D&DNext: Playtest Review

[Username17]

Looking back at 5E prediction threads on here that are older than a year, I'm surprised by and at how completely off our predictions are. Especially mine. I probably shouldn't have so much confidence in my ability to prognosticate D&D since pretty much every one of my pre-2012 predictions about 5E were totally wrong.

But let's be fair; I and almost no one else for that matter had no idea that the direction that they were going to take for 5E D&D was 'shitty 2E D&D retroclone with 4E bits stapled on it'.

The assumption early on was that they were going to have a design team design a game. I thought that was a fairly safe prediction, but it turned out to be wrong.

What they actually did was to throw a bunch of half-assed ideas that couldn't possibly work together, and in many cases can't possibly work by themselves. Then they run from fire to fire issuing half-assed retractions as they realize that each idea isn't working. So they announced their new skill system - roll against the stat or auto-pass if your stat is high enough. That is an obviously shitty system. So they scaled back the auto-passes until they didn't matter at all for player characters in the ranges they were testing. But wait! That leaves characters making tests against raw stat bonuses on a d20, they fail at DC 10 all the fucking time!. So they give everyone an extra auto-pass at DC 10, which of course makes the problem worse, because it means that the lowest DC is 11, and people fail at that even more often.

It's predictable and funny to watch, but you can only predict the next flailage from the last flailage, because it's all reactive to the incomprehensible levels of failure going on over there. I'm really perplexed that no one over there seems to have given any thought to how many numbers there are on a d20.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Like a friend of mine said:
The problem with D&D is that D20 is just too big a variance. Your bonuses are much less significant, than if you tend to roll well or badly at dice.

As opposed to what? If you use a bell curve that locks people in a practical sense off of the RNG more quickly. If you use a dicepool without letting people buy successes, there's no such thing as an autosuccess -- and if you use exploding dice, no such thing as an autofailure.

But do be aware that the bell curve exacerbates the 'the fighter could participate on a stealth mission or spell research project at level 1 but can't at level 7' problem and the dicepool problem encourages potentially maladaptive dice whoring. Neither of these are deal-breakers, but they aren't free lunches either. The alternative dice choices is that between chocolate, strawberry, and banana ice cream; not a choice one scoop or two.

[Voss]

The problem with the system they seem set on using for 5e is there is no such thing as competence or skill. You can either suck at something and have around a +0 bonus (at which point you just chuck a die for the sake of chucking a die); or you have skill/attribute bonuses and your success/ failure rate is somewhere around 50%, _maybe_ 45-60.*

With their supposed goal of limiting numerical bonuses, this is apparently what they actually want; and literal demigods will be flaiing just as blindly as novices fresh off the farm. This is tremendously unsatisfying and leads to the sort of terrible experience sabs is alluding to (which popped up in 4e a lot) where there are goods odds every combat that someone at the table will spend an entire encounter just saying 'miss, miss, miss again, fuck!'

Basically a leveled system where there is no progression is stupid, and kicks people in the balls for wanting to play.

* well, except for the exploitable areas they fuck up beyond recognition, like player AC coupled with the cleric's shield spell, where players can just wander around and say 'Suck it for 20s'

[Koumei]

The problem with the system they seem set on using for 5e is there is no such thing as competence or skill.

Well there's certainly no competence or skill on the 5E design team.

As for their catastrophic failures only being predictable based on the prior catastrophic failures, I'm pretty sure this falls under some kind of fractal/Chaos Theory study in tertiary education.

[Duke Flauros]

http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/bl ... next_qa_89

Luckily, we have lots of active playtesters who will help us gather data on what that correct number really is.

Just like the 4e barbarian.

[Lago PARANOIA]

There's no reason to doubt that they will have active playtesters to help them crunch the numbers.

Actually using those numbers, however, like with the 4E monk and barbarian fiascos... that's another thing.

[Duke Flauros]

There's no reason to doubt that they will have active playtesters to help them crunch the numbers.

Actually using those numbers, however, like with the 4E monk and barbarian fiascos... that's another thing.

Exactly. Just like the 4e barbarian.

[infected slut princess]

CHeck out this retarded shit.
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... d/20120806

Podcast with Penny Arcade dudes and MIIEK MURRRLZ.

I didn't listen to the whole thing, I just listened to bits throughout.

But here are some highlights out of MURRRLZ's mouth (paraphrased):

- Adventures by default should be over in an hour, but there will be options to have combats that take one hour if you want long combats.
- If you like any previous edition, no reason to switch to 5e (direct antithesis to supposed unifying aspect of 5e).
- 4e combat is not tedious and long and full of annoying fiddly bits, it's just for people who really love combat.
- Characters need to suck harder

[tussock]

adding damage onto your attacks, and reducing damage from incoming attacks

With a dice pool? So I either do 17 and take 10 or do 10 and take 3?

Does Mike know that simultaneous equations have solutions? Because they do. The Riddle of Steel had a solution and it was to put everything into attack and automatically beat everyone who didn't do the same. This one will too, no matter how they structure the advancement.

Rather like trading attack chance for damage, you can solve that. Even if you in particular can't solve it, some troll on a message board will solve it for you and call you stupid. Before you even get it published these days.

[OgreBattle]

The Riddle of Steel had a solution and it was to put everything into attack and automatically beat everyone who didn't do the same.

Isn't that solved by "buy initiative, hit them really hard because they have zero dice to defend with, and the shock/pain causes their attack to miss" ?

[OgreBattle]

There's no reason to doubt that they will have active playtesters to help them crunch the numbers.

Actually using those numbers, however, like with the 4E monk and barbarian fiascos... that's another thing.

what's that about?

[Voss]

The barbarian's numbers exploded in a way that other strikers didn't, largely because of the way they wrote the powers.

Not quite sure what he means about the monk, but my personal experience with the monk was it kinda sucked ass (at least, straight out of PH3) because the additional damage from flurry wasn't possible to get unless the DM was kind enough to line the monsters up for you and play them stupid.

[Username17]

There's no reason to doubt that they will have active playtesters to help them crunch the numbers.

Actually using those numbers, however, like with the 4E monk and barbarian fiascos... that's another thing.

what's that about?

The short answer is that during the early 4e days they made a big deal about getting the charop board people to playtest the Barbarian in the upcoming PHB 2. And the Charop people at the time gave exactly the advice you'd expect them to give: they at no time pointed out that the Barbarian was fucking boring because all the non-4rries had already been banished to BG; they at no time pointed out that the Barbarian was a pathetic 5-minute workday sucker, because 5-minute workdays don't bother Charop people. But they did crunch the numbers and reported quite correctly that the Barbarian's multi-attack powers were way out of line with the damage numbers of the game. Like, even Rangers couldn't compete on that level. They commented on this extensively and made little charts showing that the multiattack powers were solidly in the area considered "broken" by 4e.

And WotC took that feedback... and fucking ignored it completely. The multi-attack powers went to print unchanged. Having very publicly collected feedback from Charoppers to find the broken powers, they went and published the broken powers anyway. Actually, it was even more insulting than that, because they actually changed the wording on the offenders slightly, in a way that made it clear that an editor had touched them since they were handed over to the Charop board for inspection, but which didn't reduce actual damage output in any way.

This caused even Titanium Dragon to throw a shit fit and condemn the process as a sham. I think that's pretty amazing, because he was such a dedicated 4rry that he would insist with a straight face that Hundreds of Thousands is more than a Million in order to claim that 4e was more popular than previous editions of D&D (which it manifestly was not).

-Username17

[CapnTthePirateG]

CHeck out this retarded shit.
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... d/20120806

Podcast with Penny Arcade dudes and MIIEK MURRRLZ.

I didn't listen to the whole thing, I just listened to bits throughout.

But here are some highlights out of MURRRLZ's mouth (paraphrased):

- Adventures by default should be over in an hour, but there will be options to have combats that take one hour if you want long combats.
- If you like any previous edition, no reason to switch to 5e (direct antithesis to supposed unifying aspect of 5e).
- 4e combat is not tedious and long and full of annoying fiddly bits, it's just for people who really love combat.
- Characters need to suck harder

So if you hate long, boring, repetitive combats you hate combat? That's news to me, we have fun 3.5 battles in our group...which are surprsingly not repetitive.

What's the deal with "characters need to suck harder?"

[ishy]

Why do they actually use iTunes and not proper formats that everybody can listen too?

[rasmuswagner]

Why do they actually use iTunes and not proper formats that everybody can listen too?

Because c.unts who are more concerned with looking like creative workers than actually getting shit done all use iCrap?

[Previn]

Why do they actually use iTunes and not proper formats that everybody can listen too?

It's... an mp3 file you can download and listen using anything that can play mp3s? I mean they seriously gave you the link before even mentioning iTunes.

I suppose you could complain about the podcast subscription being in iTunes, but iTunes is the biggest place that people recognize for that. If you're technically savvy you don't actually need iTunes to listen to podcasts since iTunes doesn't actually host or store the podcasts themselves. You just need the url it refers to which you can get from the linked xml source.

[infected slut princess]

What's the deal with "characters need to suck harder?"

This is Mearls' solution to the problem of "it is difficult to challenge high level PCs."

Now I know this sounds bad. But it's WORSE than it sounds.

Because he isn't talking about AD&D or 3e where you get some pretty crazy stuff at high levels.

He's talking about fucking 4e!

Yes, the game where you don't actually EVER get awesome powers, you just get bigger numbers and you become invincible because the monster math is crap. Because for Mearls, getting the math right is easy. Unless it is hard.

Of course, the REAL solution ("Your character should be AWESOME and the combat system should be well made so that it isn't boring and stupid") never seems to cross his mind. I can't fucking wait for Mearls to get fired. FUCK YOU MEARLS, cocksucking sack of shit.

[CapnTthePirateG]

How is it hard to challenge 4e high level PCs? Do they actually do different things than the low level ones?

He could fix the math, but Mearls has repeatedly demonstrated an adverse reaction to math.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Well I'm listening to that podcast.

Apparently long-ass combats are a result of giving the DM tools to make encounters, and not hit point bloat. I never would have guessed.

Also, combat abilities force people to resort to combat. Duh?

Yay for decodification of rules, because thinking with the rules is BAD.

Mearls does not connect his shitty math with the failure of epic tier.

Characters need to be nerfed to make it easier for the DM. Sigh.

Clerics are healbots. Really? I know our group has warrior clerics running around all the time.

I really hate this MTP philosophy.

[Starmaker]

Also, combat abilities force people to resort to combat. Duh?

If all you have is a hammer...

[MfA]

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

[ishy]

This is Mearls' solution to the problem of "it is difficult to challenge high level PCs."

Now I know this sounds bad. But it's WORSE than it sounds.

Because he isn't talking about AD&D or 3e where you get some pretty crazy stuff at high levels.

He's talking about fucking 4e!

Yes, the game where you don't actually EVER get awesome powers, you just get bigger numbers and you become invincible because the monster math is crap. Because for Mearls, getting the math right is easy. Unless it is hard.

I think it is harder to challenge 4e characters in high level play than 3.x characters. Because if I want them to do something that sounds remotely mid / high level, I have to invent stuff for pcs / monsters to do. Which kind of sucks since pcs don't really know what stuff will look like unless I present them with a huge list of made up stuff.
While in 3.x I just have to hand them some houserules and ask them to agree to some kind of gentlemen's agreement

[FatR]

How is it hard to challenge 4e high level PCs? Do they actually do different things than the low level ones?

Yes, by nearly all acounts of people who actually played high-level 4E, unless you invent monsters with actual abilities, or otherwise ignore bounds of the system, challenging reasonably competent high-level 4E characters is fucking hard. Stock mobs getting effectively stunlocked by piles of status condition or being unable to get past interrupt bullshit to hurt PCS effectively, seems to be the most common complaints from people who actually like 4E. Of course, as far as I know, using all supplements you can just massively outdamage them.

[Josh_Kablack]

challenging reasonably competent high-level 4E characters is fucking hard.

Thunderclap (standard; at-will) ✦ Thunder
Close burst 3; +25 vs. Fortitude; 1d10 + 7 thunder damage, and
the target is stunned until the end of the blue dragon’s next turn.
Critical Hit: As above, except that the target is stunned (save ends).

An AoE, at-will stun juggle that also damages will do it. Even better it's on a monster that can open with a Stun against a different attack and gets multiple action points to get redoes if it fails to stun everyone when they're clustered.