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

[Ravengm]

because Mark Rosewater has a raging erection for top-down design (which is fine, but not in such excess).

That sounds interesting. Could you elaborate how(/why) he is taking it too far?

I can't point you to a specific example, since it's been kind of a buildup over time, but basically their design philosophy has changed to make flavor and "resonance" (of which I read enough times to basically make it a trigger word for annoyance) the primary focus of design. Rosewater has a bit ofan enormous ego, so he's not afraid to talk about how it's the best thing ever and if you disagree you're wrong. He constantly talks about top-down design and doesn't really even mention bottom-up as a thing that they even do. They still do, but it's only other people that mention it at all, really.

It's not like they're doing anything bad for business since they're basically printing money.

I like to think of him as a Mearls that can actually finish a product, but that's just a simplification for humor most of the time.

[Previn]

I wonder if there is a way to give disadvantage on spell saves in 5e, because I can totally see that bringing the game to a crashing halt once someone fireballs a number of targets in the double digits.

[nockermensch]

I wonder if there is a way to give disadvantage on spell saves in 5e, because I can totally see that bringing the game to a crashing halt once someone fireballs a number of targets in the double digits.

Eh, it's just a matter of rolling 2d20 at once and picking the lowest value for each target. The complexity this brings over the normal situation is trivial.

[deaddmwalking]

I wonder if there is a way to give disadvantage on spell saves in 5e, because I can totally see that bringing the game to a crashing halt once someone fireballs a number of targets in the double digits.

Eh, it's just a matter of rolling 2d20 at once and picking the lowest value for each target. The complexity this brings over the normal situation is trivial.

It depends on how you do it, I think. If you roll a handful of d20s, you could group them based on where they land (these two belong to opponent A, the next two to opponent B). As long as you do that without even looking at what's on each die, you're probably okay. But if you try to keep each opponent completely separate (paired dice) you get into trouble.

Since most dice sets come with a pair of matched d10s, you could roll the save on that, treating a 1 as 1/2, a 2 as 3/4 etc. That would allow you to quickly figure out the 'high save' for each specific person, but it might involve rolling a 'deciding' die if the high result hits a result that might or might not be a save (ie, 15/16 and 16 is the save point).

So, pretty much however you do it, it adds complexity.

[nockermensch]

I wonder if there is a way to give disadvantage on spell saves in 5e, because I can totally see that bringing the game to a crashing halt once someone fireballs a number of targets in the double digits.

Eh, it's just a matter of rolling 2d20 at once and picking the lowest value for each target. The complexity this brings over the normal situation is trivial.

It depends on how you do it, I think. If you roll a handful of d20s, you could group them based on where they land (these two belong to opponent A, the next two to opponent B). As long as you do that without even looking at what's on each die, you're probably okay. But if you try to keep each opponent completely separate (paired dice) you get into trouble.

Since most dice sets come with a pair of matched d10s, you could roll the save on that, treating a 1 as 1/2, a 2 as 3/4 etc. That would allow you to quickly figure out the 'high save' for each specific person, but it might involve rolling a 'deciding' die if the high result hits a result that might or might not be a save (ie, 15/16 and 16 is the save point).

So, pretty much however you do it, it adds complexity.

In practice, I need to take note of the survivors' reduced hps or remove the dead ones from initiative, so what I end up doing in "player fireballs a bunch of dudes" situations is to do the dice rolling as a serial process. In this situation, the added work of rolling two instead or one d20 and looking to the smallest number is trivial.

[Previn]

Eh, it's just a matter of rolling 2d20 at once and picking the lowest value for each target. The complexity this brings over the normal situation is trivial.

It depends on how you do it, I think. If you roll a handful of d20s, you could group them based on where they land (these two belong to opponent A, the next two to opponent B). As long as you do that without even looking at what's on each die, you're probably okay. But if you try to keep each opponent completely separate (paired dice) you get into trouble.

Since most dice sets come with a pair of matched d10s, you could roll the save on that, treating a 1 as 1/2, a 2 as 3/4 etc. That would allow you to quickly figure out the 'high save' for each specific person, but it might involve rolling a 'deciding' die if the high result hits a result that might or might not be a save (ie, 15/16 and 16 is the save point).

So, pretty much however you do it, it adds complexity.

In practice, I need to take note of the survivors' reduced hps or remove the dead ones from initiative, so what I end up doing in "player fireballs a bunch of dudes" situations is to do the dice rolling as a serial process. In this situation, the added work of rolling two instead or one d20 and looking to the smallest number is trivial.

Under 3.x if you fireball 12 orcs, you can often just roll 12d20 in one go, grab dice from the rolled pile and apply it down the list and you're done. The difference between this and rolling individually 12 times is effectively non-existent.

Under 5e you're either rolling 2d20 12 times, or you're grouping up dice in some manner, both of which add noticeable time. If you're going to roll individually 12 times, you're going basically to take at least 12 times as long.

In the case that you're already being pretty inefficient in your rolling, yea, it's only a minor increase in time. In most other cases, it's a huge slowdown in play.

[shadzar]

magic items...

well i will be damned. they understand flight is not just for combat positioning now and can be used outside of combat? that is a surprise!

then they played get out a thesauruas or the chinese did a bad translation of english to english...


"shedding light", what is wrong and not providing enough room on that line to say "gives off light"? oh wait, i know!

I are Mike Mearls and I are smert, let me show my vocabluary! please continue give paychecks for me not do no work!

[Krusk]

On first inspection, vials of poison labeled as "Potion of healing" sounds like one of the best tactics. As apparently you identify potions by tasting them.

Also, seems like the item attunement from Tome IIRC right? 3 things ever attune them to you. In tome it was what, 8?

Outside of potions I didn't see anything too objectionable. I mean, not too crazy about the "Your DM doesn't have to give items" or the "+X items exist" but those have been in every edition and so its not a suprise.

[Ice9]

Under 5e you're either rolling 2d20 12 times, or you're grouping up dice in some manner, both of which add noticeable time. If you're going to roll individually 12 times, you're going basically to take at least 12 times as long.

It's annoying, but it's not actually that bad. Advantage means taking the better roll, so if your first roll is good enough the second doesn't actually matter. So you just:

1) Roll 12d20, see who passed.
2) Reroll Xd20, where X is the people who failed.

[Stubbazubba]

Under 5e you're either rolling 2d20 12 times, or you're grouping up dice in some manner, both of which add noticeable time. If you're going to roll individually 12 times, you're going basically to take at least 12 times as long.

It's annoying, but it's not actually that bad. Advantage means taking the better roll, so if your first roll is good enough the second doesn't actually matter. So you just:

1) Roll 12d20, see who passed.
2) Reroll Xd20, where X is the people who failed.

The question is about disadvantage, so you would:

1) Roll 12d20, see who passed.
2) Reroll Xd20, where X is the people who succeeded.

[Previn]

Under 5e you're either rolling 2d20 12 times, or you're grouping up dice in some manner, both of which add noticeable time. If you're going to roll individually 12 times, you're going basically to take at least 12 times as long.

It's annoying, but it's not actually that bad. Advantage means taking the better roll, so if your first roll is good enough the second doesn't actually matter. So you just:

1) Roll 12d20, see who passed.
2) Reroll Xd20, where X is the people who failed.

The question is about disadvantage, so you would:

1) Roll 12d20, see who passed.
2) Reroll Xd20, where X is the people who succeeded.

Ah yeah, that saves a lot of time. Too much dice pool on the brain I suppose.

[tussock]

It's not described as a reroll, so that's not how most people will use it. You've got to remember that most folk can't do math or logic at all.

Anyway, I did notice their basic game asks you to roll two d20 and take the higher (or lower), then add your mods and compare with the target number, but only gives you one d20 to do that with. A lot of people's response to a fireball is going to be to ask for the d20, then roll it, remember the number, roll again, use the higher (or lower), add your mods, compare to the target number, note the results, and repeat until tables are flipped and everyone goes to play smash bros.


Really, it's a non-stacking +/-4, and they should have just used +/-4 and then not stacked that. We're already adding small numbers, it's not a lot extra work. The extra result where you can get less than 5% failure rate isn't actually an improvement to the game.

But ah well, the playtesters like rolling more dice, so more dice it is.

[RufusCorvus]

Your attunement to an item ends when the item has been more than 100 feet away from you for 24 hours and when you die.

The way I'm reading that sentence, it seems like the "and" should be an "or".

[shadzar]

Your attunement to an item ends when the item has been more than 100 feet away from you for 24 hours and when you die.

The way I'm reading that sentence, it seems like the "and" should be an "or".

that is how i hope it reads as well. but knowing Mearls and his fucktardery the item stays attuened forever if you are still wearing it when you die.

1: 100 feet away
2: period of 24 hours
3: you die

only when all 3 conditions are met does an item, for Mearls design end its attunement with a character.

for Mike Mearls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPoBE-E8VOc .

[Username17]

Also, seems like the item attunement from Tome IIRC right? 3 things ever attune them to you. In tome it was what, 8?

Yes. Basically it's item attunement from Tome, with a 3 item limit instead of an 8 item limit. What i do not get, is why they insist on doing every attunement and deattunement in a separate short rest.

Imagine for the moment that you find a new item which will make you want to attune it and two other items that you own but don't currently have attuned. There are lots of such circumstances, just think about how often that happens in games like Final Fantasy and Chronotrigger when you find a new piece of awesome armor that happens to grant different resistances or immunities than the thing you used to be wearing. Well in this system, that's one short rest to identify the new piece of pimp gear, three short rests to deattune all your current gear, and three short rests to attune your new outfit. That seven consecutive short rests. What the actual fuck?

And if you have a non-combat item that needs attunement, that's two short rests to deattune a slot and attune the item, then when you're done using it, it's two more short rests to deattune that item and reattune your normal piece of gear.

In short: they haven't stopped people from having Final Fantasy X2 style "dress spheres," they just made the whole process require a lot of fiddly accounting with lots of sequential short rests. I have no idea why they don't just let you hot swap all your gear with a single short rest, nor do I understand why you have to identify and then attune a magic item with separate sequential short rests.

But more damning still: I don't think any of the items on that page actually require themselves to be attuned. It says that "certain items" count against your 3 item limit, but none of the items listed next to it (enhanced armor, enhanced weapon, boots of striding and springing, gauntlets of ogre power, and potion of flying) actually say they need to be attuned. So if regular bonus items don't count against your item limit, they don't appear to have done anything to the Christmas Tree Effect at all.

-Username17

[tussock]

English: Z when X and when Y == Logic: Z IF (X OR Y).

[Prak]

English: Z when X and when Y == Logic: Z IF (X OR Y).

This. Basically they should have an oxford comma there ("been more than 100 feet away from you for 24 hours, and when you die.") but some people find those pretentious. I have no idea why.

re: Shedding light--um... what's wrong with using more active dynamic language?

[shadzar]

English: Z when X and when Y == Logic: Z IF (X OR Y).

This. Basically they should have an oxford comma there ("been more than 100 feet away from you for 24 hours, and when you die.") but some people find those pretentious. I have no idea why.

re: Shedding light--um... what's wrong with using more active dynamic language?

damn both of those making paper: Oxford and CAmbridge.. i never can remember which one does the comma!

the problem is that they barely know the language. let's see them get past calling everything "level" first to make sure they can understand the language before they start throwing out $10 words where a 25 cent word will do and be just as clear and concise. remember, this is supposed to be the evergreen D&D so they might want to make it easily translated into OTHER languages.

remember the german word for "ice cube" roughly translates into "frozen water with corners" or something like that. must have been hell for the rapper! or would you prefer Mearls and the editor to bring back full Gygaxian prose just to be flowery and try to show an extensive vocabulary. throw some "milieu"s in there every other sentence for no reason?

it isnt about how big your vocabulary is, but how well you use it. how many other ways could that have been said?

[Prak]

The meaning is clear, thus there's no issue. I'm sure there are many larger problems in translation than "shedding light." (sidenote: I'd also bet that Ice Cube is known simply as "Ice Cube" in Germany, similar to the way that Japanese artists seldom, if ever, translate their names for our market).

I'm also pretty sure that "level, level, level" is a legacy thing which will never go away in D&D, even if designers and writers want it to.

[zugschef]

The reason behind my disagreement with you is because this isn't D&D or Ars Magica, this is a White Wolf game. And White Wolf games are noted for two conceits that need to be properly understood before one is permitted to discuss them. Attempting to discuss them without understanding said conceits is like talking about physics without knowing calculus, or talking about game design without knowing probability: it means you say stupid bullshit things like Frank just did without knowing it's bullshit, because you lack the frame of reference.

Firstly, they have this tired conceit that multiple games can exist in the shared world. If you're running Vampire: the Masquerade and you encounter a bunch of ghosts, then you're supposed to pretend on some level that they're the ghosts from Wraith: the Oblivion. This doesn't work, obviously. We all know that it doesn't work. Hell, Mark Rein-Hagen probably cries himself to sleep at night knowing that it doesn't work. However, that's the conceit under which the games are written.
[...]
So how do these two points affect Exalted?
a) Firstly, Exalted must be understood as a shared setting for multiple different games. If you are playing Dragon Blooded, then the actual rules for Solars affect you as little as the rules for Garou would affect you if you're playing Kindred. Not at all. They're simply big scary monsters you have to go and kill.

Saying that Dragon Blooded and Solar Exalted have to be balanced against one another in any way, at any level, is like saying that player options in Battlefield 1942 and in Hearts of Iron 3 have to be balanced against one another because they're both World War 2 games. It's nonsensical. They have a shared setting, but they're different games. End of story.

Ironically, by your own words you aren't permitted to discuss this topic.

[momothefiddler]

English: Z when X and when Y == Logic: Z IF (X OR Y).

This. Basically they should have an oxford comma there ("been more than 100 feet away from you for 24 hours, and when you die.") but some people find those pretentious. I have no idea why.

The Oxford Comma doesn't have any application in lists of two. It's only in lists of three or more (where the lists are comma-delimited anyway) that it applies (being the delimiter between the final two entries). I cannot grasp why anyone ever thinks that's a bad idea, agreed, but it's not relevant here.

But tussock's right. "Z when X and Y" means IF (X && Y) THEN Z, but "Z when X and when Y" is just shorthand in English for "Z when X and Z when Y", which is IF X THEN Z; IF Y THEN Z, or simply* IF (X || Y) THEN Z.

*those are not technically the same for things that can be repeated, true, but a de-attuned item can't be re-de-attuned, so it's equivalent in this case, as Z;Z is equivalent to Z.

[fectin]

There are some constructions where using Oxford commas makes a sentence ambiguous, but omitting them does not. Theyre far less common than the ambiguities resolved by using Oxford commas, but they do exist.

Overall, I think it's a reflexive (and misguided) reaction against too many commas.

[pragma]

But more damning still: I don't think any of the items on that page actually require themselves to be attuned. It says that "certain items" count against your 3 item limit, but none of the items listed next to it (enhanced armor, enhanced weapon, boots of striding and springing, gauntlets of ogre power, and potion of flying) actually say they need to be attuned. So if regular bonus items don't count against your item limit, they don't appear to have done anything to the Christmas Tree Effect at all.

I think Mearls stated his goals for attunement in a Legends & Lore column, and they had nothing to do with reducing Christmas trees. His justification for introducing attunement rules was that he wanted to restore the joy of the identify spell, where you pick up something cool and have to either risk equipping it right away or wait until an identification can be cast.

I think that's a valid goal: I have fond memories of picking up some items and staring at them sidelong for a long time guessing whether they were cursed. That said, I agree with the idea that the team did have an opportunity to reduce the total number of active items per player here and they did not. I haven't played D&D3 (or the 5 playtests) in a serious enough way to know if that's a problem.

[momothefiddler]

There are some constructions where using Oxford commas makes a sentence ambiguous, but omitting them does not. Theyre far less common than the ambiguities resolved by using Oxford commas, but they do exist.

Can you give some examples? I can't come up with any. I'm not surprised they exist, though.

[fectin]

From Wikipedia:

Creating ambiguity
In some circumstances the serial-comma convention can introduce ambiguity. An example would be a dedication reading:

To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God
The serial comma after Ayn Rand creates ambiguity about the writer's mother because it uses punctuation identical to that used for an appositive phrase, leaving it unclear whether this is a list of three entities (1, my mother; 2, Ayn Rand; and 3, God) or of only two entities (1, my mother, who is Ayn Rand; and 2, God). Without a serial comma, the above dedication would read: To my mother, Ayn Rand and God, a phrase ambiguous only if the reader accepts the interpretation my mother, who is both Ayn Rand and God. Other ways of eliminating the ambiguity are possible; for instance, additional prepositions could be used (To my mother, to Ayn Rand, and to God) or the order could be reversed (To my mother, God, and Ayn Rand).

Unresolved ambiguity
The Times once published an unintentionally humorous description of a Peter Ustinov documentary, noting that "highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector."[18] This would still be ambiguous if a serial comma were added, as Mandela could then be mistaken for a demigod, although he would be precluded from being a dildo collector.