[5E] Is Mearls planning to snow Hasbro and the fanbase?

[deaddmwalking]

Hell Yeah!

[shadzar]

lthe anus

i am sure everyone can see why you like 1st so much better in this instance.

notice though how AD&D doesnt force the use of spiders, hags, whatever into some little "basketball team" of shitty reasoning? this is why i await your monster bit from the 2nd DMG, i doubt you will understand that important part there for making a living game world "climate/terrain", because you dont know what to do with it and need James Wyatt to tell you EXACTLY which monsters group together ALWAYS in the ONE TRUE WORLD of D&D.

i mean can you really think for yourself? part of the DMs job is to design the game and redesign it for HIS players, not for every Tom Dick and Harry on the planet. nor should DDN strive to straightjacket these monsters into these specific relationships for everyone?

I know you and Rev. Wyatt get off on shipping ettercaps and night hags, but D&D isnt the place for that. so you two go and ship your rot grubs and "anus" together somewhere else.

[shadzar]

ONE D&D WORLD/COSMOLOGY TO RULE THEM ALL!

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

Are all settings going to use the new cosmology that Mike mentioned in last week’s Legends & Lore? What about Eberron, which has always had its own take on things?

When it is fully fleshed out, the “new” cosmology will be designed to provide a seamless experience for our existing settings. So, if you’re playing a setting that uses different cosmological assumptions (like Eberron, Dark Sun, or even the world of Nerath from 4th Edition), you won’t need to make any changes. In Mike’s own words to me, “That would defeat the purpose of creating a cosmology that allows for the smoothest possible transition.”

why bother releasing ANY settings if they are l the same world in a different place? Planescape and the stupid people wanting to go paly on it infesting D&D unto the ends. It also means that every monster will continue with direct connection to specific gods, whilst a diety was NOT required in early editions. so like 4th edition deities will be connected to everyone and everyone connected to them but they won't actually mean a damn thing in play. So why is it all this cosmology shit is even being worked on instead of the number crunching to make the game work? page filler, that is why. people have to buy more crap that they dont want and dont need!

all this so the new forgotten realms video game looks EXACTLY like the core default of D&D, and then EVERY other setting can just use the core so they dont have to develop special settings specific cosmologies for FR, RL, DS, DL....oh wait... they already were developed for those settings 20 years ago and you need only copy the text over to DDN.

why make any of those other settings at all then if the are all gong to be the same in the way that every class in 4th is the same just with a different paintjob?

[shadzar]

can someone please verify this exists in the article and I am not drunk?

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20130715

As we did more work on the game, it became clear that not everyone wanted feats in their game. Thus, we ended up making feats an optional part of the game.

[Lago PARANOIA]

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20130715

As your character levels, at certain points you gain a +2 bonus to one ability or a +1 bonus to two different abilities. Alternatively, your group can choose to use feats. In that case, you can forgo the ability bonus and gain a special ability.

[*]We know a feat has to be equal in power to an ability score boost, giving us a clear target to aim at for design.
[*]We can design feats knowing that players don't need to select only feats. Even for groups that opt into feats, we can assume that characters will mix between ability increases and special abilities.

Mike Mearls is a moron who has paid zero attention to the outcome of his own design work. He can only hope for one of three outcomes with this system, two of them bad and one of them amazingly implausible.

• They're (somehow) balanced against each other, which is apparently what Mike Mearls is hoping to do. This is damn near impossible to achieve with an evolving game. Every time someone comes out with a new expansion option, like a magical item or a class or just another feat, you risk upsetting the combinatorial balance. This is a doable if overly difficult design goal for evergreen games, but not for something like D&D in which new content gets released every few months.
• Ability score boosts are inferior to new feat options. Then all you've done is create a n00b trap. Then again, this is still superior to...
• Ability score boosts remain superior to new feat options. This is a feat tax. Even though 4Erries will put up with a lot of shit, one thing they didn't put up with was Feat Taxes. They, rightfully, complained bitterly about them because the game was giving them the choice between being interesting and effective.

Because 4E D&D designers seem to err heavily on the 'situational bonus' side of feats, you'd be safe on betting on outcome three. Then again, the example feats in the article have a lot more heft to them than what we're used to from 4E or even 3E D&D for that matter. Outcome two is stupid and pointless but nowhere near as damaging as three.

Of course, then he had to go deeper down the rabbit hole and say this:

In essence, we've taken the specialty concept from earlier playtest drafts and transferred it into individual feat design. A single feat says something interesting about your character and gives you a very noticeable benefit at the table. The feat can be a bit more complex, because this is an optional system. The feat has to be compelling at first glance, because it must compete with the lure of an increased ability score.

Go fuck yourself with this optional subsystem bullshit, Mearls. Stuff like taint and spell points are playing as storm giants are optional subsystems. But feats? The train has left the station on this subject over a decade ago; feats are completely fundamental to how modern D&D is imagined and played. They're as much of a part of the game as +1 longswords and 1st-level elven rangers. If you tell people that you're playing an all-human or all-wizard 3E or 4E D&D game, that will seriously get less stares from people than saying you're playing a 'no feat, bonuses only' game.

Telling people that there's this (supposedly) rich and deep system that the two previous editions had yet may not exist at all in 5E D&D tables doesn't make your game modular and pleasing to everyone. It makes your game incoherent. And if feats are robust and interest or at least effective, it will only piss people off that a fundamental building block of character building can't be relied upon from table-to-table.

If feats were inferior to ability score boosts then people can just ignore the system and chalk it up to Mearls being Mearls. If feats are superior or merely slightly inferior to ability score boosts then Mearls is literally flirting with Intraedition Civil War. Against all odds, this shitbird managed to introduce a paradigm system in which feat taxes are the least damaging and therefore best option.

Hasbro, fire this jackass and sell the D&D IP to some other company. Please. Just cut your losses and run.

[ishy]

I think I'm actually liking this.

While I still dislike the ability score = standard feat approach, it looks like 5e will have the most balanced and most interesting feats of all D&D editions so far.

[Krusk]

Can someone tell me how adventures are planned to be written with all this optional stuff?

Will npcs have feats? If yes what if my group doesn't use them.

Alternatively, will they note what optional rules they use on the front of the module or something?

If its for something as integral to how you play as feats I don't see how you can balance an adventure around this.

Has he explained that at all? I'd love to see his reasoning.

[Username17]

Can someone tell me how adventures are planned to be written with all this optional stuff?

Will npcs have feats? If yes what if my group doesn't use them.

Alternatively, will they note what optional rules they use on the front of the module or something?

If its for something as integral to how you play as feats I don't see how you can balance an adventure around this.

Has he explained that at all? I'd love to see his reasoning.

NPCs are a random collection of unique mechanics anyway, so whether they are "using" feats or not is entirely a point of view thing. Mearls thinks it's really cool to put all of an NPC's rules on their "card", and once you're doing that it doesn't really make a difference if you created them using optional subsystems or not.

Yes, that is terrible. But that is their answer.

-Username17

[hogarth]

He can only hope for one of three outcomes with this system, two of them bad and one of them amazingly implausible.

• They're (somehow) balanced against each other, which is apparently what Mike Mearls is hoping to do. This is damn near impossible to achieve with an evolving game. Every time someone comes out with a new expansion option, like a magical item or a class or just another feat, you risk upsetting the combinatorial balance. This is a doable if overly difficult design goal for evergreen games, but not for something like D&D in which new content gets released every few months.
• Ability score boosts are inferior to new feat options. Then all you've done is create a n00b trap. Then again, this is still superior to...
• Ability score boosts remain superior to new feat options. This is a feat tax. Even though 4Erries will put up with a lot of shit, one thing they didn't put up with was Feat Taxes. They, rightfully, complained bitterly about them because the game was giving them the choice between being interesting and effective.

Almost certainly the answer will be option number 4: some feats are awesome and some are shitty, so you take the awesome feats until you run out and then you switch to ability bonuses.

[Seerow]

He can only hope for one of three outcomes with this system, two of them bad and one of them amazingly implausible.

• They're (somehow) balanced against each other, which is apparently what Mike Mearls is hoping to do. This is damn near impossible to achieve with an evolving game. Every time someone comes out with a new expansion option, like a magical item or a class or just another feat, you risk upsetting the combinatorial balance. This is a doable if overly difficult design goal for evergreen games, but not for something like D&D in which new content gets released every few months.
• Ability score boosts are inferior to new feat options. Then all you've done is create a n00b trap. Then again, this is still superior to...
• Ability score boosts remain superior to new feat options. This is a feat tax. Even though 4Erries will put up with a lot of shit, one thing they didn't put up with was Feat Taxes. They, rightfully, complained bitterly about them because the game was giving them the choice between being interesting and effective.

Almost certainly the answer will be option number 4: some feats are awesome and some are shitty, so you take the awesome feats until you run out and then you switch to ability bonuses.

The majority of characters will only get 4 feats. Some classes, like the Fighter, get as many as 6.

If you run out of "good" feats before hitting even 4 of them, then the entire argument is moot because the feat system is bunk to start with. If you run out of them before 6, you just don't play a Fighter.

[Previn]

I think I'm actually liking this.

While I still dislike the ability score = standard feat approach, it looks like 5e will have the most balanced and most interesting feats of all D&D editions so far.

Is this sarcasm? Because the feats the have now are crazy bad. There are literally feats that do nothing (Charge, Spring Attack), feats that are central to a roll that will cripple you to not have (Disarm Trap, Open Lock, Pick Pocket) and feats that are so bad as to be traps (Read Lips).

In terms of good to bad feats, they weight overwhelmingly on the bad side in 5e.

[Seerow]

I think I'm actually liking this.

While I still dislike the ability score = standard feat approach, it looks like 5e will have the most balanced and most interesting feats of all D&D editions so far.

Is this sarcasm? Because the feats the have now are crazy bad. There are literally feats that do nothing (Charge, Spring Attack), feats that are central to a roll that will cripple you to not have (Disarm Trap, Open Lock, Pick Pocket) and feats that are so bad as to be traps (Read Lips).

In terms of good to bad feats, they weight overwhelmingly on the bad side in 5e.

I think he was referring to the sample feats from the article, not the ones in the playtest currently.

[nockermensch]

If feats were inferior to ability score boosts then people can just ignore the system and chalk it up to Mearls being Mearls. If feats are superior or merely slightly inferior to ability score boosts then Mearls is literally flirting with Intraedition Civil War. Against all odds, this shitbird managed to introduce a paradigm system in which feat taxes are the least damaging and therefore best option.

Hasbro, fire this jackass and sell the D&D IP to some other company. Please. Just cut your losses and run.

Eh, Lago, I hate be playing Devil's Advocate to Mike Fukken Mearls, but his team did indeed promise to make 5e "modular" at... what? 18 months ago?

Of course a "modular" system is gonna cause Intraedition Civil War (say goodbye to "bring your character to a new table"), but this was something that everybody could see from day 1. It's kind of pointless to cry foul now, after they finally show what I seriously suspect will be one of the few - or just the only - "module" at first release.

---

In fact, there must be some perverse logic at work here: By making feats optional and stronger than mere stat increases, they'll seriously risk pleasing both shadzar-grade grognards (if your sheet says more than "Bob the human fighter" then you're the Cancer killing the hobby) and people who like to fiddle with character customization (everybody else).

EXTRA BONUS: Everybody knows how all grognards have raging hard-ons for DM power trips and by making the feat-less characters weaker, they'll also make make them more dependent of DM-pity to survive. GENIUS!

[Previn]

I think he was referring to the sample feats from the article, not the ones in the playtest currently.

Ah, you're probably right. But give the disclaimer 'Note that neither of these example feats has been developed or edited.' I'm not holding out hope giving their track record.

I have serious reservations that they actually understand how to balance against ability increases giving how little insight they've shown for everything else they've made for 5e.

[nockermensch]

can someone please verify this exists in the article and I am not drunk?

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20130715

As we did more work on the game, it became clear that not everyone wanted feats in their game. Thus, we ended up making feats an optional part of the game.

You're not drunk, shadzar. Mearls has listened to your dark prayers. Here, I made an editorial cartoon that explains it:

[ishy]

Ah, you're probably right. But give the disclaimer 'Note that neither of these example feats has been developed or edited.' I'm not holding out hope giving their track record.

I have serious reservations that they actually understand how to balance against ability increases giving how little insight they've shown for everything else they've made for 5e.

I actually didn't know / remember that they already released feats before these two.

But I hope that with the fact that not everyone will get feats, they will avoid feat taxes (like natural spell) and maths fixes (like the 4e bonus to saves).
And with the equal to +2 ability score they'd avoid terrible feats like faster healing or eagle claw attack.

Feats in D&D suffer from the fact that nobody knows A) how powerful they should be and B)what kind of things they should actually do.

[Username17]

But I hope that with the fact that not everyone will get feats, they will avoid feat taxes (like natural spell) and maths fixes (like the 4e bonus to saves).

Since feats are being traded off with stat increases, literally every feat is a "math fix". At its core, every time you get a Feat, your Wizard can spend it on increasing his Intelligence modifier by 1. That is thus the default Feat. Any feat that does anything other than that has to be justified against taking another math fix bonus.

If 4e is any gauge, people will not take things other than the math fixes unless they are considered absolutely necessary (since you're accepting being -1 on all primary stat actions for the rest of the game in order to take one). However, the only way for a feat to be necessary in that sense is if you do in fact actually need it. Which is to say that it is a feat tax.

They have managed to thread the needle and make the perfect shit storm. Literally every feat that is ever written in such a system must a priori be a "feat tax", a "math fix", or a "piece of worthless garbage no one uses". There is no room for any Feat to be anything else.

-Username17

[Seerow]

But I hope that with the fact that not everyone will get feats, they will avoid feat taxes (like natural spell) and maths fixes (like the 4e bonus to saves).

Since feats are being traded off with stat increases, literally every feat is a "math fix". At its core, every time you get a Feat, your Wizard can spend it on increasing his Intelligence modifier by 1. That is thus the default Feat. Any feat that does anything other than that has to be justified against taking another math fix bonus.

If 4e is any gauge, people will not take things other than the math fixes unless they are considered absolutely necessary (since you're accepting being -1 on all primary stat actions for the rest of the game in order to take one). However, the only way for a feat to be necessary in that sense is if you do in fact actually need it. Which is to say that it is a feat tax.

They have managed to thread the needle and make the perfect shit storm. Literally every feat that is ever written in such a system must a priori be a "feat tax", a "math fix", or a "piece of worthless garbage no one uses". There is no room for any Feat to be anything else.

-Username17

Remember that attributes are still capped at 20.

Most characters take a single feat to cap their prime stat, then take whatever because most secondary stat benefits are bullshit (especially with MM talking about moving back to 2e style saves that aren't attribute dependent)

[Wiseman]

Can someone tell me how adventures are planned to be written with all this optional stuff?

Will npcs have feats? If yes what if my group doesn't use them.

Alternatively, will they note what optional rules they use on the front of the module or something?

If its for something as integral to how you play as feats I don't see how you can balance an adventure around this.

Has he explained that at all? I'd love to see his reasoning.

NPCs are a random collection of unique mechanics anyway, so whether they are "using" feats or not is entirely a point of view thing. Mearls thinks it's really cool to put all of an NPC's rules on their "card", and once you're doing that it doesn't really make a difference if you created them using optional subsystems or not.

Yes, that is terrible. But that is their answer.

-Username17

I didn't read much into the playtest. Is it going to be like 4E where the PCs and NPCs use different rules?

[shadzar]

Can someone tell me how adventures are planned to be written with all this optional stuff?

poorly as WotC has always written them.

they are going to have to design monsters around these feats as well, not jsut adventures, which means monsters abilities will factor in any where that a combat feat exists. this means they have to make 2 of every monster. will there be two books? one with monsters with feats, and one without?

it really is already a failed edition. the lack of feats does nothing to remove the forced cosmology and other nonsense from 3rd and 4th that will NOT be options.

if ANY of the options are in the core books, then it will only cause problems, it will take additional books for each option such as updating everything to having feats. as usual people want everything in the beginning, but will buy 4000 splat books anyway. which means the game will suffer since people will not want to buy a book of feats rules.

adventures rarely list what things they use, the best guess is that they use everything so all needed info is there for ANY group that may use some of the options. designers will have a favored way of playing with a set of options, and probably write towards them and the other options will be lacking in quality, or all designers will qork towards ALL options present, and someone wanting to play without any of the options finds that mode doesnt work.

If its for something as integral to how you play as feats I don't see how you can balance an adventure around this.

they wont be able to. this is why kits pre-WotC was just a collection of minor modifiers and pre selected and bonus NWPs. when you have too many options to deal with you wont be able to use them all. there is a way to do it, but WotC is not smart enough to do that. write an adventure without stats or modules and refer to the options you want to fill in the gaps for you. so an adventure mentioning an orc does so only in name. the DM and players must go find the orc info and collection of options they choose to use and insert it where that orc is.

Remember that attributes are still capped at 20.

Most characters take a single feat to cap their prime stat, then take whatever because most secondary stat benefits are bullshit (especially with MM talking about moving back to 2e style saves that aren't attribute dependent)

which means feats are forced anyway or after you get your bonus to stats that puts everything at 20, or you get nothing more with new levels?

i still don't see the need for stats to increase nor feats in general.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Most characters take a single feat to cap their prime stat, then take whatever because most secondary stat benefits are bullshit (especially with MM talking about moving back to 2e style saves that aren't attribute dependent)

So? All that does is change is the threshold when feat(s) goes from 'math fix' to 'feat tax'/'worthless garbage'. That doesn't change the underlying calculus of the system pigeonholing these feats into three broadly undesirable categories.

[Ravengm]

I'm sure that Mearls sees the division of "math fix" versus "feat tax" differently. If you put it in Basketweaver Notation, you have either:

• Feat that adds character depth and flavor (read: probably worthless)
• Ability increase for filthy ROLLplayers (read: "The math just works!")
• Feat that was made with a particular character concept in mind to make it better (read: feat tax)

When you gussy up the verbiage with "glass-half-full" connotations rather than sterile, cold calculated numbersmath and logic, it sounds much more appealing to a random internet lurker that wants to find out what this "D&D Next" hootenanny is all about.

In the end, this will piss off everybody. Though we already knew that.

[Krusk]

Yes, that is terrible. But that is their answer.

-Username17

I guess I keep blocking that out and refusing to admit that that is the plan. God damn that is frustrating.

I didn't read much into the playtest. Is it going to be like 4E where the PCs and NPCs use different rules?

I stopped reading the playtests after the 5th or 6th iteration, whichever one followed clerics turning undead first being released. Up until that point yes that was how they are written. Just like 4e. Only combat powers, and even then not really. Mostly stuff like a big list of melee stats, and a single power like "If he charges deal +4 damage" slapped on to make it "Feel" like a minotaur.

[shadzar]

more douchbaggery from Rev Wyatt that he continues to carry from 4th edition....

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... d/20130716

There are three features of mushrooms that have mutated into the defining features of the myconid: their growth into circular patterns ("fairy rings"),

we get it, you don't like D&D, so stop fucking working with D&D and go preach to the choir elsewhere!

n 2nd Edition, this divine force was identified as Psilofyr, creator deity of the myconids.

it was? i just searched Core Rules HTML files en masse for the term "Psilofyr" and NO page in the 6000+ files contained the word. Guess some shit you made up? or are you conflating all the settings to be the edition itself? probably so, since you morons don't understand how there are plenty of people that used NO cosmology during 2nd, unless it was a settings specific one, and then everyone did NOT go planehopping.

it isnt in the MM so it isnt a part of 2nd edition, it would then have to be a part of XX setting FOR use with 2nd edition. do you people REALLY not understand the 4th edition motto of "everything is core" if false?

change the word Underdark to underground in the MM and myconids have no more connection to FR than Athas does. the Underdark is a specific part of Toril in which Drizzt was born... for everyone else, there is underground.

TT his is my 47th column in this series

well you fucked up 46 more before this one, so why should this one be any better right?

no need to bother looking at what else is there as long as Wyatt is making the monsters there won't be anything other than killing them since "D&D isn't about traipsing through the fairy rings and talking to the little people". monsters exist only to be slain in Wyatt-world, not for ANY other use. 4th edition was his wet dream, no context only a sex of stats to roll dice against, or his lust bushy male dryad thing.

[Winnah]

You know what really grinds my gears?

Myconids are typed as a fucking plant. Fungi are not plants. Botanists only study them because they got sick of arguing with people about taxonomy and the differences between cellulose and chitin.