D&DNext: Playtest Review

[Ice9]

The funny part is - forget Quadratic, Exponential Wizards would actually be correct for how the CR system works, which is exponentially. Exponential Fighters too, obviously. A lot of people will deny completely that this is how it does or should work, which is a little odd - it's right there in the DMG, written very plainly.

Now that said - even the Fighter is not actually logarithmic, if you pick a "supported" combat style, such as two-handed weapon, and take the right feats/items for it. It's not hard to build a melee type that does completely relevant damage (as in, kills stuff in one round). The problem is that doing that damage isn't enough when there are so many ways enemies can straight-up negate it that you can't deal with.

The fact that if you build a Fighter wrong, you can't even do that is just insult added to injury.

[Ferret]

New Legends and Lore

Passive Perception Score: IN

Stacking Extra Actions: OUT

Shorties Speed: 30

Speed Penalty for Heavy Armor: HULKED OUT

[sake]

Huh. Aside from the no stacking extra attacks thing confirming that the Monk will suck for yet another edition, those weren't completely horrible.

[Seerow]

Huh. Aside from the no stacking extra attacks thing confirming that the Monk will suck for yet another edition, those weren't completely horrible.

Not horrible, but it is hilarious that they are re-inventing the Swift action for the 4th or 5th time in the last decade.

[tussock]

It reads like the process for starting a fight is you check everyone's Wis mod, adjust for marching order, stealth and various other actions, then roll stealth for every monster modified for all the stealth mods to compare, and proceed to unravel who can act from that, after you do it all in reverse for the PCs by having them all roll stealth and check against each monster's Wis mod with various modifiers on both sides.

Because damn that's terrible. I mean, it's not 3e, so you're not rolling at least six times that many dice (or rather, ignoring the whole thing because WTF), but still no one's even done anything yet and we're a dozen widely compared dice rolls in.

Just, d6, surprised on a 1-2: it's not that hard, eh. 1978's calling with better rules.

[Ferret]

I suspect that most people will roll for monster surprise as a group, tussock; not strictly letter of the law, but workable. 1d20, comparisons all around. Not QUITE as easy as looking for 1-2 on D6, but also without the "what if I'm an elf and I'm 90 feet or farther from nonelves? And that dude, he's a Ranger so..."

[malak]

I will just ignore the Shadzar troll thread about this and state:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... d/20140129


There is one horrible idea in there, and it's that the time between level ups should increase with higher level.

Which might be a good idea for video games where people have to learn controls first, but it sucks for TTRPGs.

[ubernoob]

I will just ignore the Shadzar troll thread about this and state:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... d/20140129


There is one horrible idea in there, and it's that the time between level ups should increase with higher level.

Which might be a good idea for video games where people have to learn controls first, but it sucks for TTRPGs.

I think this is their way of having "Shit more powerful than you" be in the setting and say "You could eventually become this powerful" without having to actually deal with people actually hitting those levels then complaining about it online because their high level stuff was unplaytested garbage with basic math failures.

I could be wrong, but I'm probably not.

[Josh_Kablack]

What the fuck?

They do all these surveys and open "playtests" and focus groups and comparisons to prior editions. Where different play groups tell them they want different rate of advancement. And they choose to design things as "characters will advance at N goblins per level" instead of "the default is N goblins per level, but here's how to toggle it to suit your group and the effects of increasing or decreasing the level gain rate"

Where's the "setting this number to any fixed value is stupid and you are an idiot for asking" answer to that poll?

[darkmaster]

They could, also, you know, put in the work to make the product work from level 1 on up.

[Seerow]

I will just ignore the Shadzar troll thread about this and state:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... d/20140129


There is one horrible idea in there, and it's that the time between level ups should increase with higher level.

Which might be a good idea for video games where people have to learn controls first, but it sucks for TTRPGs.

I actually don't mind it. Especially with the kind of exponential growth curves D&D has.

I've mentioned before that I wouldn't mind seeing something like E6 put into the main game. Where breaks between major tiers of power cause characters to hit a glass ceiling and stop leveling, instead gaining more powers of the same general level they already have access to until either the DM says "Let's move on" or they complete some bit plot quest to break the glass cieling.

Taking that concept and combining with fast advancement at low level and slower advancement as you approach the ceiling could work. Say for example you have Heroic/Paragon/Epic at 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, a la 4e.

Levels 1-3, 11-13, and 21-23, all go relatively fast. Levels 4-7, 14-17, and 24-27 go relatively slow. Levels 8-10, 18-20, and 28-30 all go significantly slower. You could even go so far as to add midpoints to those slower levels, giving e6-style level appropriate benefits between levels.

Example:
Level: avg encounters to level
1-3: 7
4-7: 14 (bonus feat/ability/whatever at 7 encounters)
8-10: 21 (bonus feat/ability/whatever at 7 and 14 encounters)
10-11: X (X = however long you want to continue playing at that power level before moving on to 11 where new stuff opens up and the game's dynamic shifts. Gain new bonus feat/ability/whatever every 7 encounters)
11-13: 7
and so on


Adjust number of encounters between rewards to suit tastes, but the basic idea is at the start of a given tier, you're fresh to it and able to progress quickly. As you get further in, you slow down, but still pick up some reward for advancement as you progress. As you approach the end, things eventually grind to a halt, but you still continue gaining rewards every X levels (I picked 7 in the example), but a new level itself is a bigger chunk of power that comes slower as you reach towards your glass ceiling.

[Mask_De_H]

They could, also, you know, put in the work to make the product work from level 1 on up.

>implying anyone is putting in work on D&DN

[darkmaster]

Well, I mean, they could. If they were professionals, and not braying jackasses.

[Dean]

My favorite part of that article was finding out the last poll asked "How many magic items should a 20th level character have come across in their career" and the answers ranged from between 5 and 30. How about a fucking THOUSAND. Holy shit what are they talking about!? Between 5 and 30!? Only 2% answered 30+ even though that is fucking obviously the case! How many magic items should a character see over 20 levels? The same 20 levels that require 14 different encounters per level? Those 20 levels???

Lets look at only level 19. No other level. Lets imagine that the 14 encounters you will fight through that level consist only of a single monster apiece. Just one. And each fight's monster only has a single magic item on it in the 60,000 dollars each fight is supposed to net you in swag. That would still net you half of the MAXIMUM number of magic items they think you should ever acquire in the course of your entire characters 20 level adventuring career in THAT ONE LEVEL. It is obvious upon casual fucking inspection that their numbers are many orders of magnitude off of the correct answer. How it could be so obviously off and have only 2% of the voting population seeing that is dumbfounding.

[deaddmwalking]

My favorite part of that article was finding out the last poll asked "How many magic items should a 20th level character have come across in their career" and the answers ranged from between 5 and 30. How about a fucking THOUSAND. Holy shit what are they talking about!? Between 5 and 30!? Only 2% answered 30+ even though that is fucking obviously the case! How many magic items should a character see over 20 levels? The same 20 levels that require 14 different encounters per level? Those 20 levels???

The phrasing of the question was slightly, but importantly, different.

In a [some level of magic] campaign, about how many permanent magic items would you expect a single character to acquire by 20th level?

If a party of 5 characters each acquires 20 permanent magic items, then as a party, they've acquired 100 total items.

But even if that seems low, I took it to mean how many items will a 20th level character actually use - sort of how many ornaments on your Christmas tree.

I like the idea of 'permanent slotted item'. PCs should only be able to use a few items at a time. Individual slots are stupid - I don't care if you have 5 rings or 2 rings - but I think there should be a cap on total number of magical items you can use at a given time.

[infected slut princess]

Seriously, fuck this game.

[tussock]

How it could be so obviously off and have only 2% of the voting population seeing that is dumbfounding.

It's got a proper name in the marketing/psychology community, not that I can think of it at the moment. You set people's expectations by giving them a fake range and 95% of people just vote somewhere in the middle of it. Basically, brains don't like numbers, it's all too hard.

He also lied about 1st edition. The tables are nothing like all the example modules and recommendations through the text about what you're supposed to get, vastly less magic items being the stand-out difference. Playing modules always had you swimming in items by mid levels, and no one ever reached 20th level anyway in 2e.

---

So that new article. He found some numbers and stopped. For a start a 1st level 4e Fighter is like a 2nd level 3e, or 3rd level AD&D. Minions replaced the 1HD types mechanically, and so lots of Goblins fall before all those characters, and need to.

But there's flat treasure rewards in AD&D and class/story bonuses in 2nd that can give up a couple thousand XP pretty quick without killing anything.

Then there's the danger factor. Actual numbers they can kill in one fight, on average, my own calculations assuming a chokepoint (much lower if surrounded of course).
4e 1st level Fighter: 21 Goblin minions. ~1/2 of a level.
3e 2nd level Fighter: 20 Goblin War1's. ~one level.
2e 3rd level Fighter: 27 Goblins. ~1/6 of a level, depending on options.
1e 3rd level Fighter: 50 Goblins. ~1/2 level or more by treasure.

Now, 1e Fighters are uniquely strong against Goblins and Kobolds, the 2e XP system refuses to reward killing boring monsters unless they have over 10 HD (but goes crazy if you kill a demon of any kind, even the 1HD ones, 2000XP each there). Oh, and 4e minions are relatively weak. So none of it's much good as an average.


So: How many fights to level up Mike? Just one or two, if it's balls to wall stuff and you make the most of it. Or as many as you like if the system doesn't reward that. And that's the trick.

XP is an incentive. Reward well the killing of small numbers of Goblins and people will kill them until it gets boring. Then they'll go find something else to do with their time.

[shadzar]

My favorite part of that article was finding out the last poll asked "How many magic items should a 20th level character have come across in their career" and the answers ranged from between 5 and 30. How about a fucking THOUSAND.

the problem is NOT the numbers that they chose, but the fact they think they SHOULD choose a number, rather than letting people decide for themselves what high or low is. Ye Olde Magick Shoppe, should NOT exist, but it should also not be prevented in the core of the game. something about letting the people that play the game play it how they want rather than the ONETRUEWOTCWAY just seems best.

YOU want to play a bunch of munchkins visting the magic shop every hour to upgrade things, then go for it. i want a non-stupid game where that doesnt happen, then i should be allowed to have it my way. WotC just needs to learn from Burger King and let the players have it THEIR way, not just the WOTC way.

[Previn]

So: How many fights to level up Mike? Just one or two, if it's balls to wall stuff and you make the most of it. Or as many as you like if the system doesn't reward that. And that's the trick.

XP is an incentive. Reward well the killing of small numbers of Goblins and people will kill them until it gets boring. Then they'll go find something else to do with their time.

I was thinking the exact same thing. The instant he started comparing how many goblins you had to kill, giant red flags went up. Murdering creatures shouldn't reward XP, it tilts play toward being murderers and seeing everything as something to kill. XP should be awarded for advancing the story.

[Blicero]

I was thinking the exact same thing. The instant he started comparing how many goblins you had to kill, giant red flags went up. Murdering creatures shouldn't reward XP, it tilts play toward being murderers and seeing everything as something to kill. XP should be awarded for advancing the story.

That assumes that a definite story exists in your game. It often won't. (Or, rather, a story won't be visible until you think back upon the sessions' events.) If you don't have a story, you need some metric for controlling advancement. You can do ad hoc leveling, or you can incentivize some behaviors by rewarding people who do them with XP.

[shadzar]

the "story" is the current plot. be it narrative plot, or plot against the PCs... as I jsut said to a retard in the other thread, reading a DMG prior to WotC will give plenty of information about XP and the correct things to give it for, which is NOT just killing things and taking their stuff as Wyatt seems to think.

[Previn]

That assumes that a definite story exists in your game. It often won't. (Or, rather, a story won't be visible until you think back upon the sessions' events.) If you don't have a story, you need some metric for controlling advancement. You can do ad hoc leveling, or you can incentivize some behaviors by rewarding people who do them with XP.

Every game has a story, it just may be a very simple short and random one. 'Going out to clear the goblin warrens' is a story. If you award XP at the end of a session, which I'm pretty sure is the most common method to do so by a wide margin, you can determine how much the story has advanced at that point without needing to come up with specific break points.

It's slightly more structured than what I consider a bullshit 'you'll level when I feel like you'll level.' Which given the Den's utter hatred for relying on a fair and impartial DM for anything else strikes me as a very odd position.

[Fuchs]

It's slightly more structured than what I consider a bullshit 'you'll level when I feel like you'll level.' Which given the Den's utter hatred for relying on a fair and impartial DM for anything else strikes me as a very odd position.

As I understand, and with my group, it's "you level when you (group majority) decide to". Even the most GM-phobic denner shouldn't find fault with that, since it empowers the players to decide how fast they advance.

[Ravengm]

So: How many fights to level up Mike? Just one or two, if it's balls to wall stuff and you make the most of it. Or as many as you like if the system doesn't reward that. And that's the trick.

XP is an incentive. Reward well the killing of small numbers of Goblins and people will kill them until it gets boring. Then they'll go find something else to do with their time.

I was thinking the exact same thing. The instant he started comparing how many goblins you had to kill, giant red flags went up. Murdering creatures shouldn't reward XP, it tilts play toward being murderers and seeing everything as something to kill. XP should be awarded for advancing the story.

Rather than "advancing the story", you could probably generalize it a bit more and say "completing an adventure", because that can consist of anything from murdering an outpost of kobolds to sleuthing out the betrayer in the king's court. "Advancing the story" carries an implication associated with it, and a lot of people will assume things that aren't correct.

[Previn]

Rather than "advancing the story", you could probably generalize it a bit more and say "completing an adventure", because that can consist of anything from murdering an outpost of kobolds to sleuthing out the betrayer in the king's court. "Advancing the story" carries an implication associated with it, and a lot of people will assume things that aren't correct.

So no experience until the adventure has been completed? If I was to play the Red Hand of Doom, no one would get to advance or get any XP until the entire 128 page adventure was done?