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

[Knaight]

Originally Posted by Thanatos 51-50

It's unreasonable that an epic-level Rogue needs to roll against a monstrous DC to pick the lock on the tavern door, whereas a Heroic-tier Rogue has to roll a much lower DC to pick the same lock.

Some people took "scale you DCs on skill checks" to mean just that, not that the super-duper amazing locked door that epic rogues generally run across have harder to pick locks and that a Heroic rogue wouldn't have a chance of picking one.

Normal locks and such just sort of ceasing to exist doesn't make any sense either. Sometimes, capable people are going to encounter normal tasks and make mincemeat out of them, which 4e scaling doesn't appreciate.

[Nu]

Originally Posted by Knaight

Normal locks and such just sort of ceasing to exist doesn't make any sense either. Sometimes, capable people are going to encounter normal tasks and make mincemeat out of them, which 4e scaling doesn't appreciate.

If that's the case, then they should just auto-succeed the check, and in fact, the DM shouldn't make the PC roll a check at all, if it's so far beneath them. That kind of situation isn't really what the chart is for.

If a 15th level rogue is cavorting around some dump of the town picking locks, why waste time making them roll at all? Doesn't seem like the kind of thing we need a system for.

[obryn]

Originally Posted by Knaight

Normal locks and such just sort of ceasing to exist doesn't make any sense either. Sometimes, capable people are going to encounter normal tasks and make mincemeat out of them, which 4e scaling doesn't appreciate.

Sure it does, unless you're using it in a bizarre way.

That Tavern Lock in Hommlett is still a Moderate DC for a 1st-level character. Your epic-tier rogue can pick it with a chicken leg or a firm knock at that point.

The Next DC chart is just the 4e DC chart with the "level-appropriate" treadmill removed. Bounded accuracy and all that. It's mostly good for the same stuff, only now your fighter with 8 dex can pick locks pretty well because your DC range needs to stay exceptionally narrow to account for constrained bonus ranges.

-O

[AgentPaper]

Actually, the fighter with 8 dex can't pick locks at all, because you're flat-out unable to pick locks unless you have the required training and tools.

[TheOOB]

Originally Posted by Knaight

I know exactly what they were there for, but they broke consistency of the setting by centering it around the players. In basically every other game with something you could call a difficulty, certain things simply have a certain difficulty - very hard is always very hard. In 4e, it magically scales with the players, so that things get harder as you level up to keep uncertainty in, and you're just sort of supposed to cover this gaping hole in the system with fluff. It's a terrible mechanic as a result.

5e, meanwhile, avoids that problem. Becoming better at things means that one is more likely to succeed at them, not that they suddenly turn more difficult, but only when you're the one performing the task. D&D has finally caught up to where the rest of the hobby was in 1980.

One of my biggest problems with 4e was the number scaling. When every number scales up at the same rate, there effectively becomes no point in the numbers increasing by level at all. Next seems to get this. Your skills don't get better automatically with levels, and thus neither do DC's, which has the added effect of making DC's easier to calculate and make any bonuses you do get feel more meaningful.

The numbers that do go up with level, such as the attack bonus and spell save DC, go up at different rates for different classes. As time goes on the fighter gets better and better at fighting, while the wizard becomes more and more reliant on their magical abilities.

[1337 b4k4]

We should not have to waste ability slots on things like push/prone, or disarm, or other basic combat maneuvers. In earlier editions of the game these were things anyone could attempt to do. Yet now the Fighter has to waste ability slots to get it.

So if the fighter shouldn't spend slots on reliably being able to push, prone, disarm and otherwise do control, and they shouldn't spend slots on dealing more damage or reducing damage, then what exactly should they be spending their ability slots on? And was there seriously an at will in 4e that allowed the fighter to prone his enemies on hit? I don't recall it.

Incidentally, I have to apologise for my tone in the last post, I think I was a bit to personal and accusatory and I shouldn't have been.

[noparlpf]

Originally Posted by Nu

If that's the case, then they should just auto-succeed the check, and in fact, the DM shouldn't make the PC roll a check at all, if it's so far beneath them. That kind of situation isn't really what the chart is for.

If a 15th level rogue is cavorting around some dump of the town picking locks, why waste time making them roll at all? Doesn't seem like the kind of thing we need a system for.

In 3.X, you don't even need to make a roll for a skill if your bonus is at least or higher than one less than the DC because it's impossible to fail at that point.

[Kurald Galain]

Originally Posted by 1337 b4k4

And was there seriously an at will in 4e that allowed the fighter to prone his enemies on hit?

You can use any forced-movement at will plus the feat Polearm Momentum.


So anyway. First thoughts on the new playtest is that there are way too many knowledge skills, and they've still left out Perform and Repair. Boo. Channel Divinity is now just another healing spell and seems to be there only because they need some mechanic with that name. I like the new fighter mechanic, as well as grouping the feats in 'themes' to avoid choice paralysis. I don't like how a character gets only three skills in a fairly arbitrary grouping.

My main issues with the first playtest haven't been solved (i.e. that ability and skill modifiers are too low, making the resolution system too random; and that double (dis)advantage doesn't do anything; and that I don't like the hit dice mechanic).

Overall verdict is lacklustre. It looks decent enough, but it's still basically 3E with some tweaks, and I don't see why I should learn this instead of existing systems like 2E/3E/PF.

[TomPliss]

Originally Posted by Kurald Galain

You can use any forced-movement at will plus the feat Polearm Momentum.

Yeah ...
You used polearms, with a feat with big requirements on 2 secondary stats, and still needed a push/slide 2sq ....

You see what I mean ?

[obryn]

Originally Posted by 1337 b4k4

And was there seriously an at will in 4e that allowed the fighter to prone his enemies on hit? I don't recall it.

Yep. Knockdown Assault. It does very low damage, but it can be used on a charge. It makes a pretty good 3rd At-Will for a Human.

That's just a reliable, easy way to do it though. You can always improvise something with the DM if you didn't take the power. A warlord in my game last night pole-vaulted over a pile of dead elves to knock a defiler prone.

Originally Posted by AgentPaper

Actually, the fighter with 8 dex can't pick locks at all, because you're flat-out unable to pick locks unless you have the required training and tools.

Is that in the playtest? It looks to me like training just gives you a +3 to the check.

-O

[Seerow]

Originally Posted by 1337 b4k4

So if the fighter shouldn't spend slots on reliably being able to push, prone, disarm and otherwise do control, and they shouldn't spend slots on dealing more damage or reducing damage, then what exactly should they be spending their ability slots on? And was there seriously an at will in 4e that allowed the fighter to prone his enemies on hit? I don't recall it.

Push, Prone, Disarm, and basically all of the other maneuvers that were available for free for anyone to use in 3.5 are things that should continue to be free. Now if like in 3.5, they require giving up basic weapon damage to use that way, I could see having a single CS ability that lets you use those basic maneuvers by spending a CS die in place of your weapon damage. So the Fighter is better at doing those things, but it definitely isn't worth multiple different abilities. 4e's restrictive power list was one of my complaints about the system, so I won't even bother trying to look up if it was possible in 4e.

I want to see abilities inflicting actual status effects on the target, comparable to spells of a level or two lower. I want to see cleave as an ability where you give up your die to attack two different enemies, rather than gambling when you try to use it. Later on I want to see things like Whirlwind Attack, or charge down a line and attack everyone within your reach on the way. I want to see the Fighter with the ability to spend dice for extra reactions so he can do more of his defendery-type stuff, because 1/round is pathetic. I'd like to see some self buffing. Both Cleric and Wizard can give themselves half cover with a spell, just as an example.

I want to see the Fighter getting utility abilities, stuff that is helpful out of combat as well as in it. As is the only way for a Fighter to have utility is go dex based and take the thief theme for those dex based thief skills. I I want to see extra mobility options, because mobility is extremely important to a melee character. I would even enjoy seeing the Fighter get some group buffing. The problem with these two things is they step on the toes of the Rogue and Warlord respectively.

But anyway, the point is that I want a much wider breadth of powers. Some of the abilities are okay. Shift is pretty decent mobility, I would have been happier seeing a couple more abilities along those lines. Jab/Snap Shot are cool, and open up some interesting possibilities, but should have been a single ability. I wouldn't have minded seeing Glancing blow rolled into that same ability as well (ie let you make a jab attempt if even if you make an attack and miss, so it's not quite auto damage but gives a much better odds of landing something each round). Having those three as separate abilities is horrible, because it's taking a pretty narrow concept and splitting it up into a bunch of weak abilities... in a system where you have very limited options.

Deadly Strike and Parry aren't horrible, but they are the default options that every fighter gets, and act as the fallback when other maneuvers aren't better. To me a Fighter getting those is equivalent to a Wizard getting cantrips, which is why I left both those and the cantrips out of the comparisons of abilities.

Protect, as mentioned before is a nice ability, some protection of allies going on, but requiring a reaction means it's competing against the ability to attack an enemy, the ability to impose disadvantage on an enemy attack, and the ability to stop an enemy from moving completely. And honestly out of those 4 options, blocking 1d8 damage is probably the weakest use of the reaction.


tl;dr: Maneuver selection in the packet is extremely limited, and the options range from really limited, to worse than a feat, to just terrible in their own right. In addition, the scope of powers provided is extremely limited, to the point where as a 5e fighter, I have fewer options available than a 3.5e Fighter. Given the 3.5 Fighter's history of being both weak and boring in terms of choices available, this is not a favorable comparison when we were told CS would be giving the Fighter more capability.

Incidentally, I have to apologise for my tone in the last post, I think I was a bit to personal and accusatory and I shouldn't have been.

No harm, no foul. I'm sorry if I put a little bite in my post in turn.

[1337 b4k4]

You can use any forced-movement at will plus the feat Polearm Momentum.

Ok, but that's still burning an ability slot (and choosing a specific weapon), so not quite the same as what I was responding to (though I admit, my question should have been clearer).

First thoughts on the new playtest is that there are way too many knowledge skills, and they've still left out Perform and Repair. Boo.

Well, I'm not so keen on the Perform skill, but I definitely think they have way too many knowledge skills. For that matter, I'm generally of the opinion that knowledge skills are sort of useless for the game. A lot of it comes down to platy style, but it seems to me that if you can make a reasonable case for your character knowing something, then they should know it, no die roll required. I'm not so sure what having to roll dice to decide what and how much you know about something adds much to the game.

I don't like how a character gets only three skills in a fairly arbitrary grouping.

From listening to Mearls on the PA podcast, they seem to be planning on explicitly allowing players to pick and choose if they don't like the existing groups. Even if it wasn't explicitly in the rules, I imagine home brew themes would be one of the first things groups do.

You can always improvise something with the DM if you didn't take the power. A warlord in my game last night pole-vaulted over a pile of dead elves to knock a defiler prone.

Oh sure, you can always improvise, and I'm a big fan of it (hence my general dislike of rules for every conceivable scenario), but I was more responding to the assertion that in earlier editions, anyone could knock and enemy prone at any time and so having to "waste" a skill slot on that ability is somehow wrong and or broken.

Maneuver selection in the packet is extremely limited, and the options range from really limited, to worse than a feat, to just terrible in their own right. In addition, the scope of powers provided is extremely limited, to the point where as a 5e fighter, I have fewer options available than a 3.5e Fighter.

So really it seems that the issue is not that the CS thing sucks, or that you dislike it in general, it's that you feel the powers don't go far enough. Fair enough, and I can get behind that and in fact plan on having that be some of the feedback I send back as well. The big trick is balancing the system out. At will powers by definition should be weakish because you can use them repetitively, and making them too powerful runs a high chance of making them broken. And while it would be nice to see more than one reaction, to a degree, it makes sense you can only have one both for game speed and also because a round is only 6 seconds. How much reaction do you plan on doing in 6 seconds?

What would you think of the following:

In addition to a few more status inducing powers, and fixing the stupidity that is glancing blow and a few of the others, leave most of the powers relatively low powered as they are. In exchange, increase the number of dice available with a chart sort of like the wizard spell chart, but instead of spell levels, dice sizes (d4, d6, d8 etc), with a progression of maybe adding 1 die per level, and one size per 3-5 levels. Additionally, each ability has a "powered up" version of the ability that can be used, but such usage burns any CS dice you use until a long rest a la the vancian spells.

Additionally, allow fighters to spend their CS dice to take additional reactions at the cost of one die per additional reaction (in addition to the die spent on the ability).

[Oracle_Hunter]

Page 50, so we need a new thread.

I made it

[navar100]

Originally Posted by 1337 b4k4

Well, I'm not so keen on the Perform skill, but I definitely think they have way too many knowledge skills. For that matter, I'm generally of the opinion that knowledge skills are sort of useless for the game. A lot of it comes down to platy style, but it seems to me that if you can make a reasonable case for your character knowing something, then they should know it, no die roll required. I'm not so sure what having to roll dice to decide what and how much you know about something adds much to the game.

Reverse metagaming. There are things the characters know that the players don't. Because the players don't know, they don't even know they should be asking if their characters know so they don't even attempt to make a case for knowing something.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Originally Posted by noparlpf

In 3.X, you don't even need to make a roll for a skill if your bonus is at least or higher than one less than the DC because it's impossible to fail at that point.

As it is in 4e, as well. And Next. Because, y'know, a one isn't an auto-fail...

[Surrealistik]

Just rocked the latest playtest.

Sorcerers seem pretty op, at least so far as combat goes. Heavy armour + martial weapons + casting + good melee + range. They can do it all except utility. Nothing could hit my 19 AC (with the Shield spell) Sorcalops as he destroyed everything at range and in melee with Ray of Frost and Shocking Grasp, never getting hit once.