Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

[Previn]

You will need the starter set to play the game prior to the November release of the monster manual. The starter set will give you enough monsters that you can play low level games but the starter set will probably be messing essential rules of some sort.

Oh, I think it's going to be missing a lot more than we think.

[Koumei]

"Gay ponies in Bavaria?"

So I searched the site, and wow, it turns out this is the third or so time I've expressed this surprise. I guess this is what happens when you don't have a memory.

Anyway, PR once, in an argument against some 4rries, stated that "D&D 5E could be all about playing as gay ponies, ass-fucking your way through 13th century Bavaria and you'd immediately jump on board with that because Mearls told you to" or something to that effect. Pretty sure he said it here, but it also might have been on another forum back when it was okay to shit threads up on other forums and link back here.

It also made its way onto 4chan's /tg/ (probably thanks to PR himself posting it there), and would often be brought up in edition wars. Apparently you don't really get edition wars there any more - 4E went so long without an update and 5E is such an abject failure that the board is more about wargames and cards.

[TarkisFlux]

You will need the starter set to play the game prior to the November release of the monster manual. The starter set will give you enough monsters that you can play low level games but the starter set will probably be messing essential rules of some sort.

Oh, I think it's going to be missing a lot more than we think.

The most offensive part of that ToC? The suggested age range in the corner. In my day the suggested age for D&D was 10+. Now it's 12+? Fuck those guys and their war on imaginative childrens.

[Kaelik]

it also might have been on another forum back when it was okay to shit threads up on other forums and link back here.

It was never really okay to do that. We had a long twist of reading other peoples dumb stuff and commenting on it. That is a thing that makes sense. Then Roy and PR in an effort to have the coolest dumb shit other people said would troll other forums, so Fences were built around linking to other people's stupid shit.

It was never really a thing that is was okay to go shit up other threads to link them because aside from two banned members, no one thought that was an acceptable thing to do.

[erik]

For varying definitions of "okay".

I give Koumei the benefit of the doubt that she meant "when it was still allowed", not "when it was still cool".

[Koumei]

Yeah, I meant "when it wasn't explicitly disallowed", not "when we thought that was a totally fine thing to do".

[rampaging-poet]

then end result is you are still just comparing two numbers to find if your roll produced the bigger number. thus they are the same thing, even the math has been shown by a 3rd edition player to be the same math just with AC starting at 10 going up, not down. still just a number line.

Sure, THAC0 is (THAC0 - Roll = Best AC Hit) while BAB is (BAB + Roll = Best AC Hit). That doesn't mean there aren't advantages to picking one representation over the other. Even if the speed of resolution were exactly the same BAB still provides added clarity, more intuitive results, and better consistency with the rest of the system than THAC0.

D&D before 3rd edition was a clusterfuck of mixed roll types and incentives. For attribute checks, you want a high attribute and a low roll. Meanwhile attack rolls and saving throws demand low THAC0/Save numbers and high rolls. Bonuses to attribute rolls are represented as negative numbers while bonuses to attack rolls and saving throws are positive. That's not insurmountable, but it is inconsistent.

To achieve consistency with attribute checks, THAC0 would have needed upward-counting AC anyway. Flipping the tables so that -10 is the worst AC and 12 is the best still yields (THAC0* - Roll = Best AC Hit), but low rolls would be better like attribute checks and bigger numbers would always be better for attributes, THAC0, and AC. Alternatively, attribute checks could have achieved consistency with THAC0 by checking (1d20 + attribute >= 21) instead of (1d20 <= attribute). The latter would add an extra addition step to attribute checks while improving consistency and simplifying both opposed rolls and easier/harder tasks.

3rd edition chose to ensure consistency by making higher numbers better in all cases. This simplified bonus notation (+X is always a bonus), separated he easy/hard axis from the good/bad conditions axis (difficulty changes the DC while circumstances apply modifiers), and made opposed rolls easier. These benefits are probably worth the slight hit to resolution speed compared to unmodified AD&D attribute checks because they reduce the learning curve and unmodified checks rarely happen in 3rd edition anyway. Replacing THAC0 with BAB continued the "bigger is better" trend and simplified the explanation of attack rolls - it obviated both the need to calculate explicit target d20 rolls and the explanation of what hitting AC 0 means. To put that in perspective, the 3rd edition section explaining attack rolls and modifiers has about the same word count as the opening paragraph of the definition of THAC0. 2nd edition takes an entire extra paragraph to explain how modifiers work, but that's built right in to the shorter 3rd edition definition.

EDIT: I forgot to include my response to your criticisms of my analogy and the calculator argument and

First, I don't intend to respond to criticisms of GUIs because it was just an analogy and poking holes in it doesn't prove anyone's point. I used the analogy and then made an actual argument that followed a similar point - the analogy isn't my argument for BAB being better than THAC0.

Second, calculators have the same resolution speed for addition and subtraction but humans often don't. A human with a fair bit of practice is faster than typing numbers into a calculator for small numbers. Since addition is easier for humans than subtraction (though neither are particularly difficult), it requires less practice to reach the point where just adding the numbers in your head is faster. Addition is therefore at least potentially faster than subtraction.

*With THAC0s adjusted to achieve the same probability as the original tables - THAC0 17 -> THAC0 4 etc.

[tussock]

@Previn, that's the starter set, not the basic D&D game.



There is ... it's on an ENWorld page somewhere. But I forget where. Anyway.

You get the starter set, a box with pre-gens and dice and an adventure and rules for level 1-5. That's the web link you had there. Physical product.

You get the Basic D&D game, a free pdf. with linear classes based on a set of pre-chosen options from the full game, like the starter set characters, but the big four classes up to level 20 with all the spells and monsters and basic rules they use. Playable and free digital product.

You get the (Advanced) D&D game books, three 320pg hardcovers full of more monsters and monstrous cults and optional rules and PC options and a classplosion. Plus later supplements as yet to be announced.

You get two third-party modules that form a 1-16 campaign, by Kobold Press.


That's 5th edition. A free basic game described as "similar to the old Rules Cyclopedia", with a starter box for the mainstreet, and a return to an AD&D-style handful of hardcover suppliments and megamodules. Like they're just starting out again, because they are.

[shadzar]

Because its supposed to be like the launch of 2nd and 3rd edition where the books where staggered to help FLGS sales.

I think it is more to do with the D&D team hanging onto their jobs for an extra 2 months. If they release it all at once, then people will find out how big a pile of crap it is, and the designers jobs would be listed on the HASBRO job openings site.

I mean their only job the past few months has to been make articles for online since everything had to have 3 months time in China to be printed and edited. So Mearls, Wyatt, etc get paid for 6 months for sitting around and waiting until the product comes out in full.

Basic or Starter or whatever should be playable out of the box, but accounts show that it will be a different game than the real one in the PHB/DMG/MM, which defeats the purpose of making a starter and the 3 books will not have modules but ARE a module to change the starter.

[shadzar]

D&D before 3rd edition was a clusterfuck of mixed roll types and incentives. For attribute checks, you want a high attribute and a low roll. Meanwhile attack rolls and saving throws demand low THAC0/Save numbers and high rolls. Bonuses to attribute rolls are represented as negative numbers while bonuses to attack rolls and saving throws are positive. That's not insurmountable, but it is inconsistent.

the thing is, it was not a goal to have all things work the same way, but to have a game to play. how many people here get to decide things in any game they play today and change them? no computer game allows this. all the physics, and rules are hardcoded.

does everything in Catan cost 3 sheep to make it easier? that would be very easy to remember (like d20 system), but not very fun. saves are not attack rolls, so who cares which way is sued. you did it that way because that is how the rules said to do it and the math works.

everything is still roll dice and add modifier. compare to other number. d20 just has a table with number that go up while pre-WotC has independent tables for different things.

tell me if d20 is so good, why it needed to reinvent saves in order to get its "always roll higher" to work? i could do it with PPD/RSW/etc.

therein lies another thing, the saves had meaning. you were saving from different thing. you don't save yourself from drowning by adding water, like you would add water to extinguish yourself on fire.

when you combine the nonsense of both you can see it was just change for the sake of change without benefit. Reflex is just an extension of DEX, Fortitude of CON, and Willpower of WIS/CHA. they are just ability checks like all the stupid NWPs were. why create another system for something you already have?

not all weapons take the same dice rolled to get a result. nothing else has to either. each subsytem performs its own function independently and can be removed to add whatever you want. d20 everything is inbred and removing one will throw off the whole game because of it.

can you plus PPD/RSW/etc save system into d20 and it work? No.
can you plug d20 save system into pre-WotC D&D and it work? Yes.

so which system is better for people playing the game that want to do something different or change something to suit their needs?

[souran]

Ah, so ENworld are still total shills for whatever the latest thing is, in the style of PR's "gay ponies in Bavaria" post?

I found it interesting that most 4E fans actually hate every preview of 5E - the "4E is the only way, Mearls will make you his bitch!" marketing actually set them against any future edition.

I am a 4E fan. It has its own merits. Also remember that until the "essentials" debacle the player base was really split in about half. (Note that this does not mean I don't play other games or can't acknoledge 4Es flaws.

This was supposed to be the everything to everybody edition. 4E players basically had 2 desires. 1) Don't make a game where somebody has to play a cleric. and 2) Don't make a game where only casters are interesting and everything else sucks.

5E does neither of these so 4E players are rightly pissed off. So with the new WOTC plan to sell everything as for every edition means that they have not even convinced their "loyal" customers that this switch is worthwhile.

This is looking like more and more of a cluster every time I turn around.

[NineInchNall]

This was supposed to be the everything to everybody edition. 4E players basically had 2 desires. 1) Don't make a game where somebody has to play a cleric. and 2) Don't make a game where only casters are interesting and everything else sucks.

5E does neither of these so 4E players are rightly pissed off.

Wait. So 5E gets rid of wands?

[Previn]

@Previn, that's the starter set, not the basic D&D game.

I'm aware of that, which probably why I quoted a part about the starter set missing some essential rules when I made my post.

But do you really think you can cover the basics of Movement and Positioning and Actions in Combat in about 480 words each? That's a pretty lean word count, and that assumes no art and pretty dense formatting.

[Kaelik]

For varying definitions of "okay".

I give Koumei the benefit of the doubt that she meant "when it was still allowed", not "when it was still cool".

Yeah, I meant "when it wasn't explicitly disallowed", not "when we thought that was a totally fine thing to do".

Okay, but I mean, I guess it was legal to buy guns in the United States in 500 BCE.

Saying something was allowed when no one was doing it and no one even knew it existed is significantly misleading.

[DSMatticus]

For varying definitions of "okay".

I give Koumei the benefit of the doubt that she meant "when it was still allowed", not "when it was still cool".

Yeah, I meant "when it wasn't explicitly disallowed", not "when we thought that was a totally fine thing to do".

Okay, but I mean, I guess it was legal to buy guns in the United States in 500 BCE.

Saying something was allowed when no one was doing it and no one even knew it existed is significantly misleading.

Well, if you're going to illegalize the purchase of guns, you're probably not going to do so before they exist to be purchased, which means there is at least a fleeting window between "purchasing guns is allowed, but impossible" and "purchasing guns is not allowed, but possible" in which purchasing guns is both allowed (or not explicitly disallowed, anyway) and possible. Which sounds like an accurate enough comparison for "someone comes up with the bright idea to do a stupid thing for the first time, does stupid thing, and moderators then declare that the stupid thing should not be done."

... Sometimes we argue stupid things here. Sometimes that works out and is hilarious. I do not think this will be one of those times.

Quick, shadzar - save us! Say something about THAC0!

[fectin]

[shadzar]

Quick, shadzar - save us! Say something about THAC0!

bab and the d20 system is really THAC(10) in disguise. how is that?

[Lokathor]

Porting Fort/Ref/Will into 2e is actually really easy.

1) Saves seriously became super easy as you got to higher levels. Warriors have all good saves, Rogues have bad Willpower, Priests have bad Reflex, Wizards have bad Fort.
2) Multiclass characters use the higher saves allowed by whichever class is higher level. Dual class characters use saves according to whatever saves they're currently allowed under their dual class rules. In both cases, this isn't a saves issue this is a multi-class or dual class issue.
3) Monsters just use Fighter saves, same as before.
4) Every effect that uses a save should be pretty obvious as to what sort of save it allows, but sure this will take some time. Most of the time you can decided that when the effect is used, so you don't have to pick out everything ahead of time or anything.
5) Your modifiers need to be written down, but the DC is just always 20. Assuming that you want to keep the 2e idea of "saves eventually become easy for high level characters".

[Dean]

Good thing you cleared all that up for him Poet. I'm sure he's with it now.

[GâtFromKI]

yes BAB is THACO just with AC going up not down, and a limit to AC @ around -12.

eg in AD&D 2, a fighter with a +5 full-plate, a +5 shield and Dex 18 had an AC of -14. Which is higher than -12 I guess, so -12 is the hard cap, or something like this. Anyway, there was some hard cap somewhere around some value, promise.

[Username17]

yes BAB is THACO just with AC going up not down, and a limit to AC @ around -12.

eg in AD&D 2, a fighter with a +5 full-plate, a +5 shield and Dex 18 had an AC of -14. Which is higher than -12 I guess, so -12 is the hard cap, or something like this. Anyway, there was some hard cap somewhere around some value, promise.

Chromium Dragons, for example, have an AC of -10 and are surrounded by a fog that gives you -4 to your attack rolls. Which is totally different from having an AC of -14. On the other hand Gold Dragons simply go to an AC of -12 base. Of course, Tiamat is listed with a -15 AC.

The DMG straight up says that -10 is the best AC that can be achieved, but this is patently false and probably to be interpreted as a hyperbolic description of what that level of AC means rather than an actual cap. It is of course trivial to add bonuses together to give yourself an AC in the mid double digits. With the right magic items and spells you can get to -20. Most DMs will get tired of your bullshit and start instituting house rule caps before then, but there's no real rules support for it.

-Username17

[GâtFromKI]

Most DMs will get tired of your bullshit

Hey! It's not my bullshit, it's Shadzar's one ! I know you've put him on ignore, and you had to read his prose because of me, but it is not a reason to put his bullshit in my mouth !

I was ironic, and, huh... Amused by Shadzar's formulation: "there a limit *around* some random value". If he can't even say what the exact minimum is, there isn't certainly any minimum.

[rampaging-poet]

no the math wont work, and you really haven't put the pre-WotC system into d20, you jsut recreated the d20 system like WotC did with 3.0. I mean that is exactly what they did to reinvent it. but the system itself from pre-WotC won't work with all the things the d20 system are connected to.

Game balance is the only thing thing that falls apart if you rip out the d20 system's save system. If you changed the definition of "roll a Fortitude Save" to "Flip a coin, tails fails," the game just keeps going. Casting finger of death doesn't cause the universe to explode just because everyone has a 50/50 chance of dying. Similarly, if you change the definition of "roll a Fortitude Save" to "roll on the 2nd Edition saving throw table under the entry appropriate to the effect," you'd see the Save vs Death entry on the 2nd edition chart and roll as normal. There's no reason the old save system wouldn't work in 3rd edition D&D.

Would applying those changes turn 3rd edition into a new game? I believe so, but by that logic "2nd Edition with 3rd Edition saves" and "2nd edition with coin flips instead of saves" are different from 2nd edition as well. If modifying 3rd edition is "reinventing the d20 system," then modifying 2nd edition is reinventing the game as well. Any other response implies a double standard.

In practice, I would refer to all of those hypothetical changes as "houseruled ____ edition D&D." That makes it clear that these new games are similar to the published rules and that modifications have been made.

[CapnTthePirateG]

So apparently Mearls and co on record as saying that the system is there to give vague DM guidelines, so sayeth Giant in the Playground.

And with that I can't really see a reason to actually buy the game.

First, I don't like the idea that I can build a character and still have no idea what it does. If I max out Bluff at 1st level am I a good liar or a noob? Who knows? Why did I spend $50 on a book that won't tell me the answer?

Second, again, if all you're going to give me is guidelines and tell me to make shit up, I don't need you to tell me this.

Than again, this is the result of putting Mearls in charge, a designer responsible for the same edition which was being outsold by Wizards' previous product slightly modified made by the same guys who used to work for Wizards.

[Cyberzombie]

First, I don't like the idea that I can build a character and still have no idea what it does. If I max out Bluff at 1st level am I a good liar or a noob? Who knows? Why did I spend $50 on a book that won't tell me the answer?

Social skills are actually one of those things I prefer not to be easily defined. I've never really seen a good game where the DM religiously clings to hard rules for social activities. Either the rules have to make social skills basically useless or the first PC who min/maxes diplomacy wins the game with an at-will, multi-target, infinite use, undispellable dominate monster.

Even if it is somehow possible to write an actually good set of social rules, I certainly don't trust anyone on the 5E design team to actually achieve that. The best thing they can do with social skills is go back to the old 2nd edition way of doing things, because any actual hard and fast rule they write will be so full of holes that it ruins games as opposed to helps them. Remember, these are guys who can't even get combat math right.