Should 5E be conservative or go balls-out?

[K]

DnD's only actual iconic traits were that is was:

1. easy to learn and play.

2. allowed people to do cool shit with the setting and battle with either magic items or spells.

3. modeled a progression where giants rats start as a threat at the beginning or your career and end with gods at the end of your career.

I think 3e lost sight of some of those goals in that:

a. It got very hard to build a character.

b. The Diablo-style magic items made it hard for non-magic guys to do cool shit because they couldn't do it with magic items. I mean, in the Red Box you were supposed to find stuff like Rings of Invisibility and Crystal Balls and Medallions of ESP at levels 1-3, and in 3e the game would be over well before you ever got stuff like that OR you would have to sell it for armor and various bonuses.

4e just compounded those errors, and screwed the third thing as well.

[Ganbare Gincun]

Do whatever needs to be done to put out a great game. No sacred cows. Speaking of which: what happened to the system that Frank and K were talking about putting together in the Kitchen Sink Fantasy thread?

[Caedrus]

Kill the cows! Slay the cows! Destroy the cows!

[MfA]

Here is how I see the most important differences between the options.

The progressive option :
- Hitboxes instead of hitpoints
- No more +X anything, not even swords
- At high level martial goes weeaboo
- No significant magic item dependency
- No Vancian casting, possibly less class levels

The conservative option :
- Hitpoints, but without rolling by default and slightly narrowing the range
- At least +X weapons, maybe +X armour ... all the other simple bonus items go away
- Non weeaboo martial classes
- Magic item dependency
- Vancian casting with 9 level of spells over 20 class levels
- 3e alignment

Other improvements I think can safely be shared with the progressive game without making the game unrecognisable, for instance :
- Improved skill system
- Condition track
- CAN
- Rituals
- Changed multiclassing/PrC system

I think the progressive option will be a nail in the coffin, no matter how good it is. Lets say Paizo counter with a PF 1.5 which does take the conservative route to improvement and is actually decently designed (maybe their entire existing design staff gets RSI and never writes again) and which is recognizable to the grognards ... does anyone doubt it would split the community?

[Username17]

I think it's important to note that Pathfinder did not get an audience because 4e D&D was too different, it got an audience because 4e sucked ass and 75% of the current D&D players did not adopt it (according to WotC's own released statements ad numbers). If 4e D&D had been a good game, then Pathfinder probably would not even exist, because it would just be another past edition retro clone. Like Castles & Crusades, Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, or Labyrinth Lord. There are actually a lot of these things, and while they do have players, they are not a serious threat to anything. Not even to fringe games like GURPS.

All 5th edition has to be is good enough that people will accept playing it because it is the biggest game in town, and it will continue to be crushingly dominant as the biggest game in town.

-Username17

[Maj]

- Hitboxes instead of hitpoints

What is this?

[Ferret]

- Hitboxes instead of hitpoints

What is this?

A system similar to Shadowrun where your character health is relatively static across different sizes of enemies: A Medium character might have 10 boxes, a Giant might have 15, etc.

"Tougher" characters get a mechanic to mitigate incoming damage instead of more boxes.

[Username17]

The idea is that with static hit points (or nearly static hit points) and a comparison of damage to toughness to see how many hit points are actually lost, that you can scale the strength of attacks and defenses off into crazy town with linear bonuses rather than constantly multiplying.

So let's say you do a total shift every time you add +10 to attacks or defenses. That means that you can total shift the entire RNG ten times by increasing numbers on both sides by 100. Recall that if you merely doubled hit points and damage ten times (which wouldn't even be a full effectiveness shift), then hit points would be over a thousand times higher than they started.

So with invariant hit points and variant DR, you can cover a much wider range of possible power points without allowing damage to become intractable.

-Username17

[Ganbare Gincun]

The idea is that with static hit points (or nearly static hit points) and a comparison of damage to toughness to see how many hit points are actually lost, that you can scale the strength of attacks and defenses off into crazy town with linear bonuses rather than constantly multiplying.

So let's say you do a total shift every time you add +10 to attacks or defenses. That means that you can total shift the entire RNG ten times by increasing numbers on both sides by 100. Recall that if you merely doubled hit points and damage ten times (which wouldn't even be a full effectiveness shift), then hit points would be over a thousand times higher than they started.

So with invariant hit points and variant DR, you can cover a much wider range of possible power points without allowing damage to become intractable.

-Username17

So - just to clarify - you'd have 1st level characters wearing chainmail armor that gives them +5 DR, a shield that gives them +2 DR, and they'd gain +2 more DR for having a decent Con score. Any attack that bypassed their DR of +9 (like a solid hit from a Greataxe that does 12 damage) would 3 hitboxes worth of damage to them. And you'd retain that model - or something like it - until they hit level 5 or 6 and go from "LOTR" to "Bleach" and start adding on bigger DR bonuses to characters and monsters for being high level, and more damage dice to enemy attacks, correct?

[Username17]

You wouldn't necessarily get DR from armor. Armor might very well continue o prevent hits from landing. The point is that you'd gain DR as you went up in level instead of gaining hit points. That in turn would make an ability like "does 3 more points of damage" continue to be meaningful at all levels, and allow you to have very large differences in power without resorting to 3 or 4 digit numbers.

-Username17

[MfA]

The alternative is to have a CAN (which includes level difference) multiplier on the effectiveness of attacks. It accomplishes the same thing (preventing padded sumo) just with bigger numbers. This doesn't necessarily mean damage multiplication, could just mean you can go directly to finishing moves on mooks.

There is nothing really special about non scaling hitpoints you can't do with scaling hitpoints ... it's just about keeping the math simple and number of damage dice low (<--- sacred cow being slaughtered right there).

[Sashi]

The only problem I have with the DR instead of straight HP is that it can end up making you literally immune to death by 1000 cuts.

Though, I guess you could have things like swarms of biting insects that deal 1 box of damage and ignore toughness, and sneak attack ignoring toughness in such a way that a skilled stab with a dirk does about the same damage as a mighty blow from a greataxe.

And the argument then goes that Conan really doesn't have to worry about the butcher boy trying to stab him with a knife, and Hercules doesn't have to worry about the recent conscript trying to slash him with a sword.

So I think I just argued myself into liking the idea.

[Judging__Eagle]

I'm currently going with a "3 Hit Points per Tier" system for FAR.

Additional HP show up with every Major Power a creature has for that Tier (max 5 per tier).

I think that having a system where a 20th level character has 32 Hit Points, and each attack's base damage is (usually) 1 is easier to work with than having Hit Poins go into the dozens or hundreds.

Having threshholds where a character takes penalties to abilities when their Hit Points go below the minimum threshhold for a Tier, is probably one way of having "injury" mean something.

[Tenrin]

Back to magic items for a second: magic items should be completely optional. The base assumption of the game is that you have none, and that your class abilities/powers give you everything you need to handle the norm for encounters. And yes, I'm totally fine with that meaning fighters and other non-magical classes doing 'magical' shit to keep up. Like once you hit the a certain rank in the Jump skill you can 'fly' for a certain number of rounds with a successful check or whatever.

What magic items do is give you more powers, and in balance terms means you can take on slightly more difficult encounters. Like 1 magic item per person means you can take on 6 goblins at a time instead of just 4.

Also magic items are completely left up to the DM to include, so you can't buy them, only earn them. The bad news is that if you want a flaming sword, you might have to get on your knees for it, but the good news is that you don't NEED that sword anyway, and you can get rid of the gold = power idea and make a good economy system.

To keep gold and treasure relevant beyond playing a stronghold sim, rituals can still cost gold, and maybe have minor effects that can still be bought with gold. Like spending the extra cash on good food gives you extra hitpoints for the day, or splurging on a big ass party gives you a morale bonus for your next adventure. Bonuses small enough to not get out of hand, but big enough to still be worth it. And not in the "worth it" sense of "well what else am I going to spend it on?" but "Hey thats nifty."

[Aryxbez]

Ah, that reminds me of how FantasyCraft had something like throwing a lavish party or fine living, gave you a small morale bonus to that extent.

Also as Caedrus said earlier about wanting non-magical items to not suck, making those all the more useful would be something to spend gold on as well.

I think I'd prefer a more "Balls-out" approach here, show this to be a true and refreshing change of D&D. As been said, those who wish to stick to something inferior, they have their Pathfinders, WHFRP or whatever.

Otherwise I think quotes like these speak righteously enough:

My vote is to do whatever needs to be done in order to make 5E the best heroic fantasy game on the market.

Fourth, embrace the idea of D&D as a fantasy flavored superhero game.

I've been viewing it as such for quite some time, good we get others on this line of thinking as well.


As for the DR thing, how would that scale, differently by tiers, where it progresses faster, or more per each progression in the higher power levels. Or perhaps would 5th edition go with something like a "add half level to DR" sort of thing?

Oh, and take the "sacred cows" to the unholy butcher, that, or turn them unto Minotaurs (that is what you do use, make it workable, and/or otherwise awesome).

Fixed some quote tags. Hopefully everything is attributed correctly... --Z

[Starmaker]

this line of thinking as well.

and/or otherwise awesome).

These two lines have extra closing quote tags after them.

[TheFlatline]

Personally, I think D&D 5th needs to go balls out. I like the idea of health boxes/levels. This also allows you to buff weapons by allowing them to burn through DR/Armor/whatever without turning them into rocket tag.

Excalibur, for example, may only do a longsword's damage (3 points say), but holy shit it ignores the first 100 points of damage reduction, so can basically cut through *anything*.

However, to me, the "soul" of D&D boils down to resource management. Both in a short term game, and in a long term campaign (keeping the mage alive until he can toast everything). That might be a sacred cow that needs slaying, but the loss of that core of limited resources seemed to be what slayed the soul of 4th ed to my gaming group.

There are literally stories that I can tell in 3.5 that I can't tell in 4th edition without raping the definition of "encounter" and leaving it to die, bleeding, in a ditch. This arises simply because you have a handful of dailies, and other times everything is at-will or encounter level. It doesn't feel like D&D.

And yes, I know the argument of the 5 minute workday. I won't go there. Resource management still needs to be a part of D&D to keep it's "soul" there. I am totally willing to be flexible on what *kind* of resource management, be it winds of fate or whatever, but it does need to be there.

[Judging__Eagle]

The current resource management model that FAR will be using is one of "power cycles"; and a pool of abilities that can be used in an encounter or over the course of an adventure.

Specifically, characters can only use minor powers first; then they can use moderate or minor powers. If they use a moderate; they have to then use either a Minor, or a Major. If they use a Minor, they can go back into the Minor/Moderate cycle. If they use a Major, they can't use any active abilities in their next round, and re-start using minor abilities when they begin to act again.

[MfA]

I think that having a system where a 20th level character has 32 Hit Points, and each attack's base damage is (usually) 1 is easier to work with than having Hit Poins go into the dozens or hundreds.

If you still have to do double digit subtraction instead of being able to use tickboxes you're just screwing around in the margins ... it becomes change for change's sake.

[MfA]

The current resource management model that FAR will be using is one of "power cycles"; and a pool of abilities that can be used in an encounter or over the course of an adventure.

I'd prefer simple escalation. This is another one of those things orthogonal to slightly conservative or balls out innovative 5e choice though. For say spells it's trivial to apply these kinds of methods to 3e (for non manoeuvre based martial characters it would apply mostly to item powers).

[Sashi]

I don't think it's worth it to abandon different weapons having different die types until it's proven that it's completely intractable with hitboxes + toughness.

[Judging__Eagle]

The current resource management model that FAR will be using is one of "power cycles"; and a pool of abilities that can be used in an encounter or over the course of an adventure.

I'd prefer simple escalation. This is another one of those things orthogonal to slightly conservative or balls out innovative 5e choice though. For say spells it's trivial to apply these kinds of methods to 3e (for non manoeuvre based martial characters it would apply mostly to item powers).

I was considering escalation as well; but having a character be able to pick from:

Minor->Moderate-> Major-> Nothing-> Minor...
Or
Minor->Moderate-> Minor->Moderate->

I do not want to have
Minor->Moderate->Major->Major->Major...

Nor do I want my initial cycle which was

Minor->Moderate->Minor/Moderate/Major->[if Major] Minor//[if Minor/Moderate] Minor/Moderate

Since instead of capping at Majors; creatures will cap at Moderates; meaning that Minor powers won't get used as often; and I want players to have to think tactically in terms of how they will regulate the flow of their actions. Having a player decide to not attack in order to delay using a moderate, or major, power; is actually realistic. People hang back in a fight at times to catch a breather, before going back into the fray.

The Min->Mod->Maj->none method is meant to give players two main options; as well as simulate the whole "final move" that "The New Edition" was really supposed to have instead of the typical "first round nova".

"Big Moves" need to be things that are not commonly used; since if they fail; the user is often too spent to defend themselves, or cannot really do anything against their enemy for a set amount of time.

If not, once you 'get' to your "big move", you keep spamming it, over and over again. Which is horseshit. We never see that happen in stories, or comic books, or almost anything else. Your biggest moves shouldn't be the ones you spam every round. If you don't use any other moves, you don't really 'have' a difference in your moves; and the lower power moves were merely a start of combat warm-up sequence for your powers.

In an example of what I mean, there is Beowulf and his long wresting match with Grendel. Beowulf doesn't use his "rip arms off" maneuver until Grendel is tired, worn out, and running away.

Seriously, Beowulf was cycling between Moderates and Minors of various types; keeping himself in the fight, and slowly chipping away at Grendel's HP. When Grendel saw that they were going to lose; they ran away; and their HP was low enough that they couldn't make the rolls to survive against an attempt at having an arm ripped off.


MfA: I'm not sure what you mean by double digit subtraction exactly?

Most attacks have a base of 1 point of damage; if they successfully hit the target; and damage them (2H weapons dealing 2). That's at the lowest end of the scale. When HP ranges from 3 to 8.

It's 'sort of' like check boxes; but the check boxes increase based on how powerful a creature is, independently of whether or not they bought lots of attack deflection or damage soaking abilities as they gained more power.


Sashi,

I'm not sure who you're asking your questions to, but I'm personally fine with seperating weapons from damage dice of specific sizes.

The last time we had a discussion on weapons and use; it became obvious that there really is no realistic choice in the damage that a dagger deals when it hits a target, or when a sword hits a target.

"Halbeards make pincushions out of Katar users. While Katar users make the lungs of Halbearders into feta cheese"; was something from the original discussions. Which is the most reasonable thing to have.

All weapons just do the same amount of damage; and only larger weapons get to deal 2 points of damage.

Since the game starts with only 3 Hit Points; and doesn't hit 32 Hit Points until you're playing the FAR equivalent of a level 20 3.5 game; I'm actually fine with having "more" than 10 Hit Boxes, since I also have less than 10 as well.

I also tend to find that a single number that goes up and down is easier for players to track than hit boxes are.

[TheFlatline]

I don't think it's worth it to abandon different weapons having different die types until it's proven that it's completely intractable with hitboxes + toughness.

I'll bet that historically, more daggers and concealed/small blades have killed people than greatswords have.

Yet using the die type coded to the weapon you make long swords or rapiers completely superior to daggers 100% of the time.

Okay *here* is a dramatic change. Each weapon has a situation that it excels in. If you use the weapon in it's intended purpose, the die damage goes up. If you use it in ways it's not designed for, the damage goes down, as you can't effectively use it as it was intended.

I mean, a traditional dirk is just long enough to stab someone in the heart through their ribs or through the armpit. If you use it properly, that's a fuckton more damaging that a slice from a longsword. Yet in D&D, the most you'll ever do with the dirk is 2d4, since it's basically a wicked pigsticking dagger. Not to mention I can stab 3-4 times with a dagger in the same time it takes someone with a longsword to take a swing and recover.

That polearm? Not nearly as effective once someone gets within 5 feet of you. But at 10 feet it's just fine. And every time someone tries to close to within 5 feet, you get a chance to fend them off.

I have no idea how you do this without achieving grognard levels of detail, but it'd be different as all hell.

[MfA]

I do not want to have
Minor->Moderate->Major->Major->Major...

I do (maybe add 1 or 2 more steps). Battles shouldn't drag on too long.

Also there are interactions with the CAN, just because you can spam major attacks doesn't mean you will be able to rely on their most powerful effects.

PS. also, it's still orthogonal to the question of this thread

[Judging__Eagle]

You mean the Crazy or Not question?

Yeah, my answers have been.

I'm in the pro-crazy section.

I want people to have the ability to create new life by shooting an arrow at a tree; or getting a bunch of dust and breathing into it; and then new people start showing up.

The Glooscap creation story makes him more powerful than YHWH; in terms of ability to create people. However he only does it once per adventure, just like YHWH did.

I think that giving that out in the Legendary tier (11-15 major powers) is a bit too low; but in the Epic tier (16-20 major powers) is more reasonable.

It will probably be a 'rare' use ability.

I could see a case for Heinlenian Bugs, Gigerian Aliens, Crab Nebulan Tyrant-ids and Unoriginalistic-Zerg [yes, I'm perfectly fine using those exact names, and people will know what I'm talking about; I have no problem insulting Blizzard, they can pound earth for all I care], "queens" or "spawning pools" being able to create lots of life. However it will always be creating immature life, even if it creates auto-trained warriors, and some will need Hosts to mature.

Right now, the model for say... Combat: Physique, looks sort of like this

Abilities
--Active--
-Continual-
_Combat_ [working name]
Physique
Mortal
1 You may use: 1H, 1.5H, 2H, and Str-Req Ranged weapons [2H weapons deal 2 pts of damage] to attack with no penalties.
3 You may add an Ability to your attacks with Physique based weapons
6 Your attack deals double damage. Targets roll to Soak twice, not once, against the total damage you deal in this manner.

Heroic
1 You may target +1 more target when attacking normally
3 When using an Ability with your attack, you may target +1 more target
6 You may deal double damage to +1 more target

Legendary
1 Attack any adjacent targets you wish
3 Abilities target any adjacent targets you wish
6 Double damage to any adjacent targets you wish

Epic
1 Attack any targets within a one round move radius of yourself
3 Abilities, one round move radius of yourself
6 Double damage, one round move radius of yourself