D&DNext: Playtest Review

[Prak]

For the specific example of the goblins vrs. elephant, you could just give the elephant an ability like

Big Steps (ex): Creatures more than two size categories smaller than an elephant who are adjacent to it must make DC (10+half elephant HD+Con) Ref saves or automatically take trample damage.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If you want a single enemy capable of taking on a group of player characters, you need to break the action economy in half to make it feasible.

You do it the non-retarded way. Which is to make the numbers for advancement exponential in effect. So that players hit less, do less damage, take more damage, and the effects that they throw out are less convenient.

Giving boss monsters ad-hoc force multipliers doesn't even really work if the math doesn't start out balanced. You might as well have a rule that boss monsters randomly flip a coin to see if their attacks do double damage or asymmetrically negate attacks or retcon misses or whatever the fuck.

Why is it bad when you give a class of monsters the capability to do this just cause, but perfectly okay when you accomplish it by having a caster with action economy breaking spells instead?

Keep beating that straw man.

Also, claiming that this is to make it feel like an MMO makes me doubt you've ever played an MMO seriously.

Yeah, no one gives a shit. When we say that 4E D&D game mechanics are like WoW or like an MMORPG, we mean that the play experience gets ad hoc expansions and exceptions lazily hammered onto it in order to force the particular playstyle of '4+ people gangbang an arbitrary pile of hit points and damage for a long amount of time because that feels EPIC'.

You mean powerful monsters disrupt normally effective strategies, encouraging players to use other tactics? You don't say!

1.) Yeah, tactics that encourage people to make choices in CharGen 30 encounters in advance is good for the game and really engages players. Choice regret is a great hook for the game, but only if it feels like it could've been avoided and/or if players are aware that their double-or-nothing bet actually ended up double last time.

2.) As far as the second caveat of choice regret goes, Save Ends powers are not double-or-nothing in 4E D&D. They're (in theory) about as powerful as ones that have other durations. If you picked a power that has an effect that strictly only lasts for one turn, they're balanced so that the one turn is actually a big-time knockout effect. Save Ends powers are balanced on the assumption that they last longer. If they don't last longer then all it does is make them turkey powers.

If 4E D&D, for example, made it so that elite monsters had save penalties, then it'd be a meaningful tactical choice. It'd be retarded and metagamey, but it'd be balanced. Right now, all the change does is akin to implementing a rule that powers with mod 4 = 0 letters in the title do half-damage to boss monsters. It's an arbitrary restriction that doesn't shake up tactics and makes the game more samey in an immersion breaking way.

As it is, all that happened with the multiple-turn monsters is that no one picks save ends powers unless they're doing something abusive with it. They go towards the sustainable, entire encounter ones, or ones that end on the player's initiative. Bang up job, 4E design team.

[Corsair114]

Lago, would it be workable if the monster could disperse its actions through a given round but only rolled once to save for the round instead of each time it took an action, or would that still hose "Save-or-Suck" effects in the face of "Screwed 'til start of my next turn" effects?

[Lago PARANOIA]

The game shouldn't have boss-specific gamebreaker rules at all.

If you want to have 'boss' monsters then they should have rules that are transparent with the rest of the game. And in a class and level system, this is achieved by making the monsters higher level and making sure that the numbers scale properly.

Throwing on post-hoc rules bullshit in order to force a playstyle that your rules don't support after the fact just A.) reduces immersion, B.) increases page bloat, C.) makes it harder for people to master the game, and most importantly D.) causes the game to explode when trying to do shit outside its normal parameters. And rarely does it even exactly work. I mean, yes, post-4E D&D MM3 solo monsters aren't as laughable as ones out of the basic book but they're still pretty fucking terrible.

[Corsair114]

Thanks for the reply, Lago. I'll take it to heart.

[RobbyPants]

Legendary Creatures Are Creatures of Destiny: The vagaries of the d20 can spell doom for a character, but powerful, notable creatures are made of sterner stuff. Due to their magical nature, dumb luck, or an innate resistance to magic, legendary creatures can mess with the dice and sometimes dictate outcomes. You can think of this as fate or the gods, in the form of the DM, intervening on the creature's behalf.

The specific mechanics can range from a free pass on saving throws to dictating outcomes of attack rolls or checks, but it does so in a limited manner. The deck is stacked in a legendary creature's favor, but the game is not completely rigged. You can eventually stun one, but only with a persistent effort.

PC Wiz: I cast Sleep.
GM: Go fuck your-oh, hah, the Dragon saves.
PC Wiz: You didn't have to roll?
GM: I could have, but nah, now time to take three-consecutive actions and focus fire your Wizard. The mighty dragon looks at the Wizard and says in a low, menacing voice, "Do you blush?"
PC Wiz: FFFFFFFFU-

Jesus Christ. It's like Mearls has been reading the Apocalypse World thread here, trying to figure out how to find ways to incorporate that into D&D by stealing player agency after they announce actions and roll dice.

Piss.

[virgil]

Legendary Creatures Are Creatures of Destiny: The vagaries of the d20 can spell doom for a character, but powerful, notable creatures are made of sterner stuff. Due to their magical nature, dumb luck, or an innate resistance to magic, legendary creatures can mess with the dice and sometimes dictate outcomes. You can think of this as fate or the gods, in the form of the DM, intervening on the creature's behalf.

The specific mechanics can range from a free pass on saving throws to dictating outcomes of attack rolls or checks, but it does so in a limited manner. The deck is stacked in a legendary creature's favor, but the game is not completely rigged. You can eventually stun one, but only with a persistent effort.

PC Wiz: I cast Sleep.
GM: Go fuck your-oh, hah, the Dragon saves.
PC Wiz: You didn't have to roll?
GM: I could have, but nah, now time to take three-consecutive actions and focus fire your Wizard. The mighty dragon looks at the Wizard and says in a low, menacing voice, "Do you blush?"
PC Wiz: FFFFFFFFU-

Jesus Christ. It's like Mearls has been reading the Apocalypse World thread here, trying to figure out how to find ways to incorporate that into D&D by stealing player agency after they announce actions and roll dice.

Piss.

At least when games like M&M had stuff like that, players were given the equivalent of Edge points to spend themselves for direct powerups or the ability to influence the plot.

[infected slut princess]

Here's the black dragon that we playtested. Note that I also included its interaction "stat block" in case the characters decided to talk to it. In our playtest, the characters defeated the dragon, though at one point the characters were within a die roll or two of a TPK (total party kill).

OMG ALMOST A TPK? THAQTS SO HADRCORE::fapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfap::

Legendary Resistance. Four times per day, the dragon automatically succeeds on a saving throw of its choice.

Unbelievably stupid.

Please note that the black dragon is a work in progress. I added this material for a game I ran at the office. It isn't the final version.

Translation: "We were just dicking around, not doing any real work, and I thought I'd run this by the readers on a L&L article to see how shitty it is. If they don't like it because it's mechanics are dumb, I can just bullshit and claim it wasn't a serious thing planned for the game -- even though secretly I think this is one of the best ideas I've ever come up with and totally think it should be in the game because I am a fucking loser."

1 action—Detect all hidden creatures within 50 feet.

Why does Mearls hate Rogues so much? And why does he lay in bed at night fapping to 4e Fighters?

EDIT: quote tag fuck up

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why does Mearls hate Rogues so much? And why does he lay in bed at night fapping to 4e Fighters?

He discovered Andy Collin's porn stash.

[infected slut princess]

...which is especially nasty because it is full of DWARVES

[CapnTthePirateG]

So, because people didn't like solos, we changed the name and it's all good.

Also, that legendary resistance ability needs to die in a fire.

[Dean]

Also, that legendary resistance ability needs to die in a fire.

For real. It's so disempowering it makes me want to SoD that Dragon entirely out of rebellion against their shitty shit rules. One auto save would possibly be acceptable. But 4 is so massively absurd as to be darkly humorous. They might as well just man up and tell you it's immune to anything but HP damage and be honest with their design goals.

[Username17]

I don't actually mind the Legendary Resistance that much. Although having it kick in by choice rather than automatically creates shenanigans. I mean, what you're doing is making a monster that isn't going to be chump slapped by a SoD on turn one, and giving it some get-out-of-Finger of Death Free cards does do that. Now, you've basically failed utterly in any kind of sensible goal like "encouraging mixed teams" - there is no transparency between team Wizard and team Fighter because the Wizard wins when he runs the Dragon out of Legendary Resistance points and the Fighter wins when he runs the Dragon out of hit points, and never the two shall meet.

But it would be easy enough to have the Dragon have the ability to spend hit points to negate a failed save, which would put the Fighter and Wizard into working together while keeping the Dragon from dropping on round one (which is apparently the goal).

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

But it would be easy enough to have the Dragon have the ability to spend hit points to negate a failed save, which would put the Fighter and Wizard into working together while keeping the Dragon from dropping on round one (which is apparently the goal).

-Username17

Do you think that kind of power should be restricted to only boss monsters?

How about for players? I'd be cool for beefy warriors to trade their hit points to shrug off a stun, gives that "Conan powers through the magic" feeling. And if it's the players choice to skip his turn, then the agency is in his own hands.

[TiaC]

I don't actually mind the Legendary Resistance that much. Although having it kick in by choice rather than automatically creates shenanigans. I mean, what you're doing is making a monster that isn't going to be chump slapped by a SoD on turn one, and giving it some get-out-of-Finger of Death Free cards does do that. Now, you've basically failed utterly in any kind of sensible goal like "encouraging mixed teams" - there is no transparency between team Wizard and team Fighter because the Wizard wins when he runs the Dragon out of Legendary Resistance points and the Fighter wins when he runs the Dragon out of hit points, and never the two shall meet.

But it would be easy enough to have the Dragon have the ability to spend hit points to negate a failed save, which would put the Fighter and Wizard into working together while keeping the Dragon from dropping on round one (which is apparently the goal).

-Username17

I had the idea of making auto-saves/rerolls apply negative levels to the monster. This would allow each SoD to have an impact on the battle without forcing the Wizard to play the Fighter's game.

I also notice that as written there is no indication of whether the Dragon uses Legendary Resistance instead of saving or after saving. The first option would make it far more acceptable, especially if the Dragon was not guaranteed to identify the effect.

[shadzar]

Ultima form FF series does not need to be in D&D. while early editions allowed for SOME things to have a bit different rules, it was only because they couldn't be had by the players, or didn't work for them, ie: psionics and the Mind Flayer.

where this shit of 4th came about that ALL humans are not created equal because they were "monster" type not PC types was stupid. leave the video game nonsense out of it. "boss" monsters are for video games like Contra, Castlevania, etc from the 80s.

and what is this whole "adventurers not adventuring" thing? tons of out of combat rules to give players ideas what to do when they aren't on a quest or something?

may i ask when D&D turned into a push-button game, rather than a game of imagination? where did the TEAM go from the player TEAM? was it all the "player entitlement" that made each player think they were the most important so that they ignore the wizard researching the spell they need for the quest they seek to go on to further the plot, or ignore the resting rogue who has more wounds than can be quickly healed?

do players really need the babysitting rules to tell them how to work as a team and what to do when not in combat so that they dont leave a player out that may need some downtime to do something else in the game world?

these mechanics shouldn't exist, as they are the player responsibility with all that they ahve been given in recent decades, they should be responsible to also come up with their own ideas of what to do when not adventuring. why are they even playing the game.

you know that question comes to me as the reason for a whole design focus. if you do NOT know why the players are playing the game, then how can you make the game they will want to play.

how can you design a game that captures the feel of past versions, let alone one that is even playable; if you do NOT know WHY the playes are playing it?

the mountains of "modules" i can say for certain "feel" nothing like D&D, a game where your character sheet could fit on a 3x5 index card and have all the info you need about it. nor does anything resembling 2.5 and all its extra bits, such as NWPs and such NEVER made any since as the limit was TOO arbitrary to make any sense to drop someone in a world to fulfill a role of that world.

i think Mearls needs to ask that question as head of R&D since they are the things that research is all about.

What: playing D&D
Where: where you have room to fit people to play even if it means online
When: the time enough people can get together to play
Who: the people that are interested in playing D&D. (see where, as a drinking party doesn't classify as nobody would need to be online to drink with other people, so the games focus should only be to those wishing to put D&D as the primary focus of getting together.)
Why: Why do you want to play D&D? Why are you choosing to play it over something else?

if Mearls can't answer all these questions then he isnt doing the R part of R&D (research and development) correctly. The last one seems to have been missed over the years or obfuscated behind other things.

obviously the when and where are hardly ever needed as that would be the people playing responsible for figuring this out when they have the game and are ready to play it. the game is made however it was made to be played. not everyone has a baseball diamond yet the rules for baseball were made and people find a way to play and enjoy it. video games require someone to have access to a gaming console or computer. board games require space for the board to fit and the peices remain stable. so the players must figure those out.

what is the most obvious, you are designing it so should know what first.

who, well you can't just assume everyone with money is a correct fit, that is why demographics exists. did anyone expect Vin Diesel to play D&D? this one can be tricky, but you can probably bet it shoudl be the people who most liek the product in the media it was made for. board games are made for people who like playing on a playing surface and doing things on the board, be it physical or virtual.

Why is the hardest question of all. in light of recent times, it becomes even harder. in early D&D the who and why merged a bit, as the who was wargamers, and thus the why was to extend the nature of the wargames to something else beyond WH40K. your actions within the game could carry over to the next game logically, and you weren't playing an armchair general now.

so why do people want to play D&D? why do people want to play a TTRPG? why is D&D the one they choose over all the rest? has this been mentioned in any L&L or playtest material, or was it too lost as editions progressed in the assumption everyone played before and read ALL the previous rules explaining why D&D exists and WHO it was made for?

why do people currently play D&D, out of habit? out of claiming the name? out of some loyalty to a company that gives nothing back to its consumer but the edition treadmill?

did Frank ever make that list by edition of the things that didnt work in (A)D&D, or was that someone else somewhere else? i know he has been mentioning WBL and such for a long time in regards to 3.x, but a simple list i swear someone somewhere was going to make using the "core rules" (PHB,MM,DMG) of each edition and present why the games didnt work in their own edition space?

[Lago PARANOIA]

But it would be easy enough to have the Dragon have the ability to spend hit points to negate a failed save, which would put the Fighter and Wizard into working together while keeping the Dragon from dropping on round one (which is apparently the goal).

-Username17

Don't give these people ideas. Unless they're supposed to be deliberately bad.

[...You Lost Me]

Wouldn't that just make the game feel homogenous, though? If the dragon can drop some HP to stop a failed save, then that's going to happen every time, so it changes from trying to put the dragon into stasis and stab him to a grindfest.

[Corsair114]

Wouldn't that just make the game feel homogenous, though? If the dragon can drop some HP to stop a failed save, then that's going to happen every time, so it changes from trying to put the dragon into stasis and stab him to a grindfest.

Might be better if it just let it ignore the effect temporarily. The dragon's not actually saving, in this instance, he's just shrugging it off in exchange for eating it later on...

...which rings bad in my mind anyway because it just means you'd want to load up on healing/healbots and then tank the dragon until the SoS kicks in and kick the shit out of it later, leading to four or five rounds of "I ready heal incase someone drops to bloody."

[OgreBattle]

Wouldn't that just make the game feel homogenous, though?

Well, how many rounds do you imagine this battle to last?
If the Dragon is losing hit points, it's still progress.
And there could be a limit like "When monster is at 50% health or lower it can no longer trade hitpoints to discard status effects"

... I'm pretty sure we covered this last year in a thread about Save or Die effects.

[Grek]

Legendary Reserve (Ex): Through the power of [flavour text] this creature can strain itself to ignore any number of harmful effects at the cost of sapping its own vitality. Any time this creature is afflicted by a negative condition, and has at least X hit points remaining, it may ignore that condition for one round at the cost of X hit points. This ability is a free action and applies separately to each condition that the creature could negate with this ability. Conditions that can be negated include, but are not limited to: blindness, deafness, wind, confusion, fear, dazed, dazzled, entanglement, fatigue, fascination, nausea, paralysis, petrification, sickness, stunning, unconsciousness and death. If the creature dies and either can or will not spend the hit points to ignore death on its turn, it dies and moves on to the afterlife as normal. Thereafter, it cannot use this ability to return from the dead until revived by other means.

[CapnTthePirateG]

I feel like Koumei floated the 'take X damage or a condition' as a thing earlier.

Here's a dumb question: What if everything had this ability, X was a sizable amount of damage, and there were no such things as saves (so it was choose between paralysis and X amount of damage)?

[Grek]

You'd want X to vary based on the condition, at the very least.

[Koumei]

I feel like Koumei floated the 'take X damage or a condition' as a thing earlier.

I don't think I suggested it as a general rule or anything, but I did include it in the Carnage Denizen PrCl for Disgaeagame. It's 20 HP (ignoring DR, Regen etc) to shed/prevent an effect, which probably isn't enough, given it comes online at 11th level, the class gives 20+Con HP per level and you probably got into it with a d12 hit die and good Con. So you largely don't give a fuck. Then again, in Disgaeagame, you might seriously get hit by a Prinny explosion for over a hundred HP in one shot, and in high level D&D it's not so strange to get multiple status effects layered on in a barrage.

But I'd definitely adjust it for a non-Disgaea game (like not giving the class 20+Con HP/level and making the sacrifice scale to the level of that which deals it)

Here's a dumb question: What if everything had this ability, X was a sizable amount of damage, and there were no such things as saves (so it was choose between paralysis and X amount of damage)?

It might not result in a bad game, but it'd be quite different from D&D as we know it. People would always choose to take damage instead of losing their actions (particularly for long durations), and probably never choose to take damage instead of small penalties and crap, depending on HP and damage.

[Whipstitch]

You'd want X to vary based on the condition, at the very least.

Perhaps; it's actually not always obvious what relationship you want between the hitpoint cost vs. severity of the affliction. The knee jerk reaction is to have gnarlier effects cost a bunch to remove so hopefully it's not such an obvious choice to always end Paralysis and Stunned as soon as you get hit with them, but I think you could actually make a case for letting annoying bullshit effect like Dazzled be expensive too so they actually stick around for a while rather than always just getting trivially soaked by Fast Healing in the midst of battle.