is not are playing a very different game from the rules as written in ANY edition of the game. Trying to make the core game something totally different and bringing the game back through other modules is not something that is going to fly.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

As long as they don't make it a psionic attack mode...

Don't worry. It's been simplified. It's now a stance you can choose to enter when you regain your psionic focus, and choosing to leave this stance grants you the ability to cast an invocation which places a buff in you that grants Turn Undead for 5 rounds. Turn Undead itself is a spell-like ability that runs off a Turn Pool which refreshes on a (level # of points per hour) formula, where the number if points spend to turn a monster is equal to 1d4 per hit die of the monster.

Simple and intuitive. :-P

[Stubbazubba]

My point is that you can please both groups by writing the classes as a basic chasis with optional additions, but only one group if you hardwire the additional class features into the basic rules.

Sure, but we both know they'll never reduce the wizard to a spell list-less version, (though I'd love to be surprised, in case WotC is listening) so that has to be our true Core, so the Fighter and Rogue have to have something comparable in the options department.

[Yora]

I don't think so. They were different in all editions except 4th and people still bought the game and usually enjoyed playing it.

[obryn]

Basically every argument that applies to having codified spells rather than players just describing "something magical they want to do" also applies to having codified martial abilities. There's just this strange double standard against non-caster characters because people have this continued insistence that a 20th level Fighter should be something that fits realistically into the real world.

Yep.

If one class can put reality in a headlock and make it beg for mercy, and another class hits things hard with swords and does nothing but carve through hit point tofu at a higher rate (or rely on "I trip him" over and over again) there's a problem.

That's right - LFQW is a problem with D&D, not a feature. It's simply not good enough moving forward for Fighters to be boring, but with bigger numbers because "tradition," and for casters to be the only ones with fiat for cool effects because "magic."

-O

[1337 b4k4]

And my point is we are never going to see a game called Dungeons and Dragons that anybody will accept that does not include a long list of spells in the core rules. As long as this remains true, you need a counterpart for non-caster characters to keep up. Seriously you saw the outcry against 4e from people saying casters no longer felt magical. Imagine how much worse it would be if Wizards got 3 spells total by level 7.

I think this is a misunderstanding of why people felt the 4e wizard didn't feel magical. The 4e wizard didn't feel magical because he was using powers which were the exact same things that all the other classes were doing, just with different names. I absolutely think that they could sell a basic D&D game without a list of spells, just a basic "spell building" set of guidelines, and an equivalent maneuvers set of guidelines for martial classes.

Lets face it, whether we're talking maneuvers lists or spells lists, somewhere in the background is a basic formula that WotC is using to judge the relative power levels of the spells and maneuvers. Why not just bring those formulas forward as a set of DM guidelines and make the core classes have just the base mechanic (expertise dice, daily spells, spell points whatever) and leave the actual maneuvers / spells to the GM/DM, and then just include the pre-built power/spell lists in an included module. Then AD&D fans can take their plain fighter and mush it with their spell list wizard, 4e fans can take their power list fighters alongside the spell list wizards. New players can skip the lists of powers and crap and just pick and chose and make things up as they go along, min maxers can pick from the defined lists. And even better, you can put your newbie with a basic fighter without his list of powers alongside a wizard without a list of spells, along side your fully stated and power selected monk player who's been doing this for years.

And don't forget that it is important to have options for non-optimizer / non-builder players. In both the 4e and the OD&D games I play in or run I have players who don't care about their list of powers or spells. They don't find picking and choosing to build the most awesome character they can to be interesting, and they really do experience option paralysis on their turn when presented with their character's list of stuff. An ideally designed "power building" system as outlined above would allow these players the ability to play along side more experienced players without having to have someone else tell them what to do all the time (as often happens to new players in 4e and new wizards in OD&D) and without having to commit early to choices they may regret later. This low barrier to entry combined with a gentle ramp system to integrate with previously built powers is important not only for bringing in new blood, but for keeping players who don't find char-op fun, or who have never been bothered by the simple fighter.

[obryn]

I think this is a misunderstanding of why people felt the 4e wizard didn't feel magical. The 4e wizard didn't feel magical because he was using powers which were the exact same things that all the other classes were doing, just with different names.

As someone who felt the 4e Wizard felt plenty magical enough, throwing around balls of fire and putting rooms to sleep, I'd disagree. There's quite a lot of differences, but much of the time those are in the details, and it's easy to miss them with the very precise and mechanical language they're presented in. (Maybe that's part of it? I mean, nothing in the Fighter's arsenal can throw a big fireball into a room and hit everyone, or drop ice all over the floor...)

But at any rate if it's actually what you're saying - that the main problem is opening up the Wizard's access to "battlefield control" and letting other classes do it - then we're back to the drawing board of a lame duck Fighter without any fiat capability.

ETA:

An ideally designed "power building" system as outlined above would allow these players the ability to play along side more experienced players without having to have someone else tell them what to do all the time (as often happens to new players in 4e and new wizards in OD&D) and without having to commit early to choices they may regret later.

4e allows players (as part of the base system) to retrain and change their feats and powers every single level, to avoid precisely these sorts of "newbie traps." I think something like this should be mandatory for Next. Fighters should not be locked into the feats they chose at 1st level for their entire careers, for example.

-O

[Stubbazubba]

I don't think so. They were different in all editions except 4th and people still bought the game and usually enjoyed playing it.

Um, OK. So...why do we need a 5th edition, then?

[Knaight]

Um, OK. So...why do we need a 5th edition, then?

For the exact same reason it helps to have multiple works in any other form of art, even when the others are fine? You might as well ask why anyone cared about Picasso's work, given that there were already Da Vinci paintings in existence, and those were nice.

[Yora]

Because I like the 5th Edition playtest version far more than any other edition of D&D or any retroclone. That's good enough for me.
There are no great rpgs, just a handful of decent ones. There's still huge room for improvement.

[Oracle_Hunter]

For the exact same reason it helps to have multiple works in any other form of art, even when the others are fine? You might as well ask why anyone cared about Picasso's work, given that there were already Da Vinci paintings in existence, and those were nice.

To extend the metaphor, the reason you care about Picasso in a world with Da Vinci is that Picasso brought something different to the art world: Cubism. Cubism was radically different from Da Vinci's realistic and mechanically precise artwork and revealed a new way to do art to people who appreciate it.

That said, what is "cubist" about 5e? IMHO, nothing we've seen so far is all that different from any pre-4e edition of D&D.

Just something to think on

[Kaervaslol]

And you're right back to "mother may I". When one DM thinks "cool thing" for a high level fighter means "cut a Z into your opponent's clothes" while the player thinks "cool thing" means "Pick up that Troll and throw him at the castle so hard it knocks a hole through the wall" you have a very big disparity between what the two parties involved believe is reasonable/fun. Codified options get rid of this issue altogether by saying "This is what a character of this level can do", making it clear for everyone from the start, rather than having negative feelings when people come into the game with very different expectations.

Basically every argument that applies to having codified spells rather than players just describing "something magical they want to do" also applies to having codified martial abilities. There's just this strange double standard against non-caster characters because people have this continued insistence that a 20th level Fighter should be something that fits realistically into the real world.

So I have to choose between "DM may I" and "Designer who does not play at my table and knows nothing about my group which designed the system for the biggest common denominator, may I?". I trust and enjoy the judgement of my DM a thousand times more than that of a game designer.

Seriously, it is not mother may I. If you want to lift a troll and throw it, check how much weight can you lift and how much does the troll weight. If you have 12 STR and your maximun effort is 100 kilograms, you will not be able to lift a 3 meter muscly creature.

The problem with you approach is that in my experience, instead of "This is what a character of this level can do" translates into "If it is not in the book, you can't do it". Feats, skills, maneuvers, don't expand on the ammount of things a player can do, on the contrary, they limit them by stating that you can't do X if you don't have Y.


Magic is not codified because some arbitrary design choice, magic is codified because in the game world that D&D took place (Greyhawk) magic worked that way.

[Knaight]

To extend the metaphor, the reason you care about Picasso in a world with Da Vinci is that Picasso brought something different to the art world: Cubism. Cubism was radically different from Da Vinci's realistic and mechanically precise artwork and revealed a new way to do art to people who appreciate it.

That said, what is "cubist" about 5e? IMHO, nothing we've seen so far is all that different from any pre-4e edition of D&D.

Just something to think on

I was considering using more similar artists precisely to avoid this, as it's an unfortunate side effect of using particularly distinctive ones. As such - it's like asking why we would have any interest in Hieronymus Bosch's work when Matthias Grunewald's exists. Sure, there are some minor differences (Bosch leaned a little bit more towards the terrifying and grotesque), but they are extremely similar. Yet, people generally appreciate having multiple works by multiple artists around, even if they are simpler, as the simple presence of a large body of work within the medium and genre enhances it.

Cases like Picasso, of course, enhance it much more. Similarly, D&D 5e isn't really going to be worth nearly as much to the genre as something genuinely new will be.

[navar100]

I agree.

I like playing a fighter because you get to fight and do cool feats of strength and the like. If I wanted to have to read pages upon pages of special effects and other stuff I would be playing a magic user.

That is fighters don't deserve nice things thinking.

[Yora]

It's not. That's "fighters are free of restrictions" thinking.

Seriously, it is not mother may I. If you want to lift a troll and throw it, check how much weight can you lift and how much does the troll weight. If you have 12 STR and your maximun effort is 100 kilograms, you will not be able to lift a 3 meter muscly creature.

The problem with you approach is that in my experience, instead of "This is what a character of this level can do" translates into "If it is not in the book, you can't do it". Feats, skills, maneuvers, don't expand on the ammount of things a player can do, on the contrary, they limit them by stating that you can't do X if you don't have Y.

And here we have my biggest complaint about d20 games and what I love about AD&D. If there's a rule for something, it's implied that this is the only way to do it and you have to meet the described conditions to do it. Or even worse, there is a feat to do it and you have to have the feat to even attempt the action.
And that enables players to do less things and limits their ability to be creative in describing their characters actions.
If you want to do something not covered by rules that has to do with moving things around, do a Strength check. Ability checks can theoretically cover everything. Hitting with weapons and avoiding being hit through the use of armor are things that happen so often, that it makes sense to spell out one way to do it that should be used by all groups, giving us weapon proficiencies, weapon lists, and armor. Older editions had saving throws, but 5th Edition noticed that a plain ability check does the job just as well if you don't have escalating save DCs.
Rules for more specific situations take away my options as a player to be creative. And that isn't just a realization made now looking backwards. AD&D 2nd Edition books are full with passages that spell it out that the lack of rules for some thing is not a bug but a feature.

Again, if you want to have such things spelled out, everyone is free to use them and there's even a place for them in the PHB, like 2nd Edition nonweapon proficiencies. But there should be no homebrewing required to not use them. That's when groups have no reason to buy the books.

[Oracle_Hunter]

So I have to choose between "DM may I" and "Designer who does not play at my table and knows nothing about my group which designed the system for the biggest common denominator, may I?". I trust and enjoy the judgement of my DM a thousand times more than that of a game designer.

And, of course, the rejoinder here is "if you want to play a game of 'DM may I' why are you paying someone else in order to play it?"

Any time a core part of the game ends up being "DM arbitrates" then you are paying the game designers to let you make up your own rules. Personally, I'd rather pay for a system that lets me play a game I couldn't put together on my own instead of paying for one where I have to do so.

Seriously, it is not mother may I. If you want to lift a troll and throw it, check how much weight can you lift and how much does the troll weight. If you have 12 STR and your maximun effort is 100 kilograms, you will not be able to lift a 3 meter muscly creature.

But what if you can pick up the troll? How far can you throw him? How much damage does the resulting impact do?

Most editions of D&D don't bother codifying these sorts of physics which makes it a game of "mother may I." The only one that did (3.x) showed why you don't usually codify these sorts of things

[obryn]

It's not. That's "fighters are free of restrictions" thinking.

Wait, what?

"I have no options I can use without permission" is not "free of restrictions." It's in and of itself restricted. It's like being trapped in a 10x10 room and saying, "but look at all the open floor I can walk to!"

Compare to the Wizard, who not only has the same degree of improvisational freedom as the Fighter, but also has a workbook of spells that not only do things in and of themselves via player fiat, but can themselves be used for more improvisational freedom.

Rules for more specific situations take away my options as a player to be creative. And that isn't just a realization made now looking backwards. AD&D 2nd Edition books are full with passages that spell it out that the lack of rules for some thing is not a bug but a feature.

By this logic, you seem to be saying the Wizard, by having all these options laid out for him, has less opportunity for creativity than the Fighter does?

Yep, that's D&D for you - poor, incompetent wizards, shackled to their generally useful and potent spell lists...

-O