D&DNext: Playtest Review

[ishy]

c) The kind of check that is supposed to be something anyone in the party can do. Social skills fall into this category, because you want every character capable of talking to NPCs. Stealth also falls into this category to a limited degree too, assuming you want it to be possible for the party to skip encounters by sneaking by them.

Then you shouldn't allow people to spent or not spent stuff on getting better at talking to NPCs. Even if the difference is only +1%, you promote the better PC to do all the talking.
If you want to do pure MTP or guided MTP for talking to people, you shouldn't include talking to people in a skill system.

-Fran

Who is Fran?

[Cyberzombie]

Just because most RPGs do a terrible job of representing A doesn't mean they have to or that you'd need a major overhaul of the system to do it. Imagine for the moment that you were playing 3e, but for "infinite retry" tasks, you used the Take 20 value to see if you succeeded or failed, and then used the amount the player rolled over or under the actual DC to determine how long the task took.

The system hasn't changed in any fundamental way, but now it outputs meaningful information (in this case: time to task completion) with a single die roll. As a player you have to report two values to the DM (rolled value and max value), but one of them is written on your character sheet and does not normally change.

There's no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water here. The skill systems of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition have a host of problems. But the fact that someone trained in lockpicking could pick a lock and someone who wasn't couldn't was never one of them.

It's more than that, because often you're dealing with smaller levels of granularity. A guy with strength 18 is only +4 better than someone with strength 10, but the 18 strength guy is really strong, compared to the strength 10 guy who just is just average. You want doors that the strength 10 guy can't open that the strength 18 guy can kick down regularly on his first try.

Given the modifiers are based on the combat scale and thus very small, you'll never actually get that using type of scenario using a d20. Your system at best produces a door that the strength 18 guy takes several rounds to kick down most of the time. And even a relatively weak door whose threshold is only average strength (DC 20) takes the 18 strength guy several kicks. Even a cheap door a child could kick down (DC 10-15) isn't even an auto-success for the 18 strength guy. In fact you may have a 25% chance or greater of failing.

That may be acceptable if you're running a game where you want your adventurers to be incompetent dirt farming buffoons, but if you want any kind of cinematic cool characters, it's essential that the strongman can kick doors and move obstacles reliably.

[Username17]

Then you shouldn't allow people to spent or not spent stuff on getting better at talking to NPCs. Even if the difference is only +1%, you promote the better PC to do all the talking.

Uhhh... that presupposes that you have a diplomancy system that is "roll once, count how high you get". If you have a system where everyone rolls and the best one counts, or everyone rolls and count the number of successes, then obviously everyone participates.

Only one player does the talking in 3e and 4e because the system causes every talking attempt by a less skilled player character to displace an equal number of talking attempts from more skilled characters. Not because characters differ in social bonuses. You'll note that in combat, everyone attacks, because doing so doesn't displace attacks by other characters with higher bonuses.

-Username17

[hogarth]

The problem is that there's three categories of skills:

a) The task that you can repeat endlessly and the cut-off that matters is who can achieve the task at all, and you rarely care how long it takes. Kicking

open a door, searching for secret doors or picking a lock falls in this category.

b) The kind of check that is designed to be done only by specialists, that you get one try at. Trying to tumble past an ogre, trying to climb over a

spiked pit or disarm a trap is this sort of check.

c) The kind of check that is supposed to be something anyone in the party can do. Social skills fall into this category, because you want every character

capable of talking to NPCs. Stealth also falls into this category to a limited degree too, assuming you want it to be possible for the party to skip

encounters by sneaking by them.

To cover all those categories you either need multiple skill systems, or you set your skill system to be good at one of them, but suck at everything

else.

Ironically, computer RPGs have mostly solved the issue of non-combat skill checks (to my satisfaction) since 1998 when the first Baldur's Gate came out.

How? By embracing the idea that you can satisfactorily play the game from beginning to end without ever using a single non-combat skill and relegating the result of skill checks to "bonus" results. In a modern computer RPG (like Dragon Age or Fallout 3 or Mass Effect), non-combat skills serve three basic purposes (well, more like two since the first two are opposite sides of the same coin):

• taking a shortcut through the plot (e.g. using Stealth to avoid a fight scene)
• getting extra resources (e.g. using Open Lock to open a chest full of money)
• unlocking a fun extra scene that isn't required for the main plot (e.g. using Diplomacy to convince the evil sorceress and the naive princess to have a three-way)

So why doesn't that work in a tabletop RPG? Here are a few concerns, some real and some mostly imaginary:

• It requires every bonus scene/treasure stash/optional fight/etc. to be mapped out in advance which is hard work. That's not conducive to GMs who like to "wing it", but it works fairly well in a pre-written adventure.
• With multiple players, you might have disagreements as to which shortcuts to take or scenes to unlock. E.g., one player might want to go through the "dialog tree", giving the right responses to get the Elf King to agree to peace with the Dwarf Lord, whereas another player might want to use his PC's Diplomacy skill to skip straight to the end where the Elf King agrees. In my experience, I think this concern is overblown; the vast majority of the time, the players just want to succeed and they don't particularly care whether everyone had a chance to contribute or not.
• Some GMs believe that the game isn't fun unless there's a chance for a failed skill check to result in "The End" followed by credits rolling. These people should be taken outside and shot.

One other lesson I think tabletop RPGs could learn from computer RPG skill systems: I think it's totally okay to say that, at some point, "Congratulations -- You Win At Picking Locks". I.e., skill DCs don't have to keep increasing ad infinitum just out of some misbegotten notion that skills are only fun when you fail. There's really nothing wrong with saying "Now you can pick any lock in the universe, so it's time to invest in some other skill now", IMO. The 3E Take 10/Take 20 system was a great start, but I think they could have gone even farther.

[Voss]

*Does Extra Attack let you TWF with the extra attack, or is it +1 attack no matter what you're using. So either this guy throws 4 things or 5 things a turn. s?

As written, he throws 3. TWF gives a single extra attack with the other weapon (and thrown mastery allows you to use that with thrown weapons), and 'extra attack' gives a single extra attack.

It is a little bit confusing, because 'attack' is not quite the same as 'take an attack action,' which is what TWF and Extra Attack happen off of.
You don't get another attack from TWF for each attack you make, but rather from the attack action you take (and you can only take one each turn).

There's no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water here. The skill systems of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition have a host of problems. But the fact that someone trained in lockpicking could pick a lock and someone who wasn't couldn't was never one of them.

-Fran

That isn't the problem here either. There are four states here which are perfectly fine: untalented and untrained, untrained but talented, untalented but trained and talented and trained. Those, to a large degree, work.

But there is also 'grab a level of rogue for a bunch of +5 bonuses so you can actually hit the monstrous DCs hiding at the back of the chart.' At that isn't ok. Because one or the other only exist to solve the 'problem' of the other's existence. Knock out the absurd DCs and the expert ('even more trained than trained') bonus, and the skill system is quite workable. And untrained people can still fail at picking even average locks. Or not be able to pick them at all.

[ishy]

Uhhh... that presupposes that you have a diplomancy system that is "roll once, count how high you get". If you have a system where everyone rolls and the best one counts, or everyone rolls and count the number of successes, then obviously everyone participates.

Only one player does the talking in 3e and 4e because the system causes every talking attempt by a less skilled player character to displace an equal number of talking attempts from more skilled characters. Not because characters differ in social bonuses. You'll note that in combat, everyone attacks, because doing so doesn't displace attacks by other characters with higher bonuses.

-Username17

True, and I can see everybody rolling when discussing with the king if he should wage war on the elves or not.
But if you need immediate results, say you encounter a group of xenophobic blind lizard folk you want to trade barrels of chicken with, I don't see how everyone can be making a roll for how well they talk.

[zugschef]

There are four states here which are perfectly fine: untalented and untrained, untrained but talented, talented but untrained and talented and trained.

I guess you meant "trained but untalented", right?

[shadzar]

The problem is that there's three categories of skills:

b) The kind of check that is designed to be done only by specialists, that you get one try at. Trying to tumble past an ogre, trying to climb over a spiked pit or disarm a trap is this sort of check.

actually this shouldnt even exist. specialist skills are what keeps Bilbo Baggins in the game, and for all the people that complain how Tolkienesque the game clings to, why do they even need Bilbo emulation in the game?

OD&D: Fighting-men, magic-user, cleric (includes Ents, Nazgul, hobbits)

BD&D: Fighter, Cleric, Magic-user, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling (includes wraiths, Thieves)

A thief is a human who specializes in stealth, lockpicking, trap removing, and other activities. Thieves are the only characters that can open locks and find traps without using magic.

halfling just keeps the hobbit around

AD&D: races and classes (includes Treant to bring back Ents)

backstabbing is Frodo wearing the ring and fighting Gollum
HiS is Bilbo wearing the ring and escaping Gollum

halfling description is basically the Shire

and halflings make for the best thieves...

"Bilbo can do it. You are the burglar, go burgle something."

[Voss]

There are four states here which are perfectly fine: untalented and untrained, untrained but talented, talented but untrained and talented and trained.

I guess you meant "trained but untalented", right?

Yep. I was in a rush.

The catch here is the way the skill system evolved over the playtest.

Skills didn't happen at all until packet #5 (of 10), in october of last year.
Training was just a +3 to checks, and the DCs ranged from 7 to 25, in increments of 3. At this point, they decided rogues were the skill guy, and handed over the 'expertise' die, which grew with level.

Packet #6 (december) gave the skill expertise die to everybody, presumably because feedback told them that only one guy being able to really play the skill game was fucking dumb. The DCs changed at this point, and ranged from 5 to 35 in increments of 5, while the expertise die grew with level from 1d4 to 1d12. (For d20+stat mod+die result), which is notably piss-poor odds of making a DC35 check. But rogues were still the skill guy, so got to roll the skill die twice and keep the highest.

Packet #7 left this system intact, including the DCs.

Packet #8 changed it slightly (skill die started at d6 instead of d4, and you could skip the die size increase in favor of learning another skill).
Packet #9 kept this as well.

Packet #10 dropped skills altogether add lores (knowledges, basically) and gave rogues, monks and rangers 'expertise' again, which meant they could roll an additional die to all checks with a specific attribute; dex for rogues, and their pick of dex or wisdom for monks and rangers. Notably here, the DCs were still the same 5 to 35 from the previous playtests when everybody got a skill die.

Packet #11 (current and final) put skills back in (because people apparently said 'fuck you, no' very loudly to the previous system), but dropped skill dice altogether (because they sucked and produced terrible results) and instead the proficiency things happened. And the expertise thing happened on top of it. DC 35 was dropped off the chart, but DC 30 stays, despite the fact that it is unreasonable in a system that caps at d20 +11. And here comes the expert bonus of +5 to just make it hard (40% success rate) if you have levels in the two classes that gain access to it.

TL:DR- drop the +5 expert bonus for 4 skills, exclusive to rogue and bard
and the DC 30, and the system becomes functional, with hard targets at DC25 that still reward skill mastery, but remain in the realm of possibility for high level characters (though not easy), while still beyond lower level characters who don't master that skill. And for people who don't learn the skill at all, and have no aptitude for it, DC 20 is nigh impossible, which is only right.

actually this shouldnt even exist. specialist skills are what keeps Bilbo Baggins in the game, and for all the people that complain how Tolkienesque the game clings to, why do they even need Bilbo emulation in the game?

And you are wrong. A specialist skill doesn't need to be tied into a specific class at all (and notably Bilbo couldn't do anything of the things he listed); but mastery of esoteric disciplines that require actual training or otherwise can't be done should be in the game

[Cyberzombie]

True, and I can see everybody rolling when discussing with the king if he should wage war on the elves or not.
But if you need immediate results, say you encounter a group of xenophobic blind lizard folk you want to trade barrels of chicken with, I don't see how everyone can be making a roll for how well they talk.

I've handled it as the first person doing the majority of the talking gets a social check, then every other PC who adds something relevant to the conversation gets another check.

I totally pull any DCs out of my ass though, because the social system in all forms of D&D just don't work.

[shadzar]

actually this shouldnt even exist. specialist skills are what keeps Bilbo Baggins in the game, and for all the people that complain how Tolkienesque the game clings to, why do they even need Bilbo emulation in the game?

And you are wrong. A specialist skill doesn't need to be tied into a specific class at all (and notably Bilbo couldn't do anything of the things he listed); but mastery of esoteric disciplines that require actual training or otherwise can't be done should be in the game

you have all the specialist skills you need.

can cast arcane magic?
can cast divine magic?
can deal and absorb the most damage?

some pretty damn specialized skills if you ask me, and make up the 3 core classes, that EVERY if built off of in varying degrees and mixed to make those other "classes".

anything else, EVERYONE should be able to do, not just some specialist in Skill:(ass-stabbing).

what skill that isnt intrinsically tied to a class (fighter, wizard, cleric) is there that any of the others shouldnt be able to do? fire-building?

this is why ANY sort of skill system has been stupid in its arbitrary limtis. oops you don't have NWP:swimming, so you can't swim. it is incorrect, but a possible assumption from the NWP system, so rather than fix the assumption just remove the bullshit that created it like some arbitrary short list or skills/NWPs/feats/etc.

even the concept of trained/untrained is flawed in that it violates SoD in why so few things can be trained. a fighter growing up as a blacksmith, what "skills" should they be trained in do do smithing?

since the creation of any sort of skills system D&D has become Antz where Woddy Allen is a worker from birth any only knows that because that is what he was selected to do since birth and unto death. does having fighter on a D&D character sheet since 1996 mean the baby was thrown into a coliseum and only trained in fighting for life until set free to adventure and has no other skills that is sure as hell what the short arbitrary limit of skills and such since 1996 has made it seem like.

thus the more options the character sheet can hold, the fewer things the player can do during the game...especially when something isnt on the list. what do you do then? just make it up s you go. well cut out the fucking middleman and remove the list and go with 2E philosophy as the NWPs and secondary skills are idea spawners and IF the character has a reason to know how to do something, then within reasonable bounds, they can try and under normal circumstances should succeed. thus negating the lack of being able to build a fire because you don't have fire-building NWP.

[CatharzGodfoot]

And for people who don't learn the skill at all, and have no aptitude for it, DC 20 is nigh impossible, which is only right.

By "nigh impossible" do you mean 'possible about 5% of the time'?

-Fran

Who is Fran?

[tussock]

(1 slot, GENERAL, Wis-1) Fire-building: A character with fire-building proficiency does not normally need a tinderbox to start a fire. Given some dry wood and small pieces of tinder, he can start a fire in 2d20 minutes. Flint and steel are not required. Wet wood, high winds, or other adverse conditions increase the time to 3d20, and a successful proficiency check must be rolled to start a fire.

Shadzar keeps using this as a straw-man, so I thought I'd note that in 2nd edition you can buy the flint & steel that the fire-building proficiency mentions as automatically starting fires without any skill or any check for 5sp, if you find or can carry any dry material. Note that lighting a torch or naphtha takes but one combat round (1 minute) and requires no check.

So it's really just there to point out that if you don't have any dry material or specifically treated tools or any way to strike a spark (say, you have no Wizard and no imagination) then you can't start a fire, (unless you have fire-building and then you can anyway, even in the rain if you can make the check).

No wonder people hated them so much. Oh, that's right, everyone entirely ignored them, unless you needed one for a kit or something. Mundane stuff that you can do anyway.

[Voss]

And for people who don't learn the skill at all, and have no aptitude for it, DC 20 is nigh impossible, which is only right.

By "nigh impossible" do you mean 'possible about 5% of the time'?

Sure. Unreliable and unlikely to actually happen, but sometimes you pull it off. You can nitpick some sort of textbook definition of nigh-impossible around if you like, but it conveys the point pretty well.


@shadzar. shush. The adults are talking.

[Grek]

Sure. Unreliable and unlikely to actually happen, but sometimes you pull it off. You can nitpick some sort of textbook definition of nigh-impossible around if you like, but it conveys the point pretty well.

You are dumb. Take 20 is a thing. I use small words to explain this. DC 20 means anyone can do it. It also means only experts do it fast. DC 25 means you need skills to do it at all. DC 30 means even experts do it slowly.

[Voss]

And the take 20 rules are hiding where in the 5e pdfs?
If you know, feel free to share the answer.

You can keep the stick up your ass, though.

[Previn]

Sure. Unreliable and unlikely to actually happen, but sometimes you pull it off. You can nitpick some sort of textbook definition of nigh-impossible around if you like, but it conveys the point pretty well.

You are dumb. Take 20 is a thing. I use small words to explain this. DC 20 means anyone can do it. It also means only experts do it fast. DC 25 means you need skills to do it at all. DC 30 means even experts do it slowly.

There are no Take 20 rules in 5e.

There is no assurance that an expert does it any faster than a non-skill NPC, even though the expert is much more likely to do it faster.

Someone with a stat of 8 no prof. and no expertise can't make a DC 20 check successfully without other assistance.

A DC 25 can be done by someone with a 20 stat, but neither prof. nor expertise.

A DC 30 check could be done by a expert on their first check, which is essentially as fast as it could really be done.

[Grek]

And the take 20 rules are hiding where in the 5e pdfs?

Even if there aren't any official Take 20 rules, people are still going to say "I keep trying until I roll a 20" and get things done that way if it is at all possible.

[Corsair114]

And the take 20 rules are hiding where in the 5e pdfs?

Even if there aren't any official Take 20 rules, people are still going to say "I keep trying until I roll a 20" and get things done that way if it is at all possible.

Is there even provision within 5E's rules for attempting the same task a second time?

[Username17]

And the take 20 rules are hiding where in the 5e pdfs?

Even if there aren't any official Take 20 rules, people are still going to say "I keep trying until I roll a 20" and get things done that way if it is at all possible.

That's not actually how things work. If there are no retry rules, you don't get to assume that the authors meant to use the retry rules from a different game that you liked better. The final version is just as likely to use AD&D's "no retries until you gain a level" rule. Seeing as it's Mike Mearls at the helm, you're probably more likely to see another variant on his "three strikes and you're out, and then the DM has to make up a failure state" rules from 4th edition. After all, he has written more than two dozen variants on those stillborn pieces of shit, it's not like he doesn't have some garbage to copy pasta.

For now, retries are just a divide by zero error in the rules. And assuming that they will be satisfactorily patched in the final version is not a good assumption based on the track record of the people writing these things.

-Username17

[Cyberzombie]

And the take 20 rules are hiding where in the 5e pdfs?

Even if there aren't any official Take 20 rules, people are still going to say "I keep trying until I roll a 20" and get things done that way if it is at all possible.

That's not actually how things work. If there are no retry rules, you don't get to assume that the authors meant to use the retry rules from a different game that you liked better.

As a general rule if there's nothing prohibiting a retry, you can do try again. There's nothing saying specifically that you get to retry attack rolls in any edition. However since there's nothing saying you can't retry it, the default is that if you do the action a second time, you get another roll.

In cases where you can't retry, like AD&D's lockpicking rules, the rulebook specifically tells you that future attempts fail and gives you the time frame that you need to wait before you get another attempt. Absent any rule saying you can't retry, you're assumed to be able to try as much as you want, eating any penalty for failure each time. Prohibiting retries requires some extra explanation, while endless rerolls does not.

What Mearls may or may not do in a future rules version is anyone's guess. Given he's a total hack, it's hard to predict anything the guy might do, aside from fuck up in some hard-to-predict manner.

[Kaelik]

What Mearls may or may not do in a future rules version is anyone's guess. Given he's a total hack, it's hard to predict anything the guy might do, aside from fuck up in some hard-to-predict manner.

That is bullshit. People who fuck up a lot don't do it in random and unpredictable ways. If a guy is always late, it isn't hard to predict how he will fuck things up. He will be late. Likewise, Mearls fucks things up in very predictable ways because he follows similar patterns of fucking up.

[Voss]

It definitely feels like a Mearls ruleset. Significant chunks are rough and unfinished, with related rules scattered all over several documents in a haphazard fashion. For example, I can find out how size effects grappling (not at all, except you can't grapple something more than one size larger than you), or the 'knockdown' action (same), or how much food they require, but these are all separate from the actual size rules, which only gives you how much space each size category takes up, how many creatures can surround it, and how many medium creatures larger creatures count as when it comes to surrounding another creature. What it doesn't do is give a range for creatures _actual size_. But food and space are in a different document from combat, and food includes a size (colossal) that doesn't even exist on the size chart, and leaves off tiny, which does!


And while that is a bit more acceptable in a playtest than a final version, it is iteration #11. Someone should have sorted that shit out by now, particularly the stuff that has lingered since iteration #1


Not to mention all the stuff left over from earlier documents (for example, the 'how to play doc' uses the old rules for save DCs (10+stat mod+spellcasting bonus), while the classes doc uses the new 8+stat mod+proficiency bonus). In other places, stuff is either contradictory or missing: including several class abilities (wizard path gets an ability at level 5 or level 6, depending on where you look, one of the weaponmaster path abilities is just missing, and the stock character sheets reflect the previous playtest rules. For a 'Final' playtest packet, this is a fairly muddy mess, exactly what you'd expect from Mearls.

[infected slut princess]

So am I just blinded by irrational hatred, or is 5e really that bad?

I'm flipping through the latest playtest pack now. I mean, it looks like they took out all those lists of ability check DCs that was really pissing me off. I can't find a similar list in the How to Play or DM Guide book. Maybe they;ve just gone straight up tea fairy princess, no specific lists of actions for reference at all. But a lot of games end up working like that anyway.

But anyway, reading some of this stuff... I mean, it would never be my first choice. I don't like the game's founding principle of DM fiat and character suckage, and monster suckage. And the game just doesn't seem all that robust to play for a good, long campaign. But it seems like it might almost have the potential to be "somewhat ok". Not "good", but not as bad as 4e (which is crap).

So does the game totally blow suck, or is it just "ehh"? Because even an "eh" game can sometimes be entertaining in the right situation. But a game that sucks, like 4e, you don't even want to waste your precious life playing stuff like that even if someone gives you money to do it. 2e and 3e, for all their flaws, are still pretty fgun games. Can 5e pull off being kinda fun, or is it hopeless.

[Ghremdal]

Right now its looking like a 4e fan added houserule to 3.5. Poorly.

Its not the shit it was when it started, but after a year of playtests (or rather playtesters doing the work for Mearls) its a incoherent mess.

What is funny is that Mearls et al. decide now that is the time to "fix" the math and they don't know how to proceed since they didn't design anything.