5e highlights reel?

[Voss]

In my decade of DnD I never felt like I needed to suck the cock of Mt. Wizard, because you could buy magic items with gold, and normal people have gold. Most of our quest givers were people who couldn't solve the problem themselves and hired someone else.

Congratulations, you're an exception. Statistically, you're irrelevant.

http://heirsofdurin.files.wordpress.com ... 0/lht1.jpg
Really a thing.

I will be surprised if the whole "you can make massive amounts of gold without adventuring" thing survives to release, because if so it drastically changes the tone of the game.

No, it doesn't. With the exception of 4e (and possibly BECMI) it has always been there. Frank's Economicon rant responds in part to the 3e DMG2 rules about economic activity, and that was 8 years ago (9 for the book). Fabricate shenanigans were in both 2e and 1e.

And on topic of these issues surviving to release, they explicitly do. Fabricate is on the scan someone did of the PH spell list. The bit on spell 'services' is from the Basic Rules. (p 53). Talk about players hiring mercenary soldiers is literally right next to that. And establishing strongholds, and long term contracts for said mercs.

Now, you might not have been aware of them, especially the 1e/2e issues, but that is simply because most players either unconsciously or deliberately avoid playing Logistics and Dragons in favor of stabbing things in the face. Though you really should have been aware of people crying about the leadership feat all the way through 3rd.

Primarily, because of bounded accuracy low level characters remain relevant for a long time, so an adventurer who buys an army with gold can send the army to solve most quests more effectively than he could handle them himself. And the fact that PCs can basically become rulers simply by being 10th level and casting fabricate a few times a day.

This has little to do with bonded accuracy and is more an appeal to nostalgia. PCs becoming rulers and gaining armies of followers at 9th/10th level was an actual literal thing in 1e. As in actual class features. If anything, they are keeping this aspect of the game relatively toned down compared to what it used to be.

[animea90]

I was aware of the leadership crying in 3e. Leadership was overpowered, but mostly because of the follower not the large numbers of level 1s you got, because the level 1s weren't useful. They simply couldn't hit enemies after you reached a certain point.

[Voss]

They were useful if you sent them on level 1 quests to gather money and low level items (for more money). But that hardly addresses the real issue at hand, does it?

[animea90]

They were useful if you sent them on level 1 quests to gather money and low level items (for more money). But that hardly addresses the real issue at hand, does it?

Its very relevant. In 5e they are useful on 10th level quests, because with bounded accuracy the enemies AC is still low enough that they can hit and DR doesn't exist. 5e has drastically lowered the power gap between a low level and high level character, which means being able to hire a bunch of low levels is a much more powerful ability.

[Voss]

They were useful if you sent them on level 1 quests to gather money and low level items (for more money). But that hardly addresses the real issue at hand, does it?

Its very relevant. In 5e they are useful on 10th level quests, because with bounded accuracy the enemies AC is still low enough that they can hit and DR doesn't exist. 5e has drastically lowered the power gap between a low level and high level character, which means being able to hire a bunch of low levels is a much more powerful ability.

Compared to the lesser part of leadership? Sure. But you're still missing the big picture. In 1e you could still hire a similar pile of archers (or just get them as part of class abilities), and go out and kill 88 hp ancient red dragons. Hell, cart along some magic arrows, and your archer battalion was a threat to Lloth herself (and her sadly tiny pile of 66 hp).

That the 3e leadership-derived pocket NPCs of level-2 were more useful than the crowd of hicks doesn't really change the equation much. You still have a game that encourages a brute squad- its just that the 3e version of that same tactic involved a crowd of leadership cohorts, animal companions and a menagerie of summoned weirdness rather than normal people. You still had a pile of not-your-characters to go 'ruin' the adventures and farm rewards if you wanted to.

[animea90]

They were useful if you sent them on level 1 quests to gather money and low level items (for more money). But that hardly addresses the real issue at hand, does it?

Its very relevant. In 5e they are useful on 10th level quests, because with bounded accuracy the enemies AC is still low enough that they can hit and DR doesn't exist. 5e has drastically lowered the power gap between a low level and high level character, which means being able to hire a bunch of low levels is a much more powerful ability.

Compared to the lesser part of leadership? Sure. But you're still missing the big picture. In 1e you could still hire a similar pile of archers (or just get them as part of class abilities), and go out and kill 88 hp ancient red dragons. Hell, cart along some magic arrows, and your archer battalion was a threat to Lloth herself (and her sadly tiny pile of 66 hp).

That the 3e leadership-derived pocket NPCs of level-2 were more useful than the crowd of hicks doesn't really change the equation much. You still have a game that encourages a brute squad- its just that the 3e version of that same tactic involved a crowd of leadership cohorts, animal companions and a menagerie of summoned weirdness rather than normal people. You still had a pile of not-your-characters to go 'ruin' the adventures and farm rewards if you wanted to.

Summons are short duration and cohorts/companions are limited to one per player. Heck, cohorts were terrible if your charisma was low. And all of them require either a feat or class ability.

By contrast, because gold is worthless, hiring a bunch of low level guards is something anyone can do with an otherwise useless resource.

[Dogbert]

Ok, I'm going to look like an idiot but... what's the definition of "Bounded Accuracy" and what does it entail? Is that just a fancy name for AC nerfing?

[Voss]

Ok, I'm going to look like an idiot but... what's the definition of "Bounded Accuracy" and what does it entail? Is that just a fancy name for AC nerfing?

Basically that the numbers wouldn't get big, and stay within the RNG. attack bonuses are pretty much +3 to +11 from 1st to 20th level (before magic), and monster AC bottoms at 8 (I think) and caps around 20. Player AC can be pushed to a constant 21 before magic (temporarily high 20s to 30s if you stack things right*). So the young green dragon having +15 to hit is completely out of bounds for the system they promised. Even hobgoblins with an 18 AC at level 1 is pushing the edge a little (though players do much better against high AC than standard monsters do).


*When it comes to stacking., players can hit the following: AC 20 for plate and shield. +1 for fighter fighting style, +prof bonus for duelist feat (so +2 at level 1), +5 for Shield, +2 for Shield of faith. This is not quite doable at level 1, but is doable at level 2 (variant human fighter 1/wizard 1). At level 3, you don't even need a second person to cast shield of faith on you.

So, yeah, at level 2 you can hit a 30 AC if you dump enough into it, though admittedly shield is a reaction and only lasts until the beginning of the next turn. Though in a lot of campaigns you may not be able to afford plate mail at level 2, so probably 'only' a 28. Which is definitely way past bounded accuracy, and fucks everything but young dragons and things that are also inexplicably built that way. So someone just casts sleep on you instead and autowins.

It might be worth noting that at places like ENworld, the tone from many people has already shifted from 'optimization doesn't happen in 5e' to 'we'll kick those dirty stinking optimizers out of our gaming tables if they dare show their faces.'

[animea90]

Ok, I'm going to look like an idiot but... what's the definition of "Bounded Accuracy" and what does it entail? Is that just a fancy name for AC nerfing?

Basically, AC and hit chance are supposed to scale extremely slowly or not at all. So, for instance, your AC might start at 21 and by level 12 it will be up to 23. Hit chance scales similarly. A consequence of this is that low level monsters are much bigger threats because they are going to hit you almost as often as higher level monsters. So 4 level 2 fighters would be a much bigger threat then 1 level 8. Skills have gotten similar treatment.

To me, this says there is no particular reason to hire high level pcs over low level npcs for many adventures and that the party is generally better served by hiring a few dozen level 1 fighters to deal with their problems.

Here is a good discussion of it
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?719 ... -in-action

It is worth noticing that some monsters completely ignore this system, like one of the low level playtest dragons that got a +12 to attack, but that guy favors npcs even more because the minor AC bonuses high level characters get won't matter much.

[Voss]

Also keep in mind the article about encounter building. Mearls openly admits that encounters with lots of low level monsters breaks their current CR system. As do substantially higher level monsters. So, yeah. Effectively nothing works well unless it is a similarly leveled monster group around the same size of the party.

But even that isn't true if someone has area spells prepared, in which case they can just wipe low level things off the board with a single action or two (barring fuck-you omniscient positioning).

It should be slightly apparent at this point that they can't reconcile their numbers and have little to no idea of what they are doing.

[animea90]

Ok, I'm going to look like an idiot but... what's the definition of "Bounded Accuracy" and what does it entail? Is that just a fancy name for AC nerfing?

Basically that the numbers wouldn't get big, and stay within the RNG. attack bonuses are pretty much +3 to +11 from 1st to 20th level (before magic), and monster AC bottoms at 8 (I think) and caps around 20. Player AC can be pushed to a constant 21 before magic (temporarily high 20s to 30s if you stack things right*). So the young green dragon having +15 to hit is completely out of bounds for the system they promised. Even hobgoblins with an 18 AC at level 1 is pushing the edge a little (though players do much better against high AC than standard monsters do).


*When it comes to stacking., players can hit the following: AC 20 for plate and shield. +1 for fighter fighting style, +prof bonus for duelist feat (so +2 at level 1), +5 for Shield, +2 for Shield of faith. This is not quite doable at level 1, but is doable at level 2 (variant human fighter 1/wizard 1). At level 3, you don't even need a second person to cast shield of faith on you.

So, yeah, at level 2 you can hit a 30 AC if you dump enough into it, though admittedly shield is a reaction and only lasts until the beginning of the next turn. Though in a lot of campaigns you may not be able to afford plate mail at level 2, so probably 'only' a 28. Which is definitely way past bounded accuracy, and fucks everything but young dragons and things that are also inexplicably built that way. So someone just casts sleep on you instead and autowins.

It might be worth noting that at places like ENworld, the tone from many people has already shifted from 'optimization doesn't happen in 5e' to 'we'll kick those dirty stinking optimizers out of our gaming tables if they dare show their faces.'

I never understood the idea that optimization wouldn't matter in 5e. A bounded accuracy system is just begging to be broken by optimization, because once you have beaten the system you beat it forever.

For example, in Pathfinder if a character got a ridiculous attack roll and AC you could respond by sending in higher CR monsters who would still have a good shot at hitting the player. So you don't really "beat" the game because you just face harder monsters.

In 5e once a character get his AC to 25+ he has "won" against the 90% of the bestiary that follows the rules, regardless of CR. The character can actually be designed to ensure that even the high level monsters in the bestiary can't hurt him.

And this is only going to get more obvious once a few splat books come out that offer players a few more ways to increase their AC by 1 or 2. I think if the team tries hard they can ensure that its reasonably balanced on release, but after a few splat books people are going to have more ways to up their AC and attack to the point where they simply break the system.

[Voss]

I think if the team tries hard they can ensure that its reasonably balanced on release, but after a few splat books people are going to have more ways to up their AC and attack to the point where they simply break the system.

I don't think you understand. My example only uses things from the Basic Rules. They have _already failed_. It is broken on release. Provably, mathematically broken. Hell, the damn dragon in the starter adventure should prove they can't do anything but break the system when doing basic design.

People were also talking about ridiculous damage stacks with great sword paladins, so it's breakable offensively as well.

And offensive casters that can just impose disadvantage on saves vs things like magic jar, dominate, hold person/monster, polymorph and etc..*
and can just take a feat that says 'Fuck you, immune to surprise and I have +5 (+dex) to go first!'
I have little doubt that an awful lot of encounters are just going to end with 'fuck it, I push the big red 'I win' button.'

*I'm waiting to see if the wild magic sorcerer is still fucking crazy as balls at 6th level, like it is in the alpha. Between Heightened spell and Bend Luck, the fucking thing can impose disadvantage AND has the ability to subtract d4 from rolls. This pushes the odds of 'fuck you, you fail' to an absurd degree.

[Night Goat]

I kind of like the idea of bounded accuracy in theory, because verisimilitude. A DM should never throw dozens of orcs at a mid-level party, but if it did happen the orcs should have a good chance of winning. If anyone can make it work as intended, though, it definitely isn't the Usual Gang of Idiots at WotC.

[Dogbert]

How much is the boxed set of the very first LEGO kit ever made? How much is an ashcan copy of Bill Watterson's attempt at making a hentai manga? How much are John Lennon's glasses he was wearing on the day he was murdered?

While I get your point, remember we're talking about d&d:The Neckbeard Edition, so trying any form of trade with magical items is basically an exercise in futility because your neckbeard of a DM will only offer you peanuts even if you're selling the Hand of Vecna, and will demand your soul for any +1 sword.

Removing magic items from the scope of gold economy destroys any agreeable standards and leaves you at the "tender mercies" of your unfriendly neighbour viking hat.

[momothefiddler]

Unless I'm missing a fundamental aspect of level-based systems, doesn't bounded accuracy just mean "20 levels in this game is the same as 5 levels in X other game"?

A DM should never throw dozens of orcs at a mid-level party, but if it did happen the orcs should have a good chance of winning.

All this says to me is "My idea of 'mid-level' is much less powerful than D&D 3's idea of 'mid-level'." I don't see how "people should only grow a little bit" can be an absolute design good, given that different genres treat that sort of thing very differently.

If you want your power growth to be more like comic books and less like 3.5, there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't think "bounded accuracy" is necessarily better for an arbitrary game than not.

[hogarth]

You can find some really small stuff, but real magic power is on the favor economy, not the gold economy, which is something fairly familiar to anyone around here.

Indeed -- it's familiar nonsense when Frank says it, and it's familiar nonsense when 5E says it. Saying that demand for magic items is infinite (so you can never afford to buy them) and zero (so you can never sell them) simultaneously makes no sense.

You can totally sell items that are worth infinite gold for finite gold if you want. Good thing you have all that gold now that you can't use to buy an item worth infinite gold unless you find someone as stupid as you.

If you're arguing that selling a +1 sword should be worth just as much gold as it takes to pay for a private army of 100,000 soldiers (or whatever), you're an idiot.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If anyone can make it work as intended, though, it definitely isn't the Usual Gang of Idiots at WotC.

A perfectly usable RNG with a rich history already exists for these design goals. However, Mike Mearls and friends are total idiots ignorant of anything outside the d20/4E D&D bubble and/or think that the d20 RNG is just too big of a sacred cow.

Frankly, I don't think switching to dicepools as big of a sacred cow as people say. Yes, if 5E D&D sucked and they switched to dicepools the change in the base mechanic would become the whipping boy, but if 5E D&D was good or at least playable after switching to dicepools only microdicked grognards would give a shit.

[Dean]

I kind of like the idea of bounded accuracy in theory, because verisimilitude. A DM should never throw dozens of orcs at a mid-level party, but if it did happen the orcs should have a good chance of winning.

Bounded accuracy is a shitty idea for a fantasy game because you can't name me a fantasy universe where one badass dude isn't shown taking on 30 enemies. It is the fundamental trope of the fantasy genre. The only fantasy games that fail to deliver on that trope do so as an accident of poorly designed mechanics that they later try to justify as "realism". D&D is also not a game who's happenings only occur at the whims of the DM. Any Orc village now presents the PC's with the Elminster problem, of making them question why they are doing anything when any settlement they meet can bring more force to bear than they could possibly stand against or create.

[Kaelik]

A DM should never throw dozens of orcs at a mid-level party, but if it did happen the orcs should have a good chance of winning.

All this says to me is "My idea of 'mid-level' is much less powerful than D&D 3's idea of 'mid-level'." I don't see how "people should only grow a little bit" can be an absolute design good, given that different genres treat that sort of thing very differently.

This. If you throw a fit that a Wizard can just cast a spell that makes non magical weapons bounce off his skin and then personally lazer beam to death or fireball them to death... Then you have an extremely pathetic idea of what constitutes a Wizard. If you don't think a Wizard should be able to summon a demon that beats the crap out of an army, much less 12-30 guys, then you have a shitty idea of what a Demon is.

If you're arguing that selling a +1 sword should be worth just as much gold as it takes to pay for a private army of 100,000 soldiers (or whatever), you're an idiot.

No, I'm very obviously arguing that if you can wish for piles of gold whenever you want, and you can wish for the gold to hire a private army in a day, but you can't wish for a medium or major magic weapon, then you shouldn't sell your medium or major magic weapon for that gold, and should instead wish for it.

[Jeff W]

It's silly to have gold and magic items in separate economies. A mercenary army is way more effective than a +1 battleaxe, so what exactly makes the battleaxe priceless?

[NineInchNall]

Bounded accuracy is a shitty idea for a fantasy game because you can't name me a fantasy universe where one badass dude isn't shown taking on 30 enemies.

That actually is orthogonal (at best) to bounded accuracy. A system implementing bounded accuracy can totally have that shit happen - it just requires making adjustments in other areas to compensate for a near-constant hit-rate. The simplest way would be to have people's HP increase polynomially (or faster) with level. Then the level 10 dude has more than enough HP to slog through a warparty of 30 orcish soldiers.

[Night Goat]

Bounded accuracy is a shitty idea for a fantasy game because you can't name me a fantasy universe where one badass dude isn't shown taking on 30 enemies. It is the fundamental trope of the fantasy genre. The only fantasy games that fail to deliver on that trope do so as an accident of poorly designed mechanics that they later try to justify as "realism".

I can't speak for everyone, but I'd rather fight a challenging battle against a small group of tactically interesting opponents than grind away at a crowd of homogenous mooks that I'm going to win against no matter what. Some people just want a mindless power fantasy, but I'm looking for something a little more engaging.

[NineInchNall]

I can't speak for everyone, but I'd rather fight a challenging battle against a small group of tactically interesting opponents than grind away at a crowd of homogenous mooks that I'm going to win against no matter what. Some people just want a mindless power fantasy, but I'm looking for something a little more engaging.

Way to set up a false dichotomy / hollow man there. How's about you take the barrel of cocks out of your mouth and come up with a better retort?

[animea90]

Bounded accuracy is a shitty idea for a fantasy game because you can't name me a fantasy universe where one badass dude isn't shown taking on 30 enemies. It is the fundamental trope of the fantasy genre. The only fantasy games that fail to deliver on that trope do so as an accident of poorly designed mechanics that they later try to justify as "realism".

I can't speak for everyone, but I'd rather fight a challenging battle against a small group of tactically interesting opponents than grind away at a crowd of homogenous mooks that I'm going to win against no matter what. Some people just want a mindless power fantasy, but I'm looking for something a little more engaging.

Sometimes the party doesn't have a choice. Maybe they made a gaff and got caught sneaking through the enemy fortress. Now the enemy has sounded the alarm and they are under attack by large numbers. Or maybe the BBG decides to hole up in his fortress with his minions(an incredibly common strategy).

In Next, the GM has to basically not let these events occur, no matter how much sense they would make to the story, because the game can't support them mechanically.

[Voss]

Bounded accuracy is a shitty idea for a fantasy game because you can't name me a fantasy universe where one badass dude isn't shown taking on 30 enemies.

That actually is orthogonal (at best) to bounded accuracy. A system implementing bounded accuracy can totally have that shit happen - it just requires making adjustments in other areas to compensate for a near-constant hit-rate. The simplest way would be to have people's HP increase polynomially (or faster) with level. Then the level 10 dude has more than enough HP to slog through a warparty of 30 orcish soldiers.

More than just the HP (since actually 5e PCs are noticeably tougher with level), but attacks. Amusingly, 1e had a mechanic for this, as fighters had a sweep attack where they could make a number of attacks = level against creatures with less than 1 HD (goblins, kobolds, rats), but it has since been dropped.

But of course, the other part of this is the full spellcasters will deal with groups just fine. They can prep a couple area spells that they can toss off several times, while also prepping good spells for single target threats. A caster (once they're getting into real spells and class features at level 3) is innately prepared for group fights and boss fights (unless the player's spell selection is really awful).

The mundane class aren't- they're often really bad in one situation or the other (rogues can do good sustained damage against single targets, but they're absolutely dogmeat against groups) or mediocre at both (fighter). The paladin can do some amazing burst damage, but they quickly burn out to fighter levels.

In Next, the GM has to basically not let these events occur, no matter how much sense they would make to the story, because the game can't support them mechanically.

At first level, no. By third level, the casters can drop all sorts of AoEs (Shatter, sleep, web, entangle) on enemy groups and at the very least, fight their way out. And every two levels after that makes that scenario even easier.

Admittedly fighters are effectively doorstops and rogues are completely useless unless the boss (or sub-bosses) poke their heads into view, but hay, caster superiority can be considered another appeal to nostalgia.