D&D 5th Edition: 8th Revision and Counting

[Frozen_Feet]

The same could be said, though, about boiling the paladin, ranger, and barbarian down to their essences and throwing them under the Fighter heading, though.


Kinda like they used to be in 1st Ed AD&D? :smalltongue:


This approach leads to two problems: first, how are you going to fit all those subclasses into the core rules? There's only so much wordcount. Second, it means that some concepts will be left out in the cold.


All of those subclasses could be made as feats or feat-like system. Every three levels, you choose the archetype which abilities you want for the next three levels.

Or, they could be made as prestige classes.

[FatR]

Grognard isn't an insult. Its a term with a specific meaning.If you find that meaning insulting, thats your problem.

So you just wanted to say that people who prefer previous editions of the game prefer previous editions of the game? A thought that needs reiterating, certainly.

Anyway, if you honestly think that 3.0 wasn't heavily accused of being too anime, this just means you was too young to be there during its release. The difference is, 3.0 was superior to its precedessor, while still being recognisable as DnD, so the overwhelming majority of players did not care.

[FatR]

If you are going to redesign fighter,

But why you are doing your game this disservice? Fighter is one of real and not imagined sacred cows that needs to die. "Guy who fights" is a terrible niche in a party where everyone are supposed to contribute equally in combat, and it can never possibly work, even besides the historical baggage of suck and mundanity, that now helps to ruin second edition in a row. What you're proposing is rewriting the entire class structure just to slap the name of "Fighter" on something. Why not just exclude this bad concept?

[Stubbazubba]

But why you are doing your game this disservice? Fighter is one of real and not imagined sacred cows that needs to die. "Guy who fights" is a terrible niche in a party where everyone are supposed to contribute equally in combat, and it can never possibly work, even besides the historical baggage of suck and mundanity, that now helps to ruin second edition in a row. What you're proposing is rewriting the entire class structure just to slap the name of "Fighter" on something. Why not just exclude this bad concept?

You mean like he proposed as the alternative in the next sentence?

[EvanWaters]

The thing is, not enough people did like that edition, by all appearances.

That doesn't mean you discard everything that was good and interesting about that edition in a mad attempt to please the people who have the game they want in perpetuity anyway.

[Jacob.Tyr]

Honestly I'd prefer a game that was truly modular, in that each set of abilities was a module you could add/upgrade on your character. A build your own, as it were.

Pick a base class that determines a few bits of your progression, then tack things on to that to determine what your character does. Arcane caster, Divine Caster, Fighter. Choose boosts to spellcasting(to be a pure caster for casters, or to be a gish for fighters), healing, sneak attack, buffing, melee etc at each level. Skills solely through background(I like this part of 5e thus far) so you don't need x/y/z class to have all the skills you need.

Set up the game this way with these bits of character building given to the players, and then build up full classes, already made, around this system for people who want something already set up and don't feel like grinding through such a setup.

Paladin would be a fighter setup that takes some healing and saves boosts at each level. Cleric(As I saw it in 3.X anyway) would be a divine caster who takes healing and melee. Barbarian would be a fighter with a focus on self-buffing and melee.

Yes, it would probably need to be more complicated than I listed above. But that is sort of what I expected from 5E when they started talking about modularity and differing skill levels of play. Right now it looks like a low powered vanilla hack and slash.

[obryn]

Kinda like they used to be in 1st Ed AD&D? :smalltongue:
No, they were distinct classes in 1e & 2e, even though described as "subclasses"... different xp tables, different hit dice for rangers, etc. The subclass thing was used for attacks and saves, among other things, but this is more suggesting a return to 0e, with 3 classes, before the Thief ruined everything. :smalltongue:

-O

[Stubbazubba]

Honestly I'd prefer a game that was truly modular, in that each set of abilities was a module you could add/upgrade on your character. A build your own, as it were.

Pick a base class that determines a few bits of your progression, then tack things on to that to determine what your character does. Arcane caster, Divine Caster, Fighter. Choose boosts to spellcasting(to be a pure caster for casters, or to be a gish for fighters), healing, sneak attack, buffing, melee etc at each level. Skills solely through background(I like this part of 5e thus far) so you don't need x/y/z class to have all the skills you need.

Set up the game this way with these bits of character building given to the players, and then build up full classes, already made, around this system for people who want something already set up and don't feel like grinding through such a setup.

Paladin would be a fighter setup that takes some healing and saves boosts at each level. Cleric(As I saw it in 3.X anyway) would be a divine caster who takes healing and melee. Barbarian would be a fighter with a focus on self-buffing and melee.

Can you imagine the number of combinations you'd have to test? And how many would just be rotten? It would be 3.5's balance issues but with an even larger learning curve. And my guess would be full caster would still be the best way to go.

[Rhynn]

before the Thief ruined everything. :smalltongue:

Down with prescriptive skill systems!


The difference is, 3.0 was superior to its precedessor

:smallconfused:

I'm sure there's some kind of objective metric here I've missed.

[obryn]

I'm sure there's some kind of objective metric here I've missed.
Me too... (And I wasn't joking about Thieves ruining everything, either!)

Long block of words ahead.
Look, I'm a diehard 4e dude, but grew up on B/X, BECMI, and AD&D in the way early 80's. I've checked them out on and off pretty recently, and ran a really fun AD&D game for a while before my kids made all my spare weekend time disappear. Nowadays, I'd far rather run one of them than 3.x or its close offshoots. (Or Next, for that matter.)

For one thing, the caster/non-caster balance is a lot tighter in all of them than in 3.x And although 3.x has customization innovations like feats and skills that I loved at first, I have come around on both of them. Skills, I'd rather see as almost vestigial like they are in 4e ... or completely nonexistent as a prescriptive list. (For D&D, anyway. Obviously not for skill-based classless games like Savage Worlds.) And yeah, I know about the nonweapon proficiencies that were introduced in the mid-80's and became core for 2e. Those are ... well, they're okay, but I much prefer AD&D-style Secondary Skills.

And feats ... man. Again, for a class-based system, I'd so much rather they either get rolled into class features, or else do actual interesting stuff. The endless pickiness of "gives you +2 to some save in a rare circumstance" bloat or the almost-worse "spend a bunch of feats narrowly pursuing one weapon and combat style so you end up sucking in everything else in comparison" ... just ... well, it's wearying. (And no, 4e's not much better here; the feat bloat has been simply irresponsible, and the garbage ones were never pruned like they should have been.)

And don't get me started on 3e point-buy-style multiclassing... :smallbiggrin: Really, when I heard they were looking at this for Next, I groaned because I like strong, archetypal classes in my D&D.

Really, the only major things I think are absolutely superior with 3rd edition are (1) ascending AC and attack bonuses, and (2) f/r/w saves ... though I'd rather see them scale in a 1e sense instead of the awful low-scaling 3e uses. The first is pretty easily ported in; check out Dark Dungeons for a good implementation.

But yeah. Despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about class balance, both AD&D and the BX/BECMI/RC offshoots did a reasonably fair job of ... keeping things pretty well balanced. It's almost like the designers knew what they were doing. :smallwink: (In the core books, at least; Unearthed Arcana is another one I shouldn't get started on...)


-O

[Synovia]

So you just wanted to say that people who prefer previous editions of the game prefer previous editions of the game? A thought that needs reiterating, certainly.

Anyway, if you honestly think that 3.0 wasn't heavily accused of being too anime, this just means you was too young to be there during its release. The difference is, 3.0 was superior to its precedessor, while still being recognisable as DnD, so the overwhelming majority of players did not care.
Again, I didn't say any of this. Could you please stop making things up and attributing them to me?

[Clawhound]

What you're proposing is rewriting the entire class structure just to slap the name of "Fighter" on something. Why not just exclude this bad concept?

Let's take fighter out of the game. Is there a hole? I think so. Where's the class for the guy with the sword and the board? The mercenary? The leader of troops? The noble? Players will want that.

So getting rid of the concept doesn't work either.

We could replace the fighter with more specific classes. I don't think that's a bad thing. Each class would have a clearer place in the world.

I like Next's solution of making skills independent of class. That means that no class is left unable to act outside of combat. The fighter/noble can be good in politics, the fighter/scum can be good with the underworld, and the fighter/hunter can be good with wilderness survival.

But your observation is still valid. So aside from combat, prepping for combat, post-combat, party decision making, social interaction, solving soft problems, and any ideas that the player may come up with, a fighter has nothing to do.

[Synovia]

Let's take fighter out of the game. Is there a hole? I think so. Where's the class for the guy with the sword and the board? The mercenary? The leader of troops? The noble? Players will want that.

None of those things are classes, or archetypes. Mercenary, Leader, and Noble have nothing to do with class, they're backgrounds or social roles. "Sword and Board" is a fighting style/weapon choice (that I most often see in clerics, honestly), not a class.

[JusticeZero]

Honestly i've always felt that the "basic fighter" should have more skills and leadership ability. Something of a mix of Fighter+Expert+Warlord. Barbarians can flip out and kill stuff, rangers can poke around the woods, but the fighter's place is as a leader of men, a king, general, engineer. They understand fortifications, tactics, and how to give a rousing speech before crashing into the enemy. Every time an enemy falls at their hand, their troops are inspired to push on all the harder.

[Cavelcade]

All of those subclasses could be made as feats or feat-like system. Every three levels, you choose the archetype which abilities you want for the next three levels.

Or, they could be made as prestige classes.

I prefer what the first suggestion was - a branching off fighter. So you start off as fighter, and at different points you can diverge into separate subclasses, but permanently. If you stay as fighter the whole way, it should end up as something like a Warblade, I think, with a lot of different maneuvers at the ready.

One of the biggest problems I've found is that half the book is dedicated to spells, and a chapter is dedicated to combat that everyone can use, and then the few pages of class description describes martial exclusive abilities. Of course if you design like that, the melee classes will fall behind.


None of those things are classes, or archetypes. Mercenary, Leader, and Noble have nothing to do with class, they're backgrounds or social roles. "Sword and Board" is a fighting style/weapon choice (that I most often see in clerics, honestly), not a class.

He pretty obviously meant a guy who fights like that and isn't magical. It's definitely an archetype - one a Knight class could fill (a historical knight, not a 3.5 knight). That could be a subclass of fighter as well, which also gives the noble feel.

[navar100]

All of those subclasses could be made as feats or feat-like system. Every three levels, you choose the archetype which abilities you want for the next three levels.

Or, they could be made as prestige classes.

To do that they would have to accept one feat giving lots of stuff, especially warriors. That is a paradigm many people cannot live with - a small resource allotment providing for lots of goodies (unless it's a spell because magic is magic). No one gets anything "for free" or nearly so. People are so afraid of power creep they don't want to give any power at all.

[Yora]

Power creep is not so much of a problem. It's pretty much a given that spellcasters will start high and will steadily increase with every new spell that is published.
Rules creep is the bigger issue, as you have to learn more and more things to be able to create your character.

[Morty]

To do that they would have to accept one feat giving lots of stuff, especially warriors. That is a paradigm many people cannot live with - a small resource allotment providing for lots of goodies (unless it's a spell because magic is magic). No one gets anything "for free" or nearly so. People are so afraid of power creep they don't want to give any power at all.

Who are "they"? Who are "many people"? I've seen no such opinion expressed in this thread or the ones before it and frankly it doesn't seem to have much to do with the current discussion. It looks suspiciously like you're just beating up strawmen.

And I maintain that this discussion approaches the Fighter problem from the wrong angle. It's one thing to create a Fighter class that will provide a variety of effective combat styles. But what do we do with the fact that fighting is all the Fighter does but he's not allowed to do it better than others? Do we force all Fighters to become hybrids? Or do we make it so that fighters are actually the best at fighting but non-combat skills are more relevant?
D&D Next was supposed to fix this by making exploration, problem solving and such actually important parts of the game but so far, surprise surprise, it hasn't followed up with that promise.

[JusticeZero]

I'd give the Fighters more things to do that are just reflections of their personal awesomeness. First, Fighter concepts from fiction are usually military leaders, so give them some intrinsic ability to lead. Give them the skills to do it, and give them the ability to bolster their forces not by standing in back and leading but by being in front being awesome - i'm thinking abilities like "Every time the Fighter defeats an enemy in combat/gets a critical hit in combat/whatever, allies within blah area receive a +X Inspiration bonus to their awesomeness.".

[EvanWaters]

Power creep is not so much of a problem. It's pretty much a given that spellcasters will start high and will steadily increase with every new spell that is published.
Rules creep is the bigger issue, as you have to learn more and more things to be able to create your character.

Well, on top of that, you do often see later options published that are stronger than in the core books because they've finally figured out how the mechanics actually work, so you have to get such-and-such a feat or PrC to keep up with the Joneses.

[Rhynn]

D&D Next was supposed to fix this by making exploration, problem solving and such actually important parts of the game but so far, surprise surprise, it hasn't followed up with that promise.

That's hard to judge from playtest material, though, because none of that is really a rules thing. It's an everything else thing. The 1E DMG did a great job at emphasizing that stuff, IMO, and it wasn't with rules. (Well, there was one rule that emphasizes exploration over combat, and that's XP for GP.)

[Clawhound]

What's it mean to be best at fighting? Please don't take us around that mulberry bush again. Thank you for your consideration.

Should the wizard be best at magic? No. The sorcerer should be as good. Should the cleric be the best at divine stuff? No. The druid should do as well. Should the fighter be the best at fighting? No. The paladin and the barbarian should do as well.

Here's the better question. How do we differentiate a fighter in melee? What aspect of melee marks a fighter? Weapon styles don't matter, nor do weapons. Damage is damage. The class must feel different, in a way that no other class feels.

Differentiation is a hard question to answer, so much so that WotC's been floundering about trying to answer that itself.

[Morty]

That's hard to judge from playtest material, though, because none of that is really a rules thing. It's an everything else thing. The 1E DMG did a great job at emphasizing that stuff, IMO, and it wasn't with rules. (Well, there was one rule that emphasizes exploration over combat, and that's XP for GP.)

I'll stand corrected if we ever see more non-combat mechanics. But I'm not holding my breath.



Should the wizard be best at magic? No. The sorcerer should be as good. Should the cleric be the best at divine stuff? No. The druid should do as well. Should the fighter be the best at fighting? No. The paladin and the barbarian should do as well.


Which is why I believe Barbarian needs to be folded into the Fighter class. As for the Paladin - this class has spells and other abilities. It's a hybrid warrior/divine caster. It's fine if it's not as good at fighting as the Fighter, because it can make up for it in other areas.

[obryn]

Here's the better question. How do we differentiate a fighter in melee? What aspect of melee marks a fighter? Weapon styles don't matter, nor do weapons. Damage is damage. The class must feel different, in a way that no other class feels.

Differentiation is a hard question to answer, so much so that WotC's been floundering about trying to answer that itself.
I dunno, I thought the "Defender" concept was solid. And a blast in play.

-O

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I dunno, I thought the "Defender" concept was solid. And a blast in play.

-O

The fighter-as-defender concepts gives the fighter a niche, but not a unique one; there were five Defenders in 4e (not counting Essentials classes which I don't know much about and not counting "off-defenders" like the avenger or rageblood barbarian), and while all of them do their defending differently they're still doing the same Defender job that the fighter does.

To use 4e terminology, a fighter needs to have something that no other Martial class has and that no other Defender (or Striker or Leader, whatever he ends up being) class has; merely being "the guy who tanks with a sword" instead of "the guy who tanks with holy light" doesn't make the fighter stand out as his own class.

[Oracle_Hunter]

The fighter-as-defender concepts gives the fighter a niche, but not a unique one; there were five Defenders in 4e (not counting Essentials classes which I don't know much about and not counting "off-defenders" like the avenger or rageblood barbarian), and while all of them do their defending differently they're still doing the same Defender job that the fighter does.
I think this misses the key of the Defender grouping v. the Fighter Class.

Saying that the Fighter needs a niche more exclusive than Defending is similar to saying Wizards need a niche more exclusive than "casting spells" and that while Wizards do cast spells in its own way it is not sufficiently distinct from Sorcerers, Clerics and Druids to be unique.
"Defending" was the general job that Defender Classes (Fighters et al) were designed to fill in an Adventuring Party. These sort of classifications have existed since Red Box which is why someone "having to take the Cleric" was a concern in D&D groups since the origin of the game. 4e simply kept these jobs in mind when designing classes and used them as a starting point rather than an end-point. Anyone who has played 4e can tell you that a Fighter defends in a very different fashion than a Warden or Swordmage and that any one of the Defending classes would make all other Defenders obsolete (let alone a Class from a different "job").

That said, there were Defenders that were better at "defending" than others but those other classes often pinch-hit for two jobs at the expense of doing one very well (the "off-defending" you referred to).
In short, don't confuse job with Class. You can have Classes that are built around similar jobs without them all being the same.

<Obligatory "of course 5e doesn't do that" remark>

[navar100]

Who are "they"? Who are "many people"? I've seen no such opinion expressed in this thread or the ones before it and frankly it doesn't seem to have much to do with the current discussion. It looks suspiciously like you're just beating up strawmen.

And I maintain that this discussion approaches the Fighter problem from the wrong angle. It's one thing to create a Fighter class that will provide a variety of effective combat styles. But what do we do with the fact that fighting is all the Fighter does but he's not allowed to do it better than others? Do we force all Fighters to become hybrids? Or do we make it so that fighters are actually the best at fighting but non-combat skills are more relevant?
D&D Next was supposed to fix this by making exploration, problem solving and such actually important parts of the game but so far, surprise surprise, it hasn't followed up with that promise.

It's colloquially speaking. The "they" are the people who don't think warriors deserve nice things. The "they" are the people who get upset a rogue can sneak attack every attack using two-weapon fighting. The "they" are those who are upset a wizard can teleport. The "they" who are bothered by a PC being "powerful". Those are the "they" who will likely be bothered with the proposed idea of spending one feat resource to get all sorts of abilities for three levels.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Saying that the Fighter needs a niche more exclusive than Defending is similar to saying Wizards need a niche more exclusive than "casting spells" and that while Wizards do cast spells in its own way it is not sufficiently distinct from Sorcerers, Clerics and Druids to be unique.

Yes, that is indeed what I'm saying. The 3e wizard isn't just different from divine casters because he's arcane and from sorcerers and full-list casters because he's a prepared caster, it's his spell list and class features that differentiate him. Look at the wu jen: he's a prepared arcane caster with slightly different class features and a few unique spells, and there's really not enough there to support its own class; it would have worked better as a wizard ACF or PrC, because "a wizard, but Asian!" isn't a unique enough theme or niche to support a class, at least not the way the wu jen turned out.

To use a 4e example, the 4e cleric is different from other Divine classes because he's a Leader, and he's different from other Leaders because he's Divine. But he's not the only Divine Leader, as the Runepriest has the same power source and role. It's the specific powers/effects that they have access to differentiates the two of them: you can't just say "I want to be a holy character, so that rules out the warlord, and I want to be a healer, so that rules out the paladin" and so forth, you have to choose based on what the class actually does.

There are reasons to play a 4e wizard over a sorcerer or invoker, and those reasons don't boil down to the power source or role; unless you have exactly 12 classes with no overlap, you can't rely on power source or role to differentiate classes--and what people are saying is that the fighter's hook being "the weapons guy" isn't good enough once you get past very low levels and that hooks like "the nature guy" or "the leader guy" already have their own classes, leaving the fighter with nothing to call his own.

Even if the fighter is the only martial defender in 5e, there's no reason to choose him over other defenders or other martial characters when you can either fill the same role or fill the same power source with a more interesting class, unless you're completely attached to having "Fighter" or "Martial Defender" in your class writeup, hence trying to find a thematic niche for the fighter.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Even if the fighter is the only martial defender in 5e, there's no reason to choose him over other defenders or other martial characters when you can either fill the same role or fill the same power source with a more interesting class, unless you're completely attached to having "Fighter" or "Martial Defender" in your class writeup, hence trying to find a thematic niche for the fighter.
Is the argument then that the 4e Fighter was boring? :smallconfused:

It is very hard to design for "fun" in the abstract, so I like to design around more concrete goals. For a Classed party-based game I'd go with something like this:
- What does this Class contribute to the party?
If the Class doesn't contribute anything to the party's success in likely challenges, then this Class is inappropriate for a party-based game. Start over.

- Would that contribution be better (e.g. with greater success, with greater power) with another existing Class?
If the whole contribution of one Class can be better performed by another Class you are wasting paper. Either permit this Class to contribute something extra or find a way to make this Class contribute better in one existing area (but not all areas or you've killed the comparison Class).

- Is this Class's contribution applicable in most situations?
If a Class's reason to exist doesn't matter for most of the probable situations that your game covers (and if you don't know this, start over!) then anyone playing this Class is going to be bored at least half the time in a "standard" game. Don't make permanent choices for situational benefit unless those situations are going to come up very frequently.
While I don't dispute that "fun" is something you want to get out of a game, I'd prefer to design around more objective measurements. IMHO, the above design goals would result in a higher ratio of "fun" to "boring" Classes if it were used by the designers.

<Obligatory "of course 5e doesn't do that" remark>

[Flickerdart]

To be fair, "wizard" is almost as crappy a concept as "fighter". The only difference is that the wizard is not specialized at all ("let's give the arcane magic user all the arcane magic") and the fighter is too specialized ("let's give the fighting man only fighting stuff"). This is the reason that the 3.5 warmage also falls flat on its face - even with spells, "only fighting stuff" turns out to be really crap when that means "only damage stuff".

[obryn]

The fighter-as-defender concepts gives the fighter a niche, but not a unique one; there were five Defenders in 4e (not counting Essentials classes which I don't know much about and not counting "off-defenders" like the avenger or rageblood barbarian), and while all of them do their defending differently they're still doing the same Defender job that the fighter does.

To use 4e terminology, a fighter needs to have something that no other Martial class has and that no other Defender (or Striker or Leader, whatever he ends up being) class has; merely being "the guy who tanks with a sword" instead of "the guy who tanks with holy light" doesn't make the fighter stand out as his own class.
First off, the fact that "all of them do their defending differently" is simply key to the class's niche.

Fighters are the skilled defenders who use weapons and armor proficiently, and pose specific threats to enemies they're directly engaging by being scarier than everyone else around them. Their marking tactics - the only ones triggered by their own attacks - are unique, and contribute directly to their flavor. When a Fighter engages an enemy, that enemy had better pay attention to them. And they have either the armor or agility (and often both) to take that punishment.

Mechanically, aside from the specific collection of powers (including standouts like Come and Get It and Rain of Steel), they get to do the following, all better than other defenders...

(1) Stop enemies in their tracks who are trying to move away; nobody's stickier than a Fighter.
(2) Incredibly buffed Opportunity Attacks, setting up terrible choices for enemies engaging them.
(3) Flavorful powers based on weapon selections, so that a spear-using Fighter needs different stats and can do different tricks than a flail-using one or a hammer-using one.
(4) Lots of class-specific feats tied into both the basic marking mechanic and geared towards ramping up their already scary opportunity attacks.

Mechanically, they're exceptionally distinct from all other defenders in the game. And every Fighter is recognizable as one, even though there's a wide range of different sorts of Fighters. Because those shared features I listed above never really go away. There are other defenders, but you'd never mistake one for a Fighter.

My personal favorite are the grappling Fighters, who mix grab attacks in with their weapon attacks. Smashing an enemy with a hammer, grabbing them, and dragging them away from the squishy party members is remarkably effective.

-O

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Is the argument then that the 4e Fighter was boring? :smallconfused:

The 4e fighter's theme was being the weapons guy. That worked well enough in 4e because classes were much narrower conceptually than in other editions and because 4e's level 1-30 range mapped to something like 5-13 in AD&D/3e so low-mid level concepts like "has a cool sword" and "can prevent short-range/melee bruisers from hitting the casters" didn't have to compete against high-level casters (as they did in AD&D/3e and will have to again in 5e). It's not boring, but it's not sufficient, either.

This thread having decided that the weapons guy theme isn't going to work for the 5e fighter, it's trying and failing to find a theme that either isn't encompassed by another class or gives the fighter something to do out of combat. Going by your three criteria, the "tanky weapons guy fighter" concept fails points 2 (the other 4e defenders have the fighter's "good with weapons" and "good with guarding people" concepts, plus extras like healing for the paladin, teleporting for the swordmage, etc.) and 3 (he has no contribution out of combat).


To be fair, "wizard" is almost as crappy a concept as "fighter". The only difference is that the wizard is not specialized at all ("let's give the arcane magic user all the arcane magic") and the fighter is too specialized ("let's give the fighting man only fighting stuff"). This is the reason that the 3.5 warmage also falls flat on its face - even with spells, "only fighting stuff" turns out to be really crap when that means "only damage stuff".

Not necessarily. The fighter's concept could easily be "let's give the fighting man all the fighting stuff" since, let's face it, most non-casting non-roguish classes in 3e could be feat trees for the fighter (and very short ones in the case of the barbarian, swashbuckler, and similar), and an archer or cavalier class would subtract from the fighter just like a warmage or illusionist class would subtract from the wizard.

It hasn't been done like that, <obligatory "of course 5e doesn't do that" remark>, but there's no reason one couldn't go back to the fighter/wizard/rogue/cleric setup and leave knights, summoners, assassins, and sunpriests to feat trees, ACFs, PrCs, or whatever--nor is there a reason one couldn't narrow the wizard (who is supposed to be a scholarly type) to be a wards/divination/utility specialist caster and the sorcerer (who is supposed to draw on an otherwordly heritage) to be a polymorph/summoning/teleportation specialist caster alongside the warmage, beguiler, and dread necromancer. Nothing forces the wizard to be the "anything not specifically left out" concept and the fighter to be the "anything no one else takes" concept except for the devs' refusal to give fighters Nice Things.


First off, the fact that "all of them do their defending differently" is simply key to the class's niche.

And I'm saying that nothing about the 4e fighter's defending ability is conceptually specific to the fighter. For instance, "Rain down fiery death on enemies from far away" is something that fits into an arcane caster's concept, not so much in a rogue's concept, while "Kill things with a dagger to the back" is something that fits very well into a rogue's concept but not so much into an arcane caster's concept, but everything you listed--stop enemies from getting past them with marks and AoOs, and weapon-specific abilities--can fit into any other martial and/or defender concept.

Give a rogue the ability to shoot flames and lightning from his hands, and you have some sort of rogue/wizard hybrid instead of a pure rogue; give a paladin or warden the ability to block people from moving past them, and you haven't diluted or changed their concept at all. 4e rangers and rogues have "weapons guys" as part of their themes, given the archery/TWF and light blade foci of those classes, so once again that's not a theme unique to the fighter.

And once again, making the fighter the "tanky weapons guy" doesn't give him any out-of-combat utility. The paladin, swordmage, warden, and battlemind all have utility built into their concepts by virtue of being chivalrous knights, Nightcrawler analogs, pseudo-druids, and psychic warriors. The ranger, rogue, and warlord all have utility built into their concepts by virtue of being woodsy survivalists, sneaky scoundrels, and military commanders. A fighter with the abovementioned combat-only theme doesn't have any of that, and since exploration and social scenes are to a big part of 5e (<obligatory "of course 5e doesn't do that" remark>) it's important to have a class concept that lends itself to utility.

[Flickerdart]

Not necessarily. The fighter's concept could easily be "let's give the fighting man all the fighting stuff" since, let's face it, most non-casting non-roguish classes in 3e could be feat trees for the fighter (and very short ones in the case of the barbarian, swashbuckler, and similar), and an archer or cavalier class would subtract from the fighter just like a warmage or illusionist class would subtract from the wizard.
Do you mean that the archer and cavalier would be strictly worse than the fighter?

Besides, "all the fighting stuff" still leaves him high and dry as soon as the last body falls. Need to get some martial arts and crafts (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MartialArtsAndCrafts) in there. Or at least an Advanced Learning analogue.



It hasn't been done like that, <obligatory "of course 5e doesn't do that" remark>, but there's no reason one couldn't go back to the fighter/wizard/rogue/cleric setup and leave knights, summoners, assassins, and sunpriests to feat trees, ACFs, PrCs, or whatever--nor is there a reason one couldn't narrow the wizard (who is supposed to be a scholarly type) to be a wards/divination/utility specialist caster and the sorcerer (who is supposed to draw on an otherwordly heritage) to be a polymorph/summoning/teleportation specialist caster alongside the warmage, beguiler, and dread necromancer. Nothing forces the wizard to be the "anything not specifically left out" concept and the fighter to be the "anything no one else takes" concept except for the devs' refusal to give fighters Nice Things.
Agreed wholeheartedly. Warmage, beguiler and dread necro aren't ideal solutions, though - they may be thematic, but their limited spell selection is shut down entirely by a few choice spells. Granted, that may have more to do with 3.5's love of "just no" spells, but still.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Do you mean that the archer and cavalier would be strictly worse than the fighter?

No, I mean that the default should be that a fighter has everything martial (except some special features reserved for more specialized classes) as opposed to giving a fighter only what other classes don't have. For instance, compare an evoker with a warmage: an evoker (or any other specialist wizard) is a wizard plus some unique features (extra spells, ACFs, etc.) minus some casting ability (2-3 schools), while a warmage is nothing but blasting, so the evoker gets the benefit of "let's give the wizard all the arcane stuff" and isn't stuck doing one thing while the warmage...is stuck doing one thing.

3e fighter classes are basically warmages (swashbucklers get their one thing, knights get their one thing, barbarians get their one thing, etc.) while I'm saying they should be basically evokers (a swashbuckler is "let's give the fighter all the martial stuff," minus armor proficiencies, plus a handful of extra Swashbuckler class features, or something like that).


Besides, "all the fighting stuff" still leaves him high and dry as soon as the last body falls. Need to get some martial arts and crafts (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MartialArtsAndCrafts) in there. Or at least an Advanced Learning analogue.

Well, the benefit of giving fighters "all the martial stuff" is that it includes a warlord's/marshal's tactical acumen and teamwork, a commando's stealth and ambush skills, a knight's courtly manners, and so forth--whatever specialty you pick, it'll have something to do outside of combat.


Agreed wholeheartedly. Warmage, beguiler and dread necro aren't ideal solutions, though - they may be thematic, but their limited spell selection is shut down entirely by a few choice spells. Granted, that may have more to do with 3.5's love of "just no" spells, but still.

The problem there is the Just No spells, not the concepts behind the specialty casters; get rid of those handful of immunities (and/or give those casters counters like command undead or Searing Spell, but I prefer removing/nerfing the immunities) and the classes are perfectly respectable again.

[Rhynn]

I'll stand corrected if we ever see more non-combat mechanics. But I'm not holding my breath.

My point was that exploration and problem-solving aren't issues of mechanics, they're mostly issues of giving good advice on running the game, which playtest material is almost certainly going to lack.

Old D&D had huge focus on exploration, and the rules were:
For dungeons, 1. how long lights last and what they cost, 2. finding secret doors, 3. your chance of encountering monsters.
For wilderness, 1. how much rations cost (and maybe weigh) per day, 2. how far you can travel, 3. your chance of encountering monsters, optional 4. getting lost.


Here's the better question. How do we differentiate a fighter in melee? What aspect of melee marks a fighter? Weapon styles don't matter, nor do weapons. Damage is damage. The class must feel different, in a way that no other class feels.

The fighter is the guy who doesn't use magic (and, maybe, doesn't pick locks and sneak really well). :smalltongue:

It's obviously going to be hard to make the fighter feel "unique," because originally, they were the "default" class (any NPC with no special skills who wasn't a 0-level man was a fighter).

I personally find it a bit unnecessary. The fighter has always been, to me, the baseline. Sure, give options for customization - instead of weapon specialization (which was kind of a big deal in AD&D) etc., you can become a paladin, a barbarian, a ranger, a warlord, whatever. And yes, I think a fighter who just sticks to being a fighter should be better at fighting. No weapon specialization for paladins and rangers in my games.

Leadership, too. Battlesystem 1E made fighters better commanders (greater command radius, which was hugely important) than anyone else.


And I wasn't joking about Thieves ruining everything, either!

And I wasn't joking about hating prescriptive skill systems. In my AD&D games, everyone can move quietly and hide (thieves get auto-surprise if they move silently, and can hide just in deep enough shadows even in the middle of combat in order to backstab). In 2E, everyone can already detect noises and climb walls (thieves just get better at it). If you describe your character doing the right thing, they will find that trap, and maybe even disarm or avoid it, no rolls. (Thieves just get to shortcut the process with a roll - an "out" for when the players can't think of how to do it.) I don't even like NWPs much, and assume every PC can swim, ride a horse, and hunt & survive in the wild, unless there's a reason they wouldn't. They're adventurers, after all!


D&D Next actually had a step in the right direction, here. Everyone can try to do anything with an ability check, having a skill for it just gives you a bonus. I also like the decoupling of skills from checks: it's not a "skill" check, it's an "ability" check and if you have a skill that would apply you get a bonus.

[tommhans]

I feel we are leveling really fast, might be the dm, but yeah 2 session and we are allready level 4, 1000xp from level 5, but as i see after that i is 4500xp so might be that just the low levels get leveled up fast ^^

But yeah, im playing as a fighter and i love it, especially playing with two weapon fighter as speciality and soldier as my background, im doing a really decent job on killing a lot , and being a tank(with 17 in ac-.-) im doing a good job so far(damn i love that parry and that whirlwind maneuver) usually ive played wizards before so it was a change of role for me, one that probably suits my style of play more hehe ^^

But yeah i love 5e so far, the martial dice and skill dice are really nice additions, and i like that they are keeping things simpler by just using str,dex,int,wis and char for the rolls instead of skills and fortitude and so on. The encounters seem to be faster than in 4e which i also like, and as mentioned i love parry and whirlwind maneuver, and also that two weapon fighting( sometimes i save my martial dices for parries so i use dual wield instead, usually that works fine ^^)

[Cavelcade]

I actually think the Beguiler is one of the best designed classes in 3.5. It's definitely my favourite to play.

[Tehnar]

But yeah i love 5e so far, the martial dice and skill dice are really nice additions, and i like that they are keeping things simpler by just using str,dex,int,wis and char for the rolls instead of skills and fortitude and so on. The encounters seem to be faster than in 4e which i also like, and as mentioned i love parry and whirlwind maneuver, and also that two weapon fighting( sometimes i save my martial dices for parries so i use dual wield instead, usually that works fine ^^)

Using abilities for everything (the way 5E does it) is a really really bad idea. If I had to pick a single worst thing about 5E mechanics, that would be it. It makes no mathematical, logical or narrative sense.

[Clawhound]

"Best at fighting" is insufficient.

Does this mean:
- does most damage?
- pushes enemies the best?
- defends others the best?
- takes most punishment?
- can use the widest selection of weapons?
- deepest choice of melee options?
- highest attack bonus?

Socially, here are some things that I can see a fighter getting:
- Special legal rights to carry weapons where others can't
- Special legal exemptions to use of violence
- Honorary social rank
- Use combat die in some social circumstances (intimidation, dangerous diplomacy, army morale, etc)

I would like if a fighter can be the best at pushing people around. A paladin is diplomatic, a rogue is tricky and low-key, a barbarian hits first and gets a bonus after beating somebody up, while a fighter is aggressive and unsubtle and able to use his reputation to his advantage.

[Rhynn]

Socially, here are some things that I can see a fighter getting:
- Special legal rights to carry weapons where others can't
- Special legal exemptions to use of violence
- Honorary social rank

That's somer seriously setting-specific stuff. Why can't my fighter be an escaped slave, a street thug, or a peasant boy who picked up a staff to defend his home from orcs and never put it down again?

[1337 b4k4]

Using abilities for everything (the way 5E does it) is a really really bad idea. If I had to pick a single worst thing about 5E mechanics, that would be it. It makes no mathematical, logical or narrative sense.

And yet, that method (along with bonuses for specialized training) is pretty much how many many quality RPGs handle skills. And to be honest, it does make a lot of sense. In born talent / aptitude towards something counts for quite a lot in reality. It's not the end all be all, and no matter how dexterous you are, you aren't going to be a good surgeon without training, but you'll also very rarely make a quality surgeon if you can barely hold a pencil without throwing it across the room, regardless of your level of training. And short of turning D&D's skill system into a GURPS like system (skills have base attributes, attempting an untrained skill is rolled at base attribute - a variable penalty for difficulty of skill, training gives bonuses, but even a trained skill can start at a penalty and certain skills work as improved defaults for related skills) and the associated (MASSIVE) skill list, the 5e solution is a good approximation.

[Zeful]

That's somer seriously setting-specific stuff. Why can't my fighter be an escaped slave, a street thug, or a peasant boy who picked up a staff to defend his home from orcs and never put it down again?

Who, watch out there. We can't have reasonable arguments about restrictive fluff or mechanics. That would be wrong.

Or to be less sarcastic, this argument was essentially declared non-relevant two threads ago when I made a similar argument about the atrocious sorcerer design.

[noparlpf]

And yet, that method (along with bonuses for specialized training) is pretty much how many many quality RPGs handle skills. And to be honest, it does make a lot of sense. In born talent / aptitude towards something counts for quite a lot in reality. It's not the end all be all, and no matter how dexterous you are, you aren't going to be a good surgeon without training, but you'll also very rarely make a quality surgeon if you can barely hold a pencil without throwing it across the room, regardless of your level of training. And short of turning D&D's skill system into a GURPS like system (skills have base attributes, attempting an untrained skill is rolled at base attribute - a variable penalty for difficulty of skill, training gives bonuses, but even a trained skill can start at a penalty and certain skills work as improved defaults for related skills) and the associated (MASSIVE) skill list, the 5e solution is a good approximation.

The issue there would be that your example of surgery requires two stats, Dex and Int, to do well. I wouldn't say skill ranks can stand in place of Int here. You'd probably need an Int check to see if you know what to do, then a Dex check to see if you do it right, and probably more than one of each. And would you use your ranks in Heal to modify both? Do you bother having skill training in the system? Is it as simple as "you are trained and can make checks" vs "you are untrained and can't make checks", and then, what about ability checks not listed in the system?

[Synovia]

Using abilities for everything (the way 5E does it) is a really really bad idea. If I had to pick a single worst thing about 5E mechanics, that would be it. It makes no mathematical, logical or narrative sense.

Explain yourself. I don't see anything wrong with using abilities. IMO, it streamlines the hell out of the system and doesn't really lose much in the process.

[Tehnar]

Regarding using abilities:

I have no problem with using ability scores to gauge character skills and abilities. As 1337 b4k4 said, many RPG's use them.

What I have a problem with is the way 5E uses ability scores. The range of possible modifiers is very small (from -1 to +5) compared to the range of values of a d20. What this means is what you roll on the d20 matters much more then what your ability score is. So ability scores become irrelevant. This is further exacerbated by using a single roll resolution mechanic.

Rolling a d20+ your ability score instead of a d20 + ability modifier, or rolling under your ability score (ala 2nd edition) would be much preferable then the way 5E handles things currently.

[noparlpf]

Regarding using abilities:

I have no problem with using ability scores to gauge character skills and abilities. As 1337 b4k4 said, many RPG's use them.

What I have a problem with is the way 5E uses ability scores. The range of possible modifiers is very small (from -1 to +5) compared to the range of values of a d20. What this means is what you roll on the d20 matters much more then what your ability score is. So ability scores become irrelevant. This is further exacerbated by using a single roll resolution mechanic.

Rolling a d20+ your ability score instead of a d20 + ability modifier, or rolling under your ability score (ala 2nd edition) would be much preferable then the way 5E handles things currently.

Yeah, that part's definitely a problem. Any system that makes things less random than now. Of course people have gone over the numbers and stuff several times already so no need to reiterate.

[Morty]

It's colloquially speaking. The "they" are the people who don't think warriors deserve nice things. The "they" are the people who get upset a rogue can sneak attack every attack using two-weapon fighting. The "they" are those who are upset a wizard can teleport. The "they" who are bothered by a PC being "powerful". Those are the "they" who will likely be bothered with the proposed idea of spending one feat resource to get all sorts of abilities for three levels.

And, once again, those aren't arguments anyone has made in this thread. Or the previous threads. You're beating up strawmen.


My point was that exploration and problem-solving aren't issues of mechanics, they're mostly issues of giving good advice on running the game, which playtest material is almost certainly going to lack.

Old D&D had huge focus on exploration, and the rules were:
For dungeons, 1. how long lights last and what they cost, 2. finding secret doors, 3. your chance of encountering monsters.
For wilderness, 1. how much rations cost (and maybe weigh) per day, 2. how far you can travel, 3. your chance of encountering monsters, optional 4. getting lost.


That was old D&D, though. D&D Next claims to emulate the old school feel, but its rules are much closer to the new D&D. Which includes being more rules-heavy.

Incidentally, the discussion about fighters perfeclty illustrates why WotC's attempt at open design is doomed to fail - there's too many conflicting opinions, too many completely incompatibile visions of what D&D is about and far too much baggage. They should have picked one paradigm and gone with it.

[Kurald Galain]

To use a 4e example, the 4e cleric is different from other Divine classes because he's a Leader, and he's different from other Leaders because he's Divine.I disagree with that. In my experience, power sources are not noticeable in play. A cleric is different from e.g. a warlord because his power and features are substantially different, but in play I'm not seeing much of a difference between an invoker and a wizard.


What I have a problem with is the way 5E uses ability scores. The range of possible modifiers is very small (from -1 to +5) compared to the range of values of a d20. What this means is what you roll on the d20 matters much more then what your ability score is. So ability scores become irrelevant. This is further exacerbated by using a single roll resolution mechanic.I completely agree. Now if 5E were still in the concept stage, WOTC could fix this, but they have unfortunately locked this in several iterations of the playtest ago.

[Rhynn]

That was old D&D, though. D&D Next claims to emulate the old school feel, but its rules are much closer to the new D&D. Which includes being more rules-heavy.

Does it, though? I have to admit I haven't followed their blogging at all, but the playtest package material looks pretty rules-light. You've got feats and maneuvers, but other than that, it's about on par with a lot of OSR games - not even Skills& Powers complexity / rules heaviness.

What kind of rules would you want to see for exploration and problem-solving, and why are rules necessary to create a game that focuses on them?


The range of possible modifiers is very small (from -1 to +5) compared to the range of values of a d20. What this means is what you roll on the d20 matters much more then what your ability score is. So ability scores become irrelevant.

A 15-25% difference in chances of success is "irrelevant"? As a veteran RuneQuest player, I consider going against a guy with a 75% skill when you've got a 50% skill really ballsy. (Nevermind that 3.X normalized things so that you were usually trying to meet a DC within a certain range of your expected modifier, and 4E took this to the level of science.)

And for most rolls (outside of combat, anyway), you're expected to bring in a skill.

[navar100]

And, once again, those aren't arguments anyone has made in this thread. Or the previous threads. You're beating up strawmen.


I never said anyone in this thread was making such an argument. I was only pointing out that the proposed idea will offend people of particular tastes - those who don't like gaining lots of stuff for little cost. Spending one feat for three levels worth of stuff is asking a lot of those people.

[Kurald Galain]

A 15-25% difference in chances of success is "irrelevant"?

No, it works like this. In the current playtest of 5E, your character skill can make a 6 point difference to the roll. However, raw luck can make a nineteen point difference to the roll. Since 19 > 6, it follows that luck plays a greater role to your character than skill does.

Among other things, this means that a highly trained expert has a reasonable chance of losing to a clueless rookie in any contest. And that bothers some people.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

No, it works like this. In the current playtest of 5E, your character skill can make a 6 point difference to the roll. However, raw luck can make a nineteen point difference to the roll. Since 19 > 6, it follows that luck plays a greater role to your character than skill does.

Among other things, this means that a highly trained expert has a reasonable chance of losing to a clueless rookie in any contest. And that bothers some people.

I have to wonder why D&D Next isn't using the Advantage system here as well. If I'm trained in a skill and you aren't, maybe I have Advantage on the opposed roll, or on any roll. Or maybe Advantage comes in levels for skills, and I roll one additional d20 per level of Advantage I have.

That way yes, that clueless rookie with a +0 bonus could beat my trained Expert with a +6 bonus. But he'd have to roll a 20 on 1d20, and I'd have to roll a highest of 13 on, say, (4d20 best 1). That puts his odds at 5%, and mine at about 13%, giving him an extremely small chance of success.

Even with just one level of Advantage I'd have a much greater chance of success than he would.

[Kurald Galain]

I have to wonder why D&D Next isn't using the Advantage system here as well. If I'm trained in a skill and you aren't, maybe I have Advantage on the opposed roll, or on any roll. Or maybe Advantage comes in levels for skills, and I roll one additional d20 per level of Advantage I have.

I agree that would be a good idea. Having adv stack in general would be a good idea too, because its lack of a cumulative effect leads to some pretty odd situations.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I disagree with that. In my experience, power sources are not noticeable in play. A cleric is different from e.g. a warlord because his power and features are substantially different, but in play I'm not seeing much of a difference between an invoker and a wizard.

Emphasis mine. If you look at the rest of the paragraph you quoted, that's exactly the point I was trying to make:

It's the specific powers/effects that they have access to differentiates the two of them: you can't just say "I want to be a holy character, so that rules out the warlord, and I want to be a healer, so that rules out the paladin" and so forth, you have to choose based on what the class actually does.

If you sheet says "Arcane" instead of "Divine" you'll have a different flavor when carrying out your role (e.g. more fire, less holy light), and if your sheet says "Controller" instead of "Leader" you'll express your flavor differently in combat (e.g. more zones, fewer buffs), but you can't make a class just by combining a power source and role and calling it a day, as those who said that the fighter's theme in 5e could be "Defender" claimed.


I have to wonder why D&D Next isn't using the Advantage system here as well. If I'm trained in a skill and you aren't, maybe I have Advantage on the opposed roll, or on any roll.

That would work better if advantage stacked as you and Kurald suggested, but as it stands now, someone trained in perception skills and given advantage against untrained sneakers would be on the same level as an untrained sneaker who gains advantage from being in shadowy light, which basically cancels out in that both roll twice and take the better result.

What might work would be given the trained party advantage and the untrained party disadvantage, which would give a larger gap without requiring tracking advantage and disadvantage. It makes more sense as well: someone sneaking in shadows untrained can probably fool an untrained guard and a trained sneaker can probably fool a trained guard (sneaker has advantage in both cases), but an untrained sneaker probably can't fool a trained guard (sneaker's advantage canceled by disadvantage, guard has advantage).

Personally, I dislike advantage/disadvantage as a generic mechanic for just this reason, because if advantage doesn't stack you get strange results and if it does stack you almost turn 5e into a d20-based dicepool system. Stacking smaller +2s is much quicker and easier, and probabilities are easier to calculate for the layperson, and I never understood why the 5e dev team thought replacing them with rerolls and moving to bounded accuracy would be a good idea.:smallsigh:

[Scowling Dragon]

Holy banana balls. I just taught my 7 year old sister how to play D&D 2e.

I think its the internal Rolling system. It REALY works well for teaching newer players. And is very easy to make a new character.

This is what happened:

"You wanna play Wolverine or Legolas?"

"Legolas!"

"Ranger it is"

Boom. Rolled up a ranger in a few minutes, and told her the basics, and BAM we are playing.

Its a game that doesn't really need a grid.

[Doug Lampert]

No, they were distinct classes in 1e & 2e, even though described as "subclasses"... different xp tables, different hit dice for rangers, etc. The subclass thing was used for attacks and saves, among other things, but this is more suggesting a return to 0e, with 3 classes, before the Thief ruined everything. :smalltongue:

-O

Thief and Paladin both came in in the Greyhawk suplement. So there were NEVER just four classes in the original game.

[Kurald Galain]

If you sheet says "Arcane" instead of "Divine" you'll have a different flavor when carrying out your role (e.g. more fire, less holy light),
Yes, but I don't agree with that. In fact, damage types are only barely noticeable in 4E, mostly because there's too many of them and because it's rare to have an enemy react differently to one particular type (except for undead/radiant, which is kind of obvious).

In my experience, druids play markedly differently than wizards, but invokers don't. Basically, if you took a random wizard power and put it in the invoker's list, or vice versa, it would fit right in.

[Tehnar]

A 15-25% difference in chances of success is "irrelevant"? As a veteran RuneQuest player, I consider going against a guy with a 75% skill when you've got a 50% skill really ballsy. (Nevermind that 3.X normalized things so that you were usually trying to meet a DC within a certain range of your expected modifier, and 4E took this to the level of science.)

And for most rolls (outside of combat, anyway), you're expected to bring in a skill.

A direct competition (single die resolution) between a guy A with a +5 modifier, and a guy B with a -1 modifier, with ties going to guy A; guy B wins 21.125% of the time. That is the greatest absolute spread you can hope to achieve (current playtest rules), a pinnacle human of that attribute vs a below average.

Even if the dude A had a +3 skill modifier on top of that, B still wins 12.5% of the time.

Any mechanic is better then the current playtest has to offer. 1d12, 2d6, 3d6, multiple rolls of d20 take best, multiple rolls of d20 take average, multiple advantage system. Except for using a d100 and adding the modifier, almost every resolution mechanic is better.

But they keep sticking to the worst one. Since their entire system is based on such bad, shoddy rules its no wonder its failing.

[Talakeal]

A direct competition (single die resolution) between a guy A with a +5 modifier, and a guy B with a -1 modifier, with ties going to guy A; guy B wins 21.125% of the time. That is the greatest absolute spread you can hope to achieve (current playtest rules), a pinnacle human of that attribute vs a below average.

Even if the dude A had a +3 skill modifier on top of that, B still wins 12.5% of the time.

Any mechanic is better then the current playtest has to offer. 1d12, 2d6, 3d6, multiple rolls of d20 take best, multiple rolls of d20 take average, multiple advantage system. Except for using a d100 and adding the modifier, almost every resolution mechanic is better.

But they keep sticking to the worst one. Since their entire system is based on such bad, shoddy rules its no wonder its failing.

I have been tinkering with dice systems and I have to say. Tat rolling a single dice with high numbers being better is almost always the best choice. It might be less realistic or even less fair, but it is so fast and intuitive that the game almost always plays better as a result.

Dice pools and active defenses are great for climactic duels ore contests of skill, but after an entire night of gaming like that the players almost universally just want to get on with it.

[Zeful]

A direct competition (single die resolution) between a guy A with a +5 modifier, and a guy B with a -1 modifier, with ties going to guy A; guy B wins 21.125% of the time. That is the greatest absolute spread you can hope to achieve (current playtest rules), a pinnacle human of that attribute vs a below average.

Even if the dude A had a +3 skill modifier on top of that, B still wins 12.5% of the time.

Any mechanic is better then the current playtest has to offer. 1d12, 2d6, 3d6, multiple rolls of d20 take best, multiple rolls of d20 take average, multiple advantage system. Except for using a d100 and adding the modifier, almost every resolution mechanic is better.

But they keep sticking to the worst one. Since their entire system is based on such bad, shoddy rules its no wonder its failing.

Calling it a bad mechanic because the underdog has a chance of winning, is missing the point of a lot of fiction D&D is and has been based on. The underdog is supposed to have a chance at winning. With that in mind the complaint is only one of scale in regards to taste, which is orders of magnitude less objective than you are making it appear.

[noparlpf]

I have been tinkering with dice systems and I have to say. Tat rolling a single dice with high numbers being better is almost always the best choice. It might be less realistic or even less fair, but it is so fast and intuitive that the game almost always plays better as a result.

Dice pools and active defenses are great for climactic duels ore contests of skill, but after an entire night of gaming like that the players almost universally just want to get on with it.

And yet, your player will be pissed off when their "highly-trained" Rogue fails to get past some mook guards because the guards rolled high.

[Seerow]

Calling it a bad mechanic because the underdog has a chance of winning, is missing the point of a lot of fiction D&D is and has been based on. The underdog is supposed to have a chance at winning. With that in mind the complaint is only one of scale in regards to taste, which is orders of magnitude less objective than you are making it appear.

In the fiction D&D has been based on, the heroes are typically the underdog. They are skilled in their respective fields, but are in situations where they are in over their head and need some exceptional luck/plan/whatever to pull off a victory.

In D&D Next the heroes have an advantage over almost everything, but will lose to completely untrained/unskilled individuals a startling large percentage of the time simply due to dumb luck. That isn't emulating the genre at all, it's representative of a rotten system at its heart.

Ironically Shadowrun and similar systems are better at capturing the feel of what you're going for than D&D Next is, because there the PCs can be at a disadvantage/be underdogs, but have Edge/Karma/whatever other metagame construct to help even the odds and push them in their favor.

[obryn]

Thief and Paladin both came in in the Greyhawk suplement. So there were NEVER just four classes in the original game.
No, like I said, there were three - Fighting Man, Cleric, and Magic-User.

Supplement I was ... a supplement.

-O

[Tehnar]

I have been tinkering with dice systems and I have to say. Tat rolling a single dice with high numbers being better is almost always the best choice. It might be less realistic or even less fair, but it is so fast and intuitive that the game almost always plays better as a result.

Dice pools and active defenses are great for climactic duels ore contests of skill, but after an entire night of gaming like that the players almost universally just want to get on with it.

I agree with you that dice pools can get tedious to roll...thats why we use dice rollers.

But rolling less then 5-6 dice is really easy and simple. It takes like half a second to gauge the amount of hits, or to pick the highes/lowest dice.


Calling it a bad mechanic because the underdog has a chance of winning, is missing the point of a lot of fiction D&D is and has been based on. The underdog is supposed to have a chance at winning. With that in mind the complaint is only one of scale in regards to taste, which is orders of magnitude less objective than you are making it appear.

Its not only about the chance that the underdog has a chance of winning.

First, such a high degree of randomness renders your choices when creating a character meaningless. Why put a 16 instead of a 12 in a ability when the difference is so paltry that you will only notice it averaged over dozens of sessions?

Secondly it encourages min/maxing (both for the DM and the players). Why spread out your ability points when it doesn't matter, better to put everything in one or two stats.

[Synovia]

Secondly it encourages min/maxing (both for the DM and the players). Why spread out your ability points when it doesn't matter, better to put everything in one or two stats.

Couldn't disagree more. 3.5 had a system where the ranks/attribute way overwhelmed the dice, and people pretty much always minmaxed skills in that.

[noparlpf]

I think people will min/max anyway. That's what people do.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Yes, but I don't agree with that. In fact, damage types are only barely noticeable in 4E, mostly because there's too many of them and because it's rare to have an enemy react differently to one particular type (except for undead/radiant, which is kind of obvious).

And that supports my point (which I'm not conveying very well, apparently) that theme is more important than source or role for differentiating classes. Wizards and invokers can end up feeling fairly similar in play because their flavor is similar (study [arcane/divine] texts, blast people with [arcane/divine] power from your [wand/rod] or staff) despite the minor playstyle differences between them, while the wizard and druid are noticeably different thanks to their different concepts, and their power lists aren't interchangeable the way the wizard's and invoker's are.


Couldn't disagree more. 3.5 had a system where the ranks/attribute way overwhelmed the dice, and people pretty much always minmaxed skills in that.

Personally, I feel that having a system where skill and attributes grow a lot relative to the dice at higher levels is a good idea. It provides an easy measure of skill advancement on the player side ("Five levels ago I had a 50/50 shot to do X, now I can do it without rolling"), and it lets character capabilities scale up to high levels more gradually like being able to read minds with high Sense Motive or run on air with high Acrobatics by simply increasing the DC, instead of having to use hard limits (you must be level X to do Y).

Of course, that assumes that you can do things with skills that are actually interesting, as opposed to 3e and 4e where skills are outpaced by utility magic at low-mid levels. <Obligatory "of course 5e doesn't do that" remark.>


By the way, Oracle_Hunter, thank you for introducing the "<Obligatory 'of course 5e doesn't do that' remark>" remark, it makes composing posts in this thread so much faster. :smallwink:

[Kurald Galain]

And that supports my point (which I'm not conveying very well, apparently) that theme is more important than source or role for differentiating classes.
Yes, I agree. In my view, that also means that if two classes represent the same theme, they have no business being different classes.


But rolling less then 5-6 dice is really easy and simple. It takes like half a second to gauge the amount of hits, or to pick the highes/lowest dice.
Yes. Ad/disad still works fine with three or four dice (come on people, how hard is it to roll 3d20 and pick the best?) and anything above that is going to be extremely rare in actual gameplay anyway. I'm also fine with ruling that anything more than a triple disad is an automatic failure, because in practice that's what it is anyway.

The ad/disad mechanic is pretty good. It's not new or innovative and it's certainly not enough to carry an edition all by itself, but it works pretty well. It's just that the mechanic has a clear and common issue if not allowed to stack, and this is easily solved by letting it stack.

[Tehnar]

Couldn't disagree more. 3.5 had a system where the ranks/attribute way overwhelmed the dice, and people pretty much always minmaxed skills in that.

I think you got your facts mixed up; until the very high levels (15+), or with the aid of spells, the bonuses to skills was pretty much the same as the dice spread.

I'm not saying its the best system ever, but 3.5 skill system is substantially better then 5E. Though that is not much of a achievement.


I think people will min/max anyway. That's what people do.

The point is to have a system where you can specialize, but also encourages diversity.

[Zeful]

The point is to have a system where you can specialize, but also encourages diversity.
And the rolling system for the game is almost entirely irrelevant to this. Even if you completely replaced the rolling system "to be less bad", it still wouldn't change that there's no penalty to specialization in over 90% of cases, so the system does not discourage diversity.

[Tehnar]

And the rolling system for the game is almost entirely irrelevant to this. Even if you completely replaced the rolling system "to be less bad", it still wouldn't change that there's no penalty to specialization in over 90% of cases, so the system does not discourage diversity.

Of course the rolling system alone won't help with that. However if the rolling system is bad, it will be very hard to develop a system where both specialization and diversity are encouraged and supported.

[Zeful]

Of course the rolling system alone won't help with that. However if the rolling system is bad, it will be very hard to develop a system where both specialization and diversity are encouraged and supported.

That's not true. How a game handles the cost to benefit ratio for it's options, and how much the players are expected to do over the course of the game and how much not having those things can hurt the player or the party is where the lion's share of work is done in determining how much specialization or diversity is rewarded. Which die you use and what the expectations for the roll are mostly incidental outside of scaling issues and determining how much a particular option "costs".

Of 3.5's problems with specialization has almost none of them have anything to do with the fact that the d20 is used, as replacing the die and adjusting all the numbers to fit the new rolling scheme will result in the same problems.

[navar100]

I think people will min/max anyway. That's what people do.

And it's not as if there's anything wrong with it either. One is not an inferior player because one min/max's.

[Zeful]

And it's not as if there's anything wrong with it either. One is not an inferior player because one min/max's.

There is nothing wrong with min/maxers... ideally. The concept behind the practice makes quite a bit of logical sense in party-based roleplay endevors.

The problem is less an issue of the activity as it is the material. Poorly balanced games tend to result in min/maxers being far more effective than the rules were expected and thus designed to handle. This is a bad thing from a game design perspective because it forces either the min/maxer to move back inside the bounds of the rules, or everyone else to be as good at maneuvering the pitfalls of the system to maintain an balanced party. And when you introduce people that can't "see the forest for the trees" as it were, like myself, the system's expected paradigm outright collapses, and the game becomes practically unplayable for these individuals.

[noparlpf]

On the other hand excessive min-maxing and whatnot is the only way to play a Truenamer at all even with a low-op group.

[Zeful]

Well, yes, but underpreforming rules as a part of poor balance or design have problems that are irrelevant to min/maxing, as there is always a problem with them.

No, in keeping my example in the other direction, where min/maxing only reveals the issues of the system in question is a much better way of showing why good design and balance are actually needed when building a game.

[MukkTB]

We theoretically want game play to remain stable to at least moderate levels of skill and optimization. Take Tic-Tac-Toe for example. Its moderately amusing and its easy to play quickly. The problem is that if you spend half a minute analyzing the game you realize that both sides have optimal strategies that leaves the game always tied. Then the game is no longer fun. Chess on the other hand continues to have fun play even as player skill rockets up. The best kind of game is one like chess, that still works under uber high levels of skill and analysis. In D&D's case that might be asking too much, however being closer to that state of perfection is preferable to being further away.

[FatR]

Calling it a bad mechanic because the underdog has a chance of winning, is missing the point of a lot of fiction D&D is and has been based on. The underdog is supposed to have a chance at winning.
No, he really, really isn't. See, I generally use characters like Conan as examples of concepts that are hopelessly weak for the DnD environment past low levels. But it is just a matter of fact, that in Conan stories an average soldier has a negligibly small chance of beating Conan in any form of contest relevant to adventuring, be it fighting, tracking, hiding/spotting, endurance running or whatever. If your character still risks failing against common mooks even after reaching the pinnacle of skill allowed by the system, then your system cannot emulate even Conan stories. And therefore your system is not fit for playing heroic fantasy at all.

[Rhynn]

A direct competition (single die resolution) between a guy A with a +5 modifier, and a guy B with a -1 modifier, with ties going to guy A; guy B wins 21.125% of the time. That is the greatest absolute spread you can hope to achieve (current playtest rules), a pinnacle human of that attribute vs a below average.

Even if the dude A had a +3 skill modifier on top of that, B still wins 12.5% of the time.

The lowest modifier is -4, surely, for an ability of 3? (Roll 4d6 keep 3, lowest score is still 3.) And skills can count for a heck of a lot more than +3 (the first level skill die alone is d4, yes?)

But I don't see why a 12.5% being the lowest chance of success in an opposed test is bad. :smallconfused:


Couldn't disagree more. 3.5 had a system where the ranks/attribute way overwhelmed the dice, and people pretty much always minmaxed skills in that.

Yeah, in 3.X, modifiers were king, and it was trivial to get 100% chances of success.

My own preference, FWIW, is for the GURPS model (3d6 under your skill, with the target number modified by circumstances; autofailure on 18, maybe 17), but I don't think that fits for D&D At all.


But it is just a matter of fact, that in Conan stories an average soldier has a negligibly small chance of beating Conan in any form of contest relevant to adventuring, be it fighting, tracking, hiding/spotting, endurance running or whatever.

How have you determined this? :smallconfused:

The most outrageous example of Conan being almost super-human (in comparison to humans, as opposed to creatures whose capabilities we can't assess) that I can think of is in Xuthal of the Dusk when he fights something like 6 drug-addled lay-abouts at once, and only gets a bit wounded. I'm pretty confident that can be modelled by 5E as the playtest material stands... (There's the fight with a couple of armored Grey Company men in The Hour of the Dragon, but IIRC that was one tough fight for Conan - that was the point.)

[Kurald Galain]

The lowest modifier is -4, surely, for an ability of 3? (Roll 4d6 keep 3, lowest score is still 3.)
No, because in practice stats start at 8, not at 3, and also because we're compaing heroes to average people, not to cripples.



But I don't see why a 12.5% being the lowest chance of success in an opposed test is bad. :smallconfused:
I do. The party's dwarven warrior being more stealthy than the elven scout 12% of the time? That should only happen in a light-hearted cartoonish game, not in an epic fantasy.

Like I said, "this bothers some people". I did not say that it bothered all people, because it clearly doesn't. But this is another indication that 5E is focusing on one specific playstyle, rather than (as their mission statement indicates) catering to all of them.

[Rhynn]

No, because in practice stats start at 8, not at 3, and also because we're compaing heroes to average people, not to cripples.

What does "in practice" mean? The 8-15 array is optional, the 4d6 drop lowest is the default. That's a range of 3-18, possible +1 for race.

[Kurald Galain]

What does "in practice" mean? The 8-15 array is optional, the 4d6 drop lowest is the default. That's a range of 3-18, possible +1 for race.

Like I said, we are comparing heroes to average people, not to cripples. If a trained expert loses against an average rookie 21.125% of the time, then that is a flaw in the system.

[EvanWaters]

If dice probabilities hold greater sway over static bonuses when it comes to success, always assume such luck will also be in the hands of the enemy. You know a system is screwed up when being a professional in a given field means little-to-nothing, and the only things preventing the party from failing miserably every session is a roll-fudging DM or talented dice-roller.

Indeed, the 3.x books noted this when it came to modifications like easier criticals or whatever- the DM's going to be rolling more often for all the monsters and NPCs, because there are simply many more of them, and they don't worry as much about attrition.

This may not have been as much an issue with the earliest games, where in theory a party could be 15 people.

[Clawhound]

I don't think it's a significant issue of a rookie outrolls a skill expert sometimes. First off, other characters and villains aren't rookies. The person that you are rolling against isn't necessarily a rookie. They're excellent, just less excellent that the expert. Second, in this universe, luck is stronger than skill sometimes. Raw fortune can sway the day. Third, being a skill expert does not immunize you from failure or freakish fortune. Fourth, players get to explain away their own failures, which adds to story.

For DC 10, at +0 you succeed 50% of the time. At +3, you succeed 65% of the time. At +5 you succeed 75% of the time. The expert will clearly outperform the non-expert.

I like the uncertainty that this system puts into place. Your expert is clearly better than your non-expert, and performs far more reliably than the non-expert, but is not so good that he's immune to the vagaries of fate. This is doubly true in combat, where every round counts.

[Kurald Galain]

For DC 10, at +0 you succeed 50% of the time. At +3, you succeed 65% of the time. At +5 you succeed 75% of the time. The expert will clearly outperform the non-expert.

Only seven times out of eight.

How about you pick a random couch potato and have him hold a sprinting contest against a professional athlete, and see how often potato beats pro?

[1337 b4k4]

How about you pick a random couch potato and have him hold a sprinting contest against a professional athlete, and see how often potato beats pro?

We've been down this road before, but by the rules you shouldn't even be rolling for this.

[noparlpf]

We've been down this road before, but by the rules you shouldn't even be rolling for this.

Except that by the rules there's a one out of eight chance the potato beats the pro. So clearly you do have to roll for it. Except you shouldn't, which means the numbers are bad. So we're back to the beginning: the numbers are bad.

[Kurald Galain]

We've been down this road before, but by the rules you shouldn't even be rolling for this.

That's an Oberoni fallacy. Just a because a good DM can overrule the bad math doesn't magically fix the bad math. I expect WOTC to be better at math than the average DM, not worse.

[Zeful]

Only seven times out of eight.

How about you pick a random couch potato and have him hold a sprinting contest against a professional athlete, and see how often potato beats pro?

Not particularly relevant because 1; movement speed is fixed in the ruleset, you don't actually roll it. 2; the difference between raw physical stats in the late medieval or early modern era (where many of these games would take place) were much closer than now. And finally; the rules don't make much of an effort to simulate reality.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Hearing "miss" every round is going to naturally encourage min-maxing, since most people don't like to suck that bad. Not to mention, battles would last even longer than in previous editions.
As an aside, this would be a nice time to mention another aspect of game design we could move away from: the blank miss.
Probably as a holdover from D&D's wargaming roots, failing most tests means nothing has happened. The problem here is that "nothing happening" means the Players have spent their time without moving closer to an interesting result -- nothing is any deader, objectives are no closer to be completed, and disaster is no more imminent. This is one reason why combat can feel "boring" if it goes on for more than a few rounds -- the weight of those misses begins bearing on the mind of the combatants.

4e provided a glimpse of a better way -- the "effect on a miss" that most Daily Powers gained to compensate for the expenditure of a renewable resource. But why stop there? Why not have every "miss" more one step closer to some sort of conclusion? The easiest way is for all attacks to deal half damage on a Miss -- combatants get closer to death every action and even the "tank" cares about what happens in a given round. This will cut down on "dead rounds" where bad rolls mean little damage is actually done and time is effectively wasted and (importantly for some) it will give a "realistic" way for Mundanes to remain "fun" without abilities that can end a combat in a few rounds.
Tip of the hat to Deeper in the Game (http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/90-minute-dd/) for raising the issue in my mind. If I were designing 5e I would at least consider removing The Blank Miss from the game.

<Obligatory "of course 5e doesn't do that" remark>

[EvanWaters]

The Leverage RPG has some really solid guidelines on how failure doesn't mean nothing happens.

We got close to that in the 4e DMG2 as well, since they realized Skill Challenges aren't fun if you're worried about X failures bringing the whole lengthy process to a halt.

[Talakeal]

As an aside, this would be a nice time to mention another aspect of game design we could move away from: the blank miss.
Probably as a holdover from D&D's wargaming roots, failing most tests means nothing has happened. The problem here is that "nothing happening" means the Players have spent their time without moving closer to an interesting result -- nothing is any deader, objectives are no closer to be completed, and disaster is no more imminent. This is one reason why combat can feel "boring" if it goes on for more than a few rounds -- the weight of those misses begins bearing on the mind of the combatants.

4e provided a glimpse of a better way -- the "effect on a miss" that most Daily Powers gained to compensate for the expenditure of a renewable resource. But why stop there? Why not have every "miss" more one step closer to some sort of conclusion? The easiest way is for all attacks to deal half damage on a Miss -- combatants get closer to death every action and even the "tank" cares about what happens in a given round. This will cut down on "dead rounds" where bad rolls mean little damage is actually done and time is effectively wasted and (importantly for some) it will give a "realistic" way for Mundanes to remain "fun" without abilities that can end a combat in a few rounds.
Tip of the hat to Deeper in the Game (http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/90-minute-dd/) for raising the issue in my mind. If I were designing 5e I would at least consider removing The Blank Miss from the game.

<Obligatory "of course 5e doesn't do that" remark>

This is one of those cases where "gamist" and "simulationist" play but heads. It might (I say might, I would have to do a lot of in depth thinking before deciding for sure) be better from a gameplay perspective if misses did half damage, but for the life of me I can't actually picture a situation where someone missing you with an arrow would harm you in any noticeable way*.

* At least reliably. I can picture an occasional glancing blow or attackbouncing off armor and knocking the wind out of the target, but I can't picture a situation where every miss would do such.

[Oracle_Hunter]

This is one of those cases where "gamist" and "simulationist" play but heads. It might (I say might, I would have to do a lot of in depth thinking before deciding for sure) be better from a gameplay perspective if misses did half damage, but for the life of me I can't actually picture a situation where someone missing you with an arrow would harm you in any noticeable way*.

* At least reliably. I can picture an occasional glancing blow or attackbouncing off armor and knocking the wind out of the target, but I can't picture a situation where every miss would do such.
Likewise I can't imagine a situation where getting burned by a dragon doesn't result in your immediate death :smallamused:
The truth is any "simulationist" who plays D&D is of the "No True Scotsman" variety due to HP. It is very hard to argue that HP "simulates" anything reasonably without tying yourselves into ridiculous verbal knots. However, every "simulationist" who plays D&D is simply comfortable with the "gamist" concepts of HP, XP and Levels because that's what they were brought up with (so to speak).
In short, I give GNS very short shrift, and an even shorter shrift when applied to Players who are playing D&D in the first place :smalltongue:

[Flickerdart]

While I agree that spending a turn on a "blank miss" is annoying, I'm not sure that misses should accomplish the same thing as hits (dealing damage) because that trivializes success in situations where the world isn't seconds away from imminent destruction. In fact, I think we can make things a little more interesting than binary success and failure altogether. Let's take a look at a case scenario.

Grodnar the mighty barbarian swings his axe at an orc raider. Because Grodnar is an experienced warrior, he aims to behead the orc with one fell swoop (some kind of high level ability, or just huge damage numbers). We have the standard "hit" and "miss" results - Grodnar misses and does no damage, and Grodnar hits for full damage. But surely, when Grodnar missed, it is not because he is an idiot and dropped his axe on his foot. The blow came close, maybe even nicked the orc, and will have frightened him. Not as much as if he'd received a face full of axe, but on his turn, the orc's thought are going to be on defending himself, giving him, say, a -2 penalty to hit. Or perhaps the orc's armour took the brunt of the strike, and though the orc himself is fine, the impact has stunned him and loosened his armour's buckles, imposing a -2 penalty to the orc's AC. Of course, if Grodnar missed by a wide margin (a critical miss - maybe whiffing by 5 or even 10 points of AC) then none of this happens, and the orc enjoys a hearty laugh.

Of course, a critical hit (surpassing the target's AC by the same 10 or 5) would confer some benefits as well. Multiplied damage isn't a bad thing to give, since an enemy so thoroughly outclassed by the PCs should rightfully die quickly, but in order to avoid sudden and anticlimactic deaths, we could just bring back the same penalty from before. While the orc could believe that a close hit was luck on Grodnar's part and he, the orc, can yet turn things around, the magnitude by which a critical hit wounds the orc shows him that Grodnar can pick him, the orc, apart at his leisure, and implements the same to-hit penalty from before.

So instead of a binary result (do some damage/do no damage) we now have four results (complete miss/penalty/damage/damage and penalty). You could build an entire class around interesting effects that can be added to non-critical misses and critical hits, call that the Fighter, and let everyone else access only a small list of the effects while experienced Fighters would gain the ability to turn even their blunders into tactically significant special attacks.

[Oracle_Hunter]

While I agree that spending a turn on a "blank miss" is annoying, I'm not sure that misses should accomplish the same thing as hits (dealing damage) because that trivializes success in situations where the world isn't seconds away from imminent destruction.
One way to look at it is that attacks either "do damage" or "don't do damage" -- but another way is to look at whether the amount of damage is important. I think the fact that Fireball, for example, has always done 1/2 damage on a "miss" shows that the game is not trivialized is missed attacks do damage. How exactly does 1/2 damage "trivialize" things anyhow? :smallconfused:

That said, whatever you want to fill in the Miss Blanks with is all to the best. The central point is that actions which have no consequences should be removed from the default and placed as the exception. IMHO, it is more fun for something rather than nothing to happen after you take the trouble to roll some dice.

[Talakeal]

Likewise I can't imagine a situation where getting burned by a dragon doesn't result in your immediate death :smallamused:
The truth is any "simulationist" who plays D&D is of the "No True Scotsman" variety due to HP. It is very hard to argue that HP "simulates" anything reasonably without tying yourselves into ridiculous verbal knots. However, every "simulationist" who plays D&D is simply comfortable with the "gamist" concepts of HP, XP and Levels because that's what they were brought up with (so to speak).
In short, I give GNS very short shrift, and an even shorter shrift when applied to Players who are playing D&D in the first place :smalltongue:

You really can't think of ANY situation? I can think of a half dozen ways a normal person could survive a hit from dragon fire off the top of my head.

That aside, I can accept an abstraction a lot better than an impossibility. If, for example, you averaged out a volley of arrows to do half damage I could see that as an abstraction, but a system where it is flat out impossible to miss your target is quite a bit harder to swallow.

By the way, HP in D&D is bad, from both a realism and game mechanics perspective. Same with save for half damage versus spells, so many problems with that.

D&D rules aren't horrible, but it is pretty bad. I actually don't play D&D by choice, it is just that 90% of gaming groups and forums are primarily D&D focused. However, I would think the purpose of discussing our oppinions about 5E would be to inspire the creators to make a better system, for example where HP aren't a complete mess.

[Clawhound]

We really have two types of skill rolls: those under pressure (usually combat) and those not under pressure.

For skill rolls under pressure, where a character is in mortal danger and dealing with multiple distractions, I think it's quite reasonable to have great variability. This is the exact setup of the combat system, where a weakling nobody could outdo a fighter in one round of combat. By the same measure, under pressure, a nobody could outdo an expert in that particular six second interval.

What makes an expert in D&D is consistency, not invulnerability. Over ten round of combat, a fighter will hit far more often and survive far more damage, while the nobody hit far less often and dies far more easily. A skill expert will likewise succeed far more often while the lucky schmuck fail far more often.

Out of combat, you need to determine if a skill roll is needed. This is not a fallacy as this is the exact role of the DM. A DM runs the game, not just by applying the rules, but by applying human judgement.

Then there's modeling. If you simplify all challenges to one skill roll, variability makes a mockery of the system. If you break a challenge down to two, three, or four rolls, then the absurdity goes away. Best two out of three is used in real life for just such a reason.

[deuterio12]

One way to look at it is that attacks either "do damage" or "don't do damage" -- but another way is to look at whether the amount of damage is important. I think the fact that Fireball, for example, has always done 1/2 damage on a "miss" shows that the game is not trivialized is missed attacks do damage. How exactly does 1/2 damage "trivialize" things anyhow? :smallconfused:

That said, whatever you want to fill in the Miss Blanks with is all to the best. The central point is that actions which have no consequences should be removed from the default and placed as the exception. IMHO, it is more fun for something rather than nothing to happen after you take the trouble to roll some dice.

The problem if all missed attacks still deal damage is that then X basic kobolds will auto-kill an Y level PC, regardless of how much AC the PC has or what the kobolds roll.

Also for all the people complaining about HP, I'll admit it isn't perfect, but on the other hand I've never seen any better alternative. All those fancy "wound" mechanics other systems have end up resulting in you either dying in one hit, or geting so crippled you may as well be dead. I want my heroes to be able to tank a dragon's breath damnit!:smalltongue:

[Rhynn]

All those fancy "wound" mechanics other systems have end up resulting in you either dying in one hit, or geting so crippled you may as well be dead.

All of them? Including HârnMaster (nope), RuneQuest (no), Aces & Eights (nu-uh), Artesia: Adventures in the Known World (nah), The Riddle of Steel (nuh), Twilight 2013 (nope), GURPS (nawp) ...

All of them?

[deuterio12]

Yes. In particular in systems that use 3d6, even a -2 penalty to rolls hurts a lot. You tecnically can still act, but you're not going to acomplish anything viable, aka you may as well be dead.

Really, look at any fantasy media. Do you see the heroes geting weaker as they get hurt? Or do you see them going all out to the last breath?

[Rhynn]

Yes.

But in all of the games I listed, a single hit does not kill you or cripple you so that you may as well be dead. A great hit might, but they certainly do not as a rule.

Since you made the positive (and very extraordinary) claim, can you provide the (extraordinary) evidence?

Edit: In fact, some of these "fancy wound mechanics" are completely unrealistic. I've seen a RuneQuest PC chop off his own leg (critical fumble), then win a fight (against an equally skilled and equipped opponent).

[Morty]

The problem if all missed attacks still deal damage is that then X basic kobolds will auto-kill an Y level PC, regardless of how much AC the PC has or what the kobolds roll.


Unless, you know, the PC kills the kobold first.

[Ashdate]

I think some larger "effect on a miss" rule would be a pretty good one. It doesn't necessarily need to be half damage; it could be your Strength modifier, or advantage on the next attack, or something very class specific.

On the subject of Kobolds "swarming" an opponent they can't technically hit (but "chipping" away at their HP), I think such a mechanic would play into the idea that "low level monsters are always a threat" really well. I also think it's kind of realistic; even if you're wearing magical full plate and a layer or two of magical protection, being surrounded by any opponent should be some cause for concern.

If the concern is "100 kobolds shouldn't be able to defeat a level 15 fighters", I would ask: "why is that fighter trying to take on 100 opponents at once?"

[Kornaki]

The fact that 100 kobolds can't defeat a level 15 fighter is a flaw in the system, not a benefit in my opinion. Sure you have scenes like Helm's Deep where the heroes can kill hundreds of low level foes, but they don't just wade in and have at it, because that would be suicide

[Frozen_Feet]

Why the hell it is "bad design" if superior numbers can win a fight? Seriously, folks. I find it much more detracting of tactics if a character can essentially fight limitless number of weaker opponents. By all means, 20+ mooks should pose some threat to a PC.

[Saph]

By all means, 20+ mooks should pose some threat to a PC.

The initial suggestion was that all attacks should do half damage on a miss – which is a terrible idea IMO, and I think that's what people are reacting against. It means that if X hits will kill a PC, then 2X attacks will auto-kill a PC, with no chance of any other outcome. Which is neither realistic nor particularly fun.

[Frozen_Feet]

"Misses doing ½X damage" works out mathematically to the same end result as "50% of attacks hit, doing X damage". If HP is level times X, that's hardly an unworkable assumption.

I don't agree that "mob of certain size is inevitable death" is necessarily a bad thing at all. Rather, it gives a clear limit to PC abilities and serves as useful reality check for players - if spelled out in the rules, it should end up to players avoiding involvement in unwinnable scenarios.

[noparlpf]

It shouldn't be too hard to become invincible against low-level mooks. High AC and some fast healing and they can't touch you even with the miss=1/2 damage thing.

Also, your 1/2 symbol shows up as 碼 in Gmail on Firefox for some reason.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

"Misses doing ½X damage" works out mathematically to the same end result as "50% of attacks hit, doing X damage". If HP is level times X, that's hardly an unworkable assumption.

While true, your post seems to assume every attacks misses in the latter system. 50% of attacks hitting for X damage is the same as ALL attacks MISSING and dealing 50% damage on a miss. Having a 50% chance of hitting and dealing 50% damage on a miss increases the damage by 50%.

So I'm not sure what your point was, as the scenario you mentioned will basically never arise.

[Frozen_Feet]

While true, your post seems to assume every attacks misses in the latter system. 50% of attacks hitting for X damage is the same as ALL attacks MISSING and dealing 50% damage on a miss. Having a 50% chance of hitting and dealing 50% damage on a miss increases the damage by 50%.

Ah, you're right, I forgot to factor that in, so it's not an accurate comparison. Anyways, still not an unworkable assumption.


So I'm not sure what your point was, as the scenario you mentioned will basically never arise.

You mean the unwinnable one? Or mob of certain death? Those demonstrably do exist and do emerge in actual game. The only thing that prevents them from occuring more often is how some GMs actively try to avoid them.

Or is you statement <Obligatory "of course 5e doesn't do that" remark>? :smalltongue:

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

You mean the unwinnable one? Or mob of certain death? Those demonstrably do exist and do emerge in actual game. The only thing that prevents them from occuring more often is how some GMs actively try to avoid them.

I meant the scenario of every attack made against you missing, and thus the damage being equivalent. Given that a roll of 20 hits, it would be EXTREMELY unlikely to actually happen. :smalltongue:

[Kurald Galain]

"Misses doing ½X damage" works out mathematically to the same end result as "50% of attacks hit, doing X damage".

Only if you assume that 50% of attacks hit. That is not at all the case. If a low-level kobold attacks an armored experienced fighter, then a 10% chance to hit is more reasonable.

[1337 b4k4]

That's an Oberoni fallacy. Just a because a good DM can overrule the bad math doesn't magically fix the bad math. I expect WOTC to be better at math than the average DM, not worse.

No it isn't because by the rules as written you aren't supposed to be using the math in the first place. It's as if we had rules for holding your breath under water, and a paragraph that says "if you're not under water, you don't need to roll to hold your breath". You're arguing that it's an Oberoni fallacy for me to argue that the breath holding rules aren't broken for holding your breath while in the vacuum of space because according to the rules, you shouldn't roll (or at the very least shouldn't be using that system). The skill system is designed to be used to resolve checks where there is a "significant" and interesting chance of failure. What is an interesting and significant chance of failure? By the rules, at least a 10% chance or so.

The problem is, you're looking as the skill system as "this is how skills are resolved, so this is the minimum and maximum chances of failure for all things." On the. Other hand, I'm looking at the rules as saying that "if you have a scenario where you need to randomly resolve a chance of failure within this given range, you should roll the dice like this"

I mean lets be perfectly honest here, almost every scenario that people bring up for how ridiculous the skill system is are almost always ones where no one would roll anyway.

[noparlpf]

You're saying "there's no need to roll when it's pro vs. newb because there has to be at least a 10% chance of failure for it to matter". There is more than a 10% chance that the newb beats the pro by the current rules for skill modifiers. Therefore something is definitely wrong.

[Morty]

Perhaps the "something happens even on a miss" rule would be the default, but certain abilities, equipment and other factors could make misses have no effects. Heavy armor, for instance, could make a miss deal no damage at all, because the blow only scratches ineffectually against the metal. Who knows, maybe it'd even make armor relevant. I'm speaking theoretically, of course - the system would have to be balanced around this kind of thing from the ground up.

I do agree, of course, that making hordes of low level enemies a threat is a very good thing. The nigh-invulnerability of characters above certain level against low-level opponents in 3.x wreaks havoc on tension and any GM's attempts at introducing it.

[1337 b4k4]

You're saying "there's no need to roll when it's pro vs. newb because there has to be at least a 10% chance of failure for it to matter". There is more than a 10% chance that the newb beats the pro by the current rules for skill modifiers. Therefore something is definitely wrong.

I'm telling you that the rules aren't designed to model skill checks between complete newbies and masters where there isn't at least a 10% chance of failure. Put another way the rules don't say that a newbie has a 10% chance of beating a pro, but rather the rules give you a method for resolving situations where the newbie has at least a 10% chance of success. The DM (and the players) are supposed to decide BEFORE ANY DICE ARE EVEN ROLLED, whether or not there is at least a 10% chance of failure, and therefore the rolling mechanic is applicable to the situation at hand. You are not supposed to use the mechanic to determine the chance of success.

[Frozen_Feet]

Do you think a battle between 4 PCs and 65 mooks, or a similar ratio, is unbeatable? Reality says otherwise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca).

First, I said a PC. If there are four of them, there should be 80+ enemies. Second, I said some threat, not unbeatable. You could adjust the numbers until it models reality reasonably well.

However, the point is not to make PCs winning against numerically superior foe impossible - it is to make losing against numerically superior foe possible. Bad tactics should lead to defeat, but that doesn't happen if PCs are arbitrarily immune to weaker NPCs regardless of numbers and tactics.

[deuterio12]

Perhaps the "something happens even on a miss" rule would be the default, but certain abilities, equipment and other factors could make misses have no effects. Heavy armor, for instance, could make a miss deal no damage at all, because the blow only scratches ineffectually against the metal. Who knows, maybe it'd even make armor relevant. I'm speaking theoretically, of course - the system would have to be balanced around this kind of thing from the ground up.

I quite like your line of thinking there.



I do agree, of course, that making hordes of low level enemies a threat is a very good thing. The nigh-invulnerability of characters above certain level against low-level opponents in 3.x wreaks havoc on tension and any GM's attempts at introducing it.

Well, problem here is that a non-insignificant number of players likes nigh-invulnerability against much lower level enemies. And it should at least be possible for organized high-level PCs to butcher their way trough literal thousans of lesser opponents.

On the other hand, there should be some half-decent mass combat mechanics where an organized squad/unit of 1st level kobolds (perhaps a mid-high level kobold chieftain leading them) is a lot more threatening than an unorganized rabble with the same numbers.

[Morty]

Well, problem here is that a non-insignificant number of players likes nigh-invulnerability against much lower level enemies. And it should at least be possible for organized high-level PCs to butcher their way trough literal thousans of lesser opponents.

It should definietly be possible for high-level PCs to fight their way through innumerable opponents. It's well within D&D's narrative space. But the problem with it in 3.x is that it's not possible but trivial, and you don't even have to be very high level. Facing down an army should be a mighty deed for the greatest of heroes, not something mid-level characters can do without much effort.


On the other hand, there should be some half-decent mass combat mechanics where an organized squad/unit of 1st level kobolds (perhaps a mid-high level kobold chieftain leading them) is a lot more threatening than an unorganized rabble with the same numbers.

I agree, certainly. Coordination, morale and tactics should make a world of difference in how threatening a large group of combatants is, either against another group or powerful individuals. I'm interested in the idea of representing large groups as single entities for the purpose of the rules - it has the additional benefit in making them much easier to keep track of.

[deuterio12]

I wouldn't say it's that easy for mid level PCs in 3.5 right now to become immune to damage. Natural 20s still hit you automatically, and damage reduction is rare. Even spells like stoneskin and protection from arrows can be "overloaded" with enough damage. Ethereality would be the "easiest" way to become army-immune, but that's more of a problem with ethereality itself being kinda borked, and something like an Allip will take down not only mooks but high level brute monsters as well.

On the other hand, enemies 8 levels lower than you don't grant you any experience.:smalltongue:

Not very sure about 4e, never played it much, but I remember mooks being a bit too easy to butcher compared to suposedly equivalent encounters.

And yeah, actually running thousands of single entities isn't very kind on the side of the DM, so some abstraction should be the way to go.

On the earlier D&D editions, literal armies of low level enemies were completely official possible ecounters, usually backed up by siege engines and some high-level guys. You can still see a leftover from that in 3.X's monster organizations:

tribe (40-400 plus 1 3rd-level sergeant per 20 adults, 1 or 2 lieutenants of 4th or 5th level, 1 leader of 6th-8th level, and 5-8 dire weasels)

[Stubbazubba]

Just say that if you miss by 10 or more, then nothing happens, but 9 or less and you get your back-up effect. I'd have to do the math to confirm, but my gut says that'll significantly reduce the number of times PCs have wasted a turn, but will still allow them to go against 70 Kobolds at level 10 and not feel terribly worried.

With that, I agree that a mob needs to become a single unit. Perhaps for each MM entry, you have rules for "mobs of _____," where each +X individuals adds +Y to attack bonus, damage, HP, etc., for the mob, but not AC. Every time the PCs deal Z damage, those values are reduced accordingly. Yes, that is somewhat a lot of bookkeeping to do, but it's at least a starting model to be refined upon.

For instance, a mob of Orcs is defined with a base of 40 HP, attack bonus of +5, damage of 1d8+4, and AC 14. This represents up to, say, a dozen Orcs, and every dozen Orcs above that gets +10 HP, +1 attack bonus, and +1 damage.

In that case, 130 Orcs would have 140 HP, +15 attack, and 1d8+14 damage. At full strength, I'd peg that at CR 9, give or take, but the fact that it still has a low AC and these stats theoretically decrease along with its HP, I'd knock it down a few CR steps. So while you take on 8 Orcs at level 1, you can take a whole camp of 130 by level 6-8. That seems relatively appropriate, given 3.5's power scale.

That still may not be the best way to model mobs, though. It's possible that individual units are individuals until they achieve a certain size, in which case they voltron into a mob unit, but doubling that number doesn't just increase the stats in the mob unit but creates a second mob unit, and eventually enough mob units voltron into an army unit.

So up to 11 Orcs are just Orcs, but a dozen becomes an Orc squad, and then you get 2 squads, 3 squads, 4, until 5 squads (60 Orcs) becomes an Orc warband, and 5 of those (300 Orcs) becomes an Orc camp, and 5 of those (1500 Orcs) becomes an Orc army. Each step has its own MM entry that can be better tuned to level appropriate-ness. If an Orc is CR 1 (or 1/2), a squad could be CR 4, a warband CR 8, a camp CR 12, and an army CR 16.

This way you can give larger groups access to siege engines or spells (since every huge army is bound to have some spellcasters) that wouldn't make sense to include in the write-ups for the individual monsters. This does, however, multiply the number of entries in said MM. But really, there's enough dross in the MMs that I think we can make room for some of these.

[Draz74]

Out of combat, you need to determine if a skill roll is needed. This is not a fallacy as this is the exact role of the DM. A DM runs the game, not just by applying the rules, but by applying human judgement.
This is bad game design IMO, and in any case it is certainly lazy game design. Even if all DMs could somehow agree on what contests are worthy of rolling for, and which ones have an obvious outcome that shouldn't require rolling, then there are by necessity going to be some situations that straddle the line between the two. Ones where the DM thinks the underdog should have a tiny chance of success, but greater than zero.

This is not how Next currently works. The variability of the d20 compared to the ability scores means that "a tiny chance of success" is a rarity -- and only occurs in situations that most of Next's supporters (at least on this Forum) say shouldn't require a die roll anyway. I seldom see any acknowledgement of borderline cases (that should require a die roll, but with minuscule chance of success), but I can only conclude that they would be situations where the Next mechanics would actually give the underdog a rather ridiculously large chance of success.

TL;DR saying that DMs can and should rule about whether die rolls are necessary at all really doesn't fix the problem of the d20's wide spread. This statement is entirely independent of my feeling that a well-designed game should lead to reasonable results even if a hypothetical (inexperienced) DM did ask for rolls on everything.

On the other hand ...


Then there's modeling. If you simplify all challenges to one skill roll, variability makes a mockery of the system. If you break a challenge down to two, three, or four rolls, then the absurdity goes away. Best two out of three is used in real life for just such a reason.

This. If WotC is determined to stick to the d20 mechanic (which I like), the six ability scores & checks system (which I don't like), and the bounded accuracy philosophy (which I'm on the fence about), then the only way they're going to get a game with reasonable outcomes is to demand that a lot of contests -- the sort that should generally be won by the more skilled contestant, with little luck involved -- are decided by not one, but multiple opposed checks.

This will, in turn, slow the game down significantly when it comes to something like arm wrestling. (It may bother players less when it represents a 45-minute chess game.) But it's the only way, if they want to cling to these other design fundamentals they've set up.

Like you say, Clawhound, this is precisely why the variability of the d20 has not historically been a big problem in the combat rules. The length of combat, the way it involves numerous d20 rolls, is what has mitigated the randomness enough to make the game work. WotC needs to realize this.

[Stubbazubba]

Like you say, Clawhound, this is precisely why the variability of the d20 has not historically been a big problem in the combat rules. The length of combat, the way it involves numerous d20 rolls, is what has mitigated the randomness enough to make the game work. WotC needs to realize this.

Indeed, and this is why the non-combat game has gone through many iterations, while the tried-and-true combat engine has remained fundamentally untouched. So the moral of the story is to make a universal d20 RNG work, there needs to be a robust non-combat system that works. That is obviously incompatible with Next's plan to go with single-roll, ability bonus-based checks.

The other side of this coin is that whatever activity in the game requires rolling dice, that is what the players' attention is drawn to and what the plot slows down to focus on. This is a problem when every arm wrestle requires three rolls to resolve. The plot slowing down to focus on everything simply creates a slow-paced crawl through plots mundane and exciting. We want to get to the good stuff, to the meaningful conflicts and cool battles where we get to feel like a powerful mage or warrior. In that case, the ability bonus roll is light enough to provide a quick resolution and move on. It doesn't do so very well, and there are a great stack of corner cases that defy expectations, but most players won't notice, much less get hung up on, these, and they blissfully move on to something more worth caring about.

So really, we need different setups for non-combat actions and in-combat actions. I frankly think the old idea of skill tiers was, in this regard, a step in the right direction. It was woefully incomplete, but it delivered the exact kind of results that people here saying "The DM shouldn't have you roll for that" want while standardizing it in an actual mechanic, which is what the rest of us want. In such a system, the unimportant challenges take little to no table time, they're just there to move the plot along and make the heroes feel successful, which saves time for the important challenges that we want to slow down and roll out. And with more tweaks to the way those things are rolled (Advantage for trained skills instead of/in addition to a bonus, for one), plus a revamped skill challenge as an optional rule, (i.e. a module if those ever actually happen), I think the game would work great going back and forth between non-combat non-challenge, non-combat challenge, and combat.

[Morty]

I wouldn't say it's that easy for mid level PCs in 3.5 right now to become immune to damage. Natural 20s still hit you automatically, and damage reduction is rare. Even spells like stoneskin and protection from arrows can be "overloaded" with enough damage. Ethereality would be the "easiest" way to become army-immune, but that's more of a problem with ethereality itself being kinda borked, and something like an Allip will take down not only mooks but high level brute monsters as well.


Total invulnerability isn't necessary, though - you just have to be resistant enough. After all, you'll be killing several of the low level enemies per round at the very least.


Just say that if you miss by 10 or more, then nothing happens, but 9 or less and you get your back-up effect. I'd have to do the math to confirm, but my gut says that'll significantly reduce the number of times PCs have wasted a turn, but will still allow them to go against 70 Kobolds at level 10 and not feel terribly worried.

I think D&D could use some mechanics for degrees of success in general.


With that, I agree that a mob needs to become a single unit. Perhaps for each MM entry, you have rules for "mobs of _____," where each +X individuals adds +Y to attack bonus, damage, HP, etc., for the mob, but not AC. Every time the PCs deal Z damage, those values are reduced accordingly. Yes, that is somewhat a lot of bookkeeping to do, but it's at least a starting model to be refined upon.

For instance, a mob of Orcs is defined with a base of 40 HP, attack bonus of +5, damage of 1d8+4, and AC 14. This represents up to, say, a dozen Orcs, and every dozen Orcs above that gets +10 HP, +1 attack bonus, and +1 damage.

In that case, 130 Orcs would have 140 HP, +15 attack, and 1d8+14 damage. At full strength, I'd peg that at CR 9, give or take, but the fact that it still has a low AC and these stats theoretically decrease along with its HP, I'd knock it down a few CR steps. So while you take on 8 Orcs at level 1, you can take a whole camp of 130 by level 6-8. That seems relatively appropriate, given 3.5's power scale.

That still may not be the best way to model mobs, though. It's possible that individual units are individuals until they achieve a certain size, in which case they voltron into a mob unit, but doubling that number doesn't just increase the stats in the mob unit but creates a second mob unit, and eventually enough mob units voltron into an army unit.

So up to 11 Orcs are just Orcs, but a dozen becomes an Orc squad, and then you get 2 squads, 3 squads, 4, until 5 squads (60 Orcs) becomes an Orc warband, and 5 of those (300 Orcs) becomes an Orc camp, and 5 of those (1500 Orcs) becomes an Orc army. Each step has its own MM entry that can be better tuned to level appropriate-ness. If an Orc is CR 1 (or 1/2), a squad could be CR 4, a warband CR 8, a camp CR 12, and an army CR 16.

This way you can give larger groups access to siege engines or spells (since every huge army is bound to have some spellcasters) that wouldn't make sense to include in the write-ups for the individual monsters. This does, however, multiply the number of entries in said MM. But really, there's enough dross in the MMs that I think we can make room for some of these.

There was a pretty robust homebrew project for 'mobs' on these boards. Unfortunately, the author is now banned and with the search engine down, looking up the thread is problematic. But it had a template that could be used to make large groups of enemies into single entities and allowed to account for their level of organization, leadership et cetera. Which I think is extremely important - twelve convenienty evil humanoids could be a reasonably surmountable challenge as an unorganized mob and a deadly challenge as a disciplined, organized group despite their overall level of combat training (which is to say, stat blocks) remaining the same.

Of course, this kind of mechanics would be, by necessity, heavily abstracted. It would be up to the GM when and how to merge large groups into 'mobs'. But I think it's better than the current situation in 3.x, where big groups of enemies are both pain in the butt to run and largely unthreatening.

[Saph]

There was a pretty robust homebrew project for 'mobs' on these boards. Unfortunately, the author is now banned and with the search engine down, looking up the thread is problematic. But it had a template that could be used to make large groups of enemies into single entities and allowed to account for their level of organization, leadership et cetera.

There are some D&D modules that do the same. When I played through the World's Largest Dungeon a while ago, there was a 'horde' template for dozens or hundreds of lesser enemies. Got quite nasty when we ran into a horde of mohrgs, but luckily we were quite high level by then. :smalltongue:

[navar100]

As an aside, this would be a nice time to mention another aspect of game design we could move away from: the blank miss.
Probably as a holdover from D&D's wargaming roots, failing most tests means nothing has happened. The problem here is that "nothing happening" means the Players have spent their time without moving closer to an interesting result -- nothing is any deader, objectives are no closer to be completed, and disaster is no more imminent. This is one reason why combat can feel "boring" if it goes on for more than a few rounds -- the weight of those misses begins bearing on the mind of the combatants.

4e provided a glimpse of a better way -- the "effect on a miss" that most Daily Powers gained to compensate for the expenditure of a renewable resource. But why stop there? Why not have every "miss" more one step closer to some sort of conclusion? The easiest way is for all attacks to deal half damage on a Miss -- combatants get closer to death every action and even the "tank" cares about what happens in a given round. This will cut down on "dead rounds" where bad rolls mean little damage is actually done and time is effectively wasted and (importantly for some) it will give a "realistic" way for Mundanes to remain "fun" without abilities that can end a combat in a few rounds.
Tip of the hat to Deeper in the Game (http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2012/09/02/90-minute-dd/) for raising the issue in my mind. If I were designing 5e I would at least consider removing The Blank Miss from the game.


For limited use abilities ok, but I think it's too iconic for regular combat. However, a Natural 1 no longer automissing on an attack roll can work if 3E's iterative attacks are used. A warrior's first attack will eventually can't miss because he's just that good. Spellcasters have been doing that since level 1. The iterative attacks provide the chance of missing necessary for a game to be fun. As an extra benefit, the concept of critical fumbles is disintegrated.

[Clawhound]

Single die rolls for skills work in many situations. The reason that they work is that you get one roll, but the character rolling will use the skill many time over his career. That works just fine for those frequently used but no downside skills. Such skills include knowledge, gathering food, and gathering information. If fact, you can fail those rolls until you succeed.

I'm happy with single die rolls in combat. The challenges are varied enough the underdog can win sometimes, which will often be the player characters. In this way, I'm happy with the underdogability of the current skill system. It can hurt or help players in equal measure.

Here's what I see as problems. Sometimes the die rolls gets absurd because skills get used. A few skills trigger total failure if only one check is missed, such as sneak or climb. This often makes the rogue's sneak and climb look like a failure. The more often the DM makes you roll, the more reliably that you eventually miss. So there are huge pressures behind these skills to simply max them out to no-failure.

Some skills shouldn't have die rolls. A blacksmith should not need to roll a die to make a sword. Die rolls are inappropriate for craft skills.

[Alejandro]

Do you think a battle between 4 PCs and 65 mooks, or a similar ratio, is unbeatable? Reality says otherwise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca).

While I can agree in principle, this is a bad example to use. It's a technological, cultural, and military ambush with a large amount of luck.

[Synovia]

I think you got your facts mixed up; until the very high levels (15+), or with the aid of spells, the bonuses to skills was pretty much the same as the dice spread.

No, I don't. You very regularly have low level characters with significant plusses in 3.5.

For example, a Level 1 can have +4 (Attribute) +4 (level) +2 (synergy) +2 (item) = +12 bonus. It can go higher if said character preps certain spells.

IE, a level 1 character is 60% more likely than the standard level 1. A typical DC for that level should be about 15. (or, 1-2 is a failure, 3-20 is success)

[deuterio12]

Of course, this kind of mechanics would be, by necessity, heavily abstracted. It would be up to the GM when and how to merge large groups into 'mobs'. But I think it's better than the current situation in 3.x, where big groups of enemies are both pain in the butt to run and largely unthreatening.

I did some google search about D&D mobs and found this (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=143.0) on another forum's homebrew section. What do you think?


While I can agree in principle, this is a bad example to use. It's a technological, cultural, and military ambush with a large amount of luck.

Then check out the Battle of Watling Street (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Watling_Street). Boudica had aready faced (and defeated) roman forces and had plenty of opportunity to loot equipment from the previous battles. She also had around 23 to 1 numerical advantage, but still her army got routed, as she got overconfident and engaged the romans on the choke point they wanted.

Anyway like the poster above me pointed out, facing enemies with diferent technologies/cultural/militaries is a pretty big selling point of D&D. Only very rarely will you face enemies of your exact same mentality and tactics.:smalltongue:

[Morty]

There are some D&D modules that do the same. When I played through the World's Largest Dungeon a while ago, there was a 'horde' template for dozens or hundreds of lesser enemies. Got quite nasty when we ran into a horde of mohrgs, but luckily we were quite high level by then. :smalltongue:

I wasn't aware of that, but it's good to know.


I did some google search about D&D mobs and found this (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=143.0) on another forum's homebrew section. What do you think?


That is the very same system I talked about earlier, just posted on a different forum. I quite liked reading it, but I don't know how it works in practice and there are some things it doesn't cover. Still, it's a good example of how such rules might look like.
Mind you, mob rules wouldn't cover everything. They work well if the group is packed together, but what if they spread out on a large area and try to flank a lone opponent? What if, say, the PCs run down a street and assassins fire upon them from the rooftops? Such situations would also benefit from some systems to streamline them, but they can't really work the same way as a mob would. It would have to be addressed.

[Tehnar]

No, I don't. You very regularly have low level characters with significant plusses in 3.5.

For example, a Level 1 can have +4 (Attribute) +4 (level) +2 (synergy) +2 (item) = +12 bonus. It can go higher if said character preps certain spells.

IE, a level 1 character is 60% more likely than the standard level 1. A typical DC for that level should be about 15. (or, 1-2 is a failure, 3-20 is success)

When you have a dice spread of 19 points, then +12 is not significant when compared to it. Neither would +25 or even +30 be significantly higher then the dice spread to dismiss them out of hand.

[Rhynn]

When you have a dice spread of 19 points, then +12 is not significant when compared to it. Neither would +25 or even +30 be significantly higher then the dice spread to dismiss them out of hand.

I don't think I understand what you're talking about here at all. Can someone explain this? Why is +25 not significant on a 1-20 spread? Why is +12 not? (How is that a spread of 19 points, not 20, anyway? Is it "it can go up or down 19 points from the bottom/top" ?)

[Cavelcade]

I'm telling you that the rules aren't designed to model skill checks between complete newbies and masters where there isn't at least a 10% chance of failure. Put another way the rules don't say that a newbie has a 10% chance of beating a pro, but rather the rules give you a method for resolving situations where the newbie has at least a 10% chance of success. The DM (and the players) are supposed to decide BEFORE ANY DICE ARE EVEN ROLLED, whether or not there is at least a 10% chance of failure, and therefore the rolling mechanic is applicable to the situation at hand. You are not supposed to use the mechanic to determine the chance of success.

So if there's a 10% chance of the newb beating the pro, the newb should have a 20% chance of beating the pro?:smallconfused:

[Doug Lampert]

I don't think I understand what you're talking about here at all. Can someone explain this? Why is +25 not significant on a 1-20 spread? Why is +12 not? (How is that a spread of 19 points, not 20, anyway? Is it "it can go up or down 19 points from the bottom/top" ?)

Spread is the difference from top to bottom, I consider that fairly obvious as what spread means, so that's why 19 points.

Edited: 12 strikes me as significant, but the person at 12 points lower still outright WINS a contest 7% of the time, so him winning or losing are both still significant chances (7% strikes me as a significant chance).


So if there's a 10% chance of the newb beating the pro, the newb should have a 20% chance of beating the pro?:smallconfused:

Nah, we've established that something that comes out to over 20% if rolled isn't worth rolling because it's CLEARLY and INDESPUTABLY less than a 10% chance.

So something that IS worth rolling because it's a 10.1% chance must have a much higher chance than that.

Maybe you only roll when it's exactly 50-50, I'm not sure although "flip a coin" as the only action resolution mechanic would simplify things. But I'm not sure how I'm supposed to know what has a 10% chance with made up numbers with no clear real world references OTHER than looking at the rules. But I'm somehow supposed to decide PRIOR to looking at the rules and in contradiction to the rules.

Doesn't bother me, if I'm supposed to make **** up for basic action resolution without using the rules then I'll get a better rule set. I can make up circumstance modifiers, I can deal with "we're using a d20 so 'really unlikely but possible' means a 5% chance", but not "decide what the odds are without using anything you know about the odds".

But them I don't know if this 10% was from the playtest packet or the "rule" that you decide prior to looking at the rules, but then I didn't read the most recent one all that carefully.

[noparlpf]

Spread is the difference from top to bottom, I consider that fairly obvious as what spread means, so that's why 19 points.

Edited: 12 strikes me as significant, but the person at 12 points lower still outright WINS a contest 7% of the time, so him winning or losing are both still significant chances (7% strikes me as a significant chance).

Yeah, considering every increment on a d20 is 5%, and 5% is usually the cutoff point for statistical analyses of things.

[Rhynn]

Spread is the difference from top to bottom, I consider that fairly obvious as what spread means, so that's why 19 points.

Edited: 12 strikes me as significant, but the person at 12 points lower still outright WINS a contest 7% of the time, so him winning or losing are both still significant chances (7% strikes me as a significant chance).

I don't think I quite understand the meaning of "significant" here. If your chance to win is 7%, you are 54% likely to lose 20 tests in a row. I think that's a pretty significant chance of losing a pretty huge number of tests, in a RPG context.

Heck, if 5% is the limit for significance, you're 5.5% likely to lose 40 tests in a row at those odds...

Is the argument here really about the specific lowest chance of success that can be had in opposed tests (apparently not accounting for level), and what's a good chance?

What do each of you consider acceptable numbers for that?

[1337 b4k4]

So if there's a 10% chance of the newb beating the pro, the newb should have a 20% chance of beating the pro?

I really don't know how I can make this any clearer. Let me try one more time though.

The rules given allow you to adjudicate a random outcome within some probability range (which from what other people have posted appears to be at a minimum 10% chance of the lowest ranked individual outdoing the highest ranked individual). The rules then also state that you should only use the mechanic to resolve situations that are statistically significant. Since the minimum thing the mechanic can resolve is a newbie with a 10% chance to beat a master, then by definition, that is the line for statistical significance within the mechanic. Therefore, if you have some situation you want to resolve where you feel that the newbie having a 10% chance of beating the master is no appropriate, then you have a situation where:

A) You have already determined at least generally what you believe the statistical result should be
B) You have determined that such a result is outside the range which is statistically significant to the model

Therefore, by the rules as written, you should not be using the mechanic in question to resolve the situation. Either you shouldn't roll at all, or you should use some other mechanic. Every single mechanic has an upper and lower limit which the mechanic will be able to resolve adequately. This does not make the mechanic broken, nor is it an Oberoni fallacy to suggest you should use another mechanic for this situation.

[Synovia]

When you have a dice spread of 19 points, then +12 is not significant when compared to it. Neither would +25 or even +30 be significantly higher then the dice spread to dismiss them out of hand.

The spread of the dice is only meaningful when in the context of the DC being rolled against, and the modifiers present.

If players have +14, and the DC is 15, spread is irrelevant.

In the example, the spread is larger than the modifier, but the modifier is the determining factor in the success.

[Oracle_Hunter]

The rules given allow you to adjudicate a random outcome within some probability range (which from what other people have posted appears to be at a minimum 10% chance of the lowest ranked individual outdoing the highest ranked individual). The rules then also state that you should only use the mechanic to resolve situations that are statistically significant. Since the minimum thing the mechanic can resolve is a newbie with a 10% chance to beat a master, then by definition, that is the line for statistical significance within the mechanic. Therefore, if you have some situation you want to resolve where you feel that the newbie having a 10% chance of beating the master is no appropriate, then you have a situation where:

A) You have already determined at least generally what you believe the statistical result should be
B) You have determined that such a result is outside the range which is statistically significant to the model

Therefore, by the rules as written, you should not be using the mechanic in question to resolve the situation. Either you shouldn't roll at all, or you should use some other mechanic. Every single mechanic has an upper and lower limit which the mechanic will be able to resolve adequately. This does not make the mechanic broken, nor is it an Oberoni fallacy to suggest you should use another mechanic for this situation.
This is vastly amusing :smallbiggrin:

So, we're arguing that the average GM should be able to calculate statistical significance on the fly (answer B) or should abuse the terms of "statistical result" to involve no actual math (answer A)? And this seems like a sensible way to run a railroad?

It is simpler to say that the RAW (as you've interpreted it) is that GMs should only roll when they want the rolling side to have a chance of success. There is literally no math involved on the side of the GM.

So yes, if you're OK with the rules giving them GM only two options (i.e. to declare a 0% chance of success [no roll allowed] or a 10%-or-so chance of success [a roll allowed]) to resolve "edge cases" then you must be happy with the RAW as you've stated it. Some people are happy with that sort of choice, others would like some greater granularity.

[Synovia]

Yeah, considering every increment on a d20 is 5%, and 5% is usually the cutoff point for statistical analyses of things.

in "Statistically significant" and "having a significant chance", the word significant has different implications.

I don't consider 7% to be a significant chance of winning.

[Tehnar]

I don't think I understand what you're talking about here at all. Can someone explain this? Why is +25 not significant on a 1-20 spread? Why is +12 not? (How is that a spread of 19 points, not 20, anyway? Is it "it can go up or down 19 points from the bottom/top" ?)

Since the spread of a d20 is 19 points, a +12 modifier to the roll will not overshadow the expected results you get on a roll.

What that means is if you are going against a fixed DC, the value you get from a d20 and from your bonus to the roll are roughly comparable, or rather that neither dominates.

When you have a low modifier, the d20 (or luck) dominates; when you have a high modifier, it dominates.

This is of course somewhat dependent on the DC, but for the general range of DC's in DnD that go from 10 to 30 it is fairly valid.

[Rhynn]

The spread of the dice is only meaningful when in the context of the DC being rolled against, and the modifiers present.

If players have +14, and the DC is 15, spread is irrelevant.

In the example, the spread is larger than the modifier, but the modifier is the determining factor in the success.

Exactly. This seems to be far and away to be more significant than the spread and its relation to modifiers. We're ultimately always talking about "chance to succeed at X"...

I get that some of you guys are concerned with the range of chances to succeed at X or beat Y at something. So what are acceptable ranges for these chances?

I take it some of you would be happier with a system that's "roll under skill" intead? Is that better? The way I look at it, you end up with a similar result, especially since "roll under skill" systems almost always come with circumstantial modifiers to skills. What you get in the end is "% chance to succeed or win."

[noparlpf]

in "Statistically significant" and "having a significant chance", the word significant has different implications.

I don't consider 7% to be a significant chance of winning.

It's considered a significant chance that the victory of the pro is not actually a given.

[Talakeal]

I am not sure why people are objecting so strongly to the 5E concept of not needing to roll when the outcome is almost predetermined.

Skill and ability checks in D&D have never had auto fail on a 1 or a 20, and people are often allowed to take a 10 or a 20 anyway. So succeeding or failing without rolling isn't a new thing.

Also, GMs have always made the call as to when a roll is required. How often have you seen a DM require someone to roll a test to avoid choking while eating, tripping while walking, mispeaking in ordinary conversation, or tieing their shoes? These are all things which occasionally happen in real life, but not worth taking a test over.

[Kurald Galain]

I am not sure why people are objecting so strongly to the 5E concept of not needing to roll when the outcome is almost predetermined.
That's because they're objecting to something else entirely.

[1337 b4k4]

So, we're arguing that the average GM should be able to calculate statistical significance on the fly (answer B) or should abuse the terms of "statistical result" to involve no actual math (answer A)? And this seems like a sensible way to run a railroad?

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask GMs to be familiar with the statistical range and increments that their tools (the mechanics) are designed to model, and to choose the right tool for the job at hand. Nor is it unreasonable to ask that they be aware of when it is likely more appropriate to not roll at all. Seriously, all of these scenarios people have brought up, the town cripple wrestling the barbarian with 20 STR, Capt. McStumbles out sneaking the master cat burglar etc, they're all situations where rolling the dice is a waste of time. It's not "abusing" the statistics, it's simply acknowledging that at a certain point, rolling checks is wasting everyone's time looking for a minuscule result. After all, there's a non zero chance that your 7 DEX Druid falls flat on his face while waing through the underbrush and breaks a leg, but no one calls it abusing the statistics when the DM decides it's not worth rolling for.


Some people are happy with that sort of choice, others would like some greater granularity.

That's fine, but liking greater granularity doesn't make the system broken. After all, even if you were happy with say a GURPS like system, someone else would be dissatisfied that it doesn't resolve down to 0.001%. At a certain point, you have to decide what you're trying to model and how important it is to be able to model as much as possible. GURPS is about trying to model everything from nano brain surgery to building a sky scraper, D&D is not, and so the fact that it can't model the town cripple and the STR 20 barbarian wrestling doesn't really bother me.


That's because they're objecting to something else entirely.

So what are people objecting to? Because the town cripple wrestling the barbarian and the clumsy padfoot out sneaking the master cat burglar are both situations that I would argue are almost predetermined.

[noparlpf]

So what are people objecting to? Because the town cripple wrestling the barbarian and the clumsy padfoot out sneaking the master cat burglar are both situations that I would argue are almost predetermined.

Can you explain what makes them predetermined?

[1337 b4k4]

Can you explain what makes them predetermined?

Well lets start with why you don't think they are. What is an appropriate chance of success for Tiny Tim to out wrestle Conan do you think? Should he win 5 times out of 100? 1 out of 100? 1 out of 1000? What do you believe the appropriate ratio is?

Now, once you have decided what ratio you feel is appropriate, ask yourself what purpose making your players roll in that scenario serves. Does having Tiny Tim out wrestle Conan serve to further your story in an interesting an meaningful way? If so, what are you going to do when the result comes up as it is statistically likely to? Are you going to roll another 99 or 999 times, or will you just fudge the result any way? If it isn't going to meaningfully impact your story or game, why does it matter what the chances are in a given mechanic? It doesn't matter so the decision should have already been made.

[Kurald Galain]

Or, one that comes up all the time in gameplay, when party members are asked to make a stealth check. They're all competent adventurers and there's no reason to suppose they wouldn't be able to do this.

And yet, frequently, the trained elven ranger will somehow be less stealthy than the coarse dwarven knight in plate mail.

That's not hypothetical, situations like that will come up frequently in gameplay. In fact, a common complaint about 4E in my area is that it's too common for the meek little priestess to be better at intimidating than the roaring towering dragonborn, or for the untrained barbarian to out-arcana the bookish wizard. And the current playtest of 5E makes it more likely.

[Tehnar]

So what happens when the results are not so easily determined, or so obviously one sided, but are still numerically the same?

How about a contest of wills between two wizards (to control the orb of annihilation)? Or should Conan be unable to escape being grappled by the dragon (no chance to roll), as Tiny Tim can't escape Conan.

It comes down to DM arbitration (which is ok for some things), but if I am paying for a game then the most common scenarios should be written in.

EDIT: Agree with Kurald.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

So what are people objecting to? Because the town cripple wrestling the barbarian and the clumsy padfoot out sneaking the master cat burglar are both situations that I would argue are almost predetermined.

They should be, yes. However, saying that they are does not make it so, if the mechanics don't match the expectation.

An archery target 10 feet away in broad daylight with no wind or distractions should be trivial for a trained archer to hit, wouldn't you say? Yet if the rules say the standard for a "trained archer" is someone with a +4 attack modifier with a bow and the target has an AC of 20, it's actually not trivial, and in fact the archer will miss most of the time.

Your response to that situation should not be to say "Oh, well, it's obvious that the archer is practically predetermined to hit that target, so we don't even need to require a roll!" because there's no clear defined line of what exactly "obvious" means--does the same hold if the target is 15 feet away? or if there's a light wind? or if the archer is a dwarf instead of a human? or if the DM has mistaken assumptions about how archery works? Where do you draw the line between "obvious"/"predetermined" and "needs a roll"?

Your response to that situation should be to point out that if the rules don't give the results you'd logically expect based on analogous real-life situations or extrapolations from the flavor, that a situation where you'd expect X to happen ~95% of the time in fact has X happen only ~80% or ~50% or whatever of the time, then those rules are bad and should be changed. Why is it so hard to admit that WotC just didn't do the math on this one?


Does having Tiny Tim out wrestle Conan serve to further your story in an interesting an meaningful way?
[...]
If it isn't going to meaningfully impact your story or game, why does it matter what the chances are in a given mechanic? It doesn't matter so the decision should have already been made.

Determining what impact something has on the story is precisely why we use dice instead of letting the DM dictate everything.

Take three characters: Tiny Tim (an NPC), Conan (a PC), and Smaug (a BBEG). Tiny Tim is level 1 and has Str X, Conan is level 6 and has Str 2X, Smaug is level 11 and has Str 4X. Let's ask a simple question: How often should a character be able to defeat a character 5 levels lower than he is, and half as good at doing [thing] as he is, in a contest of [thing]?

[EDIT: Swordsage'd by Tehnar, and by the same Tiny Tim/Conan/dragon example, no less!]

If the answer is 100% of the time, Conan beats Tiny Tim every single time...but Smaug beats Conan 100% of the time. When Conan goes up against the main villain, he doesn't have a chance against a superior opponent in his own area of specialty, which isn't fair to him. If the answer is somewhere in the middle (say, ~50% of the time), Conan has a chance to escape Smaug...but then Tiny Time has a chance to escape Conan. When Conan goes up against what should be a simple challenge, he gets beaten half the time by an inferior opponent in his own area of specialty through pure chance, which isn't fair to him.

So the chance should be somewhere in the "usually but not always" range...but how do we determine exactly what the chance is for each mechanic/specialty? We use the rules, because they're an impartial arbiter that the DM and PCs can agree on and that both know about ahead of time. If the rules say Conan has an 80% chance to beat Tiny Tim and the DM just ignores those rules to give Conan a victory if the roll comes up in Tiny Tim's favor, will he do the same for Smaug when it's Conan vs. Smaug, or rule in favor of Conan? The players don't know, and if the DM just arbitrarily decides the outcome of rolls based on eyeballing it or seeing what "feels right" then it's not really fair to them at all. There's fudging to prevent TPKs and such (which I don't approve of but which many DMs do) and then there's fudging to make the basic system function, and if you have to do the latter there's no point in using those rules.

[Kurald Galain]

Actually, thinking about it, the current ruleset for 5E is how I generally play Toon or Paranoia. In those games it's supposed to happen that the tiny little mouse somehow hip-throws the massive tiger, or that the trained armed forces goon has his plasma rifle blow up in his face for no reason. Random chaos and fundamentally unreliable abilities are great fun for a slapstick game...

...but not for the heroic or epic fantasy genres.

[Talakeal]

You know, I don't think I would like a system where Conan can out wrestle Smaug. Cling to his back for a moment or escape his claws maybe, but actually pin the dragon down? No.

[noparlpf]

Maybe have different requirements for escaping a grapple with a grapple check and taking control of a grapple? I'm not sure where the cutoffs would go.

[1337 b4k4]

Or, one that comes up all the time in gameplay, when party members are asked to make a stealth check. They're all competent adventurers and there's no reason to suppose they wouldn't be able to do this.

And yet, frequently, the trained elven ranger will somehow be less stealthy than the coarse dwarven knight in plate mail.

But now we're not talking opposed rolls, we're talking individual checks. So what is it that disappoints you here? That your master theif has a 5% chance to fail, or that your dwarf in plate mail has a 5% chance of success? The fact that altogether it means that your dwarf succeeds some number of times more than your master theif is irrelevant because you're not checking relative successes here, you're checking individual chances. And if 5% is too large of a maximum and minimum for you, then your problem is with the granularity of your random number generator, after all if you're only ever going to use a single roll of a single die to resolve everything, then your granularity is limited to the resolution of the die.


Or should Conan be unable to escape being grappled by the dragon (no chance to roll), as Tiny Tim can't escape Conan.

Why should Conan have a chance? Relatively speaking, Conan is Tiny Tim to your dragon, so why should he have a chance? Does Conan simply get a chance that Tiny Tim wouldn't just because he's Conan?


An archery target 10 feet away in broad daylight with no wind or distractions should be trivial for a trained archer to hit, wouldn't you say? Yet if the rules say the standard for a "trained archer" is someone with a +4 attack modifier with a bow and the target has an AC of 20, it's actually not trivial, and in fact the archer will miss most of the time.

Oh for Reorx sake, as I've said a thousand times already, the rules do not tell you what is or isn't trivial. The rules give you mechanics for resolving non trivial uncertain events. Heck the very act of the DM choosing a DC is the DM deciding what is and isn't trivial already, as is the act of determining where Take 10 or Take 20 apply.


Determining what impact something has on the story is precisely why we use dice instead of letting the DM dictate everything.

No no no. Dice are used to resolve uncertain and random outcomes. The impact of those outcomes are either pre-determined, or evolve through play. Baring specific exceptions like a reaction roll, no one rolls dice to determine how important the macguffin is to the plot, or how important it is that Conan lose to Tiny Tim.


Take three characters: Tiny Tim (an NPC), Conan (a PC), and Smaug (a BBEG). Tiny Tim is level 1 and has Str X, Conan is level 6 and has Str 2X, Smaug is level 11 and has Str 4X. Let's ask a simple question: How often should a character be able to defeat a character 5 levels lower than he is, and half as good at doing [thing] as he is, in a contest of [thing]?

...

So the chance should be somewhere in the "usually but not always" range...but how do we determine exactly what the chance is for each mechanic/specialty? We use the rules, because they're an impartial arbiter that the DM and PCs can agree on and that both know about ahead of time. If the rules say Conan has an 80% chance to beat Tiny Tim and the DM just ignores those rules to give Conan a victory if the roll comes up in Tiny Tim's favor, will he do the same for Smaug when it's Conan vs. Smaug, or rule in favor of Conan?

Ok, so what's the correct skill system then? Using your numbers, give me a skill roll system (either of your own design, or from another system) which you feel adequately models the chance of both Tiny Tim defeating Conan, and Conan defeating the dragon, which does not allow tiny Tim an unrealistic chance of beating Conan, while at the same time allowing Conan to have a reasonable and story appropriate chance of beating the dragon, while simultaneously not giving a significant random chance of Conan losing at fighting things 5 levels lower and half his strength, or the dragon losing at fighting things 5 levels lower and half his strength. And it must do this without ever asking the DM to adjudicate any part of the difficulty, whether its setting DCs or determining situational modifiers.

Because as far as I can see, the only real way to do this is to have a logarithmic power curve for all characters, such that the power jump from level 1 to 5 is much greater than the power jump from level 6 to 10, which is greater still than the power jump from 11 to 15. It may be more realistic, or at the very least allow you to better model your perception of the genre, but I don't see too many players being happy with decreasing gains as they level.

[Clawhound]

Let's take a real life example.

Harry Houdini is a spectacularly trained magician. He is in such good shape that a grown man can punch him in the stomach, full force, and he does not go down. He's so good at this that he'll pay the man money if he succeeds.

What are the odds of a boy killing Harry Houdini?

Fact: Houdini died from a ruptured kidney when a boy punched him in the side when he wasn't expecting it.

Conclusion: If you want realism, then your system has to let real stuff happen.

[Draz74]

Let's take a real life example.

Harry Houdini is a spectacularly trained magician. He is in such good shape that a grown man can punch him in the stomach, full force, and he does not go down. He's so good at this that he'll pay the man money if he succeeds.

What are the odds of a boy killing Harry Houdini?

Fact: Houdini died from a ruptured kidney when a boy punched him in the side when he wasn't expecting it.

Conclusion: If you want realism, then your system has to let real stuff happen.

Right, because anything that happened in real life obviously had at least a 5% chance of occurring ... :smallamused:

[1337 b4k4]

Right, because anything that happened in real life obviously had at least a 5% chance of occurring ...

Not at all, but if you were playing a game in which you were the boy and the DM threw you up against Houdini, would you really be pleased to have to roll your d100000 just so that you can lose the fight most of the time, or would you rather that if your DM was going to make you roll, you at least be rolling for a result you have a moderate chance of getting?

That is to say, who do you think has the least fun at the table, the master theif who fails his stealth roll once every 20 guards, or his dwarven buddy in plate mail who under a more realistic system wouldn't pass but once every 100 guards (and therefore might as well never roll because seriously, who the heck wants to roll 100 stealth checks in a night?)

[Grod_The_Giant]

That is to say, who do you think has the least fun at the table, the master theif who fails his stealth roll once every 20 guards, or his dwarven buddy in plate mail who under a more realistic system wouldn't pass but once every 100 guards (and therefore might as well never roll because seriously, who the heck wants to roll 100 stealth checks in a night?)
The thief who routinely fails things he should be good at.

Sure, some situations are obviously supposed to be a wash-- Tiny Tim verses Conan. But the rules should make it clear when they should and should not be used, if that's the intention. If not, if they continue to advance the idea that skills work similarly to other versions of D&D, where large numerical modifiers mitigate the d20's randomness... you're going to get routine "You try to sneak past the guards? Roll stealth," routine upsets, and routinely upset players.

[1337 b4k4]

The thief who routinely fails things he should be good at.

Just to be clear here, you're telling me that if you were playing a fighter who only ever missed on a 1 on a d20, that you would have less fun a the table than if you were playing a jester who only ever hit on a 99 on a d100, because fighters are supposed to be good at fighting and jesters are not? Is that what you're saying here?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Oh for Reorx sake, as I've said a thousand times already, the rules do not tell you what is or isn't trivial. The rules give you mechanics for resolving non trivial uncertain events.

Incorrect: "The rules" can be set up that way, or they can be set up to resolve all events, as they have been in prior editions. In AD&D, 3e, and 4e DCs are set either based on PC level or based on the task itself, with optional circumstance modifiers, rather than being set entirely by the DM; in 3e and 4e, and the take 10/20 rules are clearly laid out and don't require more than token interpretation. The fact that the current WotC dev team can't design their way out of a paper bag and is falling back on "Ask your DM!" doesn't excuse the fact that many (if not most) games have math that actually works and doesn't have to be ignored in unusual circumstances.


Baring specific exceptions like a reaction roll, no one rolls dice to determine how important the macguffin is to the plot, or how important it is that Conan lose to Tiny Tim.

I didn't say importance, I said impact. If it's very important that Conan muscles his way past Random Ensorcelled Minion #17 to kill Thoth-Amon before he completes his dark ritual, then whether Conan blows past the minion, struggles for a bit to get past him, or is stopped entirely has a huge impact on the outcome.


Ok, so what's the correct skill system then? Using your numbers, give me a skill roll system (either of your own design, or from another system) which you feel adequately models the chance of both Tiny Tim defeating Conan, and Conan defeating the dragon, which does not allow tiny Tim an unrealistic chance of beating Conan, while at the same time allowing Conan to have a reasonable and story appropriate chance of beating the dragon, while simultaneously not giving a significant random chance of Conan losing at fighting things 5 levels lower and half his strength, or the dragon losing at fighting things 5 levels lower and half his strength. And it must do this without ever asking the DM to adjudicate any part of the difficulty, whether its setting DCs or determining situational modifiers.

How about any system that doesn't use bounded accuracy? :smallwink:

Seriously, though, any system that takes both talent and training into account, as well as other relevant modifiers like size, speed, etc., and gives them a greater weight than randomness as you level works out mostly fine. Example, spoilered for length:Take 3e: Tiny Tim is a level 1 commoner with +0 BAB and 8 Str (grapple -1), Conan is a level 6 barbarian with +6 BAB and 20 Str (while raging) and Improved Grapple (grapple +15), Smaug Jr. is a very young (11 HD) red dragon with +11 BAB and Str boosted to 32 to have double Conan's Str (grapple +25).

Let's add two more characters to contrast with the non-expert, the mid-level expert, and the high-level expert: Fafhrd, a 6th-level fighter with +6 BAB, 16 Str (no rage), and no Improved Grapple (grapple +9), and the Goblin King, an 11-HD Str 32 goblinoid with no special training (grapple +14).

Tiny Tim has a 1.5% chance to beat Conan, Conan has a 14% chance to escape Smaug Jr., so non-expert vs. higher-level expert is barely a competition and expert vs. higher-level expert is challenging but not impossible for the expert. Tiny Tim has a 12% chance to beat Fafhrd, Fafhrd has a 1.5% chance to beat Smaug Jr., so non-expert vs. mid-level non-expert is actually a challenge and the mid-level non-expert gets wrecked by the higher-level expert. Fafhrd has a 26% chance to beat the Goblin King and Conan has a 58% chance to beat the Goblin King, so mid-level non-expert vs. higher-level non-expert gives the underdog a noticeable chance of victory while the mid-level expert is actually better off than a higher-level non-expert.

What does that mean, in non-math terms? Someone who's trained at [thing] beats up weaker people who aren't trained at [thing] and has an even chance against stronger people who aren't trained at [thing], while having difficulty against stronger people who are trained at [thing]. Someone who isn't trained at [thing] is threatened by weaker people who aren't trained at [thing], challenged by stronger people who aren't trained at [thing], and even-to-thrashed by people who are trained at [thing]. This fits our expectations fairly well, and occurs because (A) there are more than just two modifiers involved, enabling us to differentiate people who are built for [thing] from people who are merely good at [thing] by virtue of level from people who aren't good at [thing], and (B) the modifiers are significant compared to the dice (able to go from 1/4 of the RNG at 1st level to greater than the RNG by 6-7th level, as opposed to capping out at around 2/3 the RNG in 5e).


Because as far as I can see, the only real way to do this is to have a logarithmic power curve for all characters, such that the power jump from level 1 to 5 is much greater than the power jump from level 6 to 10, which is greater still than the power jump from 11 to 15. It may be more realistic, or at the very least allow you to better model your perception of the genre, but I don't see too many players being happy with decreasing gains as they level.

You'll note in the example above that prior editions actually do have somewhat of a logarithmic base growth curve for most numbers: you gain +5 BAB or ranks or whatever over 5 levels, but you can start with high stats at low levels and it takes a long time to raise them by the same amount. The remainder is made up by feats, class features, etc., so someone who actually focuses on something can achieve super-logarithmic growth, one of the reasons D&D heavily favors specialization.

[Stubbazubba]

Ok, so what's the correct skill system then? Using your numbers, give me a skill roll system (either of your own design, or from another system) which you feel adequately models the chance of both Tiny Tim defeating Conan, and Conan defeating the dragon, which does not allow tiny Tim an unrealistic chance of beating Conan, while at the same time allowing Conan to have a reasonable and story appropriate chance of beating the dragon, while simultaneously not giving a significant random chance of Conan losing at fighting things 5 levels lower and half his strength, or the dragon losing at fighting things 5 levels lower and half his strength. And it must do this without ever asking the DM to adjudicate any part of the difficulty, whether its setting DCs or determining situational modifiers.

You need Strength categories that put a hard stop on what "normally" happens. So you have six levels of Strength: Child, Man, Dwarf, Troll, Giant, God, or whatever you want to call all of these. You are allowed to make checks one skill category above you, but you take Disadvantage if you do so, and likewise Advantage on checks one category below you. In addition, there are Plot Points or Hope or Fate or what-have-you; a meta-game, narrative currency that PCs use to power their powers (heroics, it turns out, are inherently one-sided; they flow to the hero, whether coming or going, therefore PCs have to have some asymmetry here, though particularly threatening enemies may have similar powers).

Tiny Tim has Child strength, Conan has Dwarf (class ability, Mighty Thews), and Smaug has Giant. When Tiny Tim attempts to wrestle Conan, dice are not rolled, because the strength categories serves as a filter before you get to the rolling.

Conan has a class ability called Feat of Strength. For one PP, he treats his STR category as one higher than it is for one action (or one scene/encounter, depending on how stingy the game is with PP). So, to escape from Smaug's grapple (note that this is not to pin Smaug down, which would be an opposed roll very very skewed to Smaug's side), is a DC 20 (10+Smaug's STR bonus of 10) check, which Conan has to make with Disadvantage. If his STR bonus is +6, he has a 25% chance to make that check. If a party member did something to distract or weaken Smaug, you might even give Conan an Advantage to cancel out his Disadvantage, which raises his chances to 35%. So, Conan escaping from a dragon's grapple is a big deal that takes some focus, but I'd say 1/4 or 7/20 chance is pretty appropriate, all things considered.

Now, if Conan just wanted to straight up wrestle Smaug, he's an idiot. But let's say he does so. He uses Feat of Strength, and makes his roll with Disadvantage while Smaug makes his with Advantage. My AnyDice-fu fails me at the moment, so I can't say exactly what Conan's odds are, but they're very, very bad, and then Conan is back to freeing himself from the grapple.

This models exactly what we'd expect to happen in both situations while still leaving room for mighty feats of Strength on the part of the PCs. No D&D character can win a fight one-on-one with an enemy 5 levels higher in the first place, so winning a wrestling match against Smaug is a ludicrous bar to set.

So, in a nutshell, what it takes to make the system we're looking for is; hard and fast walls between levels of ability, and exceptions to those walls for PCs.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Just to be clear here, you're telling me that if you were playing a fighter who only ever missed on a 1 on a d20, that you would have less fun a the table than if you were playing a jester who only ever hit on a 99 on a d100, because fighters are supposed to be good at fighting and jesters are not? Is that what you're saying here?
Well, I'd be pissed off if I wanted to be the guy who was good at fighting and naively chose to play a "Fighter" instead of the mechanically superior "Jester."

But that's really a separate question: does the game correctly communicate how it is supposed to work. At the moment I believe we're trying to divine precisely what it means to be "good" at your job.
More expansively, you can break the question down into these parts:
- Should Skill/Ability Triumph Over Luck?
If you're the world's greatest archer, should you ever miss hitting a target? If you've never picked up a bow in your life should you ever be able to hit it? If you put those two men at an archery contest, should the novice every be able to win?

Once you get decide on which of those questions should be "sometimes" you can start using math to get your probabilities right. Everything else is simply setting boundary conditions.

- How Useful is Training?
Outside of the "Cripple vs. Conan" situation, you need to figure out how much training helps you in a task. If you put two trained swordsmen together, how much advantage does more experienced swordsman have over the lesser? Can raw talent make up for lesser experience or is skill absolutely better?

Here is where you begin tailoring your Skill system (and, sometimes, your Ability system). You can go with Skill dominates (3.x skill-checks after LV 1), Ability dominates (3.x skill-checks before LV 1), Skill is irreplaceable (3.x "trained only" abilities), or some other mix. One thing you don't want to do is to code a half-dozen conflicting sets of assumptions within a single game -- it gets confusing!

- How Controlling are Outside Factors?
How much does size matter in a grapple? Is it possible to pin a greased opponent? Can a drunk-but-skilled archer still hit a target? How skilled would be have to be?

This should largely another boundary condition question since it is easy to answer Outside Factor questions as either "yes" or "no." However, many systems enjoy adding "miscellaneous modifiers" to try to encourage Players to try awesome things that would normally be implausible, if not impossible. TBH, quibbling over these factors is what is causing a lot of the argument in this thread at them moment -- one person's "that's impossible" is another's "merely difficult."
In short, the argument is over the power of Luck over Abilities/Skills, the power of Training, and the power of Outside Factors. Many people seem frustrated that Luck dominates (i.e. typically has a greater influence on outcome) than "game scores" such as Abilities or Skills in the standard d20 game. This is partly due to a betrayal of expectations ("why did Conan just lose that arm-wrestling contest?); you can fix that by using DM Fiat to avoid the mechanics -- and yes, it is still DM Fiat even if the books tell you to use it.

IMHO it is dumb to pay for rules which both give the DM mechanics and instructions to "do whatever to make them work right." That's paying WotC to let you host a Magic Tea Party which you can really do for free.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Just to be clear here, you're telling me that if you were playing a fighter who only ever missed on a 1 on a d20, that you would have less fun a the table than if you were playing a jester who only ever hit on a 99 on a d100, because fighters are supposed to be good at fighting and jesters are not? Is that what you're saying here?

What? I don't... that's not what I... if my concept says my character is either good or bad at something, and my choices within the rules suggest that my character should be either good or bad at that thing, and then in actual play that turns out differently, then yes, I will be upset.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Now, if Conan just wanted to straight up wrestle Smaug, he's an idiot. But let's say he does so. He uses Feat of Strength, and makes his roll with Disadvantage while Smaug makes his with Advantage. My AnyDice-fu fails me at the moment, so I can't say exactly what Conan's odds are, but they're very, very bad, and then Conan is back to freeing himself from the grapple.

1d20+10 with advantage vs. 1d20+6 with disadvantage gives Conan about a 6% chance of victory.


This models exactly what we'd expect to happen in both situations while still leaving room for mighty feats of Strength on the part of the PCs.
[...]
So, in a nutshell, what it takes to make the system we're looking for is; hard and fast walls between levels of ability, and exceptions to those walls for PCs.

Assuming "for PCs" includes "for plot-relevant NPCs" if you're giving out Plot Points, I think that's a perfectly workable system and is a heck of a lot better than the original tiered skills proposal Mearls or Monte made..

[Kurald Galain]

What? I don't... that's not what I... if my concept says my character is either good or bad at something, and my choices within the rules suggest that my character should be either good or bad at that thing, and then in actual play that turns out differently, then yes, I will be upset.
That is precisely the point, yes.

What some people seem to be missing here is that it's not about whether it can happen that Tiny Tim outgrapples Conan, or that the loud dwarf does better on stealth checks than the trained elven ranger, but it's about how often this happens. And by the current 5E ruleset, the answer is "about one time out of five".

There is a huge difference between "it has happened precisely once in real life that a trained magician gets kidney rupture from a boy's punch" and "the boy beats Houdini at escape artist checks 20% of the time". The former is reality, the latter is 5E.

[huttj509]

That is precisely the point, yes.

What some people seem to be missing here is that it's not about whether it can happen that Tiny Tim outgrapples Conan, or that the loud dwarf does better on stealth checks than the trained elven ranger, but it's about how often this happens. And by the current 5E ruleset, the answer is "about one time out of five".

There is a huge difference between "it has happened precisely once in real life that a trained magician gets kidney rupture from a boy's punch" and "the boy beats Houdini at escape artist checks 20% of the time". The former is reality, the latter is 5E.

About one time out of five, in the subset of situations where the DM determines a roll is appropriate.

The way the rules are currently written:

Player: I want to armwrestle the captain of the guard.

DM - what's your immediate reaction, given the character and the captain, in the narrative of the game?

"Not gonna happen" - no roll, result happens
"might work" - Roll
"probably gonna succeed" - Roll
"Yeah, you win" - no roll, result happens

It's similar to how, if the reaction is "not gonna happen," the DM might set an impossible DC.

If an NPC tries to attempt something that's clown shoes ridiculous, that probably shouldn't be handled with a d20, more a d100.

Now, the intent could be better conveyed in the rulebook, absolutely. But listen to the latest podcast (Blood of Gruumsh found here (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4pod/20130306)), at about 12:30, when they talk about the rerelease of ODnD, and you will get the context that the developers are aiming towards. It gets into discussion of "RPG as rules" vs "RPG as players," the barrier to entry of a dense hyperdetailed tome as the introduction, and at around 17:00 it's explicitly stated that that's something they're trying to address with the direction of Next.

Should it take listening to the podcast to get an idea of what the developers are going for? No, hence my comment about it being able to be better conveyed in-book.

[Kurald Galain]

About one time out of five, in the subset of situations where the DM determines a roll is appropriate.

Yes. So where every other RPG on the market has the DM say "the party tries to sneak, so everybody roll a stealth check now", the 5E DM must instead say "the party tries to sneak, so the elf automaticall succeeds, and the dwarf automatically fails, and everybody else may roll a stealth check".

This is bad design. It requires that the check works differently if the elf or dwarf isn't present; leads to lots of table variance; and puts extra work in the hands of the DM; and all-too-easily leads to such cliches as "dwarves are never stealthy" even if the player put some feats/items into trying just that.

As Pair-O-Dice notes, other systems have no problem at all with this situation. Clearly a mechanic can be written that deals with it well. However, instead of giving us a good mechanic, 5E gives us a shoddy mechanic and suggests that the DM decides when or when not to apply it. It's like you buy a car, and the dealer says that it has only three wheels, but that's okay because you get to decide what roads you use it on. And from professional game designers I simply expect better than that.

[Stubbazubba]

Leaving alone the things Kurald just brought up, there are still all the things in the game that have no real world analogue, where the GM is going to be completely guessing on what's appropriate to roll and what's not. Things like fooling a wizard with illusion magic, or lifting a troll with a catapult, or magically enhanced stealth or diplomacy. At that point the GM's judgment calls get far less consistent. Why not just make a system that addresses all of these things, instead of putting it all on the shoulders of the GM? Such a sloppy rule, with the DM band-aid tacked on to make it even usable, (this generation's rule 0 now comes with the developer's rubber stamp, how comforting), is a burden to all groups when there are objectively cleaner, better alternatives.

[Cavelcade]

In this week's L&L they talk about how every spellcaster being a sorcerer (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130311) means that spells don't have to be autowin buttons.


This is a confusing article to me, I won't lie. It certainly doesn't amke me feel any better about the LFQW trend.

[Oracle_Hunter]

In this week's L&L they talk about how every spellcaster being a sorcerer (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130311) means that spells don't have to be autowin buttons.
Oh, this one had some gems :smallbiggrin:

We've talked about managing dead levels, a level in which you gain nothing aside from hit points, versus the creeping complexity that comes with piling on character abilities. This topic is critical to managing the transition from a simple option to a complex one, based on what kind of character you like to play.

Our current thinking is to do some renovation to the classes and create the opportunity to add a new ability or improve an existing one where we can. For instance, as a fighter you might have the option to take a new maneuver or improve one that you already have. A fighter's maneuver might increase accuracy, and then it can be improved to grant a larger bonus.
Yes, by all means fix the "dead level problem" by giving Fighters bigger bonuses and Wizards more spells. Those are equivalent, right :smallsigh:


Speaking of things being easier to manage, complexity is a big issue for me. I've heard far too many stories about people trying to play tabletop D&D and giving up on it. We know that many people get into D&D by finding someone to teach them, but why design a game that requires this when it does not need to be the case? Giving people the ability to easily jump into the game without guidance from an experienced player and to make the transition from a simple game to a complex one is a key part of a design. And as we move ahead, you can expect it'll be a huge focus after the classes and races are out there being playtested.
This shows the sort of "quality thinking" going into 5e design.

Dev 1: Hey, we need to make a game that is accessible to new players. It turns out they don't like figuring out trap builds and poorly written rules for some reason.

Dev 2: Weird. Well, how about we make a really complicated system and then we can work on making it simpler.

Dev 1: Wouldn't it be easier to make a simple core and then add on more complex modules to add on later?

Dev 2: That's crazy talk!
More of the same from my perspective. I expect a full reboot of the whole damn "system" at the one year anniversary :smallsigh:

[Synovia]

Yes. So where every other RPG on the market has the DM say "the party tries to sneak, so everybody roll a stealth check now", the 5E DM must instead say "the party tries to sneak, so the elf automaticall succeeds, and the dwarf automatically fails, and everybody else may roll a stealth check".

My issue with having a system that works even with the most trivial examples (oh, Conan gets top dice of 3 of 1d20+10 while Tiny Tim gets lowest of 3 dice of 1d20-5), is it means that pretty much every trivial thing that our heroic characters do turns into a skill check.

DM's seem to love to turn everything that CAN be rolled for into something that should be rolled for. And for some reason, the DCs seem to escalate as you get higher level.

When I say "Conan takes the glass goblet and smashes it on the ground" I don't want to roll a check.

[Grac]

{{scrubbed}}

[Clawhound]

The purpose of rules is to model something.

The first rule of an RPG is that the DM uses the rules, but is not bound by them. Every social RPG has this rule. Any game exists within the scenarios that the DM originates. This is because the DM makes decisions about fun, and fun doesn't fit well into a rules system.

Secondly, improvisation is part of an RPG. The DM may have designed a nasty first encounter, but when it turns into a joke because of something that a PC said, the DM rolls with it.

Third, having a loose rules system can lead to absurdities, but having a firm one leads to absurdities as well, just with more rules. If the DM will be continuously overruling the rules because they don't make sense, then you may as well just have the DM use his best judgement.

Fourth, DM's use their best judgement anyway, not matter what the rules say. You can start the game with "The DM must follow all rules," and that will be the first rule thrown out. After all, we are talking about a game where "house rules" is normal.

[Oracle_Hunter]

The purpose of rules is to model something.
I disagree.

The purpose of rules in a RPG is to resolve narrative disputes. When a Player says "I jump over the gap" and the DM says "no you don't" you use the rules to decide which narrative is correct.

The decision to "model" something must be secondary here or everyone will be spending a lot of time learning rules for things nobody cares about.

[Sebastrd]

Leaving alone the things Kurald just brought up, there are still all the things in the game that have no real world analogue, where the GM is going to be completely guessing on what's appropriate to roll and what's not. Things like fooling a wizard with illusion magic, or lifting a troll with a catapult, or magically enhanced stealth or diplomacy. At that point the GM's judgment calls get far less consistent. Why not just make a system that addresses all of these things, instead of putting it all on the shoulders of the GM? Such a sloppy rule, with the DM band-aid tacked on to make it even usable, (this generation's rule 0 now comes with the developer's rubber stamp, how comforting), is a burden to all groups when there are objectively cleaner, better alternatives.

There's a balance to be maintained between simplicity and realism. It continually astonishes me how people who play a game with concepts as abstract as hit points and character classes can get so bent out of shape over niggling details like this.

It's like complaining that comic book heroes are all in phenomenally good shape and have perfect bodies while overlooking the hulk juggling semis and jumping 3 miles.

[Frozen_Feet]

Oracle_Hunter and Clawhound, you are both right. The tendency to use random chance for conflict resolution originates from wargames - there, despite of all the other rules, an argument could be made for either side of a conflict to win. To solve this, and to model luck, dice were used so the game could move on. I think this is where the role of a game master originates as well - when both parties have an interest in winning, a third, impartial party was required to interprete rules fairly, so that neither side would use rules-monkeying to get an unfair or unrealistic advantage.

Things started getting weird when this impartial third party essentially became a side in the game unto himself.

But rules are also used for modeling somethings - namely, the kind of narrative desired from the game. Wargames have a vested interest in being somewhat realistic, so gamers can use their actual strategic knowledge for repeating known military maneuvers. Roleplaying games have a vested interested in supporting conventions of the genre they are aiming for first, and realism second so that people can relate to the game events. (That is the reason why humans are the primary viewpoint characters in almost all games. 1st Ed AD&D DMG explained this in lenght).

But beyond modeling and conflict resolution, there's a third factor to rules: simplicity and ease of use. Which kind of a game you're making affects the relative importance of modeling reality, modeling decired narrative, solving conflicts and simplicity.

[Zeful]

What? I don't... that's not what I... if my concept says my character is either good or bad at something, and my choices within the rules suggest that my character should be either good or bad at that thing, and then in actual play that turns out differently, then yes, I will be upset.

You addressed a question by responding that a 5% chance of failing is worse than a 1% chance of success. If you thought the statement meant something else (and it didn't), of course confusion is an understandable response.

[Frozen_Feet]

Yeah, anyone arguing against 5% chance to succeed forgets why they were included in the first place: so that the underdog (often the players) has even that much of a chance to make the difference. This was explicit in 1st Ed AD&D.

The rule existed for the player characters - so that the players can attempt crazy stuff and have a tiny chance of succeeding.

Though I do sympathize with the counter-argument - that when applied to monsters too, specialist PCs will fail too often - I'd be careful about going too far in the other direction. If PCs can be unbeatable, monsters can be so too. Who suffers more?

I do think the problem could be easily solved with the advantage system, or extended skill checks/contests like suggested earlier in the thread. Multiple dierolls gives an edge to the person who can succeed more often. As pointed out, that's why combat doesn't need fixing.

[1337 b4k4]

"The rules" can be set up that way, or they can be set up to resolve all events, as they have been in prior editions.

I don't believe this has ever been true. 3rd edition was the closest the rules ever came to "resolve all the events" and even then, all it takes is a cursory read through any optimization board to see where that system breaks down. As for 4e, just a few posts up we had someone talking about how their group complains that their meek cleric out intimidates the barbarian on a regular basis. So it sounds to me like the D&D skill system has always had trouble resolving everything, and works much better if you use it within the bounds that it was intended for.


Seriously, though, any system that takes both talent and training into account, as well as other relevant modifiers like size, speed, etc., and gives them a greater weight than randomness as you level works out mostly fine.

Sure, start throwing in tomes of modifiers and yes, you can account for anything, GURPS being the perfect example of this. You could also replace your skill system with a full physics simulator and do an even better job. But one of the most common complaints of both 3.x and GURPS is the complexity of the skill system and the amount of work involved. And even in your example, Tiny Tim is still going to outwrestle Conan 1 in every 100 fights, that seems reasonable to you?


The remainder is made up by feats, class features, etc., so someone who actually focuses on something can achieve super-logarithmic growth, one of the reasons D&D heavily favors specialization

It [favoring specialization and system mastery] also one of the things that many people dislike about D&D, especially 3.x D&D.


When Tiny Tim attempts to wrestle Conan, dice are not rolled, because the strength categories serves as a filter before you get to the rolling.

So is the real problem here not that you dislike the rules saying "sometimes, you don't roll because it's outside the resolution of the rolling mechanic", but rather that you dislike that the rules don't give you hard and bright white lines that say "At this point, you shouldn't bother rolling at all"? That is, WotC could solve this entire debacle in your eyes by saying perhaps "If the difference in attribute scores between opponents is > X, you shouldn't roll and the person with the higher attribute score automatically wins an opposed check"?


Many people seem frustrated that Luck dominates (i.e. typically has a greater influence on outcome) than "game scores" such as Abilities or Skills in the standard d20 game.

On the other hand, many people are frustrated by systems where they have to invest a lot of time, energy and character resources into specializing for corner case scenarios, feeling that when it come time to attempt something, they should always have a relatively reasonable chance of success because that's how they move the game forward. That is to say that yes, it might be unrealistic that the plate mail clad dwarf will mathematically out sneak the master thief 10% of the time, but generating a system that handles the 1% of the cases where it's important to compare the sneaking ability of your master thief and your dwarf is less important than a system that allows you to have your dwarf sneak by the castle guards on a fairly regular basis because that's a more common check.

Let me try and be clearer here. To me (and to my players), the fact that a master thief is less sneaky than a plate mail dwarf using the skill mechanic is more or less irrelevant because I have never in the years we've been playing called for a sneaking contest between the dwarf and a master thief.

On the other hand, it is more important to us that as the party sneaks around the castle that the dwarf has a ~10-15% chance of sneaking by the guards even in plate mail because that roll is called for all the time and it's more fun and interesting for the dwarf to have a chance of success that's likely to show up in a night of play, and if he didn't have a chance like that, no one would ever play the plate mail clad dwarf.

There are two ways to resolve this. The GURPS/3.x way is to have a system loaded with skills and modifers and a consistent, realistic simulator to resolve those skills and modifiers. The problem is either you need to work really hard at optimizing and specializing, or else your system needs to give a lot of character resources to allow you to broaden out successfully (I believe to model a 1e D&D character in GURPS you need something like 200-300 CP, and god help you if you want to model a wizard)

The alternative is to do it the pre 3.x and current 5e way which is to choose a less realistic and precise resolution system and offer advice on when and where to ignore the system.


IMHO it is dumb to pay for rules which both give the DM mechanics and instructions to "do whatever to make them work right." That's paying WotC to let you host a Magic Tea Party which you can really do for free.

IMHO it's pretty dumb to pay for rules for a game period these days. Let's face it, at this point, you can find for free online any number of rules and simulators to simulate anything you want. At the very least, if you want a rules set that adequately, accurately and realistically models a grudge match between Tiny Tim, Conan and Smaug, buying any D&D rules set rather than say GURPS is silly since GURPS will do it a thousand times better than even 3.x

But that level of realism and precision isn't what many (or I would argue, most) D&D players want. They want their plate mail clad dwarf to have a good chance of getting past the guards. They want their level 1 halfling to have a brush with the Great Wyrm and live to tell the tale about it by the skin of their teeth. And the players want the real world chances of that "by the skin of your teeth" escape to be more frequent than what "skin of your teeth" would translate to in reality.

As you point out, there are two ways to do this. You can go the way GURPS does, the way 3.x did and the way you appear to want 5e to go, with a realism simulator and then lists of modifiers, luck mechanics and special PC powers to alter the dice being rolled, or you can do it the way older versions of D&D did, the way that many lighter weights RPGs do, and the way that 5e currently does, which is declare a general mechanic that abstracts away all those luck mechanics and simply gives the results that you want for individual PCs, and tells the DM to just hand wave away the corner cases that don't work the way you want.


What? I don't... that's not what I... if my concept says my character is either good or bad at something, and my choices within the rules suggest that my character should be either good or bad at that thing, and then in actual play that turns out differently, then yes, I will be upset.

So what then is the fundamental difference between the master Fighter that misses 1 out of every 20 attacks, and the master Thief that botches 1 out of 20 sneaks that makes the fighter OK to play, but the Thief un-fun? To be fair, if you hate D&D's combat system as well, that's fine, but then what we're really talking about is that you find D&D as a whole (and 1d20 based resolution in general) to be broken, which is a larger issue than just "the skills system is broken"


What some people seem to be missing here is that it's not about whether it can happen that Tiny Tim outgrapples Conan, or that the loud dwarf does better on stealth checks than the trained elven ranger, but it's about how often this happens. And by the current 5E ruleset, the answer is "about one time out of five".

Right, but as I said earlier in this post, it's also a matter of how often it matters that it happens. When I as a DM call for a roll, is it more important that each roll accurately and precisely model a world such that every result and combination of results is within the bounds of reality and expectation, or is it more important that each roll generate ( or have a high probability of generating) an interesting result? That is, at what point am I wasting mine and my players time to roll for something that is just easier to hand wave? 5 in 100? 1 in 100? 1 in 1000?


Yes. So where every other RPG on the market has the DM say "the party tries to sneak, so everybody roll a stealth check now", the 5E DM must instead say "the party tries to sneak, so the elf automaticall succeeds, and the dwarf automatically fails, and everybody else may roll a stealth check".

Now here is something I agree on. D&D should provide a mechanic for resolving group skill checks that is different for individual skill checks, because in this scenario, individual skill checks are irrelevant. What you're trying to resolve is not "Did Borimir sneak past the guards? Now did Legolas?" What you're trying to ask is "Did the Fellowship" sneak past the guards," and D&D badly needs rules for treating a collection of individuals acting in concert as a single unit, both from a skills and a combat standpoint.


As Pair-O-Dice notes, other systems have no problem at all with this situation. Clearly a mechanic can be written that deals with it well.

Yes, a mechanic can be written. You can also run a game of D&D using a physics simulator if you want. Everything is about trade offs, and you'll note that each system which handles this with better resolution also adds more and more and more modifiers, situational adjustments, skills and modifiers and then tacks on additional mechanics that allow PCs to not be held to the strict standards of simulation. 5e has taken the approach of going with a simple abstract mechanic and saying "to hell with simulation, if you want a realistic result that this mechanic doesn't generate, use a different resolution mechanic". And honestly, there's nothing wrong with that, especially if they accomplish their "modularity" approach and give you an "All the Things" resolution mechanic for the people who really want it. Alternatively, I'd be happy with a complex skill mechanic and a simplified module, but in general, it's easier to add complexity than it is to remove it.


uch a sloppy rule, with the DM band-aid tacked on to make it even usable, (this generation's rule 0 now comes with the developer's rubber stamp, how comforting), is a burden to all groups when there are objectively cleaner, better alternatives.

Aside from rule 0 always coming with the developer's rubber stamp (see where OD&D tells you to ignore die rolls that don't make sense), define "objectively better", because the only way you could say that other systems (such as 3.x or GURPS) are "objectively better" is if your objective measurement is "simulating a version of reality with a single mechanic that resolves everything from Tiny Tim wrestling Conan to Thor wrestling the Wyrm at the End of the World". To me, a mechanic that can be easily explained, understood and run without knowing or mastering a hundred page list of skills and modifiers is objectively better at being a mechanic that facilitates an easy to pick up and go good time.

[Flickerdart]

So, the great warrior Conan (max human strength of 20) wants to wrestle with a peasant (average human strength of 10). His strength is too high to roll, right? He beats the peasant every time?

What happens when Conan wants to wrestle a dragon (strength 30)? It's the same disparity, but surely as the strongest warrior possible by the rules, he should get to have a go at it, right?

[Oracle_Hunter]

Let me try and be clearer here. To me (and to my players), the fact that a master thief is less sneaky than a plate mail dwarf using the skill mechanic is more or less irrelevant because I have never in the years we've been playing called for a sneaking contest between the dwarf and a master thief.

On the other hand, it is more important to us that as the party sneaks around the castle that the dwarf has a ~10-15% chance of sneaking by the guards even in plate mail because that roll is called for all the time and it's more fun and interesting for the dwarf to have a chance of success that's likely to show up in a night of play, and if he didn't have a chance like that, no one would ever play the plate mail clad dwarf.
Now this is a legitimate complaint: The Decker Problem.
The Decker Problem has its origins in Shadowrun. In earlier editions of the game the rules practically required that some members of the party "sit out" portions of the adventure while other members did their thing and vice-versa. To wit, dedicated Deckers (cybernetically-enhanced hackers) were the only ones who could go onto The Matrix and come back with a reasonable chance of survival (let alone success) and such characters tended not to have the resources to survive physical conflict. As a result, Shadowrun GMs with Deckers were forced to devote a good deal of time preparing and running "Decker Only" portions of the mission during which the rest of the party did nothing and run "Everyone Else" missions which the Deckers sat out. Many Shadowrun GMs either banned Deckers, ran "Decker Only" games or made some kludge to permit everyone to be a "combat Decker" by radically reducing the difficulty of decking.

To amplify the concern displayed above: in party-based games, there is a tension between specialists and non- (or different!) specialists within the same party.

What you've described above is that Stealth (or any other "specialist skill") needs to be reasonably accessible to those who did not specialize in that skill specifically in order for the party to continue the mission. As a result you've latched onto the high variance of the d20 as the appropriate way to handle that problem without recognizing that it tends to leave specialists out in the cold. That is natural -- in your own words, you've never been in or run a game with a specialist anything -- but this does not mean there are not people who prize specialization and play D&D.

There are many other ways to solve The Decker Problem than to over-rely on the power of the d20 to overwhelm skills. Examples include:
- Allowing the Specialist to make a "group check" (at some penalty) to cover for the generalists.

- Raising the floor value of all characters such that they will not always fail easy Specialist checks.

- Making the game more amenable to party-splitting such that Specialists can do their own thing
In short, there is a problem where party-based games force non-specialist to work within specialist spheres but the answer isn't to nerf the abilities of specialists or rely on unstructured DM Fiat.

Also: I think you underrate the value of rules to a gaming experience. While you can certainly find some rules to play some sort of game for free, a well-designed rules set can contribute a great deal towards making a game produce the sort of experience the Players wanted when they sat down at the table. More importantly, they can help inexperienced GMs learn to run the sort of game their Players want without having extraordinary talent and insight on how games work.

Support Your Local Game Developer! :smallsmile:

[Clawhound]

I'll double down on usability.

The publicly stated purpose of Next (core) is a simpler, easier to pick up game. Core's purpose is to introduce new players, or entertain groups who don't care for complexity. So far, the designers seem on track to reach that goal.

Are there tradeoffs? Sure. Lots of 'em, in fact. The downside of simplicity is lots of "magic tea party", rules bending, and odd results. On balance, if the experience for players is fun, then the design is a success.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I'll double down on usability.

The publicly stated purpose of Next (core) is a simpler, easier to pick up game. Core's purpose is to introduce new players, or entertain groups who don't care for complexity. So far, the designers seem on track to reach that goal.

Are there tradeoffs? Sure. Lots of 'em, in fact. The downside of simplicity is lots of "magic tea party", rules bending, and odd results. On balance, if the experience for players is fun, then the design is a success.
Meh. Rules need to be usable or they're not rules are they? But we were talking definitionally, not prescriptively. Here's my rubric
The purpose of rules in a game is to resolve narrative conflicts.

Good rules should do the following:
- Be clear and concise
- Reinforce the genre of the game
- Focus attention on the important parts of the game
- Engage Player attention
"Modeling" or "Simulating" anything, IMHO, is best left to computer games which can spare the cycles to do the hard work that entails. This is one of the areas where WotC made great strides with 4e and decided to roll back for 5e.

[1337 b4k4]

In short, there is a problem where party-based games force non-specialist to work within specialist spheres but the answer isn't to nerf the abilities of specialists or rely on unstructured DM Fiat.

The thing is I don't think Next is nerfing the abilities of specialists in any meaningful way. The only way you feel "nerfed" as a specialist in Next is if you're doing a head to head single check skills competition with a complete newbie and comparing the results. I haven't really seen anyone argue that in Next, the master Thief will miss his sneak too often. The argument mostly appears to be that Next does exactly what you suggest for a resolution to the Decker problem (Raising the floor value of all characters such that they will not always fail easy Specialist checks.) and as a result, the newbies are too good when you compare them to the specialist.


Meh. Rules need to be usable or they're not rules are they? But we were talking definitionally, not prescriptively. Here's my rubric

So out of curiosity, which part of your Rubric does the skill system in Next fail at?

[Oracle_Hunter]

The thing is I don't think Next is nerfing the abilities of specialists in any meaningful way. The only way you feel "nerfed" as a specialist in Next is if you're doing a head to head single check skills competition with a complete newbie and comparing the results. I haven't really seen anyone argue that in Next, the master Thief will miss his sneak too often. The argument mostly appears to be that Next does exactly what you suggest for a resolution to the Decker problem (Raising the floor value of all characters such that they will not always fail easy Specialist checks.) and as a result, the newbies are too good when you compare them to the specialist.
It should be noted that many checks are actually opposed. Stealth, for example, is opposed by Perception -- if untrained NPCs can beat the Stealth of master thieves then the thieves are going to feel sheepish for referring to themselves as "masters" :smalltongue:


So out of curiosity, which part of your Rubric does the skill system in Next fail at?
Gosh, I haven't even looked at the 5e Skill System lately. Last I checked it looked like the AD&D NWP system was far more rigorous.

Anyone got a capsule summary of the current build? Like, do skills do anything now?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I don't believe this has ever been true. [...] So it sounds to me like the D&D skill system has always had trouble resolving everything, and works much better if you use it within the bounds that it was intended for.

In the case of AD&D, 3e, and 4e, the bounds for which the skill system was intended were "anything," not "whenever the DM deigns to let you roll." AD&D has inconsistencies (overly-broad NWPs, clumsy thieves at low levels), 3e has broken outliers (Spot distances, Diplomacy fanaticism), 4e has nonfunctionality (few guidelines on matching task to level, skill challenges), but on a fundamental level they work--while OD&D/AD&D tell the DM he can ignore outlier rolls if he doesn't like them, the game still functions if he doesn't do that.

For any given scenario, if you default to rolling rather than having the DM fiat something, you'll get more-or-less reasonable results. Not so for 5e, whose skill system is held together with fiat and duct tape.


Sure, start throwing in tomes of modifiers and yes, you can account for anything, GURPS being the perfect example of this. You could also replace your skill system with a full physics simulator and do an even better job. But one of the most common complaints of both 3.x and GURPS is the complexity of the skill system and the amount of work involved. And even in your example, Tiny Tim is still going to outwrestle Conan 1 in every 100 fights, that seems reasonable to you?

Three numbers, all of which are set at level-up with no situational modifiers, are not "tomes of modifiers" and are nowhere near being a full physics simulator. The complexity in the 3e skill system is due to using ranks per level, class skills, cross class investment, etc.--when it comes to actually using skills they're as easy as any other single-roll system.

And yes, a 1 in 100 chance for the underdog to win is much more reasonable than a 1 in 5 chance, given the stipulations that the skill system shouldn't lead to automatic success and that events that are unlikely in real life are unlikely in the system and vice versa.


It [favoring specialization and system mastery] also one of the things that many people dislike about D&D, especially 3.x D&D.

Every game favors specialization and system mastery to some extent. D&D is more mastery-focused than many and actually less specialist-focused than many, but that's beside the point: the purpose of 5e is to make a game that is D&D and appeals to D&D fans, who are used to and expect a focus on specialization and system mastery (yes, even in the rules-lighter AD&D and 4e).


That is, WotC could solve this entire debacle in your eyes by saying perhaps "If the difference in attribute scores between opponents is > X, you shouldn't roll and the person with the higher attribute score automatically wins an opposed check"?

That wouldn't solve it (for me, at least, can't speak for him) because once again that defies expectations: Normally, there's a range between "same skill level" (X and Y have the same modifiers) and "unbeatably better" (Y's modifier is over X+20) with a relatively smooth curve between those points. If you have an arbitrary (as opposed to natural) cutoff point at, say, X+10, then you have a situation where X's chances go from 50/50, to say 48%, then 42%, then 36%, all the way to let's say 24%...and then suddenly jump down to 0 at the arbitrary cutoff, so the difference of a single +1 makes a major difference at that one point and a very small difference at other points.

WotC already suggested something like this in one of the previews, were you wouldn't have to roll if the DC is less than your score. That meant that a rogue with 16 Dex had a 100% chance to disarm any trap with a DC of 15 or less, then suddenly a 65% chance to disarm a DC 16 trap with a 5% drop for every point after that, which is a really jarring leap from succeeding at every "easy" trap to failing 1 in 3 "moderate" traps.


So what then is the fundamental difference between the master Fighter that misses 1 out of every 20 attacks, and the master Thief that botches 1 out of 20 sneaks that makes the fighter OK to play, but the Thief un-fun?

Spotlight time, investment, and outcomes. A fighter invests zero resources aside from being a fighter for an attack bonus equal to his level and he gets multiple rolls per round and multiple rounds per combat to succeed; if he has 9 hits and 1 miss that means he's had an excellent run that combat. A rogue invests a precious resource to increase his sneaking skills and he gets multiple chances to fail; if he's sneaking past a guard post and rolls 4 successes and 1 failure he's discovered.

This isn't so much of a problem in AD&D (listening and spotting checks are generally outclassed by hide in shadows and move silently by low-mid levels and guards are generally 0-level humanoids) and 3e (taking 10 plus a considerable bonus means you can usually sneak by guards fairly reliably with enough cover and concealment) and 4e (both modifiers and DCs scale by your level, so you effectively get free investment in your skills and don't have to worry about falling behind), but 5e does not have the benefit of weaker guards and thieves who are much better at skills, or consistency and large skill gaps, or scaling and free investment.

[Sebastrd]

Gosh, I haven't even looked at the 5e Skill System lately. Last I checked it looked like the AD&D NWP system was far more rigorous.

Anyone got a capsule summary of the current build? Like, do skills do anything now?

So in other words, you have no idea what you're talking about, but you'll continue to complain until someone explains it to you? Got it, thanks.

[Oracle_Hunter]

So in other words, you have no idea what you're talking about, but you'll continue to complain until someone explains it to you? Got it, thanks.
Hardly.

I was talking about the general issues raised by the posters -- the role of the spread of the d20 in creating skill systems, the difficulty of having Specialists in party-based games, even the fundamental nature of rules in a RPG. As far as I am concerned (in case you haven't noticed) 5e to date has been a huge waste of everyone's time and is being "designed" by the Internet in such a slapdash fashion I hope the designers at WotC are embarrassed for picking up a paycheck for it.

However, since you have such a pithy way with words, perhaps you would like to illuminate me? :smallsmile:

[Talakeal]

Narration is a very important and very often overlooked aspect of failure. If a character fails it is usually because of either external bad luck or internal incompetance, or some combination of the above. Most players (and Game Masters) often assume that it is entirely one or the other, which can lead to unrealistic expectations.

So in our example of the sneaky thief rolling worse than the armored dwarf, maybe it has nothing to do with how stealthy the characters are. Maybe the dwarf just happened to slip by while the guard was tying his shoe, or the had the misfortune to turn around a corner just as the guard was checking on a myterious noise (perhaps caused by said dwarf).

[1337 b4k4]

^ Sure and that's usually how I resolve it narratively if we're rolling dice. However, there are quite a few people here arguing that luck / random chance shouldn't feature as prominently as it does with the base skill resolution system. They argue that skill and competence should have much more weight than the existing system implies and that they want that weighting mathematically built into the resolution mechanic rather than simply telling the DM to "hand wave" it when desired.

This isn't "wrong" but it is a vastly different thing than saying that the current skill system is "broken" or "objectively" worse.

[Icewraith]

I have one of the Shadowrun books and my group was going to give it a shot, but fell apart before we could run anything.

My solution to the "Decker problem" (and to a lesser extent the Astral projection problem) was going to be giving the Decker an additional number of competent AI routines (or Astral travel companion spirits), one each for the other players in the group.

This would be tantamount to giving a player whose character is being held hostage or similar control of the druid's animal companion or summoned monsters for the time being - it gives them some dice to roll and a reason to pay attention to what's going on, instead of being stuck until their normal character shows up again. The trick is to not have these sessions drag on for too long, I wasn't convinced the solution would give the decker enough time to shine as a decker to make up for his reduced abilities elsewhere. Anyone know if this would have worked?

[Sebastrd]

As far as I am concerned (in case you haven't noticed) 5e to date has been a huge waste of everyone's time and is being "designed" by the Internet in such a slapdash fashion I hope the designers at WotC are embarrassed for picking up a paycheck for it.

Then there's really nothing to be gained by us continuing this coversation.

[Moreb Benhk]

I think perhaps part of the issues people have with the system (aside from the cuttoff for 'when to use it' being somewhat hard to determine, and in many peoples' minds, excessively early (personally I think that a 10% chance of success is fully worth rolling for), is that it doesn't function properly within the realm that it claims to do so.

From what I can see, anything below a 20-25% chance of success (on a roll by roll basis), just doesn't work on the mechanic. If the idea is to keep to the regions where the mechanic 'does what it says on the tin', then surely the logical cut-off for 'no longer arbitrated by this mechanic' should be at that 20ish% area.

I may be straw-manning, but I find that a fairly unacceptable alternative also, as it starts to turn a fairly significant part of the 'heroic' stuff people want to be doing (the unlikely but oh-man-if-I-pull-this-off stuff that groups remember for years later) into pure DM fiat. Thus diffusing the very tensions that make those moments so climactic.

I'm finding myself siding more and more with the advocates who push for (if the Next mechanics simply MUST use bounded accuracy) to bring in stackable advantage/disadvantage rolling (up to a sensible point, few people want to roll 20 d20's and pick the highest, kinda makes criticals lame), thus effectively importing the 'averaging out' effect that we see in combats with its numerous rounds of rolling, into those single-roll succeed-or-lose skills and such.

[Cavelcade]

From what I can see, anything below a 20-25% chance of success (on a roll by roll basis), just doesn't work on the mechanic. If the idea is to keep to the regions where the mechanic 'does what it says on the tin', then surely the logical cut-off for 'no longer arbitrated by this mechanic' should be at that 20ish% area.

I may be straw-manning, but I find that a fairly unacceptable alternative also, as it starts to turn a fairly significant part of the 'heroic' stuff people want to be doing (the unlikely but oh-man-if-I-pull-this-off stuff that groups remember for years later) into pure DM fiat. Thus diffusing the very tensions that make those moments so climactic.

Actually, I think most people arguing for this are arguing that, if they want a 10% chance of success to be a cutoff point, then the cutoff should be reflected in the mechanics (ie, the probability of success should be ~10%).


I'm finding myself siding more and more with the advocates who push for (if the Next mechanics simply MUST use bounded accuracy) to bring in stackable advantage/disadvantage rolling (up to a sensible point, few people want to roll 20 d20's and pick the highest, kinda makes criticals lame), thus effectively importing the 'averaging out' effect that we see in combats with its numerous rounds of rolling, into those single-roll succeed-or-lose skills and such.

And this is one way of doing that, which most people (that I've seen posting in this thread) have seemed quite in favour of. In fact, I haven't seen anyone coming out heavily against it. I think roll xd20 take the best/worst one is a perfectly acceptable resolution mechanic, without adding much complication (unless you get to a ridiculous point - even 5d20 isn't very many).

[Moreb Benhk]

Actually, I think most people arguing for this are arguing that, if they want a 10% chance of success to be a cutoff point, then the cutoff should be reflected in the mechanics (ie, the probability of success should be ~10%).

Good. Because that's also what I thought I was saying. Hehe. Perhaps I was unclear. What I was trying to say in addition to that with the mechanics 'as is' the cut off point is more ~20-25% success chance, because after that the system doesn't do what it says it's doing.

[navar100]

It's arbitrary, but you can have Tiny Tim auto-losing to Conan while Conan gets to roll against the dragon just "because". The "because" is Conan is a PC while Tiny Tim is an NPC villager and the dragon is the BBEG. It's the same "because" that allows an NPC merchant to become filthy rich running his business but a PC trying to do the same thing cannot. The NPC clerics will raise the PC killed by a troll but not Joe Farmer who was killed by an orc. The meta-rules of the universe are different for PCs and NPCs just "because". It is an unsatisfactory answer for those who insist on realism, but for play of the game purposes just "because" is the way.

[noparlpf]

"Just because" is a copout when it's not that hard (several people here have proposed ideas) to fix the system and just have a system that works.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

It's arbitrary, but you can have Tiny Tim auto-losing to Conan while Conan gets to roll against the dragon just "because". The "because" is Conan is a PC while Tiny Tim is an NPC villager and the dragon is the BBEG. It's the same "because" that allows an NPC merchant to become filthy rich running his business but a PC trying to do the same thing cannot. The NPC clerics will raise the PC killed by a troll but not Joe Farmer who was killed by an orc. The meta-rules of the universe are different for PCs and NPCs just "because". It is an unsatisfactory answer for those who insist on realism, but for play of the game purposes just "because" is the way.

You're assuming that there are no rules for PC businesses and/or that PCs won't run a business in a sandbox campaign, and that Joe Farmer can't pay for raising and/or that NPCs will raise PCs for free. Neither of those will be (for 5e) or has been (for prior editions) necessarily true, so handwaving mechanical deficiencies with "PCs are special" won't really work.

[Moreb Benhk]

It's arbitrary, but you can have Tiny Tim auto-losing to Conan while Conan gets to roll against the dragon just "because".

While I don't have a problem with that myself - it's not a big deal to me that the rules treat NPCs and PCs differently (not to say that the world necessarily needs to though). Isn't the problem that with the current mechanics, you really CAN'T decide to allow Conan to roll, from a mechanical perspective, because the mechanic won't give sensible results as it's operating outside of it's capabilities.

It's just like without proper hoarde rules (or house rules), you really can't run an encounter in 3.5 where mid-level PC's fight off 2,000 low-level kobolds armed with bows (in an ambush or something arranged by the deceptive wiles of the BBEG), because the mechanics would be operating outside of its capabilities. (unless you really want to be rolling 2000 d20's and take the time to resolve each attack as per the rules).

Is it a silly, unlikely, exaggerated example? Yes, but I employ it hyperbolically. It's entirely possible that with decent mass-combat rules, such an encounter could be run smoothly, dynamically, and produce sensible results in a sensible time frame, but using the default combat-resolution mechanic would not achieve this.

[1337 b4k4]

Missed this earlier


AD&D has inconsistencies (overly-broad NWPs, clumsy thieves at low levels), 3e has broken outliers (Spot distances, Diplomacy fanaticism), 4e has nonfunctionality (few guidelines on matching task to level, skill challenges), but on a fundamental level they work--while OD&D/AD&D tell the DM he can ignore outlier rolls if he doesn't like them, the game still functions if he doesn't do that.

For any given scenario, if you default to rolling rather than having the DM fiat something, you'll get more-or-less reasonable results. Not so for 5e, whose skill system is held together with fiat and duct tape.

This is just silly. You're basically arguing that if you ignore all the places where all the other skill systems in previous editions of D&D don't work, then they work just fine, but because 5e doesn't work in certain places, it doesn't work at all.


Three numbers, all of which are set at level-up with no situational modifiers, are not "tomes of modifiers" and are nowhere near being a full physics simulator. The complexity in the 3e skill system is due to using ranks per level, class skills, cross class investment, etc.--when it comes to actually using skills they're as easy as any other single-roll system.

Right, 3 numbers just to give you reasonable result resolving a wrestling match that might come up once every 100 game sessions. Now add in all the numbers you need to make the skill system work for all the skills you want and you end up with a tome of numbers and modifiers. And yes, the complexity of "ranks per level, class skills, cross class etc" is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that more realistic skill systems require more complexity to be learned, not individual instances of skill usage. Even then, individual instances can be a mess of complications. How many people do you know of that use the 3.x grappling rules as written? In fact, the complexity of moderately realistic grappling rules is so common there's an entire TV Tropes article on it. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GrapplingWithGrapplingRules)

[PairO'Dice Lost]

It's just like without proper hoarde rules (or house rules), you really can't run an encounter in 3.5 where mid-level PC's fight off 2,000 low-level kobolds armed with bows (in an ambush or something arranged by the deceptive wiles of the BBEG), because the mechanics would be operating outside of its capabilities. (unless you really want to be rolling 2000 d20's and take the time to resolve each attack as per the rules).

Nitpick: You can do that, actually. You can either approximate it mathematically (1/20 of those 2000 will autohit, 1/20 of those who hit will crit, so that's 95 hits and 5 crits, which averages 472 damage), or you can use one of the bazillion online dice rollers for that; I've written one of my own that can handle scenarios like that, according to which 92 of them hit (4 of them crit) and dealt a total of 440 damage.

Honestly, with things like volley rules, Aid Another, weaker attacks going off the RNG, and such it's not too difficult to run a PCs vs. tons of mooks fight. D&D could certainly use better rules for large-scale combats, but you can get by without them.


This is just silly. You're basically arguing that if you ignore all the places where all the other skill systems in previous editions of D&D don't work, then they work just fine, but because 5e doesn't work in certain places, it doesn't work at all.

The big difference is that, as I mentioned, those situations were outliers, things suitable for being mocked in a "D&D dysfunctions" or "RAW is silly" thread, not things that will come up in most games. AD&D "doesn't work" if some people in the group pick NWPs like Underwater Campfire Making while others pick Alertness, or you deliberately spend skill points badly as a thief; 3e "doesn't work" if you math out the Spot modifiers to see the sun, or optimize to get Diplomacy modifiers in the 60s; 5e doesn't work if you use the skill system exactly as intended.


Right, 3 numbers just to give you reasonable result resolving a wrestling match that might come up once every 100 game sessions.

Except that everything else--skills, attack rolls, combat maneuvers, etc.--use the same 3-4 number base/stat mod/training setup, so the same principle applies to everything, not just the wrestling match often used as an example here. All the situational modifiers, fiddly bonuses, etc. are entirely optional and generally consist of feats/buffs/etc. factored into a stat block already or a +2 here or there easily added on the fly, and in any case the system functions fine without them.


And yes, the complexity of "ranks per level, class skills, cross class etc" is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that more realistic skill systems require more complexity to be learned, not individual instances of skill usage.

Those aren't a prerequisite of a better-functioning skill system, you know. This forum is full of people who have been houseruling away cross-class skills and sometimes individual ranks since before Pathfinder was even an idea and the game functions just fine that way, so it would be entirely possible for 5e to use a 3e-like skill system without the fiddliness if the dev team so desired.


Even then, individual instances can be a mess of complications. How many people do you know of that use the 3.x grappling rules as written?

*raises hand*

The difficulty is greatly exaggerated, mostly as a side effect of the 3e/4e edition wars. And again, people have been homebrewing easier versions for years, it's not just a choice between "the pile of failure that is the 5e skill/maneuver system" and "the fiddly complexity that is the 3e skill/maneuver system" with no middle ground. 3e is well-studied by this point and making a system that works similarly but is greatly streamlined would not be difficult. Heck, making a system that works like 1e, 2e, or 4e wouldn't be any more difficulty, and any of those four options would be preferable.

[Stubbazubba]

So is the real problem here not that you dislike the rules saying "sometimes, you don't roll because it's outside the resolution of the rolling mechanic", but rather that you dislike that the rules don't give you hard and bright white lines that say "At this point, you shouldn't bother rolling at all"? That is, WotC could solve this entire debacle in your eyes by saying perhaps "If the difference in attribute scores between opponents is > X, you shouldn't roll and the person with the higher attribute score automatically wins an opposed check"?

I explicitly outlined what would "solve this entire debacle." I'll repeat it again:
For simplicity, make objective, semi-permeable walls between ability levels
For heroics, let specialty characters get past those walls with objective functions of rules
Your proposal fails to accommodate point #2; a commoner has the same chance of heroics against a proportionate foe as does Conan. The "debacle" exists so long as either the commoner can't beat Conan and Conan can't beat the dragon, OR the commoner can beat Conan and Conan can beat the dragon. The answer is the commoner can't beat Conan BUT Conan can beat the dragon. Thus my model.

I agree that modeling things with too much complexity is an unnecessary drag on the game, but I am absolutely opposed to the idea that the best way to keep things fluid is by making the DM a filter for every roll. I think simple rules like the ones I've outlined will be both simple enough to grok quickly, while still maintaining predictability and consistency across most all scenarios within the same table, and between different tables (while the value of the latter quality is disputed, that of the former is not).


Aside from rule 0 always coming with the developer's rubber stamp (see where OD&D tells you to ignore die rolls that don't make sense), define "objectively better", because the only way you could say that other systems (such as 3.x or GURPS) are "objectively better" is if your objective measurement is "simulating a version of reality with a single mechanic that resolves everything from Tiny Tim wrestling Conan to Thor wrestling the Wyrm at the End of the World". To me, a mechanic that can be easily explained, understood and run without knowing or mastering a hundred page list of skills and modifiers is objectively better at being a mechanic that facilitates an easy to pick up and go good time.

You weren't really serious in asking what my definition of objectively better is, but I'll give it to you anyway:
Symmetry: Rules need to be relatively consistent across all the major fields of activity that the characters can reasonably be expected to act in (including, but not limited to: Combat, exploring dungeons, surviving/overcoming environmental hazards, significant social interactions, chases of various kinds, possibly traveling/journeys depending on the style of game, etc.) to minimize the complexity of the system and the size of the learning curve. (Admittedly this is more of a system evaluation, but it can be applied to a given rule with sufficient context)
Variety: However, rules should also attempt to reflect the differences in different activities. If climbing a mountain is represented as making "climbing attacks" against the mountain's "HP" until they hit 0, and diplomacy and stealth are the same, there are serious opportunities being missed, and the gameplay will suffer from being so repetitive. So rules should be differentiated in interesting and engaging ways, while increasing the learning curve as little as possible. (Also a system evaluation, but same deal as above)
Depth: The mechanic must allow for a variety of character options, tactics and uses with different counter-measures and trade-offs inherent to it, with no special powers required.
Simplicity: The mechanic should include precisely as many moving parts as is necessary to achieve the above several goals. Any configuration more complicated than that needs to be streamlined, and any configuration less than that needs to be added to until it fulfills its unique gameplay function.
Clarity: The mechanic does not rely upon subjective interpretation of conditions to perform reasonably expected functions. The function of the rule (when it is used, what its possible inputs and outputs are) is objectively defined as much as necessary to adjudicate reasonably expected uses.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that I am defending 3.5. I haven't compared Next to 3.5 in this conversation, and 3.5 has some disastrous rules, as well. I'm aiming for an ideal within the D&D/d20 framework.

[Kurald Galain]

"Just because" is a copout when it's not that hard (several people here have proposed ideas) to fix the system and just have a system that works.

Yes. It strikes me that the main reason why so many people are upset with 5E's skill system is because how easy it is to write a better one. This is really not rocket science.

[Sebastrd]

Can someone explain how an opposed strength check between Conan and a commoner (which works the same in all editions) is somehow indicative of a failure in DDN's skill system?

[stainboy]

The arm wrestling match is just an example of a highly skilled character failing vs an easy DC. If you don't like that example because Strength isn't a skill check, think about a ranger failing to identify a deer or a blacksmith failing to make a horseshoe.

[Ashdate]

Can someone explain how an opposed strength check between Conan and a commoner (which works the same in all editions) is somehow indicative of a failure in DDN's skill system?

Other systems allowed for a larger spread in "bonuses", largely thanks to level scaling. Consider a level 1 commoner with a -1 to a relevant check (let's say, something like Athletics or a Grapple Check)).

In 3.5, your 10th level Fighter might have a 20 strength (+5) and a BAB bonus (+10) and perhaps a item bonus like Gauntlets of Ogre Power for an additional +2, for a grand total of -1 (commoner) versus +17 (Fighter). The odds of the Commoner beating the Barbarian in a d20 off aren't impossible, but they're very low (the Fighter has to roll a natural 1, and the Commoner has to roll a natural 20).

In 4e, your 10th level Fighter might have a 20 strength (+5) plus half level (+5) + Athletics Training (+5) and maybe a +2 bonus from race, feat, or item (+2), once again setting the stage for a very small chance of failure.

In DnD next, your 10 level Fighter might have a 20 strength (+5), plus training (+3). I don't believe there is a feat or item that can give a +2 bonus, but let's homebrew one in anyway if there isn't. Because there is no scaling (such as BAB or +1/2 level), the Fighter gets a total of +10 to roll against the commoner's -1. Does this mean the commoner is likely to win? No, but it's a non-trivial chance in a simple d20 dice off. If the Commoner aces his roll, and the level 10 Fighter flubs it, the Commoner will win, somewhere around 20-25% of the time.

[Clawhound]

The arm wrestling match is just an example of a highly skilled character failing vs an easy DC. If you don't like that example because Strength isn't a skill check, think about a ranger failing to identify a deer or a blacksmith failing to make a horseshoe.

The fortune represented in a die roll can take any form, not just skill.

Experienced hunters sometimes shoot at things that aren't deer. (A hunter should be able to identify a human 100% of the time, but sadly, this is tragically not the case.) Sometimes the light is just wrong and your brain processes something oddly. The ranger gets a bit of dirt in his eye at exactly the wrong time. The creature that he's trying to spot is standing exactly behind a bush.

A master blacksmith can fail to make a horse shoe. His mother could die, so he might have to take off a few days for a funeral. His journeyman might have done a bad job with the ingot, making a bad batch. He may have hurt his hand, so he takes a day off to let it heal.

Given a failure, the DM can hand the failure to the player. "Explain your failure," says the DM, and the player has fun concocting his way into an inexplicable result. Most player understand a bad die roll when they see one. Bad die rolls are part of the game, even for uber-experts.

Personally, I think the game is enhanced for getting the occasional odd result.

[MukkTB]

The simulationist in me sees nothing wrong with giving the commoner the same chance to beat Conan as Conan has to beat the dragon. However the simulationist in me screams out for a more fleshed out system than what we currently have.

[Sebastrd]

Other systems allowed for a larger spread in "bonuses", largely thanks to level scaling. Consider a level 1 commoner with a -1 to a relevant check (let's say, something like Athletics or a Grapple Check)).

In 3.5, your 10th level Fighter might have a 20 strength (+5) and a BAB bonus (+10) and perhaps a item bonus like Gauntlets of Ogre Power for an additional +2, for a grand total of -1 (commoner) versus +17 (Fighter). The odds of the Commoner beating the Barbarian in a d20 off aren't impossible, but they're very low (the Fighter has to roll a natural 1, and the Commoner has to roll a natural 20).

In 4e, your 10th level Fighter might have a 20 strength (+5) plus half level (+5) + Athletics Training (+5) and maybe a +2 bonus from race, feat, or item (+2), once again setting the stage for a very small chance of failure.

In DnD next, your 10 level Fighter might have a 20 strength (+5), plus training (+3). I don't believe there is a feat or item that can give a +2 bonus, but let's homebrew one in anyway if there isn't. Because there is no scaling (such as BAB or +1/2 level), the Fighter gets a total of +10 to roll against the commoner's -1. Does this mean the commoner is likely to win? No, but it's a non-trivial chance in a simple d20 dice off. If the Commoner aces his roll, and the level 10 Fighter flubs it, the Commoner will win, somewhere around 20-25% of the time.

So, as long as you leave out earlier editions of D&D, your argument makes sense.

[Cavelcade]

Personally, I think the game is enhanced for getting the occasional odd result.

I believe the problem is that 1/5 times is not what most people consider occasional when it comes to something like mistaking a human for a deer.

[Clawhound]

Fortunately, the game is not about deer hunting, so even a 1/5 chance of misidentifying a deer doesn't matter much. Most spotting and identifying rolls will happen in dangerous locales, where you don't know what is around the next corner or what might be coming out of the shadows. In most instances, that thing spotted will be exotic and dangerous. I have a difficult time getting my knickers in a twist about a rare non-dangerous event at 1st level, and an even rarer non-dangerous event as you go up levels.

The same is true for commoner vs. Conan. How often does that happen? Anybody? I just don't see those events very much in the game. The vast majority of rolls that I see are against appropriate opponents.

Most skill rolls will happen in dangerous locales where reaction time limits assessment or retries. I'm happy enough with the current system and that 80%.

Where this system does less well is where retries or time reduces chance to near zero. For example, crafting, or other routine activities where there's little to no variability. With those being the minority, it's better to just split those things off the skill system all together.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The same is true for commoner vs. Conan. How often does that happen? Anybody? I just don't see those events very much in the game. The vast majority of rolls that I see are against appropriate opponents.

I assume, then, that in your games the average NPCs automagically level up with the PCs so you never have a situation where a level 6 rogue is trying to sneak past two level 1 watchdogs, or five level 2 cultists are trying to take down a level 8 barbarian before he reaches their priestess, or a level 7 monk is trying to chase down a level 2 traitor who ran from justice?

Obviously the majority of your challenges will likely involve near-level opposition, but if three angry commoners can tackle your heroic mid-level fighter to the ground or your mid-level rogue can sneak past the high-level All-Seeing Beholder Lord, there's a problem with the skill system.

[Kurald Galain]

I assume, then, that in your games the average NPCs automagically level up with the PCs so you never have a situation where a level 6 rogue is trying to sneak past two level 1 watchdogs, or five level 2 cultists are trying to take down a level 8 barbarian before he reaches their priestess, or a level 7 monk is trying to chase down a level 2 traitor who ran from justice?
Well, that's how 4E works, so it should be no surprise if WOTC keeps the same system for 5E that everything the PCs meet is always a level-appropriate challenge.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Well, that's how 4E works, so it should be no surprise if WOTC keeps the same system for 5E that everything the PCs meet is always a level-appropriate challenge.

It's not quite the same, though: in both cases they emphasize level-appropriateness, but 4e supports adjusting monster and challenge levels by plus or minus 5 levels relative to the PCs. In theory 4e's math works well if a level 10 party fights level 5 through 15 monsters and faces level 5 through 15 skill challenges, and it works at all if you go outside those level bouonds though you should be prepared for a cakewalk or a TPK, whereas a level difference that wide in 5e just causes things to break down.

[Doug Lampert]

It's not quite the same, though: in both cases they emphasize level-appropriateness, but 4e supports adjusting monster and challenge levels by plus or minus 5 levels relative to the PCs. In theory 4e's math works well if a level 10 party fights level 5 through 15 monsters and faces level 5 through 15 skill challenges, and it works at all if you go outside those level bouonds though you should be prepared for a cakewalk or a TPK, whereas a level difference that wide in 5e just causes things to break down.

Right, the REASON they suggest in the DMG not bothering with challenges more than 8 or so levels away is BECAUSE the system basically starts to say "you lose" to the lower side.

If an NPC is 6 levels lower, use a minion 2 levels higher instead, the XP value is identical till Epic levels (and very similar for epic) and you have something that can hit without rolling a 20 and can be missed without rolling a 1.

The system says too big a difference means "no chance", and there's no point in playing out "no chance", so they tell you not to do that.

This is quite different from "the system doesn't work at this point".


The same is true for commoner vs. Conan. How often does that happen? Anybody? I just don't see those events very much in the game. The vast majority of rolls that I see are against appropriate opponents.

The ENTIRE SELLING POINT of bounded accuracy is the CLAIM that I can use low level kobolds or commoners as a threat at any level, just needing more numbers to make them a viable threat. So, if I NEED to use "level appropriate" challenges for things to work, then that's a problem and a serious one, their entire system is a FAILURE if it fails with these things you are claiming are edge cases.

If bounded accuracy DOES NOT WORK across large gaps in ability, and if the ONLY reason to want bounded accuracy is to have a system that allegedly WILL work across large gaps in ability, then what is the point of bounded accuracy?

Similarly, AFAICT YOU PICKED the deer hunting example, it was your choice, and then two or three posts later you were claiming, "It doesn't matter if it doesn't work for deer hunting, how often are you going to deer hunt?"

Watch those goalposts move.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Hey, you sound like a game designer!

Symmetry: Rules need to be relatively consistent across all the major fields of activity that the characters can reasonably be expected to act in (including, but not limited to: Combat, exploring dungeons, surviving/overcoming environmental hazards, significant social interactions, chases of various kinds, possibly traveling/journeys depending on the style of game, etc.) to minimize the complexity of the system and the size of the learning curve. (Admittedly this is more of a system evaluation, but it can be applied to a given rule with sufficient context)
So, a minor quibble -- consistent rules do function this way amongst Players but not necessarily between DMs and Players. As you've noted below, Depth and Variety are very good to have for Players but -- TBH -- they are trumped for DMs by the need for Simplicity. When you are trying to build monsters or adjudicate a half-dozen characters in combat you don't really want to be spending every round coming up with fancy descriptions of stunts or figuring out the feats-per-levels for a minion.

As a result, rules that are excellent for Players (who control one character over the course of many sessions) may be over-burdensome for DMs (who control many characters at once, some which may not survive more than a combat round). In this case (which is an important one in D&D!) I would argue that Symmetry between Player and DM rules does more harm than good.

That said, many people believe that Symmetry is an important concern for a game (in much the same way as Vancian Casting or Gnomes might be) but it is important to note that this particular taste either imposes unnecessary costs on the DM side, shortchanges the PC side, or both.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Right, the REASON they suggest in the DMG not bothering with challenges more than 8 or so levels away is BECAUSE the system basically starts to say "you lose" to the lower side.
[...]
This is quite different from "the system doesn't work at this point".

Yes, that's what I said: 4e still works outside their "supported" level range, it just leads to "unfair" challenges, but 5e doesn't work at all once you're too far from level-appropriate.


That said, many people believe that Symmetry is an important concern for a game (in much the same way as Vancian Casting or Gnomes might be) but it is important to note that this particular taste either imposes unnecessary costs on the DM side, shortchanges the PC side, or both.

I disagree that PC/NPC symmetry, at least the sort Stubbazubba mentioned, is inherently problematic. He wasn't talking about having PCs and NPCs use the same stat blocks, be built the same way, or the like, just that the rules that they use for various minigames should be symmetric.

In other words, if a level 5 Medium frontline-fighter PC with Str 20 has a grapple mod of +10 from level + size + Str, a level 5 Medium frontline-fighter NPC with Str 20 should have a grapple mod determined by level + size + Str and be roughly in the same ballpark as the PC numbers, and both characters should be affected equally by effects that modify Str, size, combat prowess, etc. You shouldn't have a situation like AD&D where monsters have no listed ability scores and casting bull's strength on a monster causes a divide-by-0 error, or a situation like 3e where a "level 5" monster might actually be CR 5 with 10 HD and have a modifier much bigger than a PC could match at that level, or a situation like 4e where monster ability scores are essentially cosmetic and level-based attack bonuses for PCs and monsters are completely divergent so as to require magic items on the PC side and not on the monster side.

The same holds for spells, abilities, and other facets of a character: if there's something called a fireball in the game it should work the same way as anything else called a fireball and have the same input variables (CL, stat-based DCs, etc.), as opposed to giving PCs and monsters two different things with the same name or even two different monsters two different things with the same name, and if you want to make "fireball-but-slightly-different" you should call it something different; likewise, there shouldn't be any special PC-only or NPC-only spells/feats/etc. (though "PC and important NPC-only" metagame mechanics are okay), because when I hear "This is too good for the PCs to have" it generally means that either the GM needs to not be afraid to give the PCs nice things or it's too good for NPCs to have as well.

I'm one of those who believes that that sort of PC/NPC symmetry is important, for clarity, internal consistency, and general ease of design and play...but as long as the end result works out like that, I don't care if the NPCs go through the same PC design process, something completely different that gives you the appropriate outputs with none of the effort, or something in between.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I'm one of those who believes that that sort of PC/NPC symmetry is important, for clarity, internal consistency, and general ease of design and play...but as long as the end result works out like that, I don't care if the NPCs go through the same PC design process, something completely different that gives you the appropriate outputs with none of the effort, or something in between.
Of those three points, only "internal consistency" is true -- inasmuch as internal consistency means "uses the same sets of rules."

Clarity does not follow because you can make simpler (and therefore clearer) rules for NPCs which would be "boring" if applied to PCs.
Example: In order to execute a Stunt (e.g. swinging on a chandelier, crashing through a window) the Player rolls their appropriate skill and adds +1 to +5 to their roll depending on how awesome their description of their action is.

NPCs simply roll their appropriate Skill.
It may be fun to include a "stunt mechanic" in a RPG to permit Players to be rewarded for thinking up exciting new ways to execute actions. This rule gives the DM great leeway in encouraging Players to be more creative.

For NPCs, there is no reason to "reward" the DM for being particularly descriptive on their actions and the difficulty of self-judging can slow down play. By not permitting NPCs to get "stunt points" you have made a clearer rule.

Ease of Design & Play: As above, the same rules that are more "engaging" for Players to use often have flourishes that are irrelevant to DMs. If you write a separate set of rules without those flourishes it can actually make it much easier for the DM to run the game and even design home rules.

The best example here is 4e Monster Defenses -- rather than total up a vast array of possible modifiers, the MM tells you what the Defenses for a Monster of a given Level and Type should be and gives you simple guidelines for modification from gear if you really wanted to. This is much easier to use in play than sorting out the modifiers PCs use but it also removes the "fun" of stacking modifiers that contemporary D&D Players seem to enjoy.

* * *
In my experience, this desire of Player/DM Symmetry really bogs down the running of games. Back in the days of TSR PCs and NPCs always operated under different rules -- you had "0th Level NPCs" and monsters that were designed under completely different methods than building PCs. It wasn't until WotC that I began hearing people desiring this "Symmetry."

[Kaervaslol]

Symmetry is not that hot, mostly because I like to roll more than one dice to do different things (%thief skills, for example).

And in the case of enemies using the same rules as PCs, that's a travesty. I can make a new monster in AD&D faster than you can say "wazoo", and it will work perfectly.

[Stubbazubba]

I actually wasn't talking about PC/NPC Symmetry at all, though I know that's the context the word 'symmetry' is most often used in, so that's a mea culpa for phrasing it that way. I suppose a better term (that wouldn't read like a red herring) would be "rule unity" or "unification." Simply the idea that one mechanic works similarly to another. For instance, 3.5's Skill System is very unified; everything works exactly the same way, be it Crafting, Diplomacy, Stealth, Climbing, Research, or Dancing. I think that rules for different things should feel similar enough that an experienced player can say to a new player, "[Activity Y] works just like [Activity X], except [Difference A], and [Difference B]." This is for simplicity on both sides of the DM screen. It means that once you learn one mechanic (most likely combat), the marginal cost of learning each new mechanic is very small, since the elements that constitute each other mechanic are shared by previously learned ones.

But again, this is limited by the need for rules to vary between activity somewhat (i.e. the fact that Diplomacy and Stealth and Climbing, etc., all work the same in 3.5 is actually kind of lame). A brilliant rule-set is one wherein each significant mechanic (as in each thing the game wants to focus on) works a little differently, but the elements that make it up are similar enough to those in other mechanics that the learning curve is not significantly added to.

So what does this look like in practice? Let's take 3.5's skill system. It is, IMO, too far on the unified side of the spectrum. Mostly there are a lot of extraneous things in there in the first place, but let's say we only want to make mechanics for Stunts (Balance, Climb, Jump, Ride, Swim, Tumble), Oratory (Appraise, Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, Perform, Sense Motive), Stealth (Disguise, Escape Artist, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock, Sleight of Hand), and Knowledge (Appraise, Craft, Decipher Script, Disable Device, Forgery, Handle Animal, Heal, Knowledge, Profession, Survival, UMD). That should cover most of the areas that would be expected to come up in an adventure.

You want each of these to work similarly, i.e., have the same or similar inputs, but the outputs might be tailored to what each mechanic does best. That'll depend on the framework for the mechanic; what's the "win" condition and "lose" condition in each, and how do you proceed to get there? There might be several flavors of Stunts: Feats, single instances like a leap across a chasm or escaping from a dragon's clutches; Chases, an extended, contested series of Stunts; or a Gauntlet, an extended series of Feats that influence each other going forward.

A Feat is just d20+Str/Dex, generally. Everything else (magic items, enchantments, situational factors) adds Advantage dice, which stack up to 3. It doesn't really need to be any more complicated than that. A Gauntlet will have a series of challenges in succession which influence each other, sort of like a timed scenario. Let's say a gauntlet of four challenges, at DC 10, 15, 15, and 20. If you beat a DC by 5 or more, you get +1 Advantage on the next one, and if you beat a DC by 10 or more, you can either automatically succeed the next challenge, or you can give an ally +1 Advantage on their next roll, be it on the current challenge or the next.

Chases work just like Gauntlets, but the DCs are set by whichever team has the initiative. How do you get initiative? Calculate your team's Net Successes (Successes - Failures) from the previous round, and if your result is higher than the other team's, you have the initiative. If you have the initiative and then win a round again, the Chase ends. In addition to the success margin options above, you can also choose to count your success as 2 at the +10 point. Besides contributing to all of this, you can also "sit out" a round and perform a Feat or an Attack that, if successful, can hinder an opponent on their next turn (give them Disadvantage). If you do so, you don't contribute towards the Net Success calculation either way. Anyways, your team's Net Success this round also sets the DC for the other side: 0 = 10, 1-2 = 15, 3+ = 20.

I just made all this up as I wrote it, and the specifics are complete estimates, nothing more, and even some of the relationships might change. Nevertheless I think it would provide for some interesting play. Assuming I move on to Stealth and Oratory and Knowledge, I would want them to mirror these as much as is reasonable, so that learning Stunts (or any other one) gives you a head start on all the others.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I actually wasn't talking about PC/NPC Symmetry at all, though I know that's the context the word 'symmetry' is most often used in, so that's a mea culpa for phrasing it that way. I suppose a better term (that wouldn't read like a red herring) would be "rule unity" or "unification." Simply the idea that one mechanic works similarly to another. For instance, 3.5's Skill System is very unified; everything works exactly the same way, be it Crafting, Diplomacy, Stealth, Climbing, Research, or Dancing. I think that rules for different things should feel similar enough that an experienced player can say to a new player, "[Activity Y] works just like [Activity X], except [Difference A], and [Difference B]." This is for simplicity on both sides of the DM screen. It means that once you learn one mechanic (most likely combat), the marginal cost of learning each new mechanic is very small, since the elements that constitute each other mechanic are shared by previously learned ones.
Ah, interesting.

I would still argue that unity of mechanics in this way is still a secondary concern.
To begin with, "one size fits all" usually fits all sizes poorly as far as game design goes -- you can make many elegant rules that work better than one clunky one which do not require much more brainspace to memorize.

Additionally, rules need to be cut-to-measure in many ways (see my list of "good rule guidelines") and of those, Genre Enhancing and Focus are best achieved by cut-to-measure rules. You want more complex systems for the focal points of your game and you will want different sets of rules to enhance aspects of the game important to the genre.

Of course, parsimony rules the day -- don't make rules if you don't have to. In particular, don't bother making rules for things that aren't important to your genre (e.g. social interaction rules for a hack 'n slash system) or at the very least don't make them core. The best place for "one size fits all" rules are for areas on the periphery of your genre -- they're not that important, but they will probably come up. In D&D, "object destruction" is one of those areas which, for whatever reason, WotC always makes too complicated and/or useless for its role in the game.

[Stubbazubba]

...did you read the paragraph after the one you quoted?

[Oracle_Hunter]

...did you read the paragraph after the one you quoted?
Yes, and I still think you focused overmuch on the value of "one size fits all" rules :smalltongue:

IMHO it isn't even something to be considered when creating rules. Neither should you make sub-systems for their own sake -- the prime concerns are Focus and Genre Reinforcement here. From your text it seems like you'd still be considering "one size fits all" at least on par with these other values.

Of course, if I was mistaken, I apologize for misconstruing your point :smallredface:

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Clarity does not follow because you can make simpler (and therefore clearer) rules for NPCs which would be "boring" if applied to PCs.

Example: In order to execute a Stunt (e.g. swinging on a chandelier, crashing through a window) the Player rolls their appropriate skill and adds +1 to +5 to their roll depending on how awesome their description of their action is.

NPCs simply roll their appropriate Skill.

I'd still consider that to be a fairly symmetric rule, if lopsided in the PCs' favor; there's not a hard line between symmetric and asymmetric rules, of course, it's a gradient.

The kind of "clarity" I was talking about was the ease of reference and avoidance of namespace collisions I mentioned (one fireball to rule them all!), not mechanical simplicity. If you see a given term, it maps to the same game effect regardless of whether it's used for a PC or a monster. In contrast, look at the Flameskull from the 4e MM1. The PHB1 wizard's Fireball is a daily power that deals 3d6+Int fire damage (miss half) to all creatures in the area. The flameskull's Fireball is an encounter power that deals 3d6 plus some number less than Int to all creatures in the area except one or two allies that it can exclude from the effect.

That's not so much an internal consistency problem (the players might not notice the difference if they only fight it once and it doesn't exclude any allies in that fight) as a clarity or standardization problem: if something refers to a Fireball which one do they mean, it's harder to remember which has what parameters off the top of your head, etc.


Ease of Design & Play:
[...]
The best example here is 4e Monster Defenses -- rather than total up a vast array of possible modifiers, the MM tells you what the Defenses for a Monster of a given Level and Type should be and gives you simple guidelines for modification from gear if you really wanted to. This is much easier to use in play than sorting out the modifiers PCs use but it also removes the "fun" of stacking modifiers that contemporary D&D Players seem to enjoy.

It's not a matter of the DM having "fun" at all; being the kind of player who hates accessorizing magic items for combat and prefers utility items, I don't tend to give my NPCs number-heavy items when I DM in any edition.

In this case, the numbers are different for no reason: Monster defenses scale by level while PC defenses scale by half level, so PCs need the latest gear and "math fix" feats to keep the same hit ratios against monsters as they level. The item-upgrade treadmill is only necessary because of this disparity--in fact, they built in a system that requires PCs to continuously upgrade items despite one of their main goals being removal of the Christmas Tree Effect!

So on the one hand you have a system where PC and monster numbers are divergent, which means you have to tightly control PC item bonuses so they get them right when they're needed and introduce math fix feats at later levels and write special rules so monsters get some but not all bonuses from items and so forth...and on the other hand you have a system where PC and monster numbers scale at the same rate so PCs aren't dependent on having certain bonuses at certain levels, there need be no special rules for monsters with items, you can take item bonuses out of the base math (+X items can still exist, they're just actual bonuses instead of being part of the base math), and so forth.

The latter system is much easier to design for (fewer moving parts, less fiddly math, fewer exceptions) and to play with (no item treadmill, no deciding between "cool" items and "powerful" items).


In my experience, this desire of Player/DM Symmetry really bogs down the running of games. Back in the days of TSR PCs and NPCs always operated under different rules -- you had "0th Level NPCs" and monsters that were designed under completely different methods than building PCs. It wasn't until WotC that I began hearing people desiring this "Symmetry."

Personally, my AD&D group complained about the unreality of the PCs and BBEG being the only leveled people around, the divide-by-zero problems of no monster stats, the rarity of PC psionics in 1e vs. the prevalence of monster psionics, the fact that PCs and monsters used different attack and save tables, and so forth since I started playing 1e with them. 3e, with its monsters-as-PCs construction and more standardized and uniform rules, was a welcome change for all of us. It all depends on your local gaming community, I guess.


Symmetry is not that hot, mostly because I like to roll more than one dice to do different things (%thief skills, for example).

Symmetry ≠ uniformity. It's fine by me for PCs to use d20 for attack rolls and d% for skill checks as long as monsters also attack with d20s and roll skills with d%.


And in the case of enemies using the same rules as PCs, that's a travesty. I can make a new monster in AD&D faster than you can say "wazoo", and it will work perfectly.

So can I, mostly because AD&D monsters were on the same "scale" as PCs, unlike 4e and 5e monsters. But again, "symmetry" does not mean 3e-style "go through a laborious character-building process to generate Random Nameless Mook #6," it just means that the PC-building process and the NPC-building process should have similar outputs in terms of numbers and capabilities, and running PCs and NPCs should use generally the same rules.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Personally, my AD&D group complained about the unreality of the PCs and BBEG being the only leveled people around, the divide-by-zero problems of no monster stats, the rarity of PC psionics in 1e vs. the prevalence of monster psionics, the fact that PCs and monsters used different attack and save tables, and so forth since I started playing 1e with them. 3e, with its monsters-as-PCs construction and more standardized and uniform rules, was a welcome change for all of us. It all depends on your local gaming community, I guess.
Oh certainly!

Still, if I wanted to get new gamers to play my system (and I do!) I would endeavor at making it as easy to play and GM as possible. Since I can get great advantages in terms of ease of play by making "asymmetric" rules I absolutely will :smallbiggrin:

I figure everyone who really cares about "rule symmetry" will just keep playing Pathfinder like they do now.

[The New Bruceski]

The arm wrestling match is just an example of a highly skilled character failing vs an easy DC. If you don't like that example because Strength isn't a skill check, think about a ranger failing to identify a deer or a blacksmith failing to make a horseshoe.

Looking at the house my parents just bought, a professional landscaper failed his skill check. Everything's planted way too close together. Shrubs/trees were planted by the house when small with no thought to their growing, things which overgrew paths (due to bad planning) were "pruned" by hacking one side down to the trunk. Terrible work and it's going to be a lot of fun (non-sarcastic, I love this stuff) helping my folks fix it.

[Stubbazubba]

Yes, and I still think you focused overmuch on the value of "one size fits all" rules :smalltongue:

IMHO it isn't even something to be considered when creating rules. Neither should you make sub-systems for their own sake -- the prime concerns are Focus and Genre Reinforcement here. From your text it seems like you'd still be considering "one size fits all" at least on par with these other values.

Of course, if I was mistaken, I apologize for misconstruing your point :smallredface:

Oh, no, that's pretty much it. Ease of learning and recall facilitated by unified mechanics is pretty much as important to me as how well a given mechanic reinforces genre tropes.

[Moreb Benhk]

Oh, no, that's pretty much it. Ease of learning and recall facilitated by unified mechanics is pretty much as important to me as how well a given mechanic reinforces genre tropes.

How highly would you rate the importance of 'effectiveness' of a system, such that your character can have reasonable effects on the world (i.e. - a reasonable chance of accomplishing significant things), and that investment matters (i.e. - the perception that investing in skills/abilities results in a noticeable scale of improvements)?

[Stubbazubba]

How highly would you rate the importance of 'effectiveness' of a system, such that your character can have reasonable effects on the world (i.e. - a reasonable chance of accomplishing significant things), and that investment matters (i.e. - the perception that investing in skills/abilities results in a noticeable scale of improvements)?

1) I would consider that a genre consideration, and not a general property of rules. If the game was supposed to play to that, then obviously that would be a metric to consider for rules in that game, but not games in general.

2) This seems a little too subjective to be a metric. People's perceptions obviously vary. Furthermore, I'm not sure a continuous linear (or otherwise) progression is necessary or even desirable in all games, or even most games. Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, for instance, has very little permanent power-ups, no matter how much XP you accrue, and I think that's a great gameplay experience. So I certainly don't count it in an evaluation of every rules system.

[1337 b4k4]

2) This seems a little too subjective to be a metric. People's perceptions obviously vary. Furthermore, I'm not sure a continuous linear (or otherwise) progression is necessary or even desirable in all games, or even most games. Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, for instance, has very little permanent power-ups, no matter how much XP you accrue, and I think that's a great gameplay experience. So I certainly don't count it in an evaluation of every rules system.

I'm not sure he was meaning "continuous linear progression", so much as "when you make an investment in whatever progression is available that it has a noticeable ROI. For example, Traveller has almost no progression what so ever (IIRC, the classic rules don't even have any rules for it), all of the skills of your character, likely for the entirety of the campaign, are defined at character creation. But in the event that you are able to invest in a skill (or more likely in your equipment), that results in a noticeable change in your capabilities. This perhaps compares favorably to a (theoretical) d100 system where investment of rare advancement resources (be it XP or what have you) results in a mere +1 for every resource invested.

Which does lead to an interesting question of advancement in general, what is a good balance between rarity of advancement resources and the return on investing those resources. I think a game that showers you with advancement resources, but provides a very small return for each resource invested might be less satisfying than a game with rarer resources but a higher reward for each invested resource, to a point of course. The obvious extreme of 1 ultra rare investment point causing the entire character to jump an entire power tier at one time I think would be just as un-fun

[Moreb Benhk]

I'm not sure he was meaning "continuous linear progression", so much as "when you make an investment in whatever progression is available that it has a noticeable ROI.

Yehp, basically this. Does building your character differently make a difference, skill wise?


Which does lead to an interesting question of advancement in general, what is a good balance between rarity of advancement resources and the return on investing those resources. I think a game that showers you with advancement resources, but provides a very small return for each resource invested might be less satisfying than a game with rarer resources but a higher reward for each invested resource, to a point of course. The obvious extreme of 1 ultra rare investment point causing the entire character to jump an entire power tier at one time I think would be just as un-fun

I think one advantage of having slightly more granularity in the system is it allows characters to 'dabble' in flavourful choices, without sacrificing too much of the stuff they need to be effective.

In my mind DnD has struggled to find some sort of balance on this. In 3E there was heaps of granularity, but maxing key skills was pretty much a requirement to stay in the game, so effectively everyone was amazing at a few things, and completely rubbish at everything else. Dabbling (even if you ditch the awful cross-class mechanic) was 'possible', but tended to result in you just being reasonably terrible at everything.

The 4E designers seemed to realise this, and their solution pretty much was to concede defeat with a system that makes EVERYONE a dabbler in every skill (by virtue of the 1/2 level scaling), and granting those binary trained/untrained decisions in character creation. I discovered that I really loathed this pared down system - you made a few (mostly defaulted) choices at creation in a binary manner (you got it or you don't), and then the skill system is done.

Technically.... yes you continue to 'improve', automagically on level up, but your choices are done, and with the scaling difficulties, even the auto progression doesn't really feel like anything. Also, yes, you can spend feats to acquire new skills, but I don't know anyone who ever did, and there are plenty more flavourful and cool feats out there to take instead (not to meantion all the feat-taxes that are pretty much required, if your DM is playing by the standard rules.)

So basically I'd like a system with some granularity and actual choices to be made as my character progresses (and not one with the tacked on feel of 4e). I'd love for 5e to aim for something more like that, but with a counterbalance to prevent 'maxing skillz' to be the only real choice (ala 3E), some sort of diminishing returns, or increasing cost in investment the more training in a skill you have.

To try and work within something similar to the current system (which makes me oh-so-sad), possibly have various mastery teirs for each skill. And each additional level of mastery (after the initial +3) grants you another advantage dice by default (I think that might count for diminishing returns). This would allow some feeling of progression while still using that Bounded Accuracy thing they love so much.


Actually for myself, I'd much rather have a system like 3E, except have the 'default, expected level of investment' to be something like 1/2-2/3 of the maximum. And make any investment into a skill above 1/2 cost 2 skill points, or something like that (numbers plucked out of the air for the sake of illustration). Make maxing allowable, possible, and a viable option for someone who is willing to pay to specialise, but also make dabbling more of a viable option too. But in both cases you are making decisions and progressing a character as you level.

Heck, if people are worried about 'complexity for newbs' print the books with a set of 'default' progressions for people who don't want to deal with these choices and just be told what their numbers are every level...

[Scowling Dragon]

Slightly modified Non-weapon proficiency slots? Those work well.

[Moreb Benhk]

Slightly modified Non-weapon proficiency slots? Those work well.

I never played AD&D. How do they work?

[Scowling Dragon]

Almost exactly like you said.

A ordinary skill check is rolling under your ability score.

Some give a penalty to your ability score.

Every skill slot invested raises your ability score by 1 for the purpose of rolling skill checks.

In a sense, it works exactly as you described it.

A Retro-variation that I like has an expanded version:

It uses a system of Basic (Roll higher then 5), Normal (10), Advanced (15), Difficult (20) and Legendary (25).

Having no Prof slots invested in a skill might give you a penalty.

Having one investment allows you to auto succeed at basic skill checks and gives a +2 bonus. Another one allows a +4 bonus and auto success on normal. Another one is +6 (advanced) then some other stuff and such.

Its essentially streamlined skill points. Since the system does not expect to to always roll against Equal difficulty, it makes sense to invest in some stuff, and not in others stuff as much.

[Moreb Benhk]

That.... doesn't sound to terrible at all...

Though they'd have to ditch bounded accuracy to pull that off.

[navar100]

Ars Magica uses triangle numbers to increase skills. That is, your first point gives you 1 rank, two more points gives you your second rank. Three points for three ranks for a total 6 points of investment, and so on. Of course, Ars Magica is a d10 system so increasing by 1 rank means something.

You can still do this in a d20 system. Give each player (4 + Int modifier) x level skill points for each level, max ranks = level but you can still invest points in a skill even if you don't increase in rank, planning on increasing it next level. When you do the math you can figure out appropriate DCs for varying ease and difficulties of performing certain tasks using those skills which are set, not scale with level. Eventually a character just becomes that good at some skill, but he invested a ton of points for the privilege. Opposed rolls work normally. You might do the math as (Y + Int modifier) x level where Y depends on class so that the Rogue is still skill monkey but make sure the Fighter isn't gimped again and account for classes that want Int high.

Edit: No class/cross-class skill bovine feces. Let the players decide on what skills they want to pursue.

[Talakeal]

Edit: No class/cross-class skill bovine feces. Let the players decide on what skills they want to pursue.

This. If anything this. My biggest hope for fifth Ed is the removal of tying the lass and skill systems together.

[noparlpf]

Edit: No class/cross-class skill bovine feces. Let the players decide on what skills they want to pursue.

YES.
For example: I'm a fighter from a flat desert. Why the heck do I have climb and swim?

I'd also like if the fighter got more skill points (or whatever) than in 3.X. Skills can come in handy in fights and a lot of skills tie into fighter training (be it formal or informal), so why do fighters suck so much?

[Moreb Benhk]

Ars Magica uses triangle numbers to increase skills...

... No class/cross-class skill bovine feces. Let the players decide on what skills they want to pursue.

This and this. Or at least something that is willing to do roughly the same thing.

[Oracle_Hunter]

How highly would you rate the importance of 'effectiveness' of a system, such that your character can have reasonable effects on the world (i.e. - a reasonable chance of accomplishing significant things), and that investment matters (i.e. - the perception that investing in skills/abilities results in a noticeable scale of improvements)?
Systems that don't permit Players to exercise Agency (i.e. the ability to effect their will desires on the game world) are awful. This is one reason I hate all versions of "mother may I" games -- Unknown Army's Combat System is one I'll single out on this score.

If a System permits improvement in game scores but does not actually produce improvement in outcomes then it is likewise awful.

But both of these are basic concerns which are almost below the level of game design. It's the same way that the idea that a car should run and not break down constantly are kind of beneath the concerns of car designers. If you've made a car that doesn't run or breaks down, then nothing else really matters about the car, does it?

[1337 b4k4]

Systems that don't permit Players to exercise Agency (i.e. the ability to effect their will desires on the game world) are awful.

Just a nit pick, but this isn't player agency as I understand it. Player agency as it was defined to me is the ability of players to make meaningful choices in the game. The abili for players to effect their will on the game world is one such way of providing this, but it isn't the only (or necessarily the best) way depending on style and genre.

[Kurald Galain]

That.... doesn't sound to terrible at all...

Though they'd have to ditch bounded accuracy to pull that off.

I'm not convinced bounded accuracy was a good idea anyway. It's more like a hype term that WOTC hopes will sell books (and that they'll likely stray away from in later splatbooks).

[Morty]

What does 'bounded accuracy' even mean, anyway? I've been staying away from these discussions because I've never been clear on that.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

What does 'bounded accuracy' even mean, anyway? I've been staying away from these discussions because I've never been clear on that.

In theory, "bounded accuracy" means that for any given skill check/attack roll/etc. the difference between the most powerful character in the system and the least powerful character in the system will not exceed 20, so you never have a case where character X cannot possibly fail at a task that character Y has a chance to fail or a case where X cannot possibly succeed at a task that Y has a chance to succeed.

In practice, it has turned out to mean "WotC still can't do math, because doing the above causes many more problems than it solves."

[Scowling Dragon]

Well thats a ****ing stupid system. Didn't we already have natural 20s and 1s for that issue?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Well thats a ****ing stupid system. Didn't we already have natural 20s and 1s for that issue?

Only for attacks and saves, skill checks don't have automatic success or failure in 3e or 4e barring houserules to that effect. Adding them to skill checks introduces some problems, but not nearly as many as bounded accuracy does.

[noparlpf]

Only for attacks and saves, skill checks don't have automatic success or failure in 3e or 4e barring houserules to that effect. Adding them to skill checks introduces some problems, but not nearly as many as bounded accuracy does.

My old 3.X group played with natural ones and twenties on skills. It made playing a Truenamer even more annoying than usual on the occasion a one came up. Or rather, they made me even bother to roll when my +84 meant I normally wouldn't have to for a while anyway.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Just a nit pick, but this isn't player agency as I understand it. Player agency as it was defined to me is the ability of players to make meaningful choices in the game. The abili for players to effect their will on the game world is one such way of providing this, but it isn't the only (or necessarily the best) way depending on style and genre.
If their choices don't affect the game world it is hard to say they are meaningful :smallsmile:

After all, you don't need rules to make "meaningful choices" that don't affect anything outside yourself. You get to decide whether you should save the baby or the artifact and that is a very meaningful choice. However, if the rules don't actually let act on that choice with a reasonable chance of success, well, I'm not sure that choice was all that meaningful.

But this is a definitional query which I am loathe to go to deeply into.