Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2020 7:23 pm
There are only 33 vulnerabilities in the game, 13 of which are to fire and 10 of which are to bludgeoning.
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Chamomile wrote:How many have you run through 5e? Because I run both regularly, including for new players, and this has been very much the opposite of my experience. Granted, some of the 3e games are actually PF1, which seemed to consider complexity to be a goal to be strived for, but even in 3.5 games it is far more common for people to forget their bonuses, not realize they have a class feature or how their class feature works for multiple sessions, and to not know how things like touch AC and flat-footed AC work (despite monsters making regular use of both).
I've run three totally new groups through 5e and...elevenish? through 3e, where "totally new" means all newbies except for occasionally having one player who'd done a bit of AD&D or 4e previously. In each group, there's been a broad spread of skill levels from "picked it up immediately" to "can't figure out how anything works after 5+ sessions," and a broad spread of proactive-ness when it comes to learning the rules, and that's largely my point....You Lost Me wrote:I have had the literal opposite experience with this. On average, most IRL people I game with have trouble keeping track of spells and ability DCs. Asking them to track multiple statblocks simultaneously, or to juggle the short-hands for common grappling, flight, or poison tactics is a hell of a lot.
Yes, it's certainly possible that a given DM might run a party through the Dungeon of Endless Goblins and do nothing but throw increasing numbers of goblins and hobgoblins at them until, surprise!, the dungeon boss is a wyvern, but that's pretty unlikely. It's more likely that they'll pick out monsters that look cool and try to switch things up, and if they do that you don't really need to mandate any specific monster "path" to take.Chamomile wrote:I don't think there's any words that you can put in a book that will convince GMs to do things like use the giant eagle at CR3 so you're ready for the wyvern at CR6, unless that book is an adventure path where telling you which monsters to use for what encounters is the whole point, although I would only be slightly surprised if the round-by-round tactics got paid more attention to as compared to the natural language overview you get from the wyvern. That would still leave GMs looking up a lot of stuff for monsters whose lower-CR predecessors they happened to skip, but at least it stands a decent chance of communicating that you should be looking this stuff up.
And that's different from most starting 5e DMs how? The 5e MM doesn't even give suggested tactics for any monsters and those monsters have fewer and less-useful interesting abilities than their 3e counterparts. If "the DM is dumb and doesn't read the rules and follow the books' advice" is a criticism of 3e, then it applies triply so to 5e where there are just a bunch of gaping holes where the rules and advice should be.Using the books we actually got, though, most starting 3.5e GMs use each and every monster as a giant sack of hit points with a full attack attached, even when the book unambiguously states that the monster fights using other tactics.
Yes, it's a lot of rolls, but it's not difficult, it just involves reading the rules and following the steps, and there's no qualitative difference there between 3e and 5e. 5e has AoOs, buffs and debuffs, situational abilities, and multiple attacks per round as well--and most importantly, it also has players who remember their +2 to AC and +4 on Fort saves/advantage on Con saves against poison two rounds later.Stubbazubba wrote:That is a ton going on for one standard action. In prose, it sounds great, but modeling each of those steps turns it into a slog unless everyone is really on the ball.
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High-op/digital tables will roll damage with attacks and hopefully track all the extras as they roll, but most meatspace tables I've played at will drag out each of those 8 rolls and remember at least one bonus after the fact. You are rolling 6-8 different things to model what boils down to two attacks, one of which makes you then recalculate a number of your statistics at the table. Repeat every round.
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That's a lot of squeeze for the little juice of just grabbing someone, dealing a bit of damage, and maybe poisoning them.
I mean, maybe I'm being elitist, but I don't think it's a high bar to expect people to be able to read and apply a step-by-step list of actions, to remember what they used or did one in-game round and ten out-of-game minutes ago, and (considering the focus of the discussion is 3e's full attacks vs. 5e's multiattacks) to remember how to perform the attack routine that every damn fighter does every damn round of every damn combat ever.Like, that meets the low bar of "you can in fact get through it all without running into divide-by-zero errors," but if that is working out fine, then I don't know what level of complexity you would ever say is crossing the line.
I still think that's a lot of if-then statements all squeezed into one standard action, but I don't have to look anywhere else but those 6 sentences to run that whole attack sequence. That is what you want step-by-step instructions to look like, and it's what I want to have in front of me running that monster for the first time.A better combat summary wrote:A wyvern dives from the air, snatching the opponent with its talons and stinging it to death. The Wyvern makes a flyby attack with its talons (+10 melee, 2d6+4 slashing). If the talons hit then make an opposed grapple check (+15) as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If that succeeds then the target is grappled and the Wyvern makes a sting attack (+10 melee, 1d6+4 piercing). If the sting hits then the target must make a DC 17 Fortitude save or take 2d6 Con damage from the Wyvern's poison. Repeat the poison save and effect after 1 minute. The poison save DC is Constitution-based.
Are you suggesting that 5e's explosive growth over 4e and PF1 came because it was converting DMs from 3.X? That Critical Role's big boon to the hobby was not in convincing people who'd never played D&D before to try it out, but to convince people who'd stopped playing to pick it up again? Or that all or even most groups of new players happened to have exactly one experienced DM in their personal circle to get the campaign started? This isn't impossible, in theory you could quintuple the audience for D&D if every existing player DMs and happen to be evenly dispersed amongst new players such that each one can find a party. It's not really what you'd expect, though. You'd expect that all the new players brought in by Critical Role are mainly figuring out who's going to DM amongst themselves, and that probably a decent chunk of brand new people want to be the DM because they think Matt Mercer is cool. The entire (accidental) key to 5e's success has been replacing your older cousin who ran D&D for you at a family reunion when you were nine with a YouTube channel that can sell millions of people on the game with each new episode, and that only works when the system is simple enough that starter DMs can get it right.Emerald wrote:Anyone can pick up any edition of D&D at 1st level, especially when playing under a DM who already knows the system, which is the case 90+% of the time.
You're assuming the only two options are "completely random walk through the Monster Manual" and "DM intentionally avoids all flyers." Most DMs are going to theme their adventures rather than sticking a totally random grab-bag of monsters in (especially starting DMs trying to minimize the number of rules they have to memorize), such that the entire first level may well encounter literally nothing but goblins, and even if they run an elemental-themed adventure for level 3, that dungeon might be underground where the air elemental never benefits from flying and thus never does so.Of the CR 3 monsters in the MM, just under 40% (27 out of 71) are flyers, and that covers everything from big animals to elementals to dragons to fiends. A party is astronomically unlikely to not run into any of those on their way from 1st to 6th at 10 to 15 encounters per level, let alone any flyers at CR 2/4/5..and if the DM is going out of their way to avoid flyers, well, chances are they'll ignore the wyvern too.
Starting 5e DMs are, as you go on to point out, already using the 5e MM to its maximum potential without house rules. Expecting a 3.5e DM to actually make use of all its complexity is not realistic. Like, come on, outside of communities like this one that specifically prize RAW and explicit house rules to keep everyone on the same page and empower players, do you really expect even half of all DMs to be using the rules from the book? Would you be surprised to see a DM on the Paizo forums or Reddit or wherever who runs flyby attacks completely wrong, has no idea, and will transition smoothly from claiming they totally are running it by the book to claiming you're trying to impose your way of running the game on them when you cite the rules that prove they're not using the flyby attack as written?And that's different from most starting 5e DMs how?Using the books we actually got, though, most starting 3.5e GMs use each and every monster as a giant sack of hit points with a full attack attached, even when the book unambiguously states that the monster fights using other tactics.
5e writes out the steps for you directly into the monster entry. 3e asks you to flip from the monster entry to the feats section to the combat rules. Unless it has spells (which 5e for some reason uses full Vancian casting for despite having already sacrificed monster/player rules symmetry by having its monsters be totally incompatible with class levels), a 5e monster can be run directly out of the MM. A 3.5e monster requires you to cross-reference multiple different chapters. It doesn't matter if the information is easy to grasp when you have it in front of you. It's not in front of you, which is why, just like how grappling's four-step checklist that gets to its most complex when it asks for an opposed roll, it gets treated as a massive headache.Yes, it's a lot of rolls, but it's not difficult, it just involves reading the rules and following the steps, and there's no qualitative difference there between 3e and 5e.
I think this is the core of your argument, and the other stuff is basically derived from this idea: (1) You can trust that DMs are experienced with any edition of D&D, and (2) Experienced DMs can shoulder the burden of a 3e's complexity, therefore the difference in complexity is unimportant. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that.Emerald wrote: While 3e does have more complexity than 5e, the supposed vast gulf between 3e's impenetrable walls of rules and 5e's welcome cuddliness that's always used as a selling point for 5e has much more to do with the players than the systems. Anyone can pick up any edition of D&D at 1st level, especially when playing under a DM who already knows the system, which is the case 90+% of the time.
Worth noting that 5e grapple is also an opposed roll. You roll Strength (Athletics) of the attacker versus Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) of the defender.Stubbazubba wrote:The 5e Wyvern is 2 rolls less, because the grapple check in 3.5 is an opposed roll.
I know, but there is no grapple in the 5e Wyvern. I was pointing out that his flowchart didn't account for the other side of the grapple check....You Lost Me wrote:Worth noting that 5e grapple is also an opposed roll. You roll Strength (Athletics) of the attacker versus Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) of the defender.Stubbazubba wrote:The 5e Wyvern is 2 rolls less, because the grapple check in 3.5 is an opposed roll.
Gotcha, my bad.I know, but there is no grapple in the 5e Wyvern. I was pointing out that his flowchart didn't account for the other side of the grapple check.
Three of those would be factored into the stat block already. Altertness and Ability Focus would have the +2s written in, and Multiattck reduces the penalties on secondary natural attacks from -5 to -2, which would be factored into the Full Attack line.The Adventurer's Almanac wrote:"A bunch of feats you don't remember"? The 3.5 wyvern has 4 of them. And 2 of them are +2 bonuses to its Poison DC and Listen/Spot Checks, which I'm not sure whether or not are factored into its stat block. Flyby Attack and Multiattack are the only significant ones, and don't a ton of monsters have those? It could use a bit of trimming, but it seriously doesn't have that much more than the completely fucking barren 5e entry. What information should be truncated for the 3.5 wyvern?
I've been reading through the PHB bit by bit over the last week. I'm wondering how much any of this would have made sense to me if I hadn't already been playing 2E and 3.x for a combined total of 26 years.Stubbazubba wrote:I mean, this is pretty consistent with the basic philosophies of 3.5 vs. 5e: 3.5 has a lot of depth, but only if you and everyone else at the table have internalized a lot of the rules, whereas 5e is "Baby's First D&D" which only does 1 thing and attempts to walk you through that with its confusing language that really relies on you already knowing how they want things to work.
The rules are in the DMG. Couldn't tell you why, other than I guess they needed to pad out the DMG?RobbyPants wrote: I just got my 5E books last week (and haven't even cracked open the MM), so I don't know if there are any rules on how to build monsters from scratch. Looking at the 5E entries I've seen in the past, I can tell you what it feels like is that everything is just arbitrarily decided. I'm sure they had some vague benchmarks for damage output and HP by level, but I feel like I'm reading an entirely different language when I look at the stat blocks.
I might qualify, at this point.Pseudo Stupidity wrote:I have yet to meet a D&D vet (even a 4e vet!) who prefers 5th. Do we even have one on the Den?
I'm not sure how much I actually like being on the other side of the screen, at this point, but that's less about system and more about... general approach to gaming, I think.Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Gnome, if you were on the other side of the screen would you prefer a different system?
One of the big issues I have with 5e is that the DC scales given are misaligned with the reality of the math.I've only played as a PC in 5e games and my big complaint is because there are no rules you can't actually do anything except beg the DM to at least allow a roll (which your character sucks at).
Scaling basically doesn't happen. Its designed not to, that was the point of bonded accuracy. In practice, your proficiency bonus grows from +2 to +6 over 20 levels, and that's about it. You may get some stat increases as well, or a +1 magic bonus, but you may not. HP Does continue to grow, and damage does to a lesser extent. This means things your Ancient White Dragon at CR 20 has an AC of 20, and 333 hit points. Level 1 PCs can hit him, but they need a ton of hits to bother him. Because of the weird non-scaling AC, I find PCs hit and get hit more at higher levels than lower.OgreBattle wrote:So how is Attack Bonus, AC, Saves, HP suppose to scale in D&D5e? As mentioned before D&D3e's anchoring point was the monster manual, 4e's was listed in charts.
Also how useful is INT, WIS, CHA if it's not your primary caster stat or if you're not a caster, does one of them stand out as more useful than the rest?
I am not one of them, but I know of 3. All 3e vets, who didn't take to 4e or PF, but moved to 5e when it came out and love it. 5e has a very strong grip on the people who don't care for rules and just want to tell their stories in a fantasy world. When I asked why they aren't playing *World or one of the other myriad rules lite fantasy games, the answer has been that it doesn't feel appropriately fantasy enough. So there's some intersection between wanting some quantity of rules, but wanting those rules to be minimal enough that you can handwave them whenever necessary.Pseudo wrote:I have yet to meet a D&D vet (even a 4e vet!) who prefers 5th. Do we even have one on the Den?
While I get what you're saying, I do think 3.X is still miles ahead of 5e because it actually has rules to cover things like skills. A lot of DMs can be persuaded if you show them a quote from a rulebook.GnomeWorks wrote: My big takeaway from the PF game I'm in, though, is that the notion that 3.X games engendered player agency is ultimately a myth. It's about the DM's attitude, and nothing else. 3.X gives a DM the tools to put them on the path of understanding what player agency is and why it's important, but not every DM is going to recognize that, and there are some who have the attitude that the players shouldn't get to have nice things or have their moments to shine. I've lost track of the number of times one of us has said something to the effect of "that's not how $EFFECT works" and the DM has responded with "well this one is special" or some other horseshit. Which would be fine if it were occasional or not obviously him trying to cover his ass: I've given monsters and NPCs weird shit before, too, so I get the appeal, but you have to earn the trust of your players before you do that, and he has not done that in the least. That and the constant "no I'm not going to allow that" or "no that's not how I interpret those rules" makes for a less-than-stellar experience.