What they were supposed to do was play 'support,' but what they were mechanically supported to do was use Charm effects (Bard charm spells actually are level-appropriate) and Diplomancy to build an army of thralls that could very plausibly out-contribute the rest of the party. Unfortunately, this didn't often work because using Diplomacy RAW was upsetting to a lot of people, and the thrall army was annoying to have to deal with.Jefepato wrote:It seemed to me that 3e bards were stuck as awkward masters-of-none. Their spells were their most powerful ability, but still weren't level-appropriate, so what are they supposed to actually do (at least, using the corebook and not a ton of PrC options)?
[5e] Thorough explanation of why it's terrible?
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angelfromanotherpin
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I once managed to convince my group to play four clerics. An orc with strength and war who pretended to be a barbarian, a kobold with trickery and Kobold who pretended to be a rogue, a human with knowledge and magic who pretended to be a wizard, and a human with healing and protection who pretended to contribute.
Koumei wrote:...is the dead guy posthumously at fault for his own death and, due to the felony murder law, his own murderer?
hyzmarca wrote:A palace made out of poop is much more impressive than one made out of gold. Stinkier, but more impressive. One is an ostentatious display of wealth. The other is a miraculous engineering feat.
Mord wrote:The implementation of full versus half casters was kind of shitty to begin with even in 3e. Either you have level-appropriate spells or you don't.
Yeah, core-only bards were definitely screwed, not doing anything particularly well because their one mechanical strength was, as already noted, frequently houseruled and a pain to deal with.Jefepato wrote:It seemed to me that 3e bards were stuck as awkward masters-of-none.[...](at least, using the corebook and not a ton of PrC options)?
But bards got tons of wonderful goodies as 3e went on, so being a half-caster wasn't so bad because between actual higher-level casting, level-appropriate SLAs, and bardic music goodness you could generally contribute just fine.
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Username17
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There's a lot of things it means for an effect to be level appropriate. Sleep at 1st level is pretty similar to Wail of the Banshee at 17th. Wail of the Banshee doesn't have an arbitrary hit die cutoff, has a longer range, a bigger area, hits more targets, and kills instead of putting enemies to sleep, but at 1st level none of that fucking matters because enemies don't have a lot of hit dice, don't come in larger numbers, and don't dominate large battlefields. Both spells then are essentially "everyone on the other side saves or loses." Even Wail's higher save DC is just a treadmill effect.
On the other hand, you have effects like Charm person versus Charm monster versus mass Charm, where the improved effects from level increase are really quite noticeable. You do fight enemies that are non-humanoid at first level and the difference between a duration of "all week" from "part of the day" is always important Charm Monster lasts long enough for you to rest and prepare spells and cast it again while Charm Person does not.
D&D has never, in any edition, had a good idea of what a caster should be capable of at any particular level. People comb through spell lists that have shit like Gut Snake and that thing that turns your hand into a poison sock puppet and they actively try to make stuff that isn't shit. And only after that first pass of power gaming do people get any "feeling" of how powerful a spell level "should" be.
Note that most groups exercise a level of self censorship as well. Like planar binding is actually kind of absurd and so is charm monster. So most groups either don't use those spells or use them way below the upper end of their potential. So when people tell you how powerful a 4th level spell is - their opinion is basically "something around the power level of the stuff I don't ignore for being too weak or push away for being too strong." Which means that it's not only group dependent, it's completely fucking arbitrary.
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On the other hand, you have effects like Charm person versus Charm monster versus mass Charm, where the improved effects from level increase are really quite noticeable. You do fight enemies that are non-humanoid at first level and the difference between a duration of "all week" from "part of the day" is always important Charm Monster lasts long enough for you to rest and prepare spells and cast it again while Charm Person does not.
D&D has never, in any edition, had a good idea of what a caster should be capable of at any particular level. People comb through spell lists that have shit like Gut Snake and that thing that turns your hand into a poison sock puppet and they actively try to make stuff that isn't shit. And only after that first pass of power gaming do people get any "feeling" of how powerful a spell level "should" be.
Note that most groups exercise a level of self censorship as well. Like planar binding is actually kind of absurd and so is charm monster. So most groups either don't use those spells or use them way below the upper end of their potential. So when people tell you how powerful a 4th level spell is - their opinion is basically "something around the power level of the stuff I don't ignore for being too weak or push away for being too strong." Which means that it's not only group dependent, it's completely fucking arbitrary.
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CapnTthePirateG
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That's not really a "spell" problem, that problem pops up in pretty much all of third edition D&D. Incantatrixes fluff-wise are supposed to be noncombatant abjuration specialists, but they get played as hardcore battlemages with nigh-impenetrable shields because that's what you can do with the class. Any game of D&D 3.X is going to involve tons of negotiation and doublethink to figure out what the DM/party thinks are appropriate effects, and it is by far one of the system's greatest weaknesses. It's one of the big things cited by 4e/5e defenders, and I can't really say they're wrong.
OgreBattle wrote:"And thus the denizens learned that hating Shadzar was the only thing they had in common, and with him gone they turned their venom upon each other"
-Sarpadian Empires, vol. I
@Incantatrixes have emergent properties that don't match the fluff, because the designer didn't think to check that, but you know, emergent properties are interesting, the fact people can talk about them 15 years later is not a bad sign. They are in fact vastly more interesting than the fluff.
3e's specific problems leave far more playable material than exists for 4e or 5e, because both those editions have massive systemic problems that prevent most of what you do with 3e rules from even existing. 3e Diplomancy (and the gating stuff) is sort of a problem, because you have to ask the DM, but you also have to ask the DM in 4e and 5e where they have zero guidance as to how to resolve that and the effects of success explode both newer editions far quicker and harder.Any game of D&D 3.X is going to involve tons of negotiation and doublethink to figure out what the DM/party thinks are appropriate effects, and it is by far one of the system's greatest weaknesses. It's one of the big things cited by 4e/5e defenders, and I can't really say they're wrong.
PC, SJW, anti-fascist, not being a dick, or working on it, he/him.
I wonder, is D&D 5 actually terrible?
I mean, if I sort the iteration of D&D I know by quality, it's something like this:
D&D3/3.5 >= Path 1 > D&D 5 > AD&D 2 > D&D 4 > Path 2 playtest
D&D 5, while not good, stand in a good position. Because most of the production is even worse. D&D 5 is better than AD&D 2, that's not a high bar to reach, and yet D&D 4 didn't reach it. Not to mention, as awful as AD&D 2 is, I've played it and it was fun. As Frank said, D&D 5 would be good if it was rule-lite - right now it's just too many rules for what it is.
Maybe D&D 3 was just too good? D&D 3 wasn't the RPG we deserved, it was the RPG we needed?
I mean, if I sort the iteration of D&D I know by quality, it's something like this:
D&D3/3.5 >= Path 1 > D&D 5 > AD&D 2 > D&D 4 > Path 2 playtest
digression: I'm not really sure I prefer D&D 3.5 or Path 1. The main quality of Path 1 is the 3.5 engine, and every subsystem Paizo added on this base is terrible; in the other hand, I like some of the classes and ideas they implemented, and I think my favorite balance point for playing 3.5 is "Path 1, everyone uses a 2/3 caster class".
Maybe D&D 3 was just too good? D&D 3 wasn't the RPG we deserved, it was the RPG we needed?
Last edited by GâtFromKI on Mon Sep 03, 2018 2:32 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Design wise, D&D4, D&D5 and Path2 share the same issue: there was absolutely no compelling reason to modify the core system, and the new core systems they use aren't as mechanically robust and don't offer as much gameplay space as 3.x.
It's utterly inexcusable for D&D4 and Path2. In both cases, what people wanted was an update of the old system, with fixes to the real problems they had. Instead we got entirely new rules system which don't work, from designers who apparently can't actually design systems.
For D&D5... it's a terribly uninteresting game for anyone who likes games with predictable rules. But it's really good at one thing: letting improv troupes show off their chops on Twitch. Sure, it's got less mechanical depth than the Red Box... but it at least revived an effectively dead brand.
It's utterly inexcusable for D&D4 and Path2. In both cases, what people wanted was an update of the old system, with fixes to the real problems they had. Instead we got entirely new rules system which don't work, from designers who apparently can't actually design systems.
For D&D5... it's a terribly uninteresting game for anyone who likes games with predictable rules. But it's really good at one thing: letting improv troupes show off their chops on Twitch. Sure, it's got less mechanical depth than the Red Box... but it at least revived an effectively dead brand.
There is one reason to modify the core system: D&D 3 is too complicated. Sometime it's good, and you want a long campaign with mechanical complexity. Sometime, you want to play a fast one-shot for level 6 characters, and D&D 3 is too complicated. This is where a "D&DLite" could exist (or you could use C&C or DW or houserule Descent to make it a RPG, but the brand name "D&D" has some traction).MisterDee wrote:Design wise, D&D4, D&D5 and Path2 share the same issue: there was absolutely no compelling reason to modify the core system, and the new core systems they use aren't as mechanically robust and don't offer as much gameplay space as 3.x.
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Username17
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I'm not sure that 5e is better than AD&D or AD&D2. It certainly isn't better in any kind of relative sense given the time of publication. Obviously AD&D2 was a better game for the time in 1989 than 5e was in 2016. It's not even particularly close.
But brevity is a virtue. And content is a virtue. 2nd edition books are much shorter than 5e books. And 2nd edition has a lot more content than 5th edition does. Like, a lot more content. I would be surprised if you could find a four month period between 1990 and 1996 where AD&D2 had less distinct content produced for it than everything made for 5th edition in its entire print run. And yet, 2nd edition books are much shorter in terms of wordcount. You can finish a book like I, Tyrant in a single sitting. It's 93 pages, and the text density on those pages isn't super high. It doesn't really provide less information than something like Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but it's much more accessible.
I'm not really convinced that 5th edition has a selling point over 2nd edition. And I don't even like 2nd edition. I think it's pretty crap. But it has stuff and the PHB is just upfront about not having rules - it doesn't string you along for a quarter million words.
And even when it comes to both games' shrugging and incoherent mechanics, the basic fallback is "roll a dexterity check" in both games. But in AD&D2 the mechanic is d20 roll-under, which is shit. But you fucking succeed at things. A Dex 18 character succeeds on a d20 roll-under check 80% of the time. In 5th edition, you're generally rolling d20+mods against a DC. And while that's a better system in abstract, the actual inputs are that a Dex 16 needs a proficiency bonus to succeed at a DC 15 test half the time. And normal tests are sometimes DC 20! FFS!
In AD&D2 there are all kinds of funny stories about the wacky shit that happened because the Wizard has a 5% Lift Gates check or some fucking thing. But that kind of bullshit is basically all the time and every facet of everything in 5th edition. Because the difference between a specialist and disinterested character trying untrained because "why the fuck not" is only like 4 points on a d20.
-Username17
But brevity is a virtue. And content is a virtue. 2nd edition books are much shorter than 5e books. And 2nd edition has a lot more content than 5th edition does. Like, a lot more content. I would be surprised if you could find a four month period between 1990 and 1996 where AD&D2 had less distinct content produced for it than everything made for 5th edition in its entire print run. And yet, 2nd edition books are much shorter in terms of wordcount. You can finish a book like I, Tyrant in a single sitting. It's 93 pages, and the text density on those pages isn't super high. It doesn't really provide less information than something like Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but it's much more accessible.
I'm not really convinced that 5th edition has a selling point over 2nd edition. And I don't even like 2nd edition. I think it's pretty crap. But it has stuff and the PHB is just upfront about not having rules - it doesn't string you along for a quarter million words.
And even when it comes to both games' shrugging and incoherent mechanics, the basic fallback is "roll a dexterity check" in both games. But in AD&D2 the mechanic is d20 roll-under, which is shit. But you fucking succeed at things. A Dex 18 character succeeds on a d20 roll-under check 80% of the time. In 5th edition, you're generally rolling d20+mods against a DC. And while that's a better system in abstract, the actual inputs are that a Dex 16 needs a proficiency bonus to succeed at a DC 15 test half the time. And normal tests are sometimes DC 20! FFS!
In AD&D2 there are all kinds of funny stories about the wacky shit that happened because the Wizard has a 5% Lift Gates check or some fucking thing. But that kind of bullshit is basically all the time and every facet of everything in 5th edition. Because the difference between a specialist and disinterested character trying untrained because "why the fuck not" is only like 4 points on a d20.
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CapnTthePirateG
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The stated reason for the lack of 5e content is that the devs know they can't actually put out a lot of content and have it be quality. Look at the multiclassing system - you need to go through every class in the game and come up with special snowflake interactions to avoid heavy armor wizards, which might go off your tightly constrained RNG. When content does come it's done in the most half-assed way possible - more shitty spells - rather than anything that might actually let you be good (like feats).
It has been 4 years since the PHB came out and the only allowable, published players options are:
-Xanathar's Guide to Everything. This book sucks except for the hexblade and like 3 lootable spells
-The forgotten realms players guide, with a questionable melee wizard and some cantrips every melee arcane guy lusts over
-THe Elemental Evil Player guide, a bunch of spells that I'm 99% sure got entirely reprinted in Xanathars
-The new races in Volo's Guide to Monsters, which are like 5 variant tieflings and a bunch of "evil" races (gnoll, orc, etc) that get fucked hardcore because God forbid you want to play an orc in 2018, you munchkin!*
That's it. The rest is playtest material in Mearls' lunch break articles, which are banned in Adventurer's League because you have crazy shit like switching saves to be charisma based and trading spell slots to power up your spells, and no one will ever let you do that shit.
It's nuts and really enforces how incompetent Mearls and co really are.
*Yet for some reason, I can play as many orcs as I want in WoW.
It has been 4 years since the PHB came out and the only allowable, published players options are:
-Xanathar's Guide to Everything. This book sucks except for the hexblade and like 3 lootable spells
-The forgotten realms players guide, with a questionable melee wizard and some cantrips every melee arcane guy lusts over
-THe Elemental Evil Player guide, a bunch of spells that I'm 99% sure got entirely reprinted in Xanathars
-The new races in Volo's Guide to Monsters, which are like 5 variant tieflings and a bunch of "evil" races (gnoll, orc, etc) that get fucked hardcore because God forbid you want to play an orc in 2018, you munchkin!*
That's it. The rest is playtest material in Mearls' lunch break articles, which are banned in Adventurer's League because you have crazy shit like switching saves to be charisma based and trading spell slots to power up your spells, and no one will ever let you do that shit.
It's nuts and really enforces how incompetent Mearls and co really are.
*Yet for some reason, I can play as many orcs as I want in WoW.
OgreBattle wrote:"And thus the denizens learned that hating Shadzar was the only thing they had in common, and with him gone they turned their venom upon each other"
-Sarpadian Empires, vol. I
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Ignimortis
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Looking at what Mearls produces as homebrew most of the time has me wondering if he actually likes 5e and what it turned out to be. While he's definitely not good at balancing, he has some crazy (and sometimes interesting) ideas, and that crazy is something 5e sorely lacks. It's like his ideas are severely filtered and whatever is left is then neutered and covered in shit to not break out of line with CHAMPION FIGHTER™.CapnTthePirateG wrote: That's it. The rest is playtest material in Mearls' lunch break articles, which are banned in Adventurer's League because you have crazy shit like switching saves to be charisma based and trading spell slots to power up your spells, and no one will ever let you do that shit.
It's nuts and really enforces how incompetent Mearls and co really are.
Back when I was playing AD&D in my early teens, I would frequently spend more time reading through the books than actually playing, as we had to sneak around very religious and very anti-D&D parents. I always found lots of inspiration in even the more obscure books, from funny entries on random d% tables to throwaway bits of lore to weird magic items.FrankTrollman wrote:But brevity is a virtue. And content is a virtue. 2nd edition books are much shorter than 5e books. And 2nd edition has a lot more content than 5th edition does.
[...]
You can finish a book like I, Tyrant in a single sitting. It's 93 pages, and the text density on those pages isn't super high. It doesn't really provide less information than something like Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but it's much more accessible.
With 5e, I just...don't. There's no there there. I figured maybe it's because I'm old and jaded now and can't find anything novel in RPG books anymore, mixed with the displeasure of how they screwed up FR once again, but no, I looked back at some 2e books I hadn't read in years and still managed to find some interesting tidbits I hadn't seen before and that immediately sparked some interesting ideas for my current game.
So given the choice between playing the clunky but incredibly rich AD&D or the smooth but incredibly flat and bland 5e, I'd personally have to think long and hard before I picked 5e. If I'm going to have to houserule and DM fiat a whole system into functionality, I might as well pick the source material and not the halfhearted copy.
Heck, even the 3e book background stuff is like that. Sure, when the later books started doing things like coming up with 4-5 pages of bloat for a single PrC and 95% of that extra material is superfluous for players looking to use it, but there's more usable setting material and more adventure hooks in the background fluff for the Sapphire Hierarch (even if you don't use the rest of Magic of Blue at all), the Illumians from RoD, rune circles in RoS, a bunch of monsters in MM2 and FF...the list goes on.
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NineInchNall
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Does anyone know where I can find (or can someone put together) a selection of the 5e devs explicitly prioritizing "feel" over math? I remember that Mearls (or one of those chucklefucks) said they didn't want to see math in playtest survey responses, but the D&DNext PLaytest Review thread is like a million pages long, so I can't find that.
Last edited by NineInchNall on Fri Feb 15, 2019 7:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Current pet peeves:
Misuse of "per se". It means "[in] itself", not "precisely". Learn English.
Malformed singular possessives. It's almost always supposed to be 's.
Misuse of "per se". It means "[in] itself", not "precisely". Learn English.
Malformed singular possessives. It's almost always supposed to be 's.
While this thread is necro'd, I just discovered the elven accuracy feat. Whoever it was that was crowing about advantage leading to dice pools: well played.
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GnomeWorks
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As a followup (and since it's been necro'd), I'm now in a 5e game.
The DM is new, has never run any sort of TTRPG before, and is currently a player in another 5e game, which he's been in for six months, maybe a touch more.
The other three players are all new to TTRPGs, to the point where one of them was surprised when she learned that we could do things like share equipment.
The skill system - if it can be called that - is leaving quite a bit to be desired. Since we're doing Dragon Heist, I assumed that Investigate would be useful, and after five sessions I've used it exactly once. I'm not sure I've even read a description of the skill anywhere, it just seemed like something that might be relevant. Thinking more about it, I don't think I've rolled any skill other than Perception more than once, if at all.
Watching the DM try to come up with reasonable incomes for working-class people is hilarious. I'm proficient with "jeweler's tools," and between his inexperience with pacing and the plot of the adventure, wound up getting a day job. So far I've made 80 gp in an in-game week, which seems... excessive? Though now that I've picked up my half plate and the DM has given me access to my artifact sword (a hunting rifle), I no longer have a use for currency, so I don't particularly care.
In the DM and I's post-game discussions over drinks, we've ascertained that I'm effectively the only one driving the plot, which has become less "find this vault full of money" and more "find where this illithid lives and shoot him in the face."
The DM is new, has never run any sort of TTRPG before, and is currently a player in another 5e game, which he's been in for six months, maybe a touch more.
The other three players are all new to TTRPGs, to the point where one of them was surprised when she learned that we could do things like share equipment.
The skill system - if it can be called that - is leaving quite a bit to be desired. Since we're doing Dragon Heist, I assumed that Investigate would be useful, and after five sessions I've used it exactly once. I'm not sure I've even read a description of the skill anywhere, it just seemed like something that might be relevant. Thinking more about it, I don't think I've rolled any skill other than Perception more than once, if at all.
Watching the DM try to come up with reasonable incomes for working-class people is hilarious. I'm proficient with "jeweler's tools," and between his inexperience with pacing and the plot of the adventure, wound up getting a day job. So far I've made 80 gp in an in-game week, which seems... excessive? Though now that I've picked up my half plate and the DM has given me access to my artifact sword (a hunting rifle), I no longer have a use for currency, so I don't particularly care.
In the DM and I's post-game discussions over drinks, we've ascertained that I'm effectively the only one driving the plot, which has become less "find this vault full of money" and more "find where this illithid lives and shoot him in the face."
5e has guidelines on how much an average person should be making. Depending on whether "modest" or "comfortable" better describes the life of the average peasant, daily expenses are either 2 silver or 1 gold. People have to also pay for kids and such and are possibly putting savings away or splurging on luxuries on weekends (Waterdeep is not exactly a realistic look at the brutal life of a medieval peasant), but even so, 80 gold is like a month's worth of wages.
There are no rules anywhere for any skill and rarely any set DCs for anything except Perception to detect traps and hidden doors. Stealth has the honor of having anti-rules, a sidebar which implies that it can be arbitrarily declared to fail regardless of the roll yet which is vague enough to still cause arguments. If the GM doesn't make a skill relevant, it won't be.
There are no rules anywhere for any skill and rarely any set DCs for anything except Perception to detect traps and hidden doors. Stealth has the honor of having anti-rules, a sidebar which implies that it can be arbitrarily declared to fail regardless of the roll yet which is vague enough to still cause arguments. If the GM doesn't make a skill relevant, it won't be.
Last edited by Chamomile on Mon Feb 18, 2019 3:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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GnomeWorks
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He told me that he'd looked through his books and hadn't found any good references for how much someone should make in a week, so he just eye-balled it.Chamomile wrote:5e has guidelines on how much an average person should be making. ... 80 gold is like a month's worth of wages.
Like I said, though, at this point cash can't do anything for me anymore, so I wasn't going to argue it out with him. There are insufficient rewards, both in the book and at the table, for me to bother with trying to get more money.
He also gave me funny looks when I was asked about the silver and copper we were looting during our first couple sessions, with his argument amounting to not wanting to keep track of the little details. So there's that. It is somewhat funny that in the course of five or six sessions I've gone from "count every copper" to "no longer give a crap about money," but I guess that's 5e for you.
Seems about right. It's all very MTP, except the combat which he's playing by the book.There are no rules anywhere for any skill and rarely any set DCs for anything except Perception to detect traps and hidden doors. Stealth has the honor of having anti-rules, a sidebar which implies that it can be arbitrarily declared to fail regardless of the roll yet which is vague enough to still cause arguments. If the GM doesn't make a skill relevant, it won't be.
Though the keeping us in combat-time for searching one of the joints we went to was ridiculously cumbersome (he almost literally kept us in initiative for it). I blame that on his inexperience though, and tried to explain after why that was such a terrible idea.
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Shadeseraph
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A few things that I like about 5e in general:
-I like the action model and usage better than the one in 3.5. The Full Attack action in particular always felt wrong in all kinds of ways, and the way the swift action was used in 3.5 is all kinds of inconsistent, with some classes not using it at all and others relying in it for half their skillset.
-I know most people dislike it, but the idea of bounded accuracy is something I actually like a lot. I understand that this essentially means that a high level character is not necesarily strictly more powerfull than a low level one, but for me experience should be more about broadening the character repertoire of skills and abilities rather than it being a numerical advantage. A broader skillset should mean that the character has a better chance of solving a challenge not because his numbers are bigger, but because he has the right tool for the right problem.
-Maneuvers like bull rush and grapple being much easier to adjudicate (through skills) and more realistically usable
-The core concept of advantage/disadvantage actually feels good for me - if only because it keeps the idea of bounded accuracy I mentioned above, rather than stacking bonuses. I do feel that it could probably have worked better if they have switched to 3D6 rather than D20 and advantage/disadvantage changed into "roll 3+XD6, pick 3" highest/lowest" and was stackable. It could probably also solve the problem of higher/lower characters consistently failing or making rolls that make no sense for them to fail or make, too, although it can loop back to making progression vertical if done wrong.
-Some of the changes made to spellcasting I actually like quite a bit. Innate scalling based on spell slot, and prepared casting simplified to spirit shaman based casting is for me a very good idea - mainly because it makes it much easier for most players to actually want to play those. Sorcerers getting spell points to fiddle with their spells is also a very interesting approach and for me makes them more characteristic than the 3.5 implementation, which was basically poor man's wizard.
-Concentration as a resource for duration-based spells. Honestly, this probably could have been extended to several other stuff.
-The way money and magic items are handled. Basically, the idea that these are more like trinkets and cool stuff than something that is necessary - Plot advancement and character development (and by character development I don't mean leveling up, mind you) should be the goal of the different adventures, rather than numerical power. Marrying the king's daughter or slaying the enemies of Pelor/Hextor/whatever, or getting on the good side of your thieves guild which you crossed before should be the reward, rather than another numerical bonus. Magic items are better served, IMO, as either McGuffins, Checkov Guns or just fun stuff that is not game altering, unless the whole setting is designed to make magic items a big point (basically, a magitech setting).
-The background system. I know it's not original, but it's still a good idea nonetheless.
Now then, the first problem is that with some exceptions (magic items assumption and bounded accuracy, for example), almost all these changes are periferal in nature and basically mechanistic, not a fix for conceptual gaps and issues the game has. And in the process of implementing those, they just left unimplemented about 60% of what makes 3.5 a simulationist game, and not just a board game, out. You could just copy and paste about 90% of the 3.5 engine, adjust DCs to 5e and you'd have a much more usable product.
The second problem is that those core concepts that it DOES change, is that it's a removal of the prior assumptions - without filling in the gap left by them, or filling it with a crappy, not at all different mechanic. Magic items are not supposed to be the goal of the game, or needed anymore, but the game doesn't try to give a replacement. The idea of tiers of game where at different levels your interaction with the world changes is a great one, but the game never makes an effort to guide you through this. Bounded accuracy should ideally replace vertical progression with an horizontal one, but in the end it's just that attack vs AC values are basically replaced by DPS vs HP, not with a wider range of problem-solving skills.
So in the end, most of the important assumptions are left challenged but unanswered, and in the process a lot of stuff was actually left behind. Which is a damn pity.
-I like the action model and usage better than the one in 3.5. The Full Attack action in particular always felt wrong in all kinds of ways, and the way the swift action was used in 3.5 is all kinds of inconsistent, with some classes not using it at all and others relying in it for half their skillset.
-I know most people dislike it, but the idea of bounded accuracy is something I actually like a lot. I understand that this essentially means that a high level character is not necesarily strictly more powerfull than a low level one, but for me experience should be more about broadening the character repertoire of skills and abilities rather than it being a numerical advantage. A broader skillset should mean that the character has a better chance of solving a challenge not because his numbers are bigger, but because he has the right tool for the right problem.
-Maneuvers like bull rush and grapple being much easier to adjudicate (through skills) and more realistically usable
-The core concept of advantage/disadvantage actually feels good for me - if only because it keeps the idea of bounded accuracy I mentioned above, rather than stacking bonuses. I do feel that it could probably have worked better if they have switched to 3D6 rather than D20 and advantage/disadvantage changed into "roll 3+XD6, pick 3" highest/lowest" and was stackable. It could probably also solve the problem of higher/lower characters consistently failing or making rolls that make no sense for them to fail or make, too, although it can loop back to making progression vertical if done wrong.
-Some of the changes made to spellcasting I actually like quite a bit. Innate scalling based on spell slot, and prepared casting simplified to spirit shaman based casting is for me a very good idea - mainly because it makes it much easier for most players to actually want to play those. Sorcerers getting spell points to fiddle with their spells is also a very interesting approach and for me makes them more characteristic than the 3.5 implementation, which was basically poor man's wizard.
-Concentration as a resource for duration-based spells. Honestly, this probably could have been extended to several other stuff.
-The way money and magic items are handled. Basically, the idea that these are more like trinkets and cool stuff than something that is necessary - Plot advancement and character development (and by character development I don't mean leveling up, mind you) should be the goal of the different adventures, rather than numerical power. Marrying the king's daughter or slaying the enemies of Pelor/Hextor/whatever, or getting on the good side of your thieves guild which you crossed before should be the reward, rather than another numerical bonus. Magic items are better served, IMO, as either McGuffins, Checkov Guns or just fun stuff that is not game altering, unless the whole setting is designed to make magic items a big point (basically, a magitech setting).
-The background system. I know it's not original, but it's still a good idea nonetheless.
Now then, the first problem is that with some exceptions (magic items assumption and bounded accuracy, for example), almost all these changes are periferal in nature and basically mechanistic, not a fix for conceptual gaps and issues the game has. And in the process of implementing those, they just left unimplemented about 60% of what makes 3.5 a simulationist game, and not just a board game, out. You could just copy and paste about 90% of the 3.5 engine, adjust DCs to 5e and you'd have a much more usable product.
The second problem is that those core concepts that it DOES change, is that it's a removal of the prior assumptions - without filling in the gap left by them, or filling it with a crappy, not at all different mechanic. Magic items are not supposed to be the goal of the game, or needed anymore, but the game doesn't try to give a replacement. The idea of tiers of game where at different levels your interaction with the world changes is a great one, but the game never makes an effort to guide you through this. Bounded accuracy should ideally replace vertical progression with an horizontal one, but in the end it's just that attack vs AC values are basically replaced by DPS vs HP, not with a wider range of problem-solving skills.
So in the end, most of the important assumptions are left challenged but unanswered, and in the process a lot of stuff was actually left behind. Which is a damn pity.
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JigokuBosatsu
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In that spirit, there are two things in 5e that after thinking about it casually for this long.
Advantage/disadvantage is great, but as mentioned already in this thread is that there are so many ways to get either without any sort of differentiation it becomes meaningless.
Something about having saving throws/challenges for each main attribute tickles me, but of course the implementation in 5e is ass.
The skill system is really inexcusable.
Advantage/disadvantage is great, but as mentioned already in this thread is that there are so many ways to get either without any sort of differentiation it becomes meaningless.
Something about having saving throws/challenges for each main attribute tickles me, but of course the implementation in 5e is ass.
The skill system is really inexcusable.
Omegonthesane wrote:a glass armonica which causes a target city to have horrific nightmares that prevent sleep
JigokuBosatsu wrote:so a regular glass armonica?
The proficiency bonus of a 5th level character is +3. A DC of 15 is considered “Medium”. The difference between a character proficient in a skill and a character with no training is 15% at 5th level. A character proficient in Arcana has a 40% chance of succeeding at a medium difficulty Arcana test. (DC15, +3 bonus, must roll 12 or better to succeed). They will fail easy tests at a rate of 30%.
If (Mearls_Design_Skill <= 0)
{return 1;}
1
If (Mearls_Design_Skill <= 0)
{return 1;}
1
Shrapnel wrote: Also, are you, like, a computer or something? Or... oh my fucking gosh, are you a living internet ad?!
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JigokuBosatsu
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I'm starting to think this edition is a combo of the pointlessness of 4e and the nostalgia of 1e, only because they add up to 5. With that conceit, I wonder what 5e would have been if they added 2e and 3e together?
Omegonthesane wrote:a glass armonica which causes a target city to have horrific nightmares that prevent sleep
JigokuBosatsu wrote:so a regular glass armonica?
editionQuality = designTeamSkill * creativeDirectionJigokuBosatsu wrote:I'm starting to think this edition is a combo of the pointlessness of 4e and the nostalgia of 1e, only because they add up to 5. With that conceit, I wonder what 5e would have been if they added 2e and 3e together?
designTeamSkill = 0
Shrapnel wrote: Also, are you, like, a computer or something? Or... oh my fucking gosh, are you a living internet ad?!
The 12 is inclusive, so it's 45%. Plus, a 5th-level character has one stat that's at least 18 and another that's at least 14. Virtually every skill they are proficient in is going to be associated with one of those two, unless skills associated with their high stats are so rare that it is actually impossible to use all their skill picks on them (i.e. CON has no associated skills and STR has only Athletics, so the Barbarian is going to have to pick some skills using WIS or whatever).Usamimi wrote:The proficiency bonus of a 5th level character is +3. A DC of 15 is considered “Medium”. The difference between a character proficient in a skill and a character with no training is 15% at 5th level. A character proficient in Arcana has a 40% chance of succeeding at a medium difficulty Arcana test. (DC15, +3 bonus, must roll 12 or better to succeed). They will fail easy tests at a rate of 30%.
This doesn't actually help a whole lot. A character trained in Arcana very likely has at least a +2 INT, but that still only budges the percentages up to 55% for a "medium" task. Even someone who's gotten INT up to 20 by level 5 - not even possible if you're using the standard array - is looking at a +8 bonus total, or 70% odds of success.
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RobbyPants
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Are we combining the best parts or the worst parts?JigokuBosatsu wrote:I'm starting to think this edition is a combo of the pointlessness of 4e and the nostalgia of 1e, only because they add up to 5. With that conceit, I wonder what 5e would have been if they added 2e and 3e together?
Best parts: Character generation is relatively fast before you add in splats, fighter-types are useful even at mid levels, using a sword and shield make sense, blasting if fun and effective, and the rule set is relatively standardized and solid. Skills are a bit too much MTP, but you can cover common scenarios with them.
Worst parts: It takes two hours to roll up a simple character, there are a bajillion look-up tables, you can't tell ahead of time if rolling high or low is good, casters are way better than non-casters, but it's "balanced" because of differing XP rates and casters being super weak at 1st level, if you don't have a build plan for your PC, they will suck, and the DM is explicitly encouraged to fuck over players for pretty much any reason.