D&D 5th Edition XII: Peasant Militias Can Defeat Smartphones?

[SiuiS]

Since no-one else seems to be interested in doing math comparison, could someone send me Next statblocks for concripts, men-at-arms and knights comparable to those I used before, along with at least one dragon? I'd like to do a comparison using actual playtest material, but I don't have access to any at the moment.

(It should be rather trivial for any of you to make a similar comparison based on my example, if someone else wants to give it a shot.)

There are nine at present; what I did was as close as we will get.

Oh ho-ho! I was using the wrong data. We do have some.

Human Commoner AC 10, 4 HP
All attributes 10
Pack tactics: cumulative +1 bonus for each commoner within 5' of target.
Proficient with club (+3(?!?!?!) AttB, d4 damage).
"Proficient" with thrown rocks (+3 AttB ranges 20/80, d4)
Not proficient with slings, apparently. Nor longbows.

Human Warrior AC 12, 11 HP (2d8+2)
STR/DEX/CON +1
Disciplined: can mark a target within reach. Attack by fellow Disciplined unit is at advantage.
Proficient with Spear (+4 AttB, melee or 20/80, d6+1)

War chief AC 17, HP 22 (4d8+4)
STR/DEX +2, CON/CHA +1
Commander: disciplined units within 30' get +2 melee damage. Does not stack.
Multi attack: can make two sword attacks.
Proficient with long sword (+5 AttB, d8+2)
Proficient with Javelin (+5 AttB, 30/120 d6+2)

Human Berserker AC 12, 13 HP
STR/CON +2, INT -1, WIS -2
Rage: can take disadvantage on attack to gain +5 damage.
Proficient with great sword (+5 AttB, d12+2)

Apparently, the knights with longbows who could survive a blast of breath was giving humanity too much credit! I especially like how there's no raisin for commoners to be at +3 attack since they are listed as level 1 mooks with no attributes of worth.

Yeah, okay. So "all NPCs are monsters" bothers me. I do like the transparency available from monsters being built on the same system as PCs.

So let's see. All the damage boosts save potentially Rage are useless on ranged attacks. So we have at best, d6+2 against flying (or reach!) enemies. A dragon with AC 16 will be hit something like 15% of the time, so 15*(d6+2=3-8, avg. 5) 45-120 avg. 75 damage to a dragon that is fully capable of splitting movement as action (descend to breathing distance, attack, return to safety) until the numbers thin.

The way I see it, it's the job of both the GM and the players to make sure the PCs have a reason to solve the story's plot instead of ignoring it or handing it over to someone else, whether it's a more powerful character or the local authorities. The setting shouldn't be bent into a pretzel to make sure the PCs are always the only people who can actually solve problems.

Yeah, but as has been pointed out, "that's not a rules issue", and so isn't worth discussing? I dunno. I always though application was important, too. Handing someone a DMG without a note about common sense is like neglecting gun safety because safe practices aren't germane to the mechanisms of ballistics.

I personally don't mind that a horde of peasants could defeat a dragon, but it's important to know if D&D 5th edition does want that kind of game or not, and it should be honest and upfront about what kind of fantasy type it wants to emulate.

The peasant horde vs. dragon situation is a cornerstone that needs to evaluated.

Peasant v. Dragon I explicitly something they want to be "possible, but not probable". I wouldn't be surprised if both peasants and dragons were built specifically to make this contest as close as it is, and they extrapolated other monsters from there.

[Frozen_Feet]

I did say 'would be'. Didn't say it was a problem, just why it would be it they're more effective.

Am I the only one who wonders about the discrepancy between 'must live away from people to not die' and 'is obliged to routinely terrorise the countryside'?

As a flying carnivore, a dragon's operative radius is dozens of miles. Its lair could be on top of a mountain or in the middle of nowhere, and it could still destroy a setlement per week.

Think of it for a moment. To gather a conscript force of 100 strong, there pretty much has to be at least twice as many more people (women, children and elders) and 10 times as much livestock (cattle, chickens, horses) nearby. These hundreds of unarmed people and animals have no defense whatsoever if the men are away.

Besides, you overestimate what it takes to scare people. Wolves here have not attacked a human in a century, but many people still regard them with a mix of fear and genocidal hatred. There are five million humans here, and maybe 250 wolves.

A single dragon attack will keep people on their toes for a decade.

[SiuiS]

It looks to me like you're answering your own question. If the designer wants to make a game about hirelings and followers, that's probably what he's going to make; that's what the game he makes is going to 'want' to be.

The entire 'peasants vs dragons' argument is just a facetious way of looking at the fact that the rules are already trending towards the direction of quantity having a quality all its own.

I'll say very clearly here: there is nothing inherently wrong with that being the game's focus. It's been that way before.* Personally, I think it makes it interesting and sets it apart from all the more narrative-oriented games that have come up in the next few decades. I'm actually pleased to see it trying to be more than just "3.5/4e but more marketable", which was my initial fear. It also means that parties will matter more than the did in 3.5, where the purpose of the party was the cheerlead for the caster at higher levels.

Let me remove the sarcasm from my earlier "question over the mechanics to conscript peasants with". What hireling rules have we seen so far? Do they work well, and are they balanced? Based on the stated intentions, this may become very important.

*Edit: Hireling/follower-focused, I mean.

Good points.

And, there are none. There's the possibility o more sneaky edits in the most recent release, what with the Orc and gnome, but I don't have ready access to those. Not right now.

[Morty]

Yeah, but as has been pointed out, "that's not a rules issue", and so isn't worth discussing? I dunno. I always though application was important, too. Handing someone a DMG without a note about common sense is like neglecting gun safety because safe practices aren't germane to the mechanisms of ballistics.

I think you're missing my point. What I meant to say was that it's perfectly fine if a large, conventional army can handle monsters, including dragons, because the system doesn't need to bend over backwards to make sure the PCs are the only people capable of handling problems.

[Scow2]

Apparently, the knights with longbows who could survive a blast of breath was giving humanity too much credit! I especially like how there's no raisin for commoners to be at +3 attack since they are listed as level 1 mooks with no attributes of worth.

In case you didn't notice... EVERY goddamn monster in the manual has an arbitrary +3 attack bonus. It's one of the things that ticks me off about D&D Next because of the clear discrepency between monsters and player characters.

[Raineh Daze]

Peasants are also clearly superior for dealing with large creatures if you work out how to get them there:

Pack tactics: cumulative +1 bonus for each commoner within 5' of target.

+8 for a normal creature. +12 for a large one. +16... yeah, it quite easily gets to the point where commoners cannot fail to hurt the most enormous of monsters.

[Scow2]

Peasants are also clearly superior for dealing with large creatures if you work out how to get them there:



+8 for a normal creature. +12 for a large one. +16... yeah, it quite easily gets to the point where commoners cannot fail to hurt the most enormous of monsters.

"Working out how to get them there" is the operative term, and is nigh-impossible to achieve. It's difficult to move adjacent to something when your feet are moving away from it. Or you're reduced to a pile of gibs.

[Raineh Daze]

"Working out how to get them there" is the operative term, and is nigh-impossible to achieve. It's difficult to move adjacent to something when your feet are moving away from it. Or you're reduced to a pile of gibs.

They still gave the possibility for peasants to completely break bounded accuracy. Just... what.

Also, the wording, such as it is, makes me suspect that you could get 8 commoners around them, then have the rest throw rocks--and they'd all have a +11 bonus...

[Friv]

Peasants are also clearly superior for dealing with large creatures if you work out how to get them there:



+8 for a normal creature. +12 for a large one. +16... yeah, it quite easily gets to the point where commoners cannot fail to hurt the most enormous of monsters.

Nope, they only get the bonus to a maximum of +5 (not sure if that's meant to include the +3 they inexplicably start with).

[Raineh Daze]

Nope, they only get the bonus to a maximum of +5 (not sure if that's meant to include the +3 they inexplicably start with).

Ah. If it includes the +3, then, uh... what.

[Friv]

Ah. If it includes the +3, then, uh... what.

Allow me to pull up the exact wording, for those who don't have the playtest at hand:

Pack Tactics: The commoner gains a cumulative +1 bonus to attack
rolls, to a maximum of +5, for each friendly creature that is within 5 feet of its target.

Probably, this means that the bonus goes up to +5, and having up to five other peasants next to you gives you a bonus on top of your basic +3. So peasants can reach +8 to hit.

[Water_Bear]

So does that mean that if you catapulted a bunch of peasants wrapped in damp straw and glue at the dragon that the rest of your conscripts could pepper it with super-accurate bow shots? Even with whatever their non-proficiency penalty is, +5 is nothing to sneeze at especially when you can roll dozens or hundreds of d20s a turn.

[Person_Man]

I agree that the arguments about armies vs dragons are hypothetical and won't appear on your average game table.

That said, 5E is still not good at what it's intended to do. It would seriously bother me if a character who has invested resources into being good at something is still routinely beaten by a character who has not: my dextrous elven ranger will often be beaten at stealth checks by the clumsy dwarven barbarian, and the fighter isn't all that much better at melee attacks than the wizard is, even at high level.

There's also the lack of sense of accomplishment in leveling, in that a high-level character who's traveled the planes and beaten dragons will still routinely miss a low-level opponent like an orc in melee combat.

Fair enough. OK. So let's assume the following:

1) D&D Next should be a fun game, which is about the roleplaying, exploration, and combat of a small (1-8) party of Player Characters in a fantasy world. (Not mass combat, not "what would happen if..." situations that rarely happen in a typical D&D game).

2) The math which models the PCs actions in and out of combat should be relatively simple and intuitive.

3) If an action is something that a heroic humanoid could theoretically do, there should be some reasonable minimum chance of success, so that the PC never feels as if can't do things unless they invest in it.

4) If a player does level up and invest in being really amazing at something, they should have a reasonably high chance of success at that thing, but not so high that it's automatic.

What would your ideal math be? I ask honestly because I'm open to different ideas on this, not facetiously to try and prove a point.


Yes, the world's greatest Rogue might be noticed by a random Barbarian 1 out of 5ish times. But I'm ok with that, because in an actual D&D game, you don't want any challenging action to have a 100%ish chance of success, because then it's not a challenge, and it starts to destroy game balance, and it makes the game less fun.

To provide another example, lets say I optimize my Barbarian's to hit and damage so that I hit 95% of the time and kill 95% of enemies in one hit. But other people in my party aren't as good at optimization as I am, or they focus on non-combat things. Is combat still a challenge for me? Will it still be fun? Will the imbalance in my party cause problems? In 3.X/PF, the answer was yes, and it caused endless headaches for the DM. I would prefer D&D Next to fix this problem, and I am open to alternative solutions.

[Kurald Galain]

Probably, this means that the bonus goes up to +5, and having up to five other peasants next to you gives you a bonus on top of your basic +3. So peasants can reach +8 to hit.

So what we're seeing here is that if an adventuring party hires just a single peasant as a henchman, that peasant will likely be their best fighter

[Raineh Daze]

What would your ideal math be? I ask honestly because I'm open to different ideas on this, not facetiously to try and prove a point.

Yes, the world's greatest Rogue might be noticed by a random Barbarian 1 out of 5ish times. But I'm ok with that, because in an actual D&D game, you don't want any challenging action to have a 100%ish chance of success, because then it's not a challenge, and it starts to destroy game balance, and it makes the game less fun.

There's a key word in this statement, which I've gone and bolded. See, why is the world's greatest rogue incapable of sneaking past 5 people in a row without a high chance of failure? Or let's say it's a group of peasants who've just been to a wedding. Should the world's greatest rogue really fail to sneak past a bunch of drunkards?

If the only way to achieve actually sneaking past large groups reliable is to declare success because it's not heroic/challenging enough to be worth rolling for, I have to question the existence of a skill system in the first place. Just use ability scores in that case, maybe at bonuses to the things through some external system. A skill system that leads to supposed masters failing to random guys dragged off the street isn't worth keeping...

[Kurald Galain]

Fair enough. OK. So let's assume the following:

For the record I don't personally agree with points 3 and 4. I do think that a character invested at being "really amazing" at something should have automatic success at standard difficulty tasks (but not at hard tasks). I disagree that having a significant chance of failure is what makes things "challenging" and "fun".

And personally I'd throw in point 5 to state that a character that has invested into being good at something should almost always beat a character that has not - because otherwise, what's the point in investing?

Anyway, given all that I would just write down what I want the probabilities to be, and then put a system around it that does that. For example,

{table]Skill|Easy|Moderate|Hard
None|50%|20%|5%
Talent or training|80%|50%|20%
Talent and training|95%|80%|/50%
[/table]

For "talent" read "high relevant ability score", and for "training" read "trained in the relevant skill". This may need more DCs than just three, of course.

So a simple d20 system does this well enough if the modifiers for "talent" and "trained" are high enough (I'd say in the +5 to +10 range), and it may be useful to insert a rule for automatic successes/failures on a 20 and 1 respectively. A simple dice pool system also does this well enough (you roll more dice if you're more talented or trained, require more successes for moderate/hard, and get an extra roll if you get maximum). In my experience, dice pools are relatively slow to play, and a flat d20 is too random, so I would go for a 3d6 roll-to-beat-DC.

The math involved isn't hard (and shouldn't be hard, to keep the game accessible). The point is to write down probabilities you want and then design the math around it, not to write down a simple system and just hope the probabilities turn out what you'd like them to be. The important part is deciding what you want the above table to look like; I suspect that what WOTC is looking for is more something like this,
{table]Skill|Easy|Moderate|Hard
None|60%|50%|40%
Talent or training|70%|60%|50%
Talent and training|80%|70%|60%
[/table]

[Water_Bear]

Yes, the world's greatest Rogue might be noticed by a random Barbarian 1 out of 5ish times. But I'm ok with that, because in an actual D&D game, you don't want any challenging action to have a 100%ish chance of success, because then it's not a challenge, and it starts to destroy game balance, and it makes the game less fun.

But that's designing entirely backwards; instead of saying "this task is no longer a challenge to a character who has invested heavily in X" it says "this task must always be a challenge regardless of investment." Except what actually works like that?

If I and the winner of the World's Strongest Man (or the World's Strongest Woman for that matter) competition both do 1,000 dead-lifts I can give you a 100% guarantee that I will lose all 1,000 of those contests. If I and Gary Kasparov (or a smartphone chess app) play 1,000 chess games I can say with absolute certainty that I will win exactly 0 games. And the same goes for pretty much any other example you might care to name; there is a level of innate talent and skill which is simply unapproachable by an untrained person.

Rather than trying to artificially force specialists to be "challenged" by rank amateurs, why not make sure that there's always some new level of challenges available? A chess expert will kick my butt easily but by annihilated by a Grand-master, who will themselves lose consistently against a $500 commercial chess computer. In that same way, why should a ninja be worried about being seen by distracted Orcs but always have a chance of getting past an overcaffeinated Beholder?

Its a fundamental problem with bounded accuracy when a game of heroic fantasy cannot even contain the range of human skill in the real world.

[Raineh Daze]

I wonder if there's a way to fit DC's in a neat scale with the blasted skill dice thingies? Something like 3d6+Ability Modifier as a default, initial investment gets 4d6, best 3, as the actual roll, and then you add the extra dice stuff on top of that? Or 4d6, best 3,+1d4+ability mod; then 5d6, best 3,+1d6+ability mod and leave it at that. Or something. I don't know.

[Kurald Galain]

Rather than trying to artificially force specialists to be "challenged" by rank amateurs, why not make sure that there's always some new level of challenges available? A chess expert will kick my butt easily but by annihilated by a Grand-master, who will themselves lose consistently against a $500 commercial chess computer.

That's precisely it, yes. A high-level ranger shouldn't be "challenged" by climbing a tree, but should have a decent chance at climbing a backwards-sloping ice wall while carrying the princess in his off hand.

The motto is that highly-trained characters can do awesome things that ordinary people can't. A simple and effective system for that is to give each task a rank from 1 to 5 (where 1 is climbing a tree and 5 is the aforementioned ice wall with princess), and give each character a rank from 1 to 5 (1-2 points for attribute, 0-3 points for skill training). If your rank is higher than the task, you automatically succeed; if lower, you automatically fail; if equal, you roll for it.

Of course, you can do the same with 1d20 (again) assuming the modifiers are high enough. The point is that some people want tasks and characters to routinely run off the RNG (because skill beats luck) whereas others think that that's not fair. Just don't bring in horror stories of crappy DMs, because with a crappy DM the game is going to suck regardless of what system you're using.

Or, in other words, this all comes back to the "combat as war" mindset (the former) vs "combat as sport" (the latter).

[navar100]

There's a key word in this statement, which I've gone and bolded. See, why is the world's greatest rogue incapable of sneaking past 5 people in a row without a high chance of failure? Or let's say it's a group of peasants who've just been to a wedding. Should the world's greatest rogue really fail to sneak past a bunch of drunkards?

If the only way to achieve actually sneaking past large groups reliable is to declare success because it's not heroic/challenging enough to be worth rolling for, I have to question the existence of a skill system in the first place. Just use ability scores in that case, maybe at bonuses to the things through some external system. A skill system that leads to supposed masters failing to random guys dragged off the street isn't worth keeping...

A skill system can still have that, just not at level 1. Eventually your total skill modifier is high enough that you really can't fail at some tasks. A level 1 rogue can't sneak past all the drunkard wedding guests, but a level 10 rogue can. The fun is still there because you've earned the spoils of that autosuccess. What's changed is the bar of what makes an encounter challenging. That level 10 rogue can still fail to sneak past a coven of liches.

It's the DM's problem, not the game's, if he can't stand that what was challenging at level 1 doesn't remain so when the party reaches level 10. 3E allows a character to be just that good to autosucceed at something. That's a feature, not a bug. That's what earning levels entitles you. The fun is in the earning and enjoying the spoils. The fun of a challenge moves on to some other task that was impossible at level 1.

It appears Bounded Accuracy will remove this autosuccess. That will satiate players who loathed PCs autosucceeding what used to be a challenge, but it will now p*** off players who actually liked they can eventually autosucceed on stuff that used to be challenging and move on to other challenging stuff. (Raises hand.) Such a thing does not indulge me into wanting to play 5E.

[Scow2]

And we come back to the skills discussion.

Up until 3rd edition, a Rogue never had a 100% chance of sneaking past something. The problem with Stealth is that it's always an opposed check, which means there's a 25% chance of the DC being 5 points higher than it should be, and 5% chance of it being stupidly large, with those percentages ballooning stupidly fast when you start adding other 'observers'. Non-PC opposed checks need to die horribly. In all the modules I've seen, the check to see a monster has always been a static DC.

Keep in mind that D&D Next does not have any "skills" at all. It has Ability checks. Skills are just honing of an ability check. It does NOT have or want the stratification of previous editions. If you want to be able to do something crazy, you get a class feature, feat, or other ability to do it, not a +Stupidly Large Number on a roll.

[Raineh Daze]

*Snip*

Check the first line of my quote. 'World's greatest rogue'. Clearly not a level 1 character.

Up until 3rd edition, a Rogue never had a 100% chance of sneaking past something. The problem with Stealth is that it's always an opposed check, which means there's a 25% chance of the DC being 5 points higher than it should be, and 5% chance of it being stupidly large, with those percentages ballooning stupidly fast when you start adding other 'observers'. Non-PC opposed checks need to die horribly. In all the modules I've seen, the check to see a monster has always been a static DC.

Then we just go back to the same master rogue opening doors. Instead of sneaking past peasants at a wedding, he decides to break into their houses. Eventually, he is repeatedly stymied by a crude, obvious lock.

Meanwhile, one of the wedding guests somehow cracks into a noble's strongbox on his first try.

[obryn]

The problem with Stealth is that it's always an opposed check, which means there's a 25% chance of the DC being 5 points higher than it should be, and 5% chance of it being stupidly large, with those percentages ballooning stupidly fast when you start adding other 'observers'. Non-PC opposed checks need to die horribly. In all the modules I've seen, the check to see a monster has always been a static DC.

Yep. Opposed d20 rolls are basically probability purgatory.

I've gone on at length about this before, but despite generating a rudimentary curve, said curve is extremely shallow and disadvantageous for the more-skilled character.

[Scow2]

Then we just go back to the same master rogue opening doors. Instead of sneaking past peasants at a wedding, he decides to break into their houses. Eventually, he is repeatedly stymied by a crude, obvious lock.

Meanwhile, one of the wedding guests somehow cracks into a noble's strongbox on his first try.

He might take more than 6 seconds to open the lock. Nothing terrible about that.The d20 roll represents the myriad things that can go right or wrong for someone attempting an action in a situation.

If the wedding guest manages to open the lock on a noble's strongbox the very first try, it would mean they already have Proficiency with Thieves' Tools, meaning they do know what they're doing. It just went easier than expected.

[Frozen_Feet]

Re skills: 3E actually had not just one, but two mechanics that always allowed a more skilled character to outperform a less skilled one. Both could be reintroduced without abandoning bounded accuracy.

They were called Take 10 and straight ability comparisons. Take 10 could be rephrased as straight skill comparison, as that's what it becomes in many opposed tests.

[SiuiS]

I think you're missing my point. What I meant to say was that it's perfectly fine if a large, conventional army can handle monsters, including dragons, because the system doesn't need to bend over backwards to make sure the PCs are the only people capable of handling problems.

No, I didn't miss it. I was being facetious since the usual retort to something reasonable is "it's not a rule so nyeh". You'll notice i personally agreed with you in there.

Peasants are also clearly superior for dealing with large creatures if you work out how to get them there:

Maximum +5. Sorry.

Probably, this means that the bonus goes up to +5, and having up to five other peasants next to you gives you a bonus on top of your basic +3. So peasants can reach +8 to hit.

Which is about right for a gang beatin where five guys with clubs accost you simultaneously and beat you down.

What the **** is this doing in a game where a fifteen tone magical lizard barely gets that for being a fifteen ton magical lizard? The hay if I know.

So does that mean that if you catapulted a bunch of peasants wrapped in damp straw and glue at the dragon that the rest of your conscripts could pepper it with super-accurate bow shots? Even with whatever their non-proficiency penalty is, +5 is nothing to sneeze at especially when you can roll dozens or hundreds of d20s a turn.

There is no non-proficiency penalty. It's disadvantage. Which means with +8, they're consistently rolling 13 or so? It's basically the same thing as the commoner rail gun. If the DM allows it, he's already given up.

But that's designing entirely backwards; instead of saying "this task is no longer a challenge to a character who has invested heavily in X" it says "this task must always be a challenge regardless of investment." Except what actually works like that?

You missed the part where it's a worthy challenge. Your examples fail because you aren't a worthy challenge. You aren't the leveled barbarian to their leveled rogue; you're chaff. You're the guy who's a background element when they win, no roll involved.

If The system only models appropriate challenges then you've ruined your own argument, because you're trying to say that you both are and are not an appropriate challenge.

He might take more than 6 seconds to open the lock. Nothing terrible about that.The d20 roll represents the myriad things that can go right or wrong for someone attempting an action in a situation.

If the wedding guest manages to open the lock on a noble's strongbox the very first try, it would mean they already have Proficiency with Thieves' Tools, meaning they do know what they're doing. It just went easier than expected.

Air, you're bein sensible. I'm gonna need to see some swearing or something or I'll have these commoners escort you out of the thread.

[Scow2]

You missed the part where it's a worthy challenge. Your examples fail because you aren't a worthy challenge. You aren't the leveled barbarian to their leveled rogue; you're chaff. You're the guy who's a background element when they win, no roll involved.

Actually, it would still be a roll: ~DC 10-12 stealth check, which a high-level rogue should be able to pull off VERY easily.

[Tehnar]

N

You missed the part where it's a worthy challenge. Your examples fail because you aren't a worthy challenge. You aren't the leveled barbarian to their leveled rogue; you're chaff. You're the guy who's a background element when they win, no roll involved.

If The system only models appropriate challenges then you've ruined your own argument, because you're trying to say that you both are and are not an appropriate challenge.

Since there is no definition of appropriate challenges, and no clear criteria of determining them (other then DM fiat) you have no right to dismiss those examples.

Reductio ad absurdum is a valid mode of argumentation, while dismissal of ideas with no arguments presented is not. You have not presented a valid reason why a peasant is not a challenge, other then DM fiat. You can easily replace peasant with goblin, kobold, or some other weak but otherwise perfectly frequent PC opposition.

[Scow2]

D&D Next DOES make big numbers of enemies scary. Its focus is on discrete groups of small ones, though. 5 Peasants CAN put the hurt on even a hero if they get the jump on him... but the hero should be able to shrug off their d6s of damage before they get hurt too badly.

[Felhammer]

They were called Take 10 and straight ability comparisons. Take 10 could be rephrased as straight skill comparison, as that's what it becomes in many opposed tests.

Ugh, I hate take 10 and take 20. I hope they are not re-introduced in the core rules.

Ability comparisons where in Next via how Initiative was being settled.