Darkholme wrote:FrankTrollman wrote:5e is just a really fragile system, and the unambitious math base is a big reason why.
-Username17
"the unambitious math base is a big reason why."
What do you mean by this comment? You mean the slow number scaling? Don't lots of RPGs have relatively low numbers scaling? Like, World of Darkness style math or FFG Star Wars math has a relatively small max power level compared to where you'll start, no?
I mean the math is unambitious. Mearls said that scaling to-hit bonuses and damage against AC, hit points, and DR was simply
too hard. An intractable math problem that could not be solved. Now leaving aside the fact that this is
not actually a particularly difficult math problem, it was in fact literally his actual job to solve it and throwing his hands up was absolutely absurd. FFS, we weren't asking for a harmonious and infinite progression of multiple competing variables (not that that would have been hard to do either, since you can choose to set the growth rate of all the variables to whatever you want) - it's actually only 20 levels of variables that you have to set ranges for and you can set any of them arbitrarily and then solves for the other ones. It's actually dumber than that, because you don't even have to tell people the number of rounds you're assuming combat has to be or even have that number stay static over level rises - it's perfectly reasonable for there to be "grindy" and "rocket launcherish" level ranges so you can claim victory for most plausible outcomes.
Instead we get something so unambitious that literally all the CR 4 monsters in the Monster Manual have the same attack bonus. That's fucking absurd. Like, it's not mathematically difficult to conceptualize a monster that hits twice as often for half as much damage or a monster that hits half as often for twice as much damage. Those things are obviously "balanced" if you care about such things. All you have to do is define a set of arbitrary reference defenses for each level and then set the monstrous attack and damage values to be roughly in line with that. The mathematical design space is extremely easy to map out. We'd kind of complain if that's all they were doing. I mean, it's also not difficult to set some reference attacks for each level and create monsters that have more or less overall offense as a direct tradeoff with defense. We might even criticize that as being too lazy, too flippant, when clearly we could have monsters with temporal tradeoffs where they had limited use abilities or had rage bars such that they were more or less dangerous in the expected first or second half of the conflict.
But we don't get in to any of that. Mike Mearls couldn't be fucked to even try to balance monsters that don't literally hit on the same number on a d20. That's a level of lack of lack of ambition that it's really hard to even wrap your mind around. Tradeoffs between accuracy and damage are the easiest fucking thing in the fucking world. You're just multiplying two factors by reciprocal numbers.
So with that level of aversion to doing any actual design work, is it any wonder that when people present questions like "what if instead of boosting my action, I summon dudes and then have extra smaller actions?" the answer is "GARGLEMACKFNOOOB!?" The game mechanics haven't even attempted to answer even questions, genuinely hard questions are obviously off the table. That's why the game is so fucking fragile. Why summoning a few skeletons or hiring some crossbow wielding mercenaries breaks everything into sad and angry pieces.
-Username17