AC and other mechanics that don't make sense

[wumpus]

There were rules like that in older editions of D&D. Everyone hated them, as it meant looking up a long and detailed table on how each armor was affected by each weapon every time you tried to attack.

Hated rules were ignored rules in AD&D. Just ask how often you rolled for contracting a disease (I've recommended that anyone asking for a RAW interpretation of rules in AD&D suddenly have any "forgotten" disease rolls all retroactively rolled at once). The whole idea of RAW didn't make any sense until at least 3.0 (when I started hearing the term, and it shocked my AD&D sensibilities).

I *think* the DM was supposed to house rule the bonus for each monster (judging by how it resembled any specific armor type), but can't be bothered to dig out my AD&D DMG. This is probably the reason it was largely forgotten.

If anybody is still playing AD&D and thinks looking this up is an issue, you need to try this: http://melkot.com/mechanics/combat-comp.html

[Knaight]

we are running a game system, not modeling real world physics. for that reason, i think simplicity and comprehension take precedent over realism. i think the combat system could be much more streamlined an still present depth and versitility.

It can be, and plenty of other systems have done so. The problem is in the fundamentals - from a simulationist perspective something like an opposed combat roll determining whether hits land (where the primary factor is combat skill) where armor comes in later tends to be both simpler and have more room for depth.

There were rules like that in older editions of D&D. Everyone hated them, as it meant looking up a long and detailed table on how each armor was affected by each weapon every time you tried to attack.

There are also rules for that in a lot of other games that don't have this problem. Early D&D is very good at presenting simple information in needlessly complicated ways. Remember attack matrices?

[Max_Killjoy]

It can be, and plenty of other systems have done so. The problem is in the fundamentals - from a simulationist perspective something like an opposed combat roll determining whether hits land (where the primary factor is combat skill) where armor comes in later tends to be both simpler and have more room for depth.

One of the reasons I don't personally care for "roll once to determine everything" (if you hit, how well you hit, how much damage, what kind of damage, etc, all in one roll) systems is that the squeeze out a lot of room for nuance or differentiation -- while also not really feeling that much like a fight.

There are also rules for that in a lot of other games that don't have this problem. Early D&D is very good at presenting simple information in needlessly complicated ways. Remember attack matrices?

And in what looks like over-correction, there have been (and are) systems that were very "good" at presenting complex information in needlessly simplified ways.

[kyoryu]

There are also rules for that in a lot of other games that don't have this problem. Early D&D is very good at presenting simple information in needlessly complicated ways. Remember attack matrices?

Attack matrices aren't perfectly linear, so they can't be codified into a formula.

THAC0 is a reasonable approximation, but it's not the same thing. Whether that slight non-linearity is important or not is a valid subject of debate.

[ross]

dnd asymmetry for rolls is weird: almost everything goes like this: initiator rolls, meets or beats target number. attacks and AC, skills and DC, loot tables, xp tables.

But spells invert it. Initiator has a save DC, target rolls to beat it. Why reverse it for this one case? Normal method would work just as well; with multiple targets you would just roll once and check against each target, so it would even be faster in that case.

[PhoenixPhyre]

dnd asymmetry for rolls is weird: almost everything goes like this: initiator rolls, meets or beats target number. attacks and AC, skills and DC, loot tables, xp tables.

But spells invert it. Initiator has a save DC, target rolls to beat it. Why reverse it for this one case? Normal method would work just as well; with multiple targets you would just roll once and check against each target, so it would even be faster in that case.

4e tried that (attacker rolled everything against static TNs). Did it work? <shrug> The edition failed for many reasons, although I liked it for what it was.

One other wrinkle is that for initiator-rolled things (AC, skills, etc), a tie is a success. On a defender-rolled thing (saving throws), a tie is a failure (for the initiator). While those are the same from the roller's perspective (a tie is good enough), it's odd from the outside.

[Tanarii]

4e tried that (attacker rolled everything against static TNs). Did it work? <shrug> The edition failed for many reasons, although I liked it for what it was.

When I really miss the 4e method is with 5e can trips. It's a (very minor) pain in the ass to have to roll a saving throw every time the cleric uses Sacred Flame, or a Sorc/Wizard uses Poison Spray or Acid Splash. Especially at lower levels, when they're doing it the majority of combat rounds. I already have to do enough rolling for enemies as is. I've suggested players rolling them for the enemy instead, but that just doesn't feel right for most of them.

I do recognize that a save in 5e has different implications for those spells, like no criticals, or no auto hit/miss, or no cover for non-Dex saves.

[PhoenixPhyre]

When I really miss the 4e method is with 5e can trips. It's a (very minor) pain in the ass to have to roll a saving throw every time the cleric uses Sacred Flame, or a Sorc/Wizard uses Poison Spray or Acid Splash. Especially at lower levels, when they're doing it the majority of combat rounds. I already have to do enough rolling for enemies as is. I've suggested players rolling them for the enemy instead, but that just doesn't feel right for most of them.

I do recognize that a save in 5e has different implications for those spells, like no criticals, or no auto hit/miss, or no cover for non-Dex saves.

Yeah. Conceptually, they're representing different things (to me at least).

Attack rolls: Things where either aiming is important or that can be substantially mitigated/deflected/absorbed by armor. For these, it's hit (result happens) or miss (nothing happens).

Saving throws: Affect the whole space (either as an AoE or as a mind-affecting/soul-targeted thing). Can't dodge these, only get partially out of the way or resist the effect.

[sengmeng]

Hitpoints being explained away as a combination of experienced heroes rolling with the hits, fighting through the pain, and just raw toughness... but then the cleric starts healing you and it takes literally 20 or more times the power to bring you back from 0 to full as it would for a peasant. That makes it clear that explanations aside, you're basically a battery for positive energy and you do have a capacity many times that of an average Joe. Plus, if you both died, the same spell would be needed to bring you back. I think healing should restore a percentage of hitpoints rather than a fixed number. But then you get another problem where the gp value of a potion wouldn't make sense as you go up in level.

[CharonsHelper]

I think healing should restore a percentage of hitpoints rather than a fixed number.

4e did that.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Hitpoints being explained away as a combination of experienced heroes rolling with the hits, fighting through the pain, and just raw toughness... but then the cleric starts healing you and it takes literally 20 or more times the power to bring you back from 0 to full as it would for a peasant. That makes it clear that explanations aside, you're basically a battery for positive energy and you do have a capacity many times that of an average Joe. Plus, if you both died, the same spell would be needed to bring you back. I think healing should restore a percentage of hitpoints rather than a fixed number. But then you get another problem where the gp value of a potion wouldn't make sense as you go up in level.

I decided that HP in my setting represent the body's ability to quickly heal itself (a literal reserve of energy). This is slow to replenish naturally (requiring sleep), but heals most injuries rapidly (so as to prevent debilitation from non-lethal injury). "Higher level" (stronger souls) can store more energy (have more hit points). Above ~50% HP, the body heals things real fast (as if you're not hurt at all). Below ~50% (bloodied), your body starts showing the effects, as it keeps energy in reserve to heal the big hurts (internal injuries, broken bones, etc). Healing is literally replenishing that reserve.

"Normal" people have about as much healing power as a normal earth person. So things like small scrapes, cuts, bruises all heal fast, but a broken bone is already > 50% of the reserve. Yeah, these people aren't as affected by non-mortal injuries as earth people are. Diseases work differently (attacking the spirit/body connection). And yes, this makes "soul energy" a tradeable resource. One city uses hit die based currency--donate a hit die (~3.5 HP) of energy; that pays for about 2 days food.

I'm sure there are other weirdnesses, but it works fine for my purpose.

[Cluedrew]

To PhoenixPhyre: I feel like if the Tippyverse was an intended D&D setting, that could be the official explanation. Which is to say it is kind of cool, but I feel it is bit too mystical for the standard feel Dungeons & Dragons. It also might fix right in with a mystic Kung Fu setting as well. Still, it is a little more coherent than not choosing between luck, dodge & inhuman toughness.

[RazorChain]

For me pretending HP is something it isn't doesnt help.

Let's look at empirical evidence

Different classes get different HP. Why is the barbarian luckier, better to avoid/roll with the blows than fighter or monk? He's tougher is the official explanition.

Why do you get more HP the more Constitution you have? Because you are healthier/tougher

Why can a high level character survive being routenily dropped off a cliff or bathed in lava? Because he has more life than the ordinary peasant

Why does a high level character survive more burning/poison/acid than a low level one? Because he has more life.

If I put D&D characters in a lab like environment I can literally prove that HP is just ability to withstand more damage

[PhoenixPhyre]

@RazorChain, that's one of the reasons I ended up with the explanation I did for HP. I've never liked the "luck and plot armor" explanation personally. It's always seemed off to me.

One of the goals of my setting was to see if I could construct a coherent set of reasons why the mechanics of 5e D&D work the way they do in this universe. The HP answer was a natural outgrowth of some other explanations, and it also helps explain magic and fantastic creatures.

[RazorChain]

@PhoenixPhyre

Well you are moving in the opposite direction than most people do.

Most people try to reconcile the mechanichs with real life expectations which doesnt work

You are making up ingame explanation for the mechanics which moves it away from real life expectations.

I like the thought experiment like Typpiverse which tries to marry the mechanics to the setting and it will be interesting where this leads you.

[Max_Killjoy]

My experience is that the assertion that D&D-like high-scaling HP is a conglomeration of factors that overlaps with other mechanics typically comes from the "defenders" / proponents of that sort of HP.

[PhoenixPhyre]

@PhoenixPhyre

Well you are moving in the opposite direction than most people do.

Most people try to reconcile the mechanichs with real life expectations which doesnt work

You are making up ingame explanation for the mechanics which moves it away from real life expectations.

I like the thought experiment like Typpiverse which tries to marry the mechanics to the setting and it will be interesting where this leads you.

My problem with the Tippyverse is that it relies on very particular assumptions about the nature of the rules to reach its end result. It's also not nearly a playable setting.

I'm trying to treat the mechanics (not really numerical here, more qualitative) as a reasonable, game-appropriate, playable approximation/abstraction of something and figure out a something that fits but is still fun to play in. Because, for me, that's the whole point. I fear that sometimes in our desire for tight world-building we end up filling in all the spaces, leaving none for exploration or for "better" answers that come later. In a sense, I'm working backward--I know what the result should look like and am trying to figure out what conditions would lead to that result.

I'd like the surface effects to be reasonably earth-like, but am totally willing to let fantastic things be fantastic. I realized early on that to make the mechanics work, everyone would have to either do magic or be magic, or both. I've completely given up things like quantum mechanics, atoms, molecules, etc. An earth scientist who went to Quartus would not recognize anything about the fine details, although the surface level would be very similar.

So far I've found 5e to be quite amenable to this and have discovered lots of ways that the classes (for example) are both similar and different so that it makes sense to separate them. I've discovered a theory of 5e's pseudo-vancian magic that, for me, makes it quite rigorous. I've had to jettison most of the racial fluff, however, along with alignment. Good thing those aren't tightly bound into the assumptions, unlike 3e.

[RazorChain]

My problem with the Tippyverse is that it relies on very particular assumptions about the nature of the rules to reach its end result. It's also not nearly a playable setting.

I'm trying to treat the mechanics (not really numerical here, more qualitative) as a reasonable, game-appropriate, playable approximation/abstraction of something and figure out a something that fits but is still fun to play in. Because, for me, that's the whole point. I fear that sometimes in our desire for tight world-building we end up filling in all the spaces, leaving none for exploration or for "better" answers that come later. In a sense, I'm working backward--I know what the result should look like and am trying to figure out what conditions would lead to that result.

I'd like the surface effects to be reasonably earth-like, but am totally willing to let fantastic things be fantastic. I realized early on that to make the mechanics work, everyone would have to either do magic or be magic, or both. I've completely given up things like quantum mechanics, atoms, molecules, etc. An earth scientist who went to Quartus would not recognize anything about the fine details, although the surface level would be very similar.

So far I've found 5e to be quite amenable to this and have discovered lots of ways that the classes (for example) are both similar and different so that it makes sense to separate them. I've discovered a theory of 5e's pseudo-vancian magic that, for me, makes it quite rigorous. I've had to jettison most of the racial fluff, however, along with alignment. Good thing those aren't tightly bound into the assumptions, unlike 3e.

I do it the other way around. I've tried a lot of different systems so I have a very broad system knowledge and know what is good for what. So when I decide upon what I want to run, what setting and what kind of campaign then I'll chose the system that fits best. This means I know the mechanics and what they are capable of from the start and what I can expect from the mechanics.

I know that D20 is mostly atrocious in simulating anything close to realism or anything that adheres to realistic expectations. You can probalby do D&D hacks for something but mostly for me D&D can only do one thing and that's zero to superhero with a tight focus on dungeon crawling and therefore I won't use the system for anything else.

And because I have a limited time I do a very loose world building and paint it in broad strokes and go better into details as needed.

I heartily recommend that you try out different systems. Every roleplayer worth his salt should at least try out 10 systems just to have comparison.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I do it the other way around. I've tried a lot of different systems so I have a very broad system knowledge and know what is good for what. So when I decide upon what I want to run, what setting and what kind of campaign then I'll chose the system that fits best. This means I know the mechanics and what they are capable of from the start and what I can expect from the mechanics.

I know that D20 is mostly atrocious in simulating anything close to realism or anything that adheres to realistic expectations. You can probalby do D&D hacks for something but mostly for me D&D can only do one thing and that's zero to superhero with a tight focus on dungeon crawling and therefore I won't use the system for anything else.

And because I have a limited time I do a very loose world building and paint it in broad strokes and go better into details as needed.

I heartily recommend that you try out different systems. Every roleplayer worth his salt should at least try out 10 systems just to have comparison.

I'd love to try different systems, but groups are few and far between where I am for anything but 5e and PF (which I'd rather not play, too much crunch).

I'm a bit of a special case--I don't care about realism, so discarding that is easy. 99% of the time, I want larger-than-life figures doing heroic things in a fantastic environment. Political and mystery games bore me (especially as a DM), and internal angst-driven games (the stereotype of oWoD) make me want to hurl.

I run a single setting, single system because I'm running multiple games in parallel that only live a school year (being the advisor to a D&D club at a high school). Trying to keep track of multiple settings/systems would make me crazy. I also love (and they do too) that their actions have visible, persistent effects on the game world. Officially, each group runs in a parallel timeline that branches off the canon one at session 1, but I fold the notable things they do, organizations they found, places they discover, etc. back into the timeline. In a sense, we're collaborating on building the setting. My policy is that anything I say at the table is canon and nothing else is. My one adult group (colleagues) are currently doing an explicitly non-canon adventure arc (since the canon timeline presumes that their characters live and become NPCs, and this arc may or may not remove one of them from existence entirely), but I'm collecting ideas from them as they play to incorporate into the canon timeline. Heck, I let one of the first groups decide how to blow up the world. I was switching from 4e to 5e and I knew I needed a big time-skip to rearrange things, so I let them decide the parameters of the end of the world as they knew it through their actions. This sense of continuity is really attractive to players.

As far as D&D, I think recent editions are a little better than you portray them. 4e handles the "fantasy superheros in tactical combat" side of things really really well (if you can get past the intentionally disassociated mechanics). 5e is much more grounded--you're never zeros, but you don't end up as superheros either. Larger-than-life, sure. But not superheros. Bounded accuracy goes a long way in restraining that, as does the limits on spell-casting, etc. It basically defaults to what I said above--larger-than-life figures doing heroic things in fantastic environments. It doesn't provide tons of guidance for intricate social maneuvering, but I'm glad for that--I'd rather mostly just talk that out and only roll when necessary to wrap things up for a particular request. Codifying things like that causes absurdities real fast in my experience.

[Pleh]

It doesn't provide tons of guidance for intricate social maneuvering, but I'm glad for that--I'd rather mostly just talk that out and only roll when necessary to wrap things up for a particular request. Codifying things like that causes absurdities real fast in my experience.

Sounds like you're referring to Diplomancy and Bluffcraft. I like that they are possible in 3.5, but not how ridiculously powerful they often become. I feel, just like magic, it balances out in E6 due to limits on how much you can put into the skill. From there, if party faces are still breaking your games, add 5 to the DC for general stuff and 10 to ridiculous stuff. Add some Reputation rules so failure at diplomacy has long lasting consequences, making the choice to use diplomacy more tactical.

[RazorChain]

Sounds like you're referring to Diplomancy and Bluffcraft. I like that they are possible in 3.5, but not how ridiculously powerful they often become. I feel, just like magic, it balances out in E6 due to limits on how much you can put into the skill. From there, if party faces are still breaking your games, add 5 to the DC for general stuff and 10 to ridiculous stuff. Add some Reputation rules so failure at diplomacy has long lasting consequences, making the choice to use diplomacy more tactical.

Now I don't remember how the difficulty levels are in 3.5 or what guidelines are used. The problem with skill that gets better and DC that stays put is that the players will have the expectations that move way beyond what's reasonable not into the fantastic but just plain silly. Like I remember a player who was dissatisfied about that the DM didn't allow his diplomancer to overcome an encounter by convincing the bad guys to kill themselves because he had such a high skill.


The problem with such DC tables that allow the PC to convince somebody in 6 seconds flat that he shouldn't kill the PC but indeed they are best buddies and he should have the PC's back are rules that don't make sense and go against realistic expectations. Especially when you can squeeze your diplomacy skill high enough and people demand that RAW is used.

[Pleh]

Now I don't remember how the difficulty levels are in 3.5 or what guidelines are used. The problem with skill that gets better and DC that stays put is that the players will have the expectations that move way beyond what's reasonable not into the fantastic but just plain silly. Like I remember a player who was dissatisfied about that the DM didn't allow his diplomancer to overcome an encounter by convincing the bad guys to kill themselves because he had such a high skill.


The problem with such DC tables that allow the PC to convince somebody in 6 seconds flat that he shouldn't kill the PC but indeed they are best buddies and he should have the PC's back are rules that don't make sense and go against realistic expectations. Especially when you can squeeze your diplomacy skill high enough and people demand that RAW is used.

See, part of the original rules for 3.5's skill systems were that some tasks were actually impossible to achieve no matter the skill check. A slight step down is things that are Epic, which are only nigh-impossible. Generally, most epic checks start around 40 IIRC.

The real problem is that, unlike the Climb or Jump skills, where check results can translate directly into tangible distance, DCs for social interaction can only really be determined by DM fiat. There are guidelines suggesting a DC increase if X or decrease if Y, but since there's not a hard set DC for every social interaction, players can easily feel the DM is being stingy if they don't have at least a chance to succeed. Then, once they have a chance, they can optimize to maximize the chance into certainty.

Social skills are definitely an aspect of the game that suffered from give an inch, take a mile. The game seems to want diplomacy to be mechanical, but then shies away from adequately defining the limits of power because it's too broad and nuanced a subject to crunch into mechanics.

Bounded accuracy serves THIS end of the game well, IMO.

[PhoenixPhyre]

3e diplomancy is to me a symptom of a deeper problem--unbounded bonuses and defined, specific DCs. Persuading a dire enemy to be your devoted servant in a single check has DC: Nope in my opinion. You might be able to do it over the course of an adventure, but it will require a bunch of actions and small checks to do smaller, specific things. 5e doesn't really have that issue, so that's not my big problem. My big problem is that when you have "social mechanics" (social combat, defined moves, etc), it makes it hard for me in two ways.

1) As a DM, it sets expectations that social conflicts should be solved in ways that "fit" with the system--through conflict. That feels really rigid and restricts my flexibility to really respond to what the characters do and say. It feels confining. I have players saying things that their opposite numbers would just agree to. No check needed. Or things that can't be changed (DC: Nope stuff).

2) As a player who isn't the most socially ept, it feels disconnected and artificial (not that most RL social interactions don't feel that way, but this is even more so). More like a board game that can be "won" rather than a conversation that I can imagine a character really having.

It also brings back bad memories of arguing with my brother (a star debater) as a teenager. Hint: I never "won" because he was real good at twisting words to make me convinced that I was really wrong all along, even if I wasn't. It wasn't pleasant. But that's a personal failing.

[Max_Killjoy]

Any game that systemizes all social interaction on a combat model is immediately suspect.

[Pleh]

I don't think the game makers intended the skill to monopolize all social interaction. I think it was an unintended side effect of trying to make it flexible enough to use in most any social interaction.

Since the rules are meant to apply in any scenario you want, they effectively apply in every scenario. It's the same problem 3.5 suffers with assuming that tables will be selective in which splats are added, rather than building them to all be actually balanced when added all together.

[RazorChain]

I don't think the game makers intended the skill to monopolize all social interaction. I think it was an unintended side effect of trying to make it flexible enough to use in most any social interaction.

Since the rules are meant to apply in any scenario you want, they effectively apply in every scenario. It's the same problem 3.5 suffers with assuming that tables will be selective in which splats are added, rather than building them to all be actually balanced when added all together.

This is a problem in most games where you add to the rules without referencing the old rules to make a complete rulesystem. D&D is particularly prone to this to sell splat books and each class has rules for itself (and monsters too)

The other problem with social skills is when there are hard rules that can be exploited or you have loose rules dependent on the GMs whim.

With social rules I prefer them loose when I have a good GM but they can be disastrous with a bad GM

[PhoenixPhyre]

With social rules I prefer them loose when I have a good GM but they can be disastrous with a bad GM

The same issue applies with most rules--even the most restrictive rule set won't help you against a bad DM. Because the rules don't really constrain the DM in the same way they do the players*. Since the DM decides what goes into the game**, if they want something to be difficult/impossible/trivial they can simply alter what they put in the players' path to make it so, even following the rules. Only solution is not to play with bad DMs.

*In D&D-like systems. Some other systems restrain the DM in other ways, but you fundamentally can't put outside restraints on the game-runner except from the players at the table-social-agreement level.
** unless you're doing full narrative/players-as-authors style games, which often don't have DMs

[RazorChain]

The same issue applies with most rules--even the most restrictive rule set won't help you against a bad DM. Because the rules don't really constrain the DM in the same way they do the players*. Since the DM decides what goes into the game**, if they want something to be difficult/impossible/trivial they can simply alter what they put in the players' path to make it so, even following the rules. Only solution is not to play with bad DMs.

*In D&D-like systems. Some other systems restrain the DM in other ways, but you fundamentally can't put outside restraints on the game-runner except from the players at the table-social-agreement level.
** unless you're doing full narrative/players-as-authors style games, which often don't have DMs

I agree, rules don't fix bad GMs but I hope they can be restrained.

There is only one bad GM I've played with recently and I've known him for 20+ years so I knew what I was signing up for.

But he ran 5e and while playing I found some rules that I hated. In fact I thought 5e was better because of the praise it had gotten.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I agree, rules don't fix bad GMs but I hope they can be restrained.

There is only one bad GM I've played with recently and I've known him for 20+ years so I knew what I was signing up for.

But he ran 5e and while playing I found some rules that I hated. In fact I thought 5e was better because of the praise it had gotten.

That's the problem. I've never seen a set of words that can restrain someone who's a consciously bad DM. You can train an inexperienced one, you can run fixed adventure paths for the ones who are better at rules than at creating engaging options, but if someone wants to be bad (or refuses to accept that they're bad), no written text can change that. Only other players refusing to play with them until they change.

In my experience, bad DMs will ignore, change, or otherwise be unaffected by rules that try to restrain them. Because they naturally have inalienable power as the one creating the situations--they can pick and choose elements to cause the effect they want.

[Pleh]

I don't think a game that literally rules out being a bad DM is one I want to play. Seems like such a system would have to be exhaustively limiting.

At that point, I'll just pick up a video game.