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Stray
2014-05-12, 03:25 AM
This week on Legends & Lore (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20140512) : you can attune 3 magic items (but not all magic items require attunement), so no change there, DM can add niche benefits and drawbacks to an item, and identifying properties of items is slightly easier.

Person_Man
2014-05-12, 09:24 AM
I've always had a love/hate relationship with magic items in roleplaying games. In early editions, the game was all about the dungeon crawl and random treasure. But in later editions, it basically became a laborious hassle to manage your Christmas tree of stuff. This seems like a step in the right direction for 5E, though I'll wait for the real final mechanics before making a judgement.

Seerow
2014-05-12, 10:34 AM
What is the point of having magic item attunement when the majority of items don't require attunement anyway?

Edit: Posted after an above post stated there was no real change. The article itself says only potions and scrolls don't require attunement. If they stick with that, it's a step in the right direction. The playtest magic items had only a small fraction of permanent items using attunement.

Stray
2014-05-12, 11:47 AM
Simple magic items, including potions and scrolls, don't require attunement.

To me, bolded part implies there are other things that don't require attunement , not just scrolls and potions. What are they? How common they are? How common are items with attunement? Article doesn't say. Probably better to leave it up to DM to decide what fits their campaign. Keyword [Attuned] can be easily added to any magic item DM wants to limit a bit.

obryn
2014-05-12, 12:14 PM
I've always had a love/hate relationship with magic items in roleplaying games. In early editions, the game was all about the dungeon crawl and random treasure. But in later editions, it basically became a laborious hassle to manage your Christmas tree of stuff. This seems like a step in the right direction for 5E, though I'll wait for the real final mechanics before making a judgement.
Yeah, I'm in exactly this same boat. In RC/1e, magic items are neat perks that you find in a dungeon.

In 3e, it changed into a point-buy track for non-class-based power-ups, where "gold" was the in-game token for those points. And you ignored wealth-by-level at your peril. 4e continued this tradition, but narrowing it and blandifying it substantially. Which powered it down, while leaving it just as mandatory.

It wasn't until late 4e when Inherent Bonuses were introduced, along with actually-interesting Rare items, that I really got excited about magic items in D&D again. I still despise the magic item treadmill and its fiddliness on both the player's and DM's sides, so I'm using Inherent Bonuses with interesting "drops" in all my campaigns now, and I'm never going back.

So far Next is doing ... okay. Certainly better than vanilla 3e or 4e. I really wish they'd just take out all to-hit/defense/AC/save/random d20 bonuses from them, though. (Damage bonuses are fine, but anything that affects the d20 roll should be kept contained.) If your sword can radiate cold, make that the interesting part, not the +3 to-hit.

Sartharina
2014-05-12, 01:48 PM
I hope magic item attunement kinda works like Legacy Weapons/gear from 3e, without the drawbacks that crippled the system.

russdm
2014-05-12, 01:59 PM
This will only work if the magic item Christmas tree effect has lessened considerably and fighters can gain useful abilities without so many magic items being required.

Also, the items requiring need to be worth getting or you won't have people bothering since only allowing 3 really limits what's available. It doesn't change anything from 3.5's needing to pick and choose your magic items so you don't end up with needing two items that use the same slot.

Unattuned items are likely to be: Potions, scrolls, some weapons, some armor, some staves/rods/wands. Wonderous items may fall into needing attunement.

Its an interesting idea, but it feels weird coming from 3.5 or slightly earlier editions.

I think the Elder Scrolls Skill books should be added in as that be nice since its a nifty system. You could make them one use items like potions.

Morty
2014-05-12, 02:31 PM
I agree that attuning magic items isn't a bad idea. It's a step closer to making them feel special, instead of just gadgets. But to fully achieve it, they need to be less obligatory. The article doesn't really talk about that.

captpike
2014-05-12, 03:57 PM
I agree that attuning magic items isn't a bad idea. It's a step closer to making them feel special, instead of just gadgets. But to fully achieve it, they need to be less obligatory. The article doesn't really talk about that.

the problem is that 5e needs to support all play styles, not just the "magic is rare" one. if I want to run eberon and have magic marts at every major city and port then it should work.

if they balance the game with only three major magic items then I could break it giving out more then that.

this was why 4e was high magic by default, if the math is transparent then its easy to downgrade the magic items, its not easy to add more and have it work if the system assumes you only ever get three.

Seerow
2014-05-12, 04:21 PM
the problem is that 5e needs to support all play styles, not just the "magic is rare" one. if I want to run eberon and have magic marts at every major city and port then it should work.

if they balance the game with only three major magic items then I could break it giving out more then that.

this was why 4e was high magic by default, if the math is transparent then its easy to downgrade the magic items, its not easy to add more and have it work if the system assumes you only ever get three.

Actually I really love Item Attunement for exactly that reason.

If you have magic being super common and magic mart(tm) on every street corner, then the players have a wide variety of gadgets and gizmos, and thus have a lot more strategic power in the form of being able to easily adapt to any situation (much like a Wizard can). But at no point do you get bogged down by having a dozen or more items, or run into issues of characters having so many active items that it completely outshines their inherent class abilities.

On the other end of things, in a lower magic setting, as long as characters get 3 items in a reasonable amount of time (read: by mid levels ish), they're not feeling like they're gimped and missing out on a ton of the power that they should have and are balanced around.




That said, my ideal magic item system is one with attunements that work a lot like Incarnum. Imagine a character who has X magic points that gets distributed into whatever gear they have. So if they only have a single magic sword, they can invest all of their power into that sword and by high levels it is a really legendary weapon. Or if they have a whole bunch of magic items, it's a bunch of minor doodads that add up to the same level, but likely with more variety.

(Okay, my actual ideal is taking that a step further, and having those points actually then get invested into class abilities. So you can have like a Wizard who invests his points into being able to cast spells, or a Monk who invests his points into being able to use ki abilities, and so on. But having something like that just for magic items would be a massive step forward)

Knaight
2014-05-12, 04:28 PM
the problem is that 5e needs to support all play styles, not just the "magic is rare" one. if I want to run eberon and have magic marts at every major city and port then it should work.

There's no reason that 3 attuned items prevents outright magi-tech, even if everything that isn't an outright consumable (or something like a magic vehicle) needs to be attuned, particularly if they have the sense to allow you to use magic items as if they weren't magic* even when you've already attuned 3 other ones. The limit is not having 3 magic items total over a characters career, but using 3 at once.

As an example: A group of adventurers wants to explore a dangerous island, which consists of a massive rock jutting a half mile out of the ocean with sheer, steep walls, and a dwelling burrowed within the other side with even more sheer, steep walls on the other side. So, they go and buy magic gloves that stick to the walls and will allow them to climb (magical suction cups), cloaks that slow falls down and allow for landing long distance drops safely (magical parachutes), and whatever other item they want. They attune all three at once, and call it a done day - sure, they don't have as much equipment as they otherwise would, but it's not like a group of modern people trying the same thing would either, particularly as parachutes eat space like nothing else.

Plus, 3 items per character seems way outside of "magic is rare" territory anyways.

*Or even just having less magic.

da_chicken
2014-05-12, 09:10 PM
To me, bolded part implies there are other things that don't require attunement , not just scrolls and potions. What are they? How common they are? How common are items with attunement? Article doesn't say. Probably better to leave it up to DM to decide what fits their campaign. Keyword [Attuned] can be easily added to any magic item DM wants to limit a bit.

My assumption would be any single-use magic item (potion, scroll, ammunition) or a +1 weapon, +1 armor, or +1 shield (if the latter exists, which I doubt). I don't see any reason to require attunement for those items, since by their very nature you can't exactly share them. Bag of holding? I think that takes a lot away from the item if it's locked like that.


the problem is that 5e needs to support all play styles, not just the "magic is rare" one. if I want to run eberon and have magic marts at every major city and port then it should work.

Call me crazy, but it seems pretty easy to say "You get 5 attunements in this game because magic is more common" or "You get attunements equal to your proficiency bonus" or "Unlimited attunements! Welcome to FR!" or "Don't worry about attunements; ain't nobody got time for that".

My problem is for the high magic Welcome to Rary's Magical Goods campaigns it would be nice to have gp values. I suppose WotC is aware of how badly they price things, though, so they're just using the category system. Hm. Maybe it's not such a bad thing. It seems harder to make a rarity mistake than a gp value mistake. This way the DM can price things as he wants, for better or worse, I guess.

I hope there are some item creation rules outlined that are less draconic than 2E but also less free than 3.x. Not giving players some kind of option will encourage people to ad hoc 3.x's system, I think.



I really wish they'd just take out all to-hit/defense/AC/save/random d20 bonuses from them, though. (Damage bonuses are fine, but anything that affects the d20 roll should be kept contained.)


If the max bonus you can really get from magic is +3 and no magic stacks ever, then I think it's perfectly fine. A +2, historically, has been the situational modifier on d20 rolls. This is just a little better than that, and in a game where the real situational modifier is advantage/disadvantage, that magic bonus is nice but kind of outclassed.

Stubbazubba
2014-05-12, 11:58 PM
(Okay, my actual ideal is taking that a step further, and having those points actually then get invested into class abilities. So you can have like a Wizard who invests his points into being able to cast spells, or a Monk who invests his points into being able to use ki abilities, and so on. But having something like that just for magic items would be a massive step forward)

How is that different from a standard point buy system where? Or are you saying you have magic points specifically that can go into class abilities or items (or possibly other things), all separate from the standard class progression (i.e., non-magic stuff)?

Person_Man
2014-05-13, 08:41 AM
I really wish they'd just take out all to-hit/defense/AC/save/random d20 bonuses from them, though. (Damage bonuses are fine, but anything that affects the d20 roll should be kept contained.) If your sword can radiate cold, make that the interesting part, not the +3 to-hit.

Wholeheartedly agreed.

If magic weapons can provide an X bonus to hit, then it basically becomes mandatory for all players to have a +X weapon. And any player who doesn't have a +X weapon is screwing themselves, usually unintentionally. And then spellcasters need a +X implement, or their to-hit rolls don't scale properly. And then monsters need to get a +X bonus somehow, or their to-hit rolls don't scale properly. And then non-magical humanoids and monstrous humanoids have to actually carry magic weapons most of the time or their to-hit rolls aren't threatening. And so on.

The further the developers screw with Bounded Accuracy, the less sense it makes.


Separately, I would propose using Fate points (http://fate-srd.com/fate-core/fate-point-economy) as the economy to manage Feats, Magic Items, and Ability Score bonuses. Every player starts the game with X Fate points per scene/chapter/etc (set by the DM). Fate points can be spent to buy a Feat, buy an Ability Score Enhancements, or attune yourself to a magic item. Unspent Fate points can be used during the game to effect die rolls, or as a "get out of jail free" card when certain bad things happen to a player. At the end of each scene/chapter/story/whatever (set by DM) unspent Fate points are lost, all Fate point purchases are reset, and the player has the option of buying different Feats/Ability Score Enhancements/Mage Items Attunements. If you find a treasure in the middle of a scene/chapter/etc, you can attune yourself to it if you have Fate points available. Otherwise you need to wait until the end of the scene/chapter/etc to do so. As players gain levels, their Fate point refresh rate increases (at a rate set by the DM), giving them access to more stuff.

This creates an highly modular point buy system that runs parallel to the class based system, without requiring it. DMs can set the Fate points at whatever level they want. They can also restrict Fate point purchases to certain things, in case they like Feats but want to ban magic items. And it keeps everything relatively balanced.

Doug Lampert
2014-05-13, 01:33 PM
If the max bonus you can really get from magic is +3 and no magic stacks ever, then I think it's perfectly fine. A +2, historically, has been the situational modifier on d20 rolls. This is just a little better than that, and in a game where the real situational modifier is advantage/disadvantage, that magic bonus is nice but kind of outclassed.

+3 from a weapon and my strength of 25 (belt) gives me +2 more than a guy with no items can get. +5 is getting real significant in a game where bonuses to a d20 roll matter at all.

Belts of Giant strength are in their playtest documents, give bonuses higher than you can get without them, the lower bonus ones can be made by a wish spell, and they haven't yet said anything about removing them.

Then we throw in advantage from some other item (ring of invisibility maybe) and I'm really cooking as far as attack bonuses go. Mind, wasting three items on attack out of three atunment is overkill, but the ring and the strength both have other advantages in addition to the attack bonus.

If there are +3 swords there WILL be people with more than +3 from magic.

Knaight
2014-05-13, 02:15 PM
So far Next is doing ... okay. Certainly better than vanilla 3e or 4e. I really wish they'd just take out all to-hit/defense/AC/save/random d20 bonuses from them, though. (Damage bonuses are fine, but anything that affects the d20 roll should be kept contained.) If your sword can radiate cold, make that the interesting part, not the +3 to-hit.

I agree entirely. I've generally found the wondrous items which don't do this to be the most interesting - The Decanter of Endless Water is head and shoulders above any item with a +something, and going more towards that would be nice.

Seerow
2014-05-13, 08:07 PM
How is that different from a standard point buy system where? Or are you saying you have magic points specifically that can go into class abilities or items (or possibly other things), all separate from the standard class progression (i.e., non-magic stuff)?

The latter. You would have a class based progression where you gain features/abilities as normal. Different classes have different amounts of abilities they can invest their personal magic into. So a Wizard might be able to invest all of his magic into his spell casting ability, while a Fighter-type might have few or even none, making up the difference via magical items (which the Wizard in this example would have to forego, or choose to give up some of his casting access for the magic items he does get) plus his own personal abilities (which might be weaker but don't require the magic investment).

Sartharina
2014-05-14, 02:44 PM
Actually, the "+X" weapons and armor are better with the constrained math and lack of a target-number treadmill, having the numeric bonus significant enough to feel like a special ability in itself, without being overpowering.

captpike
2014-05-14, 03:00 PM
Call me crazy, but it seems pretty easy to say "You get 5 attunements in this game because magic is more common" or "You get attunements equal to your proficiency bonus" or "Unlimited attunements! Welcome to FR!" or "Don't worry about attunements; ain't nobody got time for that".


if that is all that has to be done sure.

the problems will be if the game is made assuming you have three items, no more no less. so you are too powerful for your level if you have more. there needs to be a option to have 5+ magic items and not require hours of work from the DM to rebalance the game to still work (balancing the game is why I give money to Wotc after all).

Sartharina
2014-05-14, 03:04 PM
if that is all that has to be done sure.

the problems will be if the game is made assuming you have three items, no more no less. so you are too powerful for your level if you have more. there needs to be a option to have 5+ magic items and not require hours of work from the DM to rebalance the game to still work (balancing the game is why I give money to Wotc after all).D&D Next doesn't have the treadmill of power previous editions did, at least not to the same extent.

captpike
2014-05-14, 03:36 PM
D&D Next doesn't have the treadmill of power previous editions did, at least not to the same extent.

that is what they say, I don't have much trust that they will (or have the skill to) do that.

if they make the magic items powerful will they HAVE to have a treadmill or they will have players stomping what should be hard encounters because they are ignoring the power that is gained through items.

Lokiare
2014-05-14, 04:22 PM
Just a few thoughts on magic items in general: A +3 bonus is equivalent to about 7 levels in the game. So when you pick one of those +3 items up (whether its a +3 to dex saves or a +3 sword or armor) it totally breaks bounded accuracy. A fighter in plate mail +3 with a shield +3 and a ring of protection +3 has an AC of 27. Nigh on untouchable by quite a few creatures. Totally defeats the purpose of bounded accuracy.

Now they throw in attunement with a set 3 item maximum and we end up with low magic only games. It doesn't matter if you have 50 magic items, it takes a day to attune each item IIRC. You are literally limited to 3 significant magic items at any given time. So you can't create a commoner that gains all their powers from magic items (iron man, batman). It neuters yet another play style.

Now if they set that number as a slider and possibly used a point system where you get 6-12 points depending on race and class and different items had different point values and the DM could change it to 0 to 100 or infinity, then they might have a workable system. As it is in this article though, its just another artificial block that won't be very effective, certainly not much more effective than item slots were in 3.x and 4E.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-14, 05:50 PM
Now if they set that number as a slider and possibly used a point system where you get 6-12 points depending on race and class and different items had different point values and the DM could change it to 0 to 100 or infinity, then they might have a workable system.

Serious question: how (other than being more, and IMO needlessly complicated) is this any different than just adding a sentence that advises DMs that depending on how heavily they want players to rely on magical items, they can increase or decease the attunement slots?

captpike
2014-05-14, 06:04 PM
Serious question: how (other than being more, and IMO needlessly complicated) is this any different than just adding a sentence that advises DMs that depending on how heavily they want players to rely on magical items, they can increase or decease the attunement slots?

because the game might only be balanced to work with 3 items. being 5 AC higher then you should be thanks to having more items could make you all but immune to non-magical attacks

1337 b4k4
2014-05-14, 10:05 PM
because the game might only be balanced to work with 3 items. being 5 AC higher then you should be thanks to having more items could make you all but immune to non-magical attacks

Which is not an issue solved by the proposed alternative. Unless I'm reading it wrong, the proposed alternative suggests that players should have varying number of "magic points" between 6 and 12 default, based on class and race. Magic items would then consume X number of points when equipped. The DM could then adjust the number of points players start with (or alternatively, adjust the number of points magic items cost) up or down. None of that changes that the game would be designed around a particular default, whether the default is 6-12 magic points and some unknown combination of items totaling that cost, or 3 magic slots and 3 items filling those slots, either way there's a default and changing that default with cause consequences outside the default design of the game.

captpike
2014-05-14, 10:21 PM
Which is not an issue solved by the proposed alternative. Unless I'm reading it wrong, the proposed alternative suggests that players should have varying number of "magic points" between 6 and 12 default, based on class and race. Magic items would then consume X number of points when equipped. The DM could then adjust the number of points players start with (or alternatively, adjust the number of points magic items cost) up or down. None of that changes that the game would be designed around a particular default, whether the default is 6-12 magic points and some unknown combination of items totaling that cost, or 3 magic slots and 3 items filling those slots, either way there's a default and changing that default with cause consequences outside the default design of the game.

if they made it with a default then they failed.
it needs to work equally for ALL kinds of magic, no, low, high whatever.

the basic idea of 5e is that it that if can work for everyone, if they cant make something as simple as magic items work for everyone then how can they expect for the rest of the game to work?

Stubbazubba
2014-05-14, 10:53 PM
if they made it with a default then they failed.
it needs to work equally for ALL kinds of magic, no, low, high whatever.

the basic idea of 5e is that it that if can work for everyone, if they cant make something as simple as magic items work for everyone then how can they expect for the rest of the game to work?

I don't think that's possible. You can't magically have the same challenges and monsters work equally well no matter how powerful the PCs are. The only way to do that would be to make magic items totally meaningless, a rounding error in terms of altering your capabilities. And that would defeat the purpose of having them at all. So if you're going to have magic items that make any difference at all, you're going to have to balance the game around having a certain number of them, or at least a certain aggregate potency of them.

The only other closest thing they could do was have the game have multiple power levels to choose from, and then classify each monster and challenge with both a general tier and a rank within that tier (Low, Medium, High Difficulty). If your group chooses to play low power level, then all the ranks are shifted up one (e.g. a 4th Tier Medium Difficulty monster becomes a 4th tier High Difficulty monster, and the 4th tier High difficulty monster becomes a 3rd tier low difficulty monster). Then you could modulate the whole game based on the power level choice, but it still wouldn't work equally well for all power levels, just the presets that they define.

But that's a ton of work for little benefit.

Envyus
2014-05-14, 10:56 PM
Just a few thoughts on magic items in general: A +3 bonus is equivalent to about 7 levels in the game. So when you pick one of those +3 items up (whether its a +3 to dex saves or a +3 sword or armor) it totally breaks bounded accuracy. A fighter in plate mail +3 with a shield +3 and a ring of protection +3 has an AC of 27. Nigh on untouchable by quite a few creatures. Totally defeats the purpose of bounded accuracy.

Now they throw in attunement with a set 3 item maximum and we end up with low magic only games. It doesn't matter if you have 50 magic items, it takes a day to attune each item IIRC. You are literally limited to 3 significant magic items at any given time. So you can't create a commoner that gains all their powers from magic items (iron man, batman). It neuters yet another play style.

Now if they set that number as a slider and possibly used a point system where you get 6-12 points depending on race and class and different items had different point values and the DM could change it to 0 to 100 or infinity, then they might have a workable system. As it is in this article though, its just another artificial block that won't be very effective, certainly not much more effective than item slots were in 3.x and 4E.

Dear God you are making this Needlessly complicated. You can only Attune 3 items you can still use others. Also if the DM gave you all three of those items then he is stupid. As the DM decides what is dropped this does not screw anything up unless he wants to.

captpike
2014-05-14, 11:30 PM
I don't think that's possible. You can't magically have the same challenges and monsters work equally well no matter how powerful the PCs are. The only way to do that would be to make magic items totally meaningless, a rounding error in terms of altering your capabilities. And that would defeat the purpose of having them at all. So if you're going to have magic items that make any difference at all, you're going to have to balance the game around having a certain number of them, or at least a certain aggregate potency of them.

The only other closest thing they could do was have the game have multiple power levels to choose from, and then classify each monster and challenge with both a general tier and a rank within that tier (Low, Medium, High Difficulty). If your group chooses to play low power level, then all the ranks are shifted up one (e.g. a 4th Tier Medium Difficulty monster becomes a 4th tier High Difficulty monster, and the 4th tier High difficulty monster becomes a 3rd tier low difficulty monster). Then you could modulate the whole game based on the power level choice, but it still wouldn't work equally well for all power levels, just the presets that they define.

But that's a ton of work for little benefit.

you would have to have a set range, there are two ways to make that work, first you could give bonuses to the PCs to balance it out (like 4e's inherit bonuses) or you could adjust fights "in a medium magic game add one level to every fight, in a high magic game add two"

if the game, and therefor the magic items are build on a firm mathematical foundation then this should be possible, the only reason not to do this would be because A) they don't understand the math of their own game or B) they don't want to support any but one very specific playstyle.

Lokiare
2014-05-15, 03:26 AM
Which is not an issue solved by the proposed alternative. Unless I'm reading it wrong, the proposed alternative suggests that players should have varying number of "magic points" between 6 and 12 default, based on class and race. Magic items would then consume X number of points when equipped. The DM could then adjust the number of points players start with (or alternatively, adjust the number of points magic items cost) up or down. None of that changes that the game would be designed around a particular default, whether the default is 6-12 magic points and some unknown combination of items totaling that cost, or 3 magic slots and 3 items filling those slots, either way there's a default and changing that default with cause consequences outside the default design of the game.

Actually something with a +3 on it (weapon, armor, shield, protection ring, etc...etc...) that would normally break bounded accuracy when combined with other high bonus items could have a much higher cost. Like say it takes 10 points in a 12 point game. So max your AC could get to Plate Mail +3 (21), Shield (23). Which is still pretty high, but it keeps it in check. It automatically keeps characters from min/maxing with gear. It also makes it where they have to choose between being untouchable in physical combat or being extremely good at hitting. It has a number of advantages over a static system. It also won't be hard to use because the only time you touch it is when you equip magic items, and its barely 2 digit math. You are doing more math with hit points than you are with this system.


Dear God you are making this Needlessly complicated. You can only Attune 3 items you can still use others. Also if the DM gave you all three of those items then he is stupid. As the DM decides what is dropped this does not screw anything up unless he wants to.

You are assuming all DMs know the pitfalls and don't stick religiously to the random magic item charts that are suggested for use with the game. DMs that don't have that kind of experience will default to the charts and only see a problem when their players are untouchable except on critical hits. This means new DMs, mediocre DMs, and DMs that don't focus on the math will all have problems with 5E as it is now.


you would have to have a set range, there are two ways to make that work, first you could give bonuses to the PCs to balance it out (like 4e's inherit bonuses) or you could adjust fights "in a medium magic game add one level to every fight, in a high magic game add two"

if the game, and therefor the magic items are build on a firm mathematical foundation then this should be possible, the only reason not to do this would be because A) they don't understand the math of their own game or B) they don't want to support any but one very specific playstyle.

After all the other things I've seen with 5E, I'm leaning toward A

obryn
2014-05-15, 08:12 AM
Is there any sign of actual magic +X shields in the playtest?

1337 b4k4
2014-05-15, 08:26 AM
you would have to have a set range, there are two ways to make that work, first you could give bonuses to the PCs to balance it out (like 4e's inherit bonuses) or you could adjust fights "in a medium magic game add one level to every fight, in a high magic game add two"

And you could do this with the existing attunement system too. So again, I fail to see what the more complicated system provides that the current system doesn't.


Actually something with a +3 on it (weapon, armor, shield, protection ring, etc...etc...) that would normally break bounded accuracy when combined with other high bonus items could have a much higher cost. Like say it takes 10 points in a 12 point game. So max your AC could get to Plate Mail +3 (21), Shield (23). Which is still pretty high, but it keeps it in check. It automatically keeps characters from min/maxing with gear. It also makes it where they have to choose between being untouchable in physical combat or being extremely good at hitting. It has a number of advantages over a static system. It also won't be hard to use because the only time you touch it is when you equip magic items, and its barely 2 digit math. You are doing more math with hit points than you are with this system.

Which of these things does the current attunement system not do? By only letting you attune to 3 items, it keeps the number of massive bonuses in check. By limiting you to 3, you're required to choose between being nigh untouchable or being really good at hitting, or balancing between the two. So again, what advantage does your system provide?




You are assuming all DMs know the pitfalls and don't stick religiously to the random magic item charts that are suggested for use with the game. DMs that don't have that kind of experience will default to the charts and only see a problem when their players are untouchable except on critical hits. This means new DMs, mediocre DMs, and DMs that don't focus on the math will all have problems with 5E as it is now.


I think by the time DMs get around to randomly rolling up magic items with more than a +1, they'll have a decent feel for the system. Per the magic item charts, rare magic items shouldn't start showing up until level 5 (d20 + level). And of course, the DMG should have plenty of text regarding how various things alter the game, but that's just a good DMG in general. But also, frankly speaking, if you can't look at a list of magic items and say to yourself as a DM "hmmm, giving this player these 3 magic items that total to +9 AC is going to make them awful hard to hit" then you need to spend more time understanding the rules before you try to DM. I mean at a certain point, we have to expect our DMs are both broadly competent and able to understand the tools they've been given. Of course, that's one of the nice things about the 5e bounded accuracy system, you can make that assessment fairly easily. Compare this to 3e where +9 to AC might be an nearly 100% of expected AC at level 1, and a mere 20% of expected (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=8888663&postcount=15) AC by level 20. In theory, in 5e, a +9 total to AC is always going to be a pretty big deal, whether you're level 1 or level 20.



Edit
----------------------


Is there any sign of actual magic +X shields in the playtest?

Not really. In the magic items document, shields are listed under armor, but the base armor chart (the random +1 chart) has no shields listed on it, and the only shield listed doesn't give a +X, but gives advantage on saving throws vs spells.

In fact, looking at the document provided, the closest we get to the scenario Lokiare described is:

Efreeti Chain: +2 to AC
Spell Guard Shield: Advantage on Magic Saving Throws
Ring of Protection: +1 to AC (attuned)

Obviously the document is incomplete, but assuming they stick fairly close to what they've already provided, +3 bonuses are going to be awful rare. Of course, so is an attunement requirement on armors so there's that too.

obryn
2014-05-15, 09:33 AM
OK, good. I mean, for bounded accuracy, they have to have realized that giving additional +1 to +3 in a magic shield could just break bounded accuracy. They realized that in 4e, after all.

captpike
2014-05-15, 10:48 AM
And you could do this with the existing attunement system too. So again, I fail to see what the more complicated system provides that the current system doesn't.


you could yes, but only if the system was made for it. a system made to only handle 3 items might break if you have 8, you have to make it with the understanding that it will have to work with anything from 0-8 items.

not impossible but also not as easy as saying "you can attune 8 items rather then 3"

Sartharina
2014-05-15, 11:14 AM
Just a few thoughts on magic items in general: A +3 bonus is equivalent to about 7 levels in the game. So when you pick one of those +3 items up (whether its a +3 to dex saves or a +3 sword or armor) it totally breaks bounded accuracy. A fighter in plate mail +3 with a shield +3 and a ring of protection +3 has an AC of 27. Nigh on untouchable by quite a few creatures. Totally defeats the purpose of bounded accuracy.A way to "fix" this is to not have magic bonuses stack, and also not require math bonuses for magical weapons and armor.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-15, 11:52 AM
you could yes, but only if the system was made for it. a system made to only handle 3 items might break if you have 8, you have to make it with the understanding that it will have to work with anything from 0-8 items.

not impossible but also not as easy as saying "you can attune 8 items rather then 3"

So then the issue is not the attunement system but the low cap? And lets be honest here, even if they designed it with a cap of 8 or 15 or 24 or whatever arbitrary number you choose, they're still going to pick a default assumption (like say an average) and when you go outside that assumption, you'll get edge cases.

captpike
2014-05-15, 06:05 PM
So then the issue is not the attunement system but the low cap? And lets be honest here, even if they designed it with a cap of 8 or 15 or 24 or whatever arbitrary number you choose, they're still going to pick a default assumption (like say an average) and when you go outside that assumption, you'll get edge cases.

so long as the default is a range not one number. and the range is enough to go from no magic to high magic I will be good.

going from 0 magic items items to 8 or 10 would be a good range. you could have a dark sun style no magic game or a eberon style game with magic marts on every corner.

if they want to support more then one very specific play style they NEED To do this, for the same reason they need to provide both casters and non-casters.

Lokiare
2014-05-16, 04:11 AM
And you could do this with the existing attunement system too. So again, I fail to see what the more complicated system provides that the current system doesn't.


Which of these things does the current attunement system not do? By only letting you attune to 3 items, it keeps the number of massive bonuses in check. By limiting you to 3, you're required to choose between being nigh untouchable or being really good at hitting, or balancing between the two. So again, what advantage does your system provide?

You mean other than restricting someone from using a +3 Plate mail in combination with a +3 ring of protection and a Cloak of Displacement (disadvantage when attacking the wearer)? In my system you would only be able to use one of them, not all 3. See if you attune these three items, your chance of being hit by someone with an attack bonus of +10 is around 2.25% (rounded up to 5% for the crit rules). Now you could trade out the ring of Prot. +3 for a +3 Flame Tongue Great Sword of Advantage (or whatever) and only be hit 25% of the time and still break bounded accuracy by hitting 15% more of the time and dealing much more damage.

With my system you either get the +3 armor, the +3 ring, the Cloak of Displacement, or the +3 Flame Tongue Great Sword of Advantage (or whatever) because they all cost about 80% to 90% of your attunement points. Now do you understand?


I think by the time DMs get around to randomly rolling up magic items with more than a +1, they'll have a decent feel for the system. Per the magic item charts, rare magic items shouldn't start showing up until level 5 (d20 + level). And of course, the DMG should have plenty of text regarding how various things alter the game, but that's just a good DMG in general. But also, frankly speaking, if you can't look at a list of magic items and say to yourself as a DM "hmmm, giving this player these 3 magic items that total to +9 AC is going to make them awful hard to hit" then you need to spend more time understanding the rules before you try to DM. I mean at a certain point, we have to expect our DMs are both broadly competent and able to understand the tools they've been given. Of course, that's one of the nice things about the 5e bounded accuracy system, you can make that assessment fairly easily. Compare this to 3e where +9 to AC might be an nearly 100% of expected AC at level 1, and a mere 20% of expected (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=8888663&postcount=15) AC by level 20. In theory, in 5e, a +9 total to AC is always going to be a pretty big deal, whether you're level 1 or level 20.

I'm sorry, but every new DM I've seen play has fallen deep into these pitfalls, even in 2E where things are close to bounded accuracy. People don't understand the math of a game until they sit down and start running equations, and normal DMs aren't likely to do that until its too late and they have to throw rust monsters at the party and seriously anger some players to try to reign in the balance of the game. Its sad, but I've seen it happen just too often.


Edit
----------------------



Not really. In the magic items document, shields are listed under armor, but the base armor chart (the random +1 chart) has no shields listed on it, and the only shield listed doesn't give a +X, but gives advantage on saving throws vs spells.

In fact, looking at the document provided, the closest we get to the scenario Lokiare described is:

Efreeti Chain: +2 to AC
Spell Guard Shield: Advantage on Magic Saving Throws
Ring of Protection: +1 to AC (attuned)

Obviously the document is incomplete, but assuming they stick fairly close to what they've already provided, +3 bonuses are going to be awful rare. Of course, so is an attunement requirement on armors so there's that too.

How much do you want to bet by the end of the first year there will be multiple magic items in supplements that have +3's to AC?


A way to "fix" this is to not have magic bonuses stack, and also not require math bonuses for magical weapons and armor.

This would be the best option. A slightly better one (so the players don't grab the highest bonus and sell the rest like vendor trash) is to take the highest bonus and then every other bonus only adds +1 to the total. Then you would max out with Plate mail +3, Shield +3, Ring of Prot. +3 with a total magic bonus of +5 and they would still seek out those nice items.

You could come up with a slightly more complex system where you remove +1 per extra magic item that adds to defense so if you had 2 items +3, +3 = 6 -1 = 5. If you had 4 items +3, +3, +3, +3 = 12 - 3 = +9.

Or even more punishingly you would do +1 cumulative per extra item:
1 item -0
2 items -1
3 items -3
4 items -6
5 items -10
etc...etc...
Eventually the penalty would outweigh the +3 bonus.

Another idea is to just put a hard cap on it, like +5 max from magic. I like this answer the least as I dislike hard caps in the system.

The least complex way is my original idea where you just have a number of points and can attune items of that value total.

Knaight
2014-05-16, 02:08 PM
so long as the default is a range not one number. and the range is enough to go from no magic to high magic I will be good.

going from 0 magic items items to 8 or 10 would be a good range. you could have a dark sun style no magic game or a eberon style game with magic marts on every corner.
Attunement has nothing to do with magic item availability. It has to do with the number of magic items that an individual can use at once. You can have a super high magic game full of items with Attunement 3, and you can have a fairly low magic game with minimal items with Attunement 3, though in the latter case it's very rarely an actual practical limitation.

As an example - lets say that I have a computer, a smart phone, a tablet, and an e-reader. This isn't actually the case, but it works for the sake of the argument. It's not really feasible to use more than two of these at once - maybe I'm using the computer to jailbreak the phone, or the e-reader to read something and the tablet to look up historical figures mentioned.

That would be an Attunement 2 situation, wherein only 2 of them can feasibly be used at the same time. Yet the modern U.S. technology market is way more prevalent than magic markets even in Eberron. The feasibility of simultaneous use has little to nothing to do with the availability of the things in use.

captpike
2014-05-16, 02:57 PM
Attunement has nothing to do with magic item availability. It has to do with the number of magic items that an individual can use at once. You can have a super high magic game full of items with Attunement 3, and you can have a fairly low magic game with minimal items with Attunement 3, though in the latter case it's very rarely an actual practical limitation.

As an example - lets say that I have a computer, a smart phone, a tablet, and an e-reader. This isn't actually the case, but it works for the sake of the argument. It's not really feasible to use more than two of these at once - maybe I'm using the computer to jailbreak the phone, or the e-reader to read something and the tablet to look up historical figures mentioned.

That would be an Attunement 2 situation, wherein only 2 of them can feasibly be used at the same time. Yet the modern U.S. technology market is way more prevalent than magic markets even in Eberron. The feasibility of simultaneous use has little to nothing to do with the availability of the things in use.

a high magic game where you can only ever use three magic items at one time is not a high magic game.

the game needs to work with characters having more then three items at a time or it not support a large number of playstyles. and again if they know what they are doing (wishful thinking I know) it is not even hard to do

Stubbazubba
2014-05-16, 03:42 PM
a high magic game where you can only ever use three magic items at one time is not a high magic game.

the game needs to work with characters having more then three items at a time or it not support a large number of playstyles. and again if they know what they are doing (wishful thinking I know) it is not even hard to do

You seem to think that just adding a few levels to enemies or a few more numbers on to players is both simple and all that it would take to balance wildly varying numbers of magic items. Neither of those is the case. And as Knaight said, a high magic game doesn't necessarily mean you must be using a dozen magic items at a time. In every case that they have allowed this, it just becomes the Christmas Tree effect all over again. For any of the possible playstyles to work well, you have to design around a certain level of magic bonuses, it is impossible to just make everything in the game scale up and down on the fly.

Attunements are a fantastic idea, although I could see an argument for having them grow over time:

Level 1-5 = 2 Attunements
6-10 = 3 Attunements
11-15 = 4 Attunements
16-20 = 5 Attunements

With a feat that gives you +1 Attunement. And while we're at it, yes, make spellcasters use Attunements to get their daily spells, so they have to choose between the passive, static benefits of magic items and the flexible, dynamic potential of more spells per day. I also like Lokiare's idea that bonuses don't stack; take the highest and anything else is a +1 (and +1 bonuses simply become +0). I don't think granularizing it down to double-digit points is necessary or desirable, but I can see an argument for the most powerful magic items to take up 2 Attunement slots, maybe 3.

Envyus
2014-05-16, 03:45 PM
Also it looks like you can use more the 3 magic items but only 3 can be attuned. Meaning the non attuned ones won't be as good but you can still use them.

Knaight
2014-05-16, 03:46 PM
a high magic game where you can only ever use three magic items at one time is not a high magic game.

In that case we have very, very different definitions of high magic.

captpike
2014-05-16, 04:01 PM
In that case we have very, very different definitions of high magic.

let me put it another way, there must be an option to have more then 3 items, and it must be just as balanced as having three or they are (yet again) saying "your not allowed to play this way" in a game that is about supporting as many playstyles as possible.
there is no practical difference between having three magic items and having 20 but only being able to use three



You seem to think that just adding a few levels to enemies or a few more numbers on to players is both simple and all that it would take to balance wildly varying numbers of magic items. Neither of those is the case. And as Knaight said, a high magic game doesn't necessarily mean you must be using a dozen magic items at a time. In every case that they have allowed this, it just becomes the Christmas Tree effect all over again. For any of the possible playstyles to work well, you have to design around a certain level of magic bonuses, it is impossible to just make everything in the game scale up and down on the fly.

your talking like the "Christmas Tree effect" is bad, its just another playstyle that should be supported just as much as the "three magic items" playstyle should be

it would be very hard to make, but if made well would be easy for the DM To do. this was done in 4e, the math for magic items was simple enough that you could play a game right up to 30 without them, or with one per slot and would be fine either way. they can hardly say its impossible or too hard to do when the previous version of the game did it well.

even if they refuse to make the game for more then one playstyle (the three items, no more no less style) then they need to understand how items effect the game well enough so they don't unbalance them. or have items help strikers more then defenders, ore require healers to stock up on healing items just to be able to heal enough to matter, but not require that of any other role.

Knaight
2014-05-16, 04:41 PM
let me put it another way, there must be an option to have more then 3 items, and it must be just as balanced as having three or they are (yet again) saying "your not allowed to play this way" in a game that is about supporting as many playstyles as possible.
there is no practical difference between having three magic items and having 20 but only being able to use three.

There is a huge difference, as you can change which ones you're attuned to. Lets say hypothetically that you have a magic sword, a magic bow, magic armor, a flying carpet, a mask of water breathing, a cloak of warmth, a mask of air purification, and boots of swimming. You can attune any 3 of these at once.

This is very, very different from just having three of them. Let's say this character is going to do something underwater - boots of swimming, magic sword, mask of water breathing. Let's say this character is looking to fight some highly mobile flying thing - magic bow, magic armor, flying carpet. Let's say this character is going down to the frozen, windy, south - cloak of warmth, magic sword, magic armor. Let's say this character is going into some dungeon with serious ventilation problems - mask of air purification, magic sword, magic armor. Let's say that there's something they need to find under an ice cap, where nothing lives - boots of swimming, mask of water breathing, cloak of warmth.

Having all of these options is extremely helpful, even if only one can be used. This is also a pretty high magic assumption, and in an Eberron like setting they probably purchased the lot of them.

Seerow
2014-05-16, 04:56 PM
There is a huge difference, as you can change which ones you're attuned to. Lets say hypothetically that you have a magic sword, a magic bow, magic armor, a flying carpet, a mask of water breathing, a cloak of warmth, a mask of air purification, and boots of swimming. You can attune any 3 of these at once.

This is very, very different from just having three of them. Let's say this character is going to do something underwater - boots of swimming, magic sword, mask of water breathing. Let's say this character is looking to fight some highly mobile flying thing - magic bow, magic armor, flying carpet. Let's say this character is going down to the frozen, windy, south - cloak of warmth, magic sword, magic armor. Let's say this character is going into some dungeon with serious ventilation problems - mask of air purification, magic sword, magic armor. Let's say that there's something they need to find under an ice cap, where nothing lives - boots of swimming, mask of water breathing, cloak of warmth.

Having all of these options is extremely helpful, even if only one can be used. This is also a pretty high magic assumption, and in an Eberron like setting they probably purchased the lot of them.

I think the real disconnect is his interpretation of "High Magic" is basically the 3.5 Christmas tree, where every character is expected to be wearing half a dozen or more items just to keep up numerically, with a handful of other items for special effects besides.

Honestly I think the system would be a lot better off if they got rid of +X items from the baseline entirely, then reintroduced them in a "High Magic" variant, as items that don't require attunement slots, and then give the opposition the equivalent to the 4e inherent bonuses added to their attributes so they keep pace with the PC's newly increased power.

Then you reopen up the christmas tree/high magic for people who want it, and it's a module that loosens up the grip of bounded accuracy to boot, while actually keeping more constrained/balanced in the default assumptions.

Envyus
2014-05-17, 04:08 AM
let me put it another way, there must be an option to have more then 3 items, and it must be just as balanced as having three or they are (yet again) saying "your not allowed to play this way" in a game that is about supporting as many playstyles as possible.
there is no practical difference between having three magic items and having 20 but only being able to use three


You could always just ignore it as they pointed out that is something you can do.

Also once again they said you can still use more then the 3 the other ones just won't be as good as they are not attuned. The ones you are attuned to are pretty much your best items.

Morty
2014-05-17, 07:57 AM
Refusing to treat a world or campaign as "high magic" unless everyone is covered in magic items from head to toe is one of the flaws in the D&D franchise people have learned to take for granted, I suppose. It also happens to be one D&D Next doesn't embrace, for a change.

Lokiare
2014-05-17, 08:55 AM
Refusing to treat a world or campaign as "high magic" unless everyone is covered in magic items from head to toe is one of the flaws in the D&D franchise people have learned to take for granted, I suppose. It also happens to be one D&D Next doesn't embrace, for a change.

Yes, they are swapping one group of fans for another and they are betting that other group is larger and will spend more money on 5E. I personally feel they are not only wrong, but that with the right rules and system they could get all groups.

Morty
2014-05-17, 09:40 AM
I don't think it's a matter of pleasing one group of fans or the other. There's just no excuse for the way magic items work in 3e and pre-4e D&D. Three major "items" plus those that don't need attunement seem fine, although the devil is always in the details.

Sartharina
2014-05-18, 03:13 AM
a high magic game where you can only ever use three magic items at one time is not a high magic game.

the game needs to work with characters having more then three items at a time or it not support a large number of playstyles. and again if they know what they are doing (wishful thinking I know) it is not even hard to doYou swap out items as you need them with Attunement 3. "Combat over: Deactivating Angelic Breastplate, Sword of Fire, and Dancing Shield, Activating Helm of True Seeing, Boots of Striding, and Elven Cloak - let's go hunting!"


It's like deck-building in MtG, or character hotbar building in Guild Wars - you can have dozens of useful skills, but only 5 are available for any given battle/adventure. Choose the ones you need to fit the situation - and having more options gives more power, even if you can't access all the options at once. A guy with fifteen magic items has an advantage over a guy with three, even if they can't use more than 3 in any given adventure - The guy who only has 3 needs to restrict himself to a set of magic items that are useful for ALL adventures he sees himself having - from holding a fortress against Orc Invasions, to hunting cultists within a city, to crossing the wilderness, to ferreting out kobolds in a cavern. The guy with 15 magic items can tailor his loadout for each adventure he's going to face, giving him better success rates. (Such as replacing his Sword That Shoots Fireballs that's extremely useful for defending against orcs for a saber that reflects spells back at the caster for slaying cultists).

captpike
2014-05-18, 12:14 PM
You swap out items as you need them with Attunement 3. "Combat over: Deactivating Angelic Breastplate, Sword of Fire, and Dancing Shield, Activating Helm of True Seeing, Boots of Striding, and Elven Cloak - let's go hunting!"


It's like deck-building in MtG, or character hotbar building in Guild Wars - you can have dozens of useful skills, but only 5 are available for any given battle/adventure. Choose the ones you need to fit the situation - and having more options gives more power, even if you can't access all the options at once. A guy with fifteen magic items has an advantage over a guy with three, even if they can't use more than 3 in any given adventure - The guy who only has 3 needs to restrict himself to a set of magic items that are useful for ALL adventures he sees himself having - from holding a fortress against Orc Invasions, to hunting cultists within a city, to crossing the wilderness, to ferreting out kobolds in a cavern. The guy with 15 magic items can tailor his loadout for each adventure he's going to face, giving him better success rates. (Such as replacing his Sword That Shoots Fireballs that's extremely useful for defending against orcs for a saber that reflects spells back at the caster for slaying cultists).

I can see such a system working, it however should be an option not a requirement. again there is no good reason they cant make the system work with a wide variety of magic items on you. and if they do so everyone gets what they want, there literally is no downside for anyone.

not the mention the annoyance of greatly changing your character sheet after every fight because you are changing out items.

Envyus
2014-05-18, 01:05 PM
I can see such a system working, it however should be an option not a requirement. again there is no good reason they cant make the system work with a wide variety of magic items on you. and if they do so everyone gets what they want, there literally is no downside for anyone.

not the mention the annoyance of greatly changing your character sheet after every fight because you are changing out items.

Good thing it is an option as they straight up say if you don't like this rule change it.

Millennium
2014-05-18, 01:41 PM
I can see such a system working, it however should be an option not a requirement. again there is no good reason they cant make the system work with a wide variety of magic items on you.
I'm not so sure I agree with that. How many editions has D&D been through, now, with no limit on magic items but what you can buy or find? Wizards and its predecessors have bent over backwards, time and again, trying to figure out ways to make this work.

And yet, for all the differences between the editions, one thing people have always agreed on is that D&D, as a game, is ultimately all about the gear. We bicker and argue about magic systems, class tiers, and such, but there is nothing that can't be overcome by getting more stuff. This hasn't changed. It has also popped up in every other system that doesn't put some sort of limits on magic items, and in the end, it has broken every last one of them.

One can only take so much trial and error before starting to take it as evidence that maybe the flaw isn't in the implementations, but the entire premise. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if, just maybe, claiming that unlimited magic items can work is the extraordinary claim in this argument. Maybe it well and truly can't be made to work in a game: four-plus editions and various other incarnations of D&D have failed, and so have numerous other systems. Maybe it's time for something new.

If you don't like it, houserule it. What's stopping you?

da_chicken
2014-05-18, 03:13 PM
I can see such a system working, it however should be an option not a requirement. again there is no good reason they cant make the system work with a wide variety of magic items on you. and if they do so everyone gets what they want, there literally is no downside for anyone.

I don't understand. At your table, every rule is optional and I can't possibly think of a system more easy to ignore or house rule away. Why are you upset that it's a default rule? It's like being upset that you can only use two magic rings. Yes, yes, Oberoni, Oberoni, but in this case the rule is aiding game design by normalizing the game. Why is that a flaw?

The fact that this rule exists means two things:

1. The game designers have a range that they can design to that they can anticipate players to have with both a lower limit (0) and an upper limit (3). So it's more likely that when you play with the rule that the game will not break down into rocket tag. If you house rule attunement away and your game does break down into rocket tag, well, you've only yourself to blame.

2. The upper limit on the power level for magic items just went up. You don't have to worry that someone is going to combine a dozen items that all stack, so you can design individual magic items that have greater impact or are otherwise more versatile. The wand of enemy detection, for example, is quite a bit better in 5E, as the initiative bonus mode makes the item very valuable. Interestingly, that wand isn't listed as attuned in my copy, but it sounds like it's likely to do so in the final game.

Now, you might argue that the above means that ignoring the attunement rule means you're even more likely to suffer rocket tag syndrome. On the other hand, given that previous editions still had that symptom, I'd argue that this rule probably needs to exist because the slot system was plainly insufficient.


not the mention the annoyance of greatly changing your character sheet after every fight because you are changing out items.

I don't see it significantly more relevant than changing it due to damage, treasure, spells, etc. It's not like you weren't swapping out your cloak of elvenkind out of combat for a cloak of displacement in combat, or putting on your eyes of the eagle, etc.

You haven't given me a compelling reason that attunement is flawed, honestly. It feels like you're just worried you'll have 30 magic items and then the DM will only let you use 3 at a time. I question how likely it is to have a campaign where the attunement rule is still being used if that's what the DM allows, or if the attunement rule is what's keeping your campaign from becoming totally broken. If it's the latter, I don't see why it's a bad default rule. In this case, it seems to be encouraging player choice.

captpike
2014-05-18, 06:45 PM
I'm not so sure I agree with that. How many editions has D&D been through, now, with no limit on magic items but what you can buy or find? Wizards and its predecessors have bent over backwards, time and again, trying to figure out ways to make this work.

And yet, for all the differences between the editions, one thing people have always agreed on is that D&D, as a game, is ultimately all about the gear. We bicker and argue about magic systems, class tiers, and such, but there is nothing that can't be overcome by getting more stuff. This hasn't changed. It has also popped up in every other system that doesn't put some sort of limits on magic items, and in the end, it has broken every last one of them.

One can only take so much trial and error before starting to take it as evidence that maybe the flaw isn't in the implementations, but the entire premise. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if, just maybe, claiming that unlimited magic items can work is the extraordinary claim in this argument. Maybe it well and truly can't be made to work in a game: four-plus editions and various other incarnations of D&D have failed, and so have numerous other systems. Maybe it's time for something new.

If you don't like it, houserule it. What's stopping you?
I want the game to be playable and fun out of the box, if I have to fix half of it I dont see a reason to buy it in the first place.

and yes the last edition did fine with no magic gear, it took time to get some official inherit bonus rules but the math for magic its was so simple that you did not need them. I dont think its unreasonable to want 5e to not fail at something 4e did well. given we know it is very possible.

yes there should be some limits, but a boring and lazy "three items and no more" limit is the worst possible way to do it.

and if people want their game to be able gear that should be an option. with only three attunments its not possible "O joy a magic sword, too bad I have a belt, a ring and armor, I guess I can sell it next town I get to".



I don't understand. At your table, every rule is optional and I can't possibly think of a system more easy to ignore or house rule away. Why are you upset that it's a default rule? It's like being upset that you can only use two magic rings. Yes, yes, Oberoni, Oberoni, but in this case the rule is aiding game design by normalizing the game. Why is that a flaw?

The fact that this rule exists means two things:

1. The game designers have a range that they can design to that they can anticipate players to have with both a lower limit (0) and an upper limit (3). So it's more likely that when you play with the rule that the game will not break down into rocket tag. If you house rule attunement away and your game does break down into rocket tag, well, you've only yourself to blame.

2. The upper limit on the power level for magic items just went up. You don't have to worry that someone is going to combine a dozen items that all stack, so you can design individual magic items that have greater impact or are otherwise more versatile. The wand of enemy detection, for example, is quite a bit better in 5E, as the initiative bonus mode makes the item very valuable. Interestingly, that wand isn't listed as attuned in my copy, but it sounds like it's likely to do so in the final game.

Now, you might argue that the above means that ignoring the attunement rule means you're even more likely to suffer rocket tag syndrome. On the other hand, given that previous editions still had that symptom, I'd argue that this rule probably needs to exist because the slot system was plainly insufficient.



I don't see it significantly more relevant than changing it due to damage, treasure, spells, etc. It's not like you weren't swapping out your cloak of elvenkind out of combat for a cloak of displacement in combat, or putting on your eyes of the eagle, etc.

You haven't given me a compelling reason that attunement is flawed, honestly. It feels like you're just worried you'll have 30 magic items and then the DM will only let you use 3 at a time. I question how likely it is to have a campaign where the attunement rule is still being used if that's what the DM allows, or if the attunement rule is what's keeping your campaign from becoming totally broken. If it's the latter, I don't see why it's a bad default rule. In this case, it seems to be encouraging player choice.

first let me say that a rule can only be optional if removing it does not hurt the game. if going from three to 8 magic items means the game is borked beyond repair then no, the 3 magic item rule is not optional it is required for the same reason you are required to pick a class.

what I want is a slider that goes from 0 to about 8-10 or so attunements and for the game to work anywhere in that range. with any work changing things being simple math like "add one level to the encounter" or "if not using magic items everyone gains 1/3 level to all defense and attack rolls".
that way everyone gets what they want. you want 3 items great you get what you want. I want a very high magic game where every PC has at least 5 items at level 1, growing as you level then I get my game.

if all they can do is 0-3, and it breaks when you go to 4 or more then I would say that they need to find new jobs, because they are very bad at the ones they have.

da_chicken
2014-05-18, 10:47 PM
first let me say that a rule can only be optional if removing it does not hurt the game. if going from three to 8 magic items means the game is borked beyond repair then no, the 3 magic item rule is not optional it is required for the same reason you are required to pick a class.

what I want is a slider that goes from 0 to about 8-10 or so attunements and for the game to work anywhere in that range. with any work changing things being simple math like "add one level to the encounter" or "if not using magic items everyone gains 1/3 level to all defense and attack rolls".
that way everyone gets what they want. you want 3 items great you get what you want. I want a very high magic game where every PC has at least 5 items at level 1, growing as you level then I get my game.

if all they can do is 0-3, and it breaks when you go to 4 or more then I would say that they need to find new jobs, because they are very bad at the ones they have.

I would say that would be a problem, but this isn't 4e so I doubt a +1 to a single number is going to have that much impact. 5e's math doesn't feel so tightly designed. In any case, reserving judgement until the game is fully released, while difficult, is probably extremely wise.

I hope that attunements above 3 are something covered in the DMG as an optional rule, but failing that it seems like perfect material for Unearthed Arcana.

Lokiare
2014-05-19, 02:34 AM
I'm not so sure I agree with that. How many editions has D&D been through, now, with no limit on magic items but what you can buy or find? Wizards and its predecessors have bent over backwards, time and again, trying to figure out ways to make this work.

And yet, for all the differences between the editions, one thing people have always agreed on is that D&D, as a game, is ultimately all about the gear. We bicker and argue about magic systems, class tiers, and such, but there is nothing that can't be overcome by getting more stuff. This hasn't changed. It has also popped up in every other system that doesn't put some sort of limits on magic items, and in the end, it has broken every last one of them.

One can only take so much trial and error before starting to take it as evidence that maybe the flaw isn't in the implementations, but the entire premise. At this point, I'm starting to wonder if, just maybe, claiming that unlimited magic items can work is the extraordinary claim in this argument. Maybe it well and truly can't be made to work in a game: four-plus editions and various other incarnations of D&D have failed, and so have numerous other systems. Maybe it's time for something new.

If you don't like it, houserule it. What's stopping you?

So, 4E didn't work? Granted you could break 4E, but it took quite a bit of effort and shenanigans and very specific combinations of rare magic items. It wasn't as breakable as 3E or 5E is. Unlimited magic items can work, as long as you don't allow or limit stacking of bonuses and magical effects. That's really all it takes.


I would say that would be a problem, but this isn't 4e so I doubt a +1 to a single number is going to have that much impact. 5e's math doesn't feel so tightly designed. In any case, reserving judgement until the game is fully released, while difficult, is probably extremely wise.

I hope that attunements above 3 are something covered in the DMG as an optional rule, but failing that it seems like perfect material for Unearthed Arcana.

You've got it backwards, in 4E a +1 is laughable. In 5E a +1 is equivalent to about 3-7 levels depending on class.

Envyus
2014-05-19, 02:44 AM
So, 4E didn't work? Granted you could break 4E, but it took quite a bit of effort and shenanigans and very specific combinations of rare magic items. It wasn't as breakable as 3E or 5E is. Unlimited magic items can work, as long as you don't allow or limit stacking of bonuses and magical effects. That's really all it takes.

You don't know about 5e yet.

Anyway it's optional and once again you can still use other magic items they just won't be as good as attuned ones.

captpike
2014-05-19, 01:23 PM
You don't know about 5e yet.

Anyway it's optional and once again you can still use other magic items they just won't be as good as attuned ones.

optional does not mean "any rule" it means "any rule I can remove and not break the game, or drastically change the math"

if you NEED 3 magic items to keep up, and having more then that will make you overpowered then no, its not an optional rule.

again if they really want to make a game for everyone then they should assume no default number, there is no reason (besides incompetence) they cant make a range work.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-19, 02:03 PM
if you NEED 3 magic items to keep up, and having more then that will make you overpowered then no, its not an optional rule.

Luckily, they've stated they are designing the game such that you don't NEED any magic items.



again if they really want to make a game for everyone then they should assume no default number, there is no reason (besides incompetence) they cant make a range work.

A virtual impossibility. Even if they chose a "range" they would sill be working with a default number (whether that number is an average or median) and basing all of the math around that number. And even if they modeled the system multiple times to accommodate a range, there's always "outside the range" that will be unsupported. If they chose 0-3 (which they did), you'd complain they didn't choose 4-8. If they chose 4-8 you'd complain they didn't choose 3-10. If they chose a range of 3-10 you'd complain they don't allow for 0 and didn't account for 50.

captpike
2014-05-19, 02:22 PM
Luckily, they've stated they are designing the game such that you don't NEED any magic items.



A virtual impossibility. Even if they chose a "range" they would sill be working with a default number (whether that number is an average or median) and basing all of the math around that number. And even if they modeled the system multiple times to accommodate a range, there's always "outside the range" that will be unsupported. If they chose 0-3 (which they did), you'd complain they didn't choose 4-8. If they chose 4-8 you'd complain they didn't choose 3-10. If they chose a range of 3-10 you'd complain they don't allow for 0 and didn't account for 50.

0-3 is just pathetic, considering they are in fact getting payed to make the game.

the lowest the upper limit needs to be would be what 4e/3e allowed. something like 8-10. they made it work in 4e, they have no excuse for not being able to make it work in 5e.

I have said they need a RANGE not a number, I never said they had to accommodate numbers like 50. having a number as low as 3 is just..sad and cuts off so many possibilities.

if the game is made well, with a solid mathematical foundation then they would know how valuable magic items are, if they know that then they could figure out how to fudge the rest of the system to let the PCs have more or less items, within a reasonable range.

again the system are you saying cant work WORKED IN 4E, its a fact that it can work. they have no excuse for not making it work in 5e.

Envyus
2014-05-19, 02:24 PM
And you are still ignoring the fact that you can use more magic items but they won't be as good as the attuned ones. Anyway you are not listening so I am going to stop talking with you and Lokiare until the game is actually out.

captpike
2014-05-19, 02:30 PM
And you are still ignoring the fact that you can use more magic items but they won't be as good as the attuned ones. Anyway you are not listening so I am going to stop talking with you and Lokiare until the game is actually out.

that is irreverent, the option to use them at their full power needs to exist or it will cut off alot of options.

if they had to have the limitation sure, I would understand but there is no reason they can't juggle the math and make it work.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-19, 02:32 PM
0-3 is just pathetic, considering they are in fact getting payed to make the game.

the lowest the upper limit needs to be would be what 4e/3e allowed. something like 8-10. they made it work in 4e, they have no excuse for not being able to make it work in 5e.

I have said they need a RANGE not a number, I never said they had to accommodate numbers like 50. having a number as low as 3 is just..sad and cuts off so many possibilities.

So the issue is not that they haven't chosen a range, they just haven't chosen a range that you personally like. That's all well and good I just want to be clear what you're actually arguing here. You're also (as has been pointed out to you before) ignoring the fact that you can indeed use more than just 3 magic items at one time, you just can't attune to more than 3 at a time.



again the system are you saying cant work WORKED IN 4E, its a fact that it can work. they have no excuse for not making it work in 5e.

Except it didn't work in 4e. Magic items in 4e were generally garbage that amounted to +X bonuses. The powers and properties they tried to add were mostly useless. And it failed to work so much that if you didn't want magic items (or many magic items) you had to give your players artificial bonuses to keep up with the intended game math. And even if you did want magic items, you had to give certain types of items on a very specific schedule or your players would fall behind the game math. Either way you were on a very tight ledge and you couldn't deviate to far from that path.

captpike
2014-05-19, 02:53 PM
yes I know that you can have more then 3 items on you at all times. my point still stands that if you want to gain the full benefit of three items there needs to be a balanced way to do it.



So the issue is not that they haven't chosen a range, they just haven't chosen a range that you personally like. That's all well and good I just want to be clear what you're actually arguing here. You're also (as has been pointed out to you before) ignoring the fact that you can indeed use more than just 3 magic items at one time, you just can't attune to more than 3 at a time.

no I am saying that 0-3 is too small for a very large number of playstyles, it only works for no or low magic.

a range of 0-8/10 or so would work for every playstyle, from high magic to no magic. THAT is what I want. not a game where I have to throw out half of it if I want to play eberon.




Except it didn't work in 4e. Magic items in 4e were generally garbage that amounted to +X bonuses. The powers and properties they tried to add were mostly useless. And it failed to work so much that if you didn't want magic items (or many magic items) you had to give your players artificial bonuses to keep up with the intended game math. And even if you did want magic items, you had to give certain types of items on a very specific schedule or your players would fall behind the game math. Either way you were on a very tight ledge and you couldn't deviate to far from that path.

yes it did work in 4e, if you did not want magic items you could easily give inherit bonuses and your group would be good. inherit bonuses were easy to use (something like "at level 3 you gain a +1 bonus to all defenses, to attack and damage. this increases by 1 every 5 levels") it was simple elegant and it worked.

the math of the system was so well laid out that you could easiy pull and change it in any number of directions and know what problems it would cause.

yes you had to upgrade your "big 3" (or 4 if you used an offhand weapon) every 5 levels but if you wanted to houserule that you could. if you did not you could have your party ritual caster (or just use a scroll) do it using parts from stuff you found but did not want.

Envyus
2014-05-19, 04:18 PM
yes I know that you can have more then 3 items on you at all times. my point still stands that if you want to gain the full benefit of three items there needs to be a balanced way to do it.



no I am saying that 0-3 is too small for a very large number of playstyles, it only works for no or low magic.

a range of 0-8/10 or so would work for every playstyle, from high magic to no magic. THAT is what I want. not a game where I have to throw out half of it if I want to play eberon.


We don't agree with that. Being able to attune to 3 items is fine even for high magic. Plus you can use other magic items you just can't attune to them. So here is a scenario from what it seems it will be like.

Party is about to fight terrifying Dragon. The Barbarian knowing the Dragon has a pretty good chance of smacking him in the face even with his attuned +3 armor. Decides to Attune his Axe instead upgrading it from a +1 Axe to a +3 and downgrading the Armor to a +1 Armor. So he can do more damage to the Dragon. After beating the Dragon the Barb swaps again making him harder to hit but doing less damage because he does not need the extra damage to beat Peons in one hit.

(This is just a guess I don't know if it will actually work this way but this is how they are implying it will work.

Knaight
2014-05-19, 05:02 PM
no I am saying that 0-3 is too small for a very large number of playstyles, it only works for no or low magic.


I still have no idea how a character who could have a dozen magic items that they switch out with somehow counts as low magic. Take a party of 5 - that's 60 magic items. Even with only 3 (and the entire point of attunement is that you have more than you use), that's still 15 magic items in a party, which is already past low magic.

captpike
2014-05-19, 05:33 PM
We don't agree with that. Being able to attune to 3 items is fine even for high magic. Plus you can use other magic items you just can't attune to them. So here is a scenario from what it seems it will be like.

Party is about to fight terrifying Dragon. The Barbarian knowing the Dragon has a pretty good chance of smacking him in the face even with his attuned +3 armor. Decides to Attune his Axe instead upgrading it from a +1 Axe to a +3 and downgrading the Armor to a +1 Armor. So he can do more damage to the Dragon. After beating the Dragon the Barb swaps again making him harder to hit but doing less damage because he does not need the extra damage to beat Peons in one hit.

(This is just a guess I don't know if it will actually work this way but this is how they are implying it will work.

I think there needs to be up to 8-10ish, you only want three. if they make it 0-10 everyone gets what they want. I dont see any reason NOT to do it.

it makes no difference how many magic items you have if you cant only use 3. just like if I had 20 and could not use any of them I would hardly call that high magic.

I judge how high magic the game is on what you can use, NOT what is sitting useless in your bag.

and I really really hope that it is not like your scenario, I don't want to spend 15 RL minuets after and before every fight waiting for everyone to come up with the best combo for their current resources and/or the next fight.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-19, 05:38 PM
I still have no idea how a character who could have a dozen magic items that they switch out with somehow counts as low magic. Take a party of 5 - that's 60 magic items. Even with only 3 (and the entire point of attunement is that you have more than you use), that's still 15 magic items in a party, which is already past low magic.

Yeah, I was thinking on this a bit earlier. Now up front I admit I've been out of the fantasy lit scene for quite a while, but I really can't think of very many "high magic" settings where the number of powerful personal magic items characters were given went much over 3. Generally when I think "high magic" I think of it in a "magic is everywhere and has immediate impacts on the world" (see also sufficiently advanced technology) not in a "I'm batman and here's my magic utility belt" sort of way.

Envyus
2014-05-19, 05:40 PM
I think there needs to be up to 8-10ish, you only want three. if they make it 0-10 everyone gets what they want. I dont see any reason NOT to do it.


I disagree and think that 3 is a good number. They are trying to keep the Number inflation down remember.

Knaight
2014-05-19, 05:41 PM
and I really really hope that it is not like your scenario, I don't want to spend 15 RL minuets after and before every fight waiting for everyone to come up with the best combo for their current resources and/or the next fight.

There's fight, and then there's situation as a whole. Attuning a bow that lets you shoot in windy conditions easily before going into something called the "Canyon of the Winds" makes a lot of sense, and it hardly comes to 15 RL minutes per fight. It doesn't even come to 15 RL minutes before said canyon in all probability, which could easily have multiple fights.

captpike
2014-05-19, 05:54 PM
There's fight, and then there's situation as a whole. Attuning a bow that lets you shoot in windy conditions easily before going into something called the "Canyon of the Winds" makes a lot of sense, and it hardly comes to 15 RL minutes per fight. It doesn't even come to 15 RL minutes before said canyon in all probability, which could easily have multiple fights.

if they make 3e style braindead marshal characters sure, you have your normal set, and maybe a dragonslayer sword or something.

the problem would be if you have say a wizard who has massive resources and his items affect some but not all of them. a "ring of flying slightly faster" only helps if you can fly. or a "ring of +5 fire damage" that changes value each time you cast (and lose) a fire spell.



I disagree and think that 3 is a good number. They are trying to keep the Number inflation down remember.

so...you only want you to be happy? my way everyone gets what they want. it has been done before so we know its possible, even easy if they know what they are doing.

Envyus
2014-05-19, 05:58 PM
if they make 3e style braindead marshal characters sure, you have your normal set, and maybe a dragonslayer sword or something.

the problem would be if you have say a wizard who has massive resources and his items affect some but not all of them. a "ring of flying slightly faster" only helps if you can fly. or a "ring of +5 fire damage" that changes value each time you cast (and lose) a fire spell.




so...you only want you to be happy? my way everyone gets what they want. it has been done before so we know its possible, even easy if they know what they are doing.

No this is what you want, most of the people here think the way it is fine. If you don't like it change it when the game comes out.

captpike
2014-05-19, 06:07 PM
I want to be able to pick between zero and 10ish you want three, if they make it 0-10 we both get what we want, in case you dont understand 3 is between 0 and 10.

if 90% of everyone wants 3 (which I doubt) and 10% want some other number its still the best bet to make a range so everyone is good, rather then just 90%

and no I cant change it when it comes out because if the game is made well (and I would hardly buy it if it was not) part of the system balance is built on how many items you have (which is why I want a range so I can pick rather then the system telling me), if I doubled it then the system would break, just like if I game Lv1 PCs in 4e a level 20 weapon of their choice.

Envyus
2014-05-19, 06:15 PM
Enough you just don't get it. I already siad I would stop talking to you about this but I am stopping for sure now.

captpike
2014-05-19, 06:20 PM
Enough you just don't get it. I already siad I would stop talking to you about this but I am stopping for sure now.

I am sorry too, I mean how far can you go in life without know that 3 is between 0 and 10?

or without being able to understand that if something was done in 4e they in fact CAN do it in 5e?

or that making a game for everyone is in fact better then just for some people?

you seam to have this obsession with 5e being YOUR game, not even allowing for simple differences like number of magic items.

or you just don't think the people making it have any clue what they are doing, so they need to hobble themselves into forcing every PC to have 3, not 2, not 4 magic items (although this I would understand, but I ignored this for the most part because if they are this bad I would not buy the game)

Envyus
2014-05-19, 06:28 PM
you seam to have this obsession with 5e being YOUR game, not even allowing for simple differences like number of magic items.


This seems to be your problem but whatever.

captpike
2014-05-19, 06:30 PM
This seems to be your problem but whatever.

the difference is that I want a game for everyone, so if I get my way we all win.

your game works only for the small subset of players who want exactly 3 magic items.

Envyus
2014-05-19, 06:35 PM
the difference is that I want a game for everyone, so if I get my way we all win.

your game works only for the small subset of players who want exactly 3 magic items.

This is not my way this is the games way and I agree with it. If their are optional rules to buff it then that's ok. And having 10 is a big difference to 3. Plus once again you can still use other unattuned magic items. And lastly they don't want to inflate the numbers too much.

captpike
2014-05-19, 06:40 PM
This is not my way this is the games way and I agree with it. If their are optional rules to buff it then that's ok. And having 10 is a big difference to 3. Plus once again you can still use other unattuned magic items. And lastly they don't want to inflate the numbers too much.

if they made the game with the idea of it working with 0-10 then they would be no more inflated for your game where you picked 3, then if the game was only made to work with 3. assuming it was made well of couse

I have my doubts there will any real optional rules, certainly ones that will get the support that the core ones do.

Lokiare
2014-05-19, 08:14 PM
optional does not mean "any rule" it means "any rule I can remove and not break the game, or drastically change the math"

if you NEED 3 magic items to keep up, and having more then that will make you overpowered then no, its not an optional rule.

again if they really want to make a game for everyone then they should assume no default number, there is no reason (besides incompetence) they cant make a range work.

They clearly are making the game for a small subset of people that stuck it out in the play test, rather than all the people that left after the first few packets when they saw 5E was aimed at a very specific play style.


And you are still ignoring the fact that you can use more magic items but they won't be as good as the attuned ones. Anyway you are not listening so I am going to stop talking with you and Lokiare until the game is actually out.

Please, keep your word.

If all you can respond to our concerns is "the game isn't out yet" even though the developers themselves have said the game will remain about 90% true to the last play test packet, then that's your problem and silence can only help.


So the issue is not that they haven't chosen a range, they just haven't chosen a range that you personally like. That's all well and good I just want to be clear what you're actually arguing here. You're also (as has been pointed out to you before) ignoring the fact that you can indeed use more than just 3 magic items at one time, you just can't attune to more than 3 at a time.



Except it didn't work in 4e. Magic items in 4e were generally garbage that amounted to +X bonuses. The powers and properties they tried to add were mostly useless. And it failed to work so much that if you didn't want magic items (or many magic items) you had to give your players artificial bonuses to keep up with the intended game math. And even if you did want magic items, you had to give certain types of items on a very specific schedule or your players would fall behind the game math. Either way you were on a very tight ledge and you couldn't deviate to far from that path.

Actually magic items in 4E were generally like getting an extra encounter or daily power, or an additional class feature and some of them were really nice, like the one that prevents opportunity attacks when you cast spells in melee all the time, or the weapon that causes ongoing poison damage equal to your sneak attack damage each round until the target makes a saving throw, or the ones that give you a static bonus to one or more skill checks. All very useful. Were you able to cobble together the items like in previous editions to make an encounter destroying build? No, that was intentional so that most of a characters power comes from their race and class rather than the christmas tree decorations they are wearing.


No this is what you want, most of the people here think the way it is fine. If you don't like it change it when the game comes out.

Yeah, we like fixing the developers problems. For me if I play 5E, I'm already going to have to house rule half the game to balance the math, this just puts it into the 'no buy' category for me...

Envyus
2014-05-19, 10:03 PM
{{scrubbed}}

Seerow
2014-05-19, 10:08 PM
Lokiare knows how to bring out the best in people.

Sartharina
2014-05-20, 12:32 AM
again if they really want to make a game for everyone then they should assume no default number, there is no reason (besides incompetence) they cant make a range work.There's no such thing as "No Default Number" that won't break the game. You can assume 0, but that means anyone with any number of magic items is overpowered. You can assume "All of them", but that leaves everyone without magic items underpowered.

You can also assume a "Range", but that's really just assuming the median of that range, and people on the bottom of that range will be underpowered, and those at the top will be overpowered.

4e's magic items were largely underwhelming in power, with TOO much emphasis on the character using it. No legendary swords that actually felt legendary.

By creating a low limit that can be shuffled around in higher-magic games, they can make magic items be powerful (Especially Attuned items. Who's Lion-O without the Sword of Omens? Or Arthur without Excalibur? And why should Athena, Hades, and Mercury bother giving Perseus their Shield, Sandals, and Helm if he can largely do without them anyway?), while keeping the game relatively balanced. The low limit assumed and constrained progression means that characters without magic items are weaker than those with magic items, but are capable of handling almost any challenge thrown against them with their other resources, especially if they are high level. The hardcap means that you can give them almost as many magic items as you want, but the growth of power from so many options gives diminishing returns, so they never overwhelm the foes through WBLmancy alone.

captpike
2014-05-20, 12:40 AM
There's no such thing as "No Default Number" that won't break the game. You can assume 0, but that means anyone with any number of magic items is overpowered. You can assume "All of them", but that leaves everyone without magic items underpowered.

You can also assume a "Range", but that's really just assuming the median of that range, and people on the bottom of that range will be underpowered, and those at the top will be overpowered.

if dont poorly yes, if they do a range well that means they testing it alot at either end, and at several points in between.

so for 0-10, that means they test at 0, and 10 alot, and probably 3,5,7 as well. I am NOT saying I want then to assume 5 items then say to give or 5 from that. I am saying I want (and again if they know what they are doing its not hard) a range of 0 to 10ish that means it works at 0, at 10 and every number between.





4e's magic items were largely underwhelming in power, with TOO much emphasis on the character using it. No legendary swords that actually felt legendary.

By creating a low limit that can be shuffled around in higher-magic games, they can make magic items be powerful (Especially Attuned items. Who's Lion-O without the Sword of Omens? Or Arthur without Excalibur? And why should Athena, Hades, and Mercury bother giving Perseus their Shield, Sandals, and Helm if he can largely do without them anyway?), while keeping the game relatively balanced. The low limit assumed and constrained progression means that characters without magic items are weaker than those with magic items, but are capable of handling almost any challenge thrown against them with their other resources, especially if they are high level. The hardcap means that you can give them almost as many magic items as you want, but the growth of power from so many options gives diminishing returns, so they never overwhelm the foes through WBLmancy alone.

I agree, and for some games having only a few items and having each of them be powerful is a ideal, for some games. they should not force feed this idea to every game. doing that is just as bad as requiring all games to be high magic games just to keep up with the math.

Sartharina
2014-05-20, 12:49 AM
if dont poorly yes, if they do a range well that means they testing it alot at either end, and at several points in between.

so for 0-10, that means they test at 0, and 10 alot, and probably 3,5,7 as well. I am NOT saying I want then to assume 5 items then say to give or 5 from that. I am saying I want (and again if they know what they are doing its not hard) a range of 0 to 10ish that means it works at 0, at 10 and every number between.

The fact is that no matter how they try to balance it, a level 6 Displacer Beast will always be significantly easier for a party of Level 6 heroes with magic items than a level 6 party of heroes without any magic items. An actual hardcap on attunement (Which doesn't prohibit weak use of nonattuned items) allows people to have definitive gear that "Feels" strong.

Attuned items can be the iconic, character-defining ones, such as Elmer Fudd's Spear and Magic Helmet. Too many attunements diminishes that sense of identity - It wouldn't have the same punch if Elmer Fudd was singing about how he would kill the rabbit with his Spear and Magic Helmet and Boots of Flying And Rings of Resistance And Cape of Fire and Armor of Ghostwalk And Pants of Burrowing and Cloak of Shadows and Shield of Glory and Phlactery of Knowledge and Headband of Wisdom and Belt of Strength and Tokens of Trees and OH CHRISTMAS TREE, OH CHRSTMAS TREE, HOW MANY ARE YOUR MAGIC ITEMS!

captpike
2014-05-20, 01:04 AM
The fact is that no matter how they try to balance it, a level 6 Displacer Beast will always be significantly easier for a party of Level 6 heroes with magic items than a level 6 party of heroes without any magic items. An actual hardcap on attunement (Which doesn't prohibit weak use of nonattuned items) allows people to have definitive gear that "Feels" strong.

they can alter how the DM makes the fights (higher CR, level, XP whatever 5e uses to make encoutners) or they can alter the PC math slightly (like inherit bonuses). or a comination of the two.

so a Lv6 party in a high magic campain might face a Lv8 displacer beast instead of a level 6, and a no magic party might face a level 4 or 5 one.




Attuned items can be the iconic, character-defining ones, such as Elmer Fudd's Spear and Magic Helmet. Too many attunements diminishes that sense of identity - It wouldn't have the same punch if Elmer Fudd was singing about how he would kill the rabbit with his Spear and Magic Helmet and Boots of Flying And Rings of Resistance And Cape of Fire and Armor of Ghostwalk And Pants of Burrowing and Cloak of Shadows and Shield of Glory and Phlactery of Knowledge and Headband of Wisdom and Belt of Strength and Tokens of Trees and OH CHRISTMAS TREE, OH CHRSTMAS TREE, HOW MANY ARE YOUR MAGIC ITEMS!
those are good points and they are why you should be able to set the dial to a low number of magic items, each of which is very powerful if you wish.

but they are not a good reason to have the dials super glued there

Sartharina
2014-05-20, 01:24 AM
they can alter how the DM makes the fights (higher CR, level, XP whatever 5e uses to make encoutners) or they can alter the PC math slightly (like inherit bonuses). or a comination of the two.

so a Lv6 party in a high magic campain might face a Lv8 displacer beast instead of a level 6, and a no magic party might face a level 4 or 5 one.



those are good points and they are why you should be able to set the dial to a low number of magic items, each of which is very powerful if you wish.

but they are not a good reason to have the dials super glued thereThe thing is... magic items in D&D Next aren't "Math fixes". A +Accuracy magic weapon deliberately puts your character in front of the accuracy curve, and making that "Inherent" destroys that. How would you suggest noting modified CR/XP of monsters based on magic item availability? Waste space with separate entries for each possible number of magic items in the range?

All it needs is a word of warning in the DMG that while the default number of attunements is 3, caution should be exercised in changing the number, and encounters should be made easier or harder (Or reward modified to compensate) based on the adjustments (With sample guidelines).

Despite the GiantitP metagame saying that 3.5 cannot be used to play low- or excessively-high magic games, it absolutely can be (Evidenced by the sheer number of successful games that do run low-magic 3.5/pathfinder over in the PbP subforums), as outlined in the DMG. It points out about what working with those assumptions will do to the game, and how to avoid the pitfalls and ensure it's still fun. Heck - there's an entire section in Complete Warrior for running martial campaigns that lack access to spellcasting alone.

captpike
2014-05-20, 01:21 PM
The thing is... magic items in D&D Next aren't "Math fixes". A +Accuracy magic weapon deliberately puts your character in front of the accuracy curve, and making that "Inherent" destroys that. How would you suggest noting modified CR/XP of monsters based on magic item availability? Waste space with separate entries for each possible number of magic items in the range?

your have one chart
0 attunements: a standard encounter is level -2 instead of your level, give the players 1 to attack every 3 levels.
......
10 attunements: a standard encounter is level+3.

something like that is all you should need. in order to even make the magic items they would need to know, mathematically, how useful they are anyway. otherwise they would have no idea how to balance them against each other.



All it needs is a word of warning in the DMG that while the default number of attunements is 3, caution should be exercised in changing the number, and encounters should be made easier or harder (Or reward modified to compensate) based on the adjustments (With sample guidelines).

Despite the GiantitP metagame saying that 3.5 cannot be used to play low- or excessively-high magic games, it absolutely can be (Evidenced by the sheer number of successful games that do run low-magic 3.5/pathfinder over in the PbP subforums), as outlined in the DMG. It points out about what working with those assumptions will do to the game, and how to avoid the pitfalls and ensure it's still fun. Heck - there's an entire section in Complete Warrior for running martial campaigns that lack access to spellcasting alone.

no, you in fact need more then that because if you just double, or more the number of magic items you would break the game if the game is not made to handle it. if its going to work the game needs to be built to handle it.

its the game designers job to get me a game that is fun, and balanced. I have no intention of rebalancing the whole thing because I want to use with 6 magic items instead of 3 and that breaks the math.

Seerow
2014-05-20, 01:45 PM
Captpike: For what you're describing to work, every magic item would have to have a set combat value, and adhere very closely to that. Otherwise, when you get the Cloak of Heat Resistance, Mask of Water Breathing, Decanter of Endleess Water, Bag of Endless Cute and Fuzzy Animals, and 6 more items like those, and run into a level +3 encounter, you die horribly.

captpike
2014-05-20, 01:50 PM
Captpike: For what you're describing to work, every magic item would have to have a set combat value, and adhere very closely to that. Otherwise, when you get the Cloak of Heat Resistance, Mask of Water Breathing, Decanter of Endleess Water, Bag of Endless Cute and Fuzzy Animals, and 6 more items like those, and run into a level +3 encounter, you die horribly.

that problem will exist if there are any magic items at all, whether its 3 or 10.


there however is an easy solution. you separate combat and non-combat items, so that non-combat ones dont cost attunements. and dont cost as much gold for their level.

Seerow
2014-05-20, 01:57 PM
that problem will exist if there are any magic items at all, whether its 3 or 10.


there however is an easy solution. you separate combat and non-combat items, so that non-combat ones dont cost attunements. and dont cost as much gold for their level.


1) In DDN however they are making the assumption of Magic Items = 0, while allowing combat capable magic items up to 3 to make you stronger relative to on level threats, but not making it such a cakewalk that you need to boost effective levels.

2) Separating Combat and non-combat is harder than you might think. Consider how many 'non-combat' Wizard spells get put to use offensively. Or how many combat abilities get used out of combat.

captpike
2014-05-20, 02:05 PM
1) In DDN however they are making the assumption of Magic Items = 0, while allowing combat capable magic items up to 3 to make you stronger relative to on level threats, but not making it such a cakewalk that you need to boost effective levels.

2) Separating Combat and non-combat is harder than you might think. Consider how many 'non-combat' Wizard spells get put to use offensively. Or how many combat abilities get used out of combat.

if they assume that no one ever uses magic items, then put in the rules that you may use up to 3, and even put alot of them in the core books they are going to bork up their game something terrible. unless of course all magic items are worthless.

no it is not hard, its only hard if spells are as badly made as they were in 3e, and that is a very very low bar. if nothing else you can have casting times of 1min, or have "can not be used in combat" if there is an item that cant have a long casting time, but would cause issues if used in combat

Sartharina
2014-05-20, 02:23 PM
if they assume that no one ever uses magic items, then put in the rules that you may use up to 3, and even put alot of them in the core books they are going to bork up their game something terrible. unless of course all magic items are worthless.

no it is not hard, its only hard if spells are as badly made as they were in 3e, and that is a very very low bar. if nothing else you can have casting times of 1min, or have "can not be used in combat" if there is an item that cant have a long casting time, but would cause issues if used in combat"Cannot be used in combat" is a stupid, arbitrary restriction that breaks the quick flow of D&D Next, and will likely result in players finding ways to destroy enemies without ever engaging in 'combat'.

You are greatly underestimating the resilience of the D&D Next system simply because 4e and 3.5 had the resilience of a souffle. D&D Next is a much 'looser' system in those regards. In fact, D&D's the only system I've seen that has such an atrocious reliance on "level-appropriate encounters."

captpike
2014-05-20, 02:33 PM
"Cannot be used in combat" is a stupid, arbitrary restriction that breaks the quick flow of D&D Next, and will likely result in players finding ways to destroy enemies without ever engaging in 'combat'.

so you word the powers such that it is unlikly for them to be used in combat, or add cast times. its not that hard.



You are greatly underestimating the resilience of the D&D Next system simply because 4e and 3.5 had the resilience of a souffle. D&D Next is a much 'looser' system in those regards. In fact, D&D's the only system I've seen that has such an atrocious reliance on "level-appropriate encounters."

would you rather the DM have no control over how hard fights are? because that is the only other option on the table.

if by "looser" you mean "does not have a good mathematical foundation" then yes I would agree.

Stubbazubba
2014-05-20, 11:26 PM
Captpike, yes, you could write the entire system from the ground up to make every encounter have variable difficulty that can be ratcheted up or down, but 1) the entire system would have to be strictly controlled to the point that you reduce everything to a couple of statistics, and 2) it would take far more testing and engineering to get it right (which you seem to believe they're capable of in the first place), all for an overall blander product. With infinite resources, it's conceivable that they could make a system that scales up or down without sacrificing any actual design space for non-statistical variables and unique abilities. But in the real world, you have to prioritize efforts, and a greatly-expanded magic item limit is just not a high priority. 3 is fine for most people and doesn't invalidate any but the most stringent definition of a high-magic setting. But far more importantly, having a narrower range means they can actually divide their resources in a realistic manner that will make a good magic item system and a good overall game (again, assuming they're capable of such a thing in the first place).

captpike
2014-05-20, 11:43 PM
Captpike, yes, you could write the entire system from the ground up to make every encounter have variable difficulty that can be ratcheted up or down, but 1) the entire system would have to be strictly controlled to the point that you reduce everything to a couple of statistics, and 2) it would take far more testing and engineering to get it right (which you seem to believe they're capable of in the first place), all for an overall blander product. With infinite resources, it's conceivable that they could make a system that scales up or down without sacrificing any actual design space for non-statistical variables and unique abilities. But in the real world, you have to prioritize efforts, and a greatly-expanded magic item limit is just not a high priority. 3 is fine for most people and doesn't invalidate any but the most stringent definition of a high-magic setting. But far more importantly, having a narrower range means they can actually divide their resources in a realistic manner that will make a good magic item system and a good overall game (again, assuming they're capable of such a thing in the first place).

honestly I doubt they will make even the most basic of the math work, but I am hopeful I am wrong. that is why I am here.

again IT WORKED IN 4E we know for a fact what you are saying is NOT impractical, nor impossible. there is no excuse for making a new version of a game fail in an area the last one succeeded well in except for not caring about it, or incompetence.

its not as complicated as you think, besides they would have to do this anyway to make sure no magic games (0 items) work with low-mid magic games (3 items) if they know, mathematically the difference from 0-3 then they would be able to make more then 3 work.

it might mean they tone down the items, so in a low magic game you get 3 "rare" items, but in a mid magic game you get 6 "uncommon" items.

and honestly if they have no idea how much items will effect the power of the game, then even one item per person is too many. if they do know, then it is not that hard.

the only reason to pick 3 is because they have no idea how the items will effect the game, and picked a low number to hide their own incompetence.
not to mention it means they are throwing the idea of a "game for everyone" under the bus, you cant get further from a "game for everyone" then by telling every table everywhere that they MUST have 3 magic items per person

Sartharina
2014-05-21, 02:59 AM
would you rather the DM have no control over how hard fights are? because that is the only other option on the table.

if by "looser" you mean "does not have a good mathematical foundation" then yes I would agree.The DM always has control over how hard fights are. He is the one who arbitrates what is faced. He is the one who arbitrates the XP handed out for completing a challenge. He is the one who decides what the foes can do. He is the one that decides the stats on the foes, if they have any at all. He's also the person who gives the party access to magic items. He's the person who decides how many magic items the party can use.

There is no rule in the system that does not go through the DM for confirmation before being applied to the game. The DM is the final arbiter of every rule.

The Math worked better in 4e than it did in 3e, but to say it "worked' is a stretch, given how badly the metagame ended up emphasizing "Every +1 to Hit". It was too easy to break/fall off the game's math by choosing to veer from the path. Magic items weren't boons - they were taxes to keep up with the monsters. It was EXTREMELY easy for someone tinkering with the game's numbers to completely break the math, or to build a character that was worthless because of insufficient +1s where they needed to be.

There are dozens of other games I can think of with math that works better than 4e,that is also more resilient and able to handle changes within the math. AD&D is just one of them.

The limit of 3 attuned items allows a character to have items that define their character (Such as Elmer Fudd's Spear and Magic Helmet), without being so many that the character is lost in them. It also allows the magic items to be powerful, as in "its presence completely changes the face of a campaign"

The low limit of 3 allows new DMs and players to experiment and play with Magic items without getting overwhelmed, and be able to respond appropriately to how they change the game. The lower limit of 0 allows DMs who try running a no-magic-item game to function and still have fun. Experienced DMs can raise or lower the limit of attuned items to whatever they can handle.

The Oberoni Fallacy is only a fallacy when applied to rules that are actually broken. Changing rules that aren't broken to fit a different playstyle is not the Oberoni fallacy.

Stubbazubba
2014-05-21, 03:30 AM
again IT WORKED IN 4E

Except it didn't. 4e promised to get us off the Magic Item treadmill/Christmas Tree effect as well, but the way the math of the system worked out, it didn't happen. A 3-item limit would have done 4e a world of good, too.


its not as complicated as you think, besides they would have to do this anyway to make sure no magic games (0 items) work with low-mid magic games (3 items) if they know, mathematically the difference from 0-3 then they would be able to make more then 3 work.

You don't seem to understand. They don't just create mathematical models and just abstractly figure it out in theory, they actually create the content and then test all that content*. It takes time, it takes work, and saying that if you can figure out 0-3 then you can figure out 0-10 is simply not true, not without a dramatically greater expenditure of time and effort.

*If, of course, they're really testing it properly. "Testing" means actually trying it out, not just theorizing or number-crunching.


and honestly if they have no idea how much items will effect the power of the game, then even one item per person is too many. if they do know, then it is not that hard.

And I'm saying a real team would be in the middle; they have an idea about how certain magic items will effect the power of the game, but would need to test it somewhat thoroughly in order to weed out all the weird edge cases and synergies that break the core math. And that last part is hard; imagine how many combinations of 3 can be made out of X number of magic items. Now imagine how many combinations of 8 or 10 can be made out of that same number. The number of potentially game-breaking synergies increases dramatically the more magic items you allow, and that means you need to go through and test not just a bit more, but exponentially more combinations if you're doing a proper test. That's a ton of manpower and hours spent for a frivolous gain. There are more important things for the team to be working on than satisfying your demonstrably unusual criteria for "high magic" gaming.


not to mention it means they are throwing the idea of a "game for everyone" under the bus, you cant get further from a "game for everyone" then by telling every table everywhere that they MUST have 3 magic items per person

1) They did (and rightly so, I might add) throw out the "game for everyone" mantra long before magic items came up, and 2) sure you could. 3 Items is a soft cap, not a hard one; as many others have repeatedly pointed out to you, you can be drowning in magic items that give you partial benefits and can be slotted into your attunements with minimal fuss. But moreover, the Christmas Tree effect is usually not defended as a playstyle; it is complained against as a nuisance. The Magic Item Treadmill is no better than the numbers treadmill, the level treadmill, etc., and it drives a lot of players nuts. It is something that 4e tried to correct and it failed. So if WotC must sacrifice your uncompromising and unusual playstyle for a majority of players who really want to see an end to the Christmas Tree Effect, that is actually closer to "everyone" than if they just went back to "here, have as many magic items as you can carry (you all enforce encumbrance rules, right?) and throw more math at all the encounters to 'compensate.'"

Lokiare
2014-05-21, 06:42 AM
Except it didn't. 4e promised to get us off the Magic Item treadmill/Christmas Tree effect as well, but the way the math of the system worked out, it didn't happen. A 3-item limit would have done 4e a world of good, too.



You don't seem to understand. They don't just create mathematical models and just abstractly figure it out in theory, they actually create the content and then test all that content*. It takes time, it takes work, and saying that if you can figure out 0-3 then you can figure out 0-10 is simply not true, not without a dramatically greater expenditure of time and effort.

*If, of course, they're really testing it properly. "Testing" means actually trying it out, not just theorizing or number-crunching.



And I'm saying a real team would be in the middle; they have an idea about how certain magic items will effect the power of the game, but would need to test it somewhat thoroughly in order to weed out all the weird edge cases and synergies that break the core math. And that last part is hard; imagine how many combinations of 3 can be made out of X number of magic items. Now imagine how many combinations of 8 or 10 can be made out of that same number. The number of potentially game-breaking synergies increases dramatically the more magic items you allow, and that means you need to go through and test not just a bit more, but exponentially more combinations if you're doing a proper test. That's a ton of manpower and hours spent for a frivolous gain. There are more important things for the team to be working on than satisfying your demonstrably unusual criteria for "high magic" gaming.



1) They did (and rightly so, I might add) throw out the "game for everyone" mantra long before magic items came up, and 2) sure you could. 3 Items is a soft cap, not a hard one; as many others have repeatedly pointed out to you, you can be drowning in magic items that give you partial benefits and can be slotted into your attunements with minimal fuss. But moreover, the Christmas Tree effect is usually not defended as a playstyle; it is complained against as a nuisance. The Magic Item Treadmill is no better than the numbers treadmill, the level treadmill, etc., and it drives a lot of players nuts. It is something that 4e tried to correct and it failed. So if WotC must sacrifice your uncompromising and unusual playstyle for a majority of players who really want to see an end to the Christmas Tree Effect, that is actually closer to "everyone" than if they just went back to "here, have as many magic items as you can carry (you all enforce encumbrance rules, right?) and throw more math at all the encounters to 'compensate.'"

They are still spouting the 'game for everyone' mantra to this day. You should check out some of their recent articles. They make it very clear that they think the game will appeal to all of the major play styles that have played D&D in the past.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-21, 07:47 AM
They are still spouting the 'game for everyone' mantra to this day. You should check out some of their recent articles. They make it very clear that they think the game will appeal to all of the major play styles that have played D&D in the past.

And frankly, it might still. I sincerely doubt the "magic item christmas tree" play style is even close to a "major" one. And especially given that you can still have your christmas tree (you just can't attune to everything in the tree), the game should even allow that play style.

Lokiare
2014-05-21, 11:23 AM
And frankly, it might still. I sincerely doubt the "magic item christmas tree" play style is even close to a "major" one. And especially given that you can still have your christmas tree (you just can't attune to everything in the tree), the game should even allow that play style.

Being a mainstay of the last two editions, there is not possible way its a major play style. Sometimes I can't figure out how some of you people think.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-21, 11:56 AM
Being a mainstay of the last two editions, there is not possible way its a major play style. Sometimes I can't figure out how some of you people think.

Given that LFQW was a "mainstay" of 3.x would that mean it's a major play style that 5e should support? Just because something existed and was a significant component of a previous edition doesn't mean it's a major play style.

Sartharina
2014-05-21, 12:13 PM
Being a mainstay of the last two editions, there is not possible way its a major play style. Sometimes I can't figure out how some of you people think.It was a criticism of the last two editions that they've been trying to fight without devaluing magic items too much. And, the christmas tree broke the specialness of magic items, which a lot of players do like - Just look over in the "Finding Players" section and see how many games try to be 'low magic', or 'low magic item' in play.

Non-attuned items are like older editions of D&D magic items. Attuned magic items function like the special items and legacy weapons of D&D, without the drawbacks of legacy weapons. They give a bit more bang for your buck.

obryn
2014-05-21, 12:19 PM
Being a mainstay of the last two editions, there is not possible way its a major play style. Sometimes I can't figure out how some of you people think.
It's only a mainstay of the past two editions because the designers didn't think things through.

The designers of Next have (rightly, IMO) decided that it'll improve the game to remove it from the core playstyle.

Seerow
2014-05-21, 01:15 PM
Given that LFQW was a "mainstay" of 3.x would that mean it's a major play style that 5e should support? Just because something existed and was a significant component of a previous edition doesn't mean it's a major play style.

5e is supporting LFQW. That's part of the problem I expect.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-21, 02:00 PM
Sorry to intrude upon the discussion, but I thought I would weigh in. A range of options is inherently a good idea, but as is pointed out, is logistically unattainable by DDN or any other game system. In my opinion, converting games into math crunch data leaves out the most important part of the system, the players creativity and problem solving skills. Since you cannot mathematically equate someone's moments of brilliance or idiocy, breaking everything down mathematically does not appear to be a viable option for determining if it "works" or not.
3.5 clearly showed in my experience that too much math, results in excessive munchkin behavior. If that is your chosen playstyle, then simply play that way.

I elected not to play 4th edition for personal reasons, and thus cannot comment on its validity or lack thereof.

What I noticed most about this discussion is the High magic vs. Low magic terms, lacking in any sort of definition of parameters. I am very interested to know what Catpike's definition of High Magic is.

I myself am fond of High Magic Spells, low Magic Item worlds. As 3.5 tried to show us, all magic items are created using spells that caster classes have access too. Fighter needs a magic weapon to injure Vile Blob? *cast* Magic Weapon spell A. Problem solved.

My view comes from knowing my players have more options to them other than Magic items. Including but not limited to Spells (that magic items are created from in the first place), Class abilities, environment (always use a chair in a bar fight), and good old player ingenuity.

I would like to hear what the definition of "High" magic worlds are before I stick my foot into my mouth with individuals about what works, and what doesn't. As far as the range of Attunement slots, my copy clearly states that attunement is optional. Its right under the attunement section.

Stubbazubba
2014-05-21, 02:21 PM
Being a mainstay of the last two editions, there is not possible way its a major play style. Sometimes I can't figure out how some of you people think.

"Major complaint" != "major playstyle"

From the inception of the USA until the 1860's, slavery had been a major industrial, cultural, and demographic force in the country. Changing it was hard, and some were opposed, but "it's a mainstay of history" is not really a valid reason to just keep doing things the same way. That is the very definition of a "sacred cow."

captpike
2014-05-21, 02:26 PM
Except it didn't. 4e promised to get us off the Magic Item treadmill/Christmas Tree effect as well, but the way the math of the system worked out, it didn't happen. A 3-item limit would have done 4e a world of good, too.

sigh, the difference was that the math for 4e items was so simple you could just say "you get +1 to all defenses, attack and damage rolls at level 3 and then 1 more every 5 levels" and never use any magic items and the game would work.

the reason it defaulted to high magic was that you can easily go from high magic to low magic if the math is simple. you cant go from low to high that easily. if they are going to have a default then high magic is what it has to be if you want to make the game for more then one playstyle



You don't seem to understand. They don't just create mathematical models and just abstractly figure it out in theory, they actually create the content and then test all that content*. It takes time, it takes work, and saying that if you can figure out 0-3 then you can figure out 0-10 is simply not true, not without a dramatically greater expenditure of time and effort.

*If, of course, they're really testing it properly. "Testing" means actually trying it out, not just theorizing or number-crunching.

And I'm saying a real team would be in the middle; they have an idea about how certain magic items will effect the power of the game, but would need to test it somewhat thoroughly in order to weed out all the weird edge cases and synergies that break the core math. And that last part is hard; imagine how many combinations of 3 can be made out of X number of magic items. Now imagine how many combinations of 8 or 10 can be made out of that same number. The number of potentially game-breaking synergies increases dramatically the more magic items you allow, and that means you need to go through and test not just a bit more, but exponentially more combinations if you're doing a proper test. That's a ton of manpower and hours spent for a frivolous gain. There are more important things for the team to be working on than satisfying your demonstrably unusual criteria for "high magic" gaming.

my desire is to have any kind of game work, not just games with 3 (no more, no less) magic items. so I could run eberon or dark sun and not screw up the math of the system.

if they rely on testing all combinations of three items by hand then the game is doomed anyway.

the way you would do that kind of testing is to get a good baseline going, define how powerful any given item of a level is, and how powerful each slot should be. then you test with typical examples of items at the correct power level. you then rachet up or down the power levels and call it a day.


and I will say again, there were something like 10 slots in 4e, and the magic items system worked there without any major problems or hangups. so we know it CAN be done, we just don't know if they are good enough to do it.


The DM always has control over how hard fights are. He is the one who arbitrates what is faced. He is the one who arbitrates the XP handed out for completing a challenge. He is the one who decides what the foes can do. He is the one that decides the stats on the foes, if they have any at all. He's also the person who gives the party access to magic items. He's the person who decides how many magic items the party can use.

There is no rule in the system that does not go through the DM for confirmation before being applied to the game. The DM is the final arbiter of every rule.

this is only true if the system is good enough to make it easy to tell what fights will be hard and what will be easy. this was one problem with the CR system. it was hard to look at a creature and tell how hard it would be to fight.

its why you NEED a way to tell what is level appropriate and what is not.





The limit of 3 attuned items allows a character to have items that define their character (Such as Elmer Fudd's Spear and Magic Helmet), without being so many that the character is lost in them. It also allows the magic items to be powerful, as in "its presence completely changes the face of a campaign"

The low limit of 3 allows new DMs and players to experiment and play with Magic items without getting overwhelmed, and be able to respond appropriately to how they change the game. The lower limit of 0 allows DMs who try running a no-magic-item game to function and still have fun. Experienced DMs can raise or lower the limit of attuned items to whatever they can handle.

The Oberoni Fallacy is only a fallacy when applied to rules that are actually broken. Changing rules that aren't broken to fit a different playstyle is not the Oberoni fallacy.
and again, I agree for some games having three items, and having all three be awesome is the best way to do it.

trying to force every game to this is a bad idea for any game, let alone one "for everyone"

even for darksun what they are setting out to do is a bad idea, in that setting 3 is too many and it will screw things up if they assume you have three items and you MIGHT have one in that setting.

if they assume no one has magic items then anyone NOT in a no magic game will have borked up math.

Sartharina
2014-05-21, 04:31 PM
And why are you getting extra +1s at those levels in 4e? Because the math is 'tight', and needs heavy-handed rails to keep characters competent. Everything is aggressively level-scaled, and there are some bizzare requirements in parceling out magic items. (I put the book back as soon as it demanded that loot be tailored specifically for the party's builds, and saw that most of the magic items were useless outside of those specific builds. Magic items aren't allowed to be awesome for their own sake in 4e.)

In fact, the biggest problem with your argument is the idea that you need 3 and only 3 magic items or the game breaks down - that sort of thinking is symptomatic of over-reliance of 4e's heavily-constrained approach to encounter design and math. Try any other system in the market, and you'll find RPG systems that work just fine without strangling on controlling mathematical probabilities or having stringent requirements on player resources for the game to be balanced and playable.

D&D Next is a LOT more 'loose' with the math. A party doesn't need specific abilities to overcome a challenge if the players take the time to re-evaluate their strategies and tactics with their available resources.

captpike
2014-05-21, 04:42 PM
And why are you getting extra +1s at those levels in 4e? Because the math is 'tight', and needs heavy-handed rails to keep characters competent. Everything is aggressively level-scaled, and there are some bizzare requirements in parceling out magic items. (I put the book back as soon as it demanded that loot be tailored specifically for the party's builds, and saw that most of the magic items were useless outside of those specific builds. Magic items aren't allowed to be awesome for their own sake in 4e.)

In fact, the biggest problem with your argument is the idea that you need 3 and only 3 magic items or the game breaks down - that sort of thinking is symptomatic of over-reliance of 4e's heavily-constrained approach to encounter design and math. Try any other system in the market, and you'll find RPG systems that work just fine without strangling on controlling mathematical probabilities or having stringent requirements on player resources for the game to be balanced and playable.

D&D Next is a LOT more 'loose' with the math. A party doesn't need specific abilities to overcome a challenge if the players take the time to re-evaluate their strategies and tactics with their available resources.

if your three items are powerful, that means they effect the balance of the game, if they effect the balance of the game the game needs to take that into account or you will have a hard time challenging the party. or you just TPK the party in what meant to be an easy fight because they dont have enough magic items.

if the magic items are powerful then the system needs to take that into account, there is no way around that.

better rails to keep everyone competent then having a have and have-not situation like 3e. I have yet to hear of a way to have a balanced game where the math is done incompetently or "loose"

Sartharina
2014-05-21, 04:48 PM
Again - every other system is a lot more fluid than 4e's rigid "2 level-appropriate Encounters a session, one hour per encounter."

D&D Next gives players a lot more tools in choosing their battles, setting them up in their favor, and reacting to the situation when things start going south. Or just going for the gold and saying "Screw this" to encounters they'd rather not bother with.

da_chicken
2014-05-21, 04:51 PM
sigh, the difference was that the math for 4e items was so simple you could just say "you get +1 to all defenses, attack and damage rolls at level 3 and then 1 more every 5 levels" and never use any magic items and the game would work.

Pretty sure you can do this with any edition. If 1e, 2e, or 3e you can just say, "All your armor gets a free +1 at levels 2, 6, 10, 14, 18; weapons get a free +1 at levels 3, 7, 11, 15, 19; saves and shields get a free +1 at 4, 8, 12, 16, 20."

5e really isn't any different, except you'd have to limit it to 3 increments and spread it out.

captpike
2014-05-21, 04:56 PM
4e's rigid "2 level-appropriate Encounters a session, one hour per encounter."


you obviously don't know 4e that well.

in 4e you have more freedom then you ever had in previous editions to know exactly how hard a fight will be. if I want to make a hard but winable fight for a group of 5 Lv10s I can easily do that.

if i want to make an easy but not inconsequential fight for a party of 4 level 20s that is just as easy.

if I want to make the fight with 10 creatures or 3 or 1 I can do it.

now tell me how is that rigid? I can easily make a fight for any level of party, at any difficulty I want, with any number of enemies I want.

that is only possible because 4e has good math, if you dont have good math you are guessing and hoping, like you did in 3e.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-21, 07:19 PM
Are you arguing that the present play test is incapable of supporting more or less than 3 attuned items? Or are you attempting to convince others that if it doesn't in the final it will be intrinsically flawed?

Math aside, I have seen no change in difficulty or encounter modification with the various set ups I have used. Full on magic items (more than 10 per player - no consumables) vs. total lack of. The Tactics the players came up changed to resolve the matter was the only appreciable change with my group.

captpike
2014-05-21, 08:03 PM
Are you arguing that the present play test is incapable of supporting more or less than 3 attuned items? Or are you attempting to convince others that if it doesn't in the final it will be intrinsically flawed?

Math aside, I have seen no change in difficulty or encounter modification with the various set ups I have used. Full on magic items (more than 10 per player - no consumables) vs. total lack of. The Tactics the players came up changed to resolve the matter was the only appreciable change with my group.

my point is that the game will only work well with the number of magic items its made to work with. they are saying that is three, so that means that you MUST have three magic items or the math falls apart.

what I want is for them to take the "game for everyone" slogan seriously and make it for 0-10 items so everyone wins.

if at say lv15 there is no difference in the power of a player with 10 items vs 3 items then the items have no point anyway. the reason magic items are cool is because they make your more powerful, if they dont then they are just a waste of space.

Sartharina
2014-05-21, 08:52 PM
my point is that the game will only work well with the number of magic items its made to work with. they are saying that is three, so that means that you MUST have three magic items or the math falls apart.
And the game is "Made" to work with "0 - As many as you bother to throw at them, but most people would do best with 3."

captpike
2014-05-21, 08:58 PM
And the game is "Made" to work with "0 - As many as you bother to throw at them, but most people would do best with 3."

if its made to work with 0 then it wont work with three unless all three are near worthless.

EDIT: this is why I wanted a range, 0-10 with the math layed out on how to make it work, so everyone can get what they want I did not want them dancing around it, and leaving us in the dark about the basic assumptions of the game.

again, sense you seam to not understand. if the items are powerful then the game needs to take that into account, if it does not then people would be too powerful, or not powerful enough if they are under the number.

that means it could end up being very hard having a real idea of how hard fights would be. I dont want a repeat of 3e CR mess, where you often had no idea how hard a fight would be.

Sartharina
2014-05-21, 09:02 PM
if its made to work with 0 then it wont work with three unless all three are near worthless.
Only if the game is has tight math and heavy restrictions on player activities to keep them bound to that math.

I understand just fine - but D&D Next is not the abomination unto tabletop gaming that D&D 3.5 and 4e were with overemphasis on fetishized balance.

captpike
2014-05-21, 09:09 PM
I understand just fine - but D&D Next is not the abomination unto tabletop gaming that D&D 3.5 and 4e were with overemphasis on fetishized balance.

the only other option to a balanced game is a unbalanced one. one where a great many classes can never help the party do anything, where some can do everything. and where only a few are in between. there is NOT WAY to make a game that does not have good math but is balanced.

so do you want that? do you want people to pick classes that look cool then find out that they are worthless, or worse? or that play classes that offer then no challenge to do anything because they picked the

I must admit you are the first person I have ever seen say that 3e was overbalanced...

Sartharina
2014-05-21, 09:14 PM
That is actually a VERY false dichtonomy. There are all sorts of approaches to balance.

3.5's problem was that the game trivialized mechanics and the RNG was able to be crushed under overly-aggressive scaling of modifiers.

And 3.5 had serious balance problems caused by people trying to balance things against systems they didn't understand.

captpike
2014-05-21, 09:20 PM
That is actually a VERY false dichtonomy. There are all sorts of approaches to balance.

3.5's problem was that the game trivialized mechanics and the RNG was able to be crushed under overly-aggressive scaling of modifiers.

And 3.5 had serious balance problems caused by people trying to balance things against systems they didn't understand.

how do you balance without math? it is the very core of a game like D&D

Lokiare
2014-05-21, 09:35 PM
Given that LFQW was a "mainstay" of 3.x would that mean it's a major play style that 5e should support? Just because something existed and was a significant component of a previous edition doesn't mean it's a major play style.

What does LFQW have to do with magic items? Unless you are trying to say LFQW was a mainstay of 3E and therefore should be in 5E. The problem with that is 4E wasn't LFQW and neither was 0E, 1E, or 2E (which had LFQW but was constrained by things like concentrations, spell casting times, and negative side effects for using the powerful spells). That appears to be a flaw in a single edition that was removed in the next one. Of course as others have noted LFQW is alive and well in 5E due to the unconstrained vancian casting system.


"Major complaint" != "major playstyle"

From the inception of the USA until the 1860's, slavery had been a major industrial, cultural, and demographic force in the country. Changing it was hard, and some were opposed, but "it's a mainstay of history" is not really a valid reason to just keep doing things the same way. That is the very definition of a "sacred cow."

Yeah, we had a war over that because half the country wanted to keep it and the other half wanted to remove it, sound familiar? I mean slavery was horrible and needed abolishing, but high and low magic are not horrible in and of themselves and should be allowed to work in the game depending on the DM and tables preferences.


Again - every other system is a lot more fluid than 4e's rigid "2 level-appropriate Encounters a session, one hour per encounter."

D&D Next gives players a lot more tools in choosing their battles, setting them up in their favor, and reacting to the situation when things start going south. Or just going for the gold and saying "Screw this" to encounters they'd rather not bother with.

I'm sorry, but no where in 4E does it talk about 2 level appropriate encounter per session, with one encounter per hour. In fact one of my recent 4E session had 3 combats and that weren't level appropriate (2 were ultra low and 1 was ultra high). One of the good things that most people agree (even haters) about 4E is that the encounter construction and monsters are very easy to use and you get the results you aim for. Something that you don't get with 5E. Just look at the ghoul fight that TPK'd the party in Mearls game he commented on in his articles.


Only if the game is has tight math and heavy restrictions on player activities to keep them bound to that math.

I understand just fine - but D&D Next is not the abomination unto tabletop gaming that D&D 3.5 and 4e were with overemphasis on fetishized balance.

If you know a bit about probability math, then you know that using a D20 as the main die roll in the game means that the math is tightly constrained anyway, no matter what you do. Its much better if they plan the constraints instead of letting one character in a group get plate mail +3, shield +3, and a longsword of defense +3, while the other carbon copy character in the same group gets a glowy sword of goblin detection, a mirror shield, and elven chain. Guess which character is going to be more effective outside of goblin or Medusa encounters?

The problem here is a +1 is equal to about 3-7 levels depending on class, so getting three +3 items is like gaining 9-21 levels.

Sartharina
2014-05-21, 09:40 PM
The problem here is a +1 is equal to about 3-7 levels depending on class, so getting three +3 items is like gaining 9-21 levels.Except it's not, because it doesn't give 9-21 levels of Hit points, spell progression, extra attacks, or other class features.

A +3 is ~ a +30% increase of effectiveness against something that's Target Number is a 10 prior to that +3.

Lokiare
2014-05-21, 09:51 PM
Except it's not, because it doesn't give 9-21 levels of Hit points, spell progression, extra attacks, or other class features.

A +3 is ~ a +30% increase of effectiveness against something that's Target Number is a 10 prior to that +3.

Its equivalent to 8-21 levels of AC or attack bonus, which can mean the difference between an easy encounter and a hard encounter. High level 5E is going to be very swingy.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-22, 08:40 AM
Recap:

The system needs to allow a range of Magic items to allow for various styles of play.

I agree with this ideology, but selecting a number (any number) is arbitrary. Fundamentally, there is no difference between 3 magic items, 10 magic items, or 15 magic items. Each is there own thing. Yes you can argue that if its set for 10, you can easily allow 3. But I counter with if you set for 3, you can easily allow 15. The required ratchet is the same either way. It is still work for the DM. I believe if you have to have it in the book, laid out before you so you can "see" it, then the encounter building system has to be adjusted, NOT the attunement slot number. It seems to me, the discussion is flawed at its base, seeing as most of this ends up being "how to quantify and build and encounter".

Simple math from 0E and 1E. Total Character levels / total characters = HD to build encounter. Select monsters based on theme, spend HD. Allow any monster with special abilities (marked with an * to equal 1HD per *) Done.

Average PC levels = HD to spend (or xp budget per Next)

I don't see why you can't reverse this math. Substitute * abilities with magic items. Ignore class abilities as adding an HD per class ability results in Hulking Orcs who consume your players with fire from their eyes, poisonous gas from there bums, and can only be killed on the third sunset after the solstice.

Even in Next this method doesn't require any adjustment, simply assign experience budget based on rarity as a starting point. So your (Next Gen) Holy Avenger might give you a budget of say 10 per +1 + 30 per additional ability - 10 for any restrictions (such as requires paladin). So basically its worth 50 xp budget (if my math is right, I don't have the book infront of me).

Ultimately my point is - It's D&D. The DM will have work to do. It is not WotCs job to do anything other than provide you with rules to play, not figure out the minutia of every detail. If you desire a different playstyle than you see in the book, make the adjustments. That doesn't mean WotC is doing their job wrong. They are trying to sell a product to as many people as they can. Everyone knows 100% of the population looking at buying this is not feasible or attainable. Nothing is 100%. They will settle for as many as they can get. If that means 1% or 10% of consumers don't buy it, they understand that.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-22, 10:21 AM
Its equivalent to 8-21 levels of AC or attack bonus, which can mean the difference between an easy encounter and a hard encounter. High level 5E is going to be very swingy.

Please explain your math. If it helps, I am looking at it this way:

Each +1 is a 5% increase to the roll. The target number at its lowest is AC 10. Based on that, 5% becomes 10% as the max that can be rolled is twice the target. Essentially the math that Sarathina is using if I'm am comprehending correctly.

With that out there, how does a +3 (+15%/30%) translate to 8-21 levels? Are you adding more to this calculation? It is my understanding that a +1 to hit/damage effects only combat, and not the overall effectiveness of a Character. +1 to hit/damage is not a proficiency bonus and is not applied to skills, checks, or anything other than combat rolls. Unless specifically noted by the item providing the bonus, and is thus significantly less powerful that a proficiency bonus.

If you are allowing a +1 to hit/damage to affect other aspects of the Character, you should state so, and why you are doing so.

Stubbazubba
2014-05-22, 12:36 PM
Yeah, we had a war over that because half the country wanted to keep it and the other half wanted to remove it, sound familiar? I mean slavery was horrible and needed abolishing, but high and low magic are not horrible in and of themselves and should be allowed to work in the game depending on the DM and tables preferences.

You're a slippery character, Lok. Christmas Tree != High Magic, as there are plenty of settings where magic was rare for everyone except the PCs because the rules were written poorly. There could also be a game that buries you in magic items and magic environments, where magic is ubiquitous and accessible, but PCs can only carry/use a certain amount at their fullest capacity. Whether that amount is low or high does not define low/high magic games.

So the question is not "should the game support low and high magic?" because the obvious answer to that is "yes," but rather "what kind of restrictions on magic item use make for the best D&D game?" No restrictions like 3.5? While that sounds great and full of player empowerment, the effect on the system has been consistently criticized. Attunements rein in the effect of powerful magic items without ruling on their scarcity, which maintains table and DM freedom without borking the system.

Lokiare
2014-05-22, 12:36 PM
Recap:

The system needs to allow a range of Magic items to allow for various styles of play.

I agree with this ideology, but selecting a number (any number) is arbitrary. Fundamentally, there is no difference between 3 magic items, 10 magic items, or 15 magic items. Each is there own thing. Yes you can argue that if its set for 10, you can easily allow 3. But I counter with if you set for 3, you can easily allow 15. The required ratchet is the same either way. It is still work for the DM. I believe if you have to have it in the book, laid out before you so you can "see" it, then the encounter building system has to be adjusted, NOT the attunement slot number. It seems to me, the discussion is flawed at its base, seeing as most of this ends up being "how to quantify and build and encounter".

Simple math from 0E and 1E. Total Character levels / total characters = HD to build encounter. Select monsters based on theme, spend HD. Allow any monster with special abilities (marked with an * to equal 1HD per *) Done.

Average PC levels = HD to spend (or xp budget per Next)

I don't see why you can't reverse this math. Substitute * abilities with magic items. Ignore class abilities as adding an HD per class ability results in Hulking Orcs who consume your players with fire from their eyes, poisonous gas from there bums, and can only be killed on the third sunset after the solstice.

Even in Next this method doesn't require any adjustment, simply assign experience budget based on rarity as a starting point. So your (Next Gen) Holy Avenger might give you a budget of say 10 per +1 + 30 per additional ability - 10 for any restrictions (such as requires paladin). So basically its worth 50 xp budget (if my math is right, I don't have the book infront of me).

Ultimately my point is - It's D&D. The DM will have work to do. It is not WotCs job to do anything other than provide you with rules to play, not figure out the minutia of every detail. If you desire a different playstyle than you see in the book, make the adjustments. That doesn't mean WotC is doing their job wrong. They are trying to sell a product to as many people as they can. Everyone knows 100% of the population looking at buying this is not feasible or attainable. Nothing is 100%. They will settle for as many as they can get. If that means 1% or 10% of consumers don't buy it, they understand that.

Except I've proven over and over in my posts that the game could be made to be playable by everyone through the use of carefully thought out optional modules that you swap out to get your play style. Unfortunately to WotC 'modules' means an miniscule optional rule hidden in the back of the DMG. That's not what's needed. What is needed is vast swathes of rules that can be swapped out by naming a single module.

For instance the heroic module would go something like this:

1. All creatures and characters add their constitution score to their hp at 1st level.

2. Hit Dice must be used in order to heal from anything that doesn't have a daily recharge such as from encounter healing spells or from potions.

3. Add the following powers to each non-caster class that they can choose instead of gaining a class feature at the given level ...

4. Replace the following deadly conditions with these multiple save conditions.

5. Replace the broken legendary mechanics with these mechanics that are similar to the 4E solo mechanics near the end.


Please explain your math. If it helps, I am looking at it this way:

Each +1 is a 5% increase to the roll. The target number at its lowest is AC 10. Based on that, 5% becomes 10% as the max that can be rolled is twice the target. Essentially the math that Sarathina is using if I'm am comprehending correctly.

With that out there, how does a +3 (+15%/30%) translate to 8-21 levels? Are you adding more to this calculation? It is my understanding that a +1 to hit/damage effects only combat, and not the overall effectiveness of a Character. +1 to hit/damage is not a proficiency bonus and is not applied to skills, checks, or anything other than combat rolls. Unless specifically noted by the item providing the bonus, and is thus significantly less powerful that a proficiency bonus.

If you are allowing a +1 to hit/damage to affect other aspects of the Character, you should state so, and why you are doing so.

The idea is that for the purposes of combat, skill checks and what not are worthless except in extremely rare corner cases. In combat the most important thing for a non-caster is their attack bonus total, AC total, and their damage total. Everything else is for out of combat and can be handled by the Rogue, Bard, or casters because the non-casters even with magical help won't equal their effectiveness.

The fighter gains a +1 bonus to attack every 3-7 levels. They gain a +1 to damage if they put 2 points into their attack stat so about every 4-6 levels depending on class. So +3 is equal to (3*3) to (3*7) or 9 to 21 levels. Now even if you just say that a +3 to attack is equal to +15%, that's +15% damage and a fighter gets around 6 attacks near its max, combined with damage bonuses from class features an additional 15% can mean quite a boost. I've already went over this if you had bothered to read the thread.


You're a slippery character, Lok. Christmas Tree != High Magic, as there are plenty of settings where magic was rare for everyone except the PCs because the rules were written poorly. There could also be a game that buries you in magic items and magic environments, where magic is ubiquitous and accessible, but PCs can only carry/use a certain amount at their fullest capacity. Whether that amount is low or high does not define low/high magic games.

So the question is not "should the game support low and high magic?" because the obvious answer to that is "yes," but rather "what kind of restrictions on magic item use make for the best D&D game?" No restrictions like 3.5? While that sounds great and full of player empowerment, the effect on the system has been consistently criticized. Attunements rein in the effect of powerful magic items without ruling on their scarcity, which maintains table and DM freedom without borking the system.

For some Christmas Tree does equal high magic. For others it does not. They should all be covered by the rules so that you can choose where you want to set your world. The default setting for 5E appears to be the forgotten realms. Even if it isn't they describe it as a low magic game then proceed to have random magic item charts that hand out 100+ magic items to the party over the course of their career.

Now if you want restrictions, then just use the 4E inherent bonuses system and build it into the math. However make it look like you aren't doing that by saying that magic item bonuses don't stack with proficiency bonuses. Then players might actually strategize and give that +2 dagger to the wizard rather than the rogue who will already have a +2 proficiency bonus while the Wizard is still at a +1. Grant the proficiency bonus to AC and build the game around that so that when the fighter gains a +3 plate mail, they won't gain more than a +1 or +2 to their AC at low level and no bonus at high level, instead have that bonus apply to things like move speed and check penalties. There are many many ways that we can all get a game we want, but WotC is incapable of doing that.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-22, 12:47 PM
What does LFQW have to do with magic items? Unless you are trying to say LFQW was a mainstay of 3E and therefore should be in 5E. The problem with that is 4E wasn't LFQW and neither was 0E, 1E, or 2E (which had LFQW but was constrained by things like concentrations, spell casting times, and negative side effects for using the powerful spells). That appears to be a flaw in a single edition that was removed in the next one. Of course as others have noted LFQW is alive and well in 5E due to the unconstrained vancian casting system.

No, I was pointing out the absurdity of your argument that because "magic item christmas tree" was an aspect of 3.x (and to a lesser extent 4e), that it therefore qualifies as a major play style.

Lokiare
2014-05-22, 12:48 PM
No, I was pointing out the absurdity of your argument that because "magic item christmas tree" was an aspect of 3.x (and to a lesser extent 4e), that it therefore qualifies as a major play style.

I happen to know its a play style because many of the players I played with in 3E and 4E like to pick out various magic items to adorn their characters with. Saying its not a valid play style or that the play style doesn't exist is literally sticking your head in the sand.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-22, 12:51 PM
I happen to know its a play style because many of the players I played with in 3E and 4E like to pick out various magic items to adorn their characters with. Saying its not a valid play style or that the play style doesn't exist is literally sticking your head in the sand.

There's a difference between "a play style" and "a major play style". Simulated Lycan Role Play Sexcapades is also a play style. That doesn't mean it's a major one or that WotC should spend time or pages generating "random venereal disease" charts to make the SLRPS groups happy.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-22, 01:13 PM
The fighter gains a +1 bonus to attack every 3-7 levels. They gain a +1 to damage if they put 2 points into their attack stat so about every 4-6 levels depending on class. So +3 is equal to (3*3) to (3*7) or 9 to 21 levels. Now even if you just say that a +3 to attack is equal to +15%, that's +15% damage and a fighter gets around 6 attacks near its max, combined with damage bonuses from class features an additional 15% can mean quite a boost. I've already went over this if you had bothered to read the thread.


I see you are focusing. My mistake, I thought you were looking at it as a general item that could be used by any character. Essentially your statement needs the amendment "In the hands of a Fighter" tagged on. Again, I misinterpreted your statement and that is my error.

Sartharina
2014-05-22, 01:40 PM
The d20 is swingy at high levels, yes, but the d20 isn't the defining mechanic of characters - class features are. A +3 sword ISN'T the same as +8 levels, because it doesn't bring any extra HP, any extra attacks, new spell levels, or anything else that actually matters. It's possible for a level 1 and level 6 character to have an equal bonus to performing a task or hitting something, but the level 6 character is still significantly more competent at adventuring, due to greater tools at his disposal and greater survivability.

Lokiare
2014-05-22, 03:11 PM
There's a difference between "a play style" and "a major play style". Simulated Lycan Role Play Sexcapades is also a play style. That doesn't mean it's a major one or that WotC should spend time or pages generating "random venereal disease" charts to make the SLRPS groups happy.

Yeah, see the problem here is you are assuming that the christmas tree items is a minor play style when it in fact appeals to a large type of fun: fun as obstacle course. Where player choice to overcome obstacles is paramount. Choosing which items to adorn your character with is a very big part of that.


I see you are focusing. My mistake, I thought you were looking at it as a general item that could be used by any character. Essentially your statement needs the amendment "In the hands of a Fighter" tagged on. Again, I misinterpreted your statement and that is my error.

Not only the fighter, any melee class. They get their proficiency bonuses at different levels. In the hands of a class that gets very bad proficiency bonuses that +3 weapon could be equivalent to 30+ levels. I haven't done the math on that, but the idea is the same.


The d20 is swingy at high levels, yes, but the d20 isn't the defining mechanic of characters - class features are. A +3 sword ISN'T the same as +8 levels, because it doesn't bring any extra HP, any extra attacks, new spell levels, or anything else that actually matters. It's possible for a level 1 and level 6 character to have an equal bonus to performing a task or hitting something, but the level 6 character is still significantly more competent at adventuring, due to greater tools at his disposal and greater survivability.

You can't take as many hits, but that just means you are the same as a wizard of level +21 or whatever. You are however just as effective at dealing damage as a character that is +21 levels. This is because your damage is increased by +15%. If you deal an average of 60 damage per round then a +15% increase is 69 damage. That really stacks up especially in a fight against creatures with lots of hp. Lets do some real math:

Without the magic weapon:
chance to hit AC 16 with a + 9 bonus is 70% with 5% of that being a critical hit.
Weapon 1d10 + str 5 = 10.5 average x 5 attacks = 52.5 damage average per round on a normal hit.
critical 10+5=15 average x 5 = 75 damage average per round on a critical hit.
52.5 * .65% = 34.125
75 * .05% = 3.75
Total = 34.125 + 3.75 = 37.875

With a +3 magic weapon:
chance to hit AC 16 with a + 12 bonus is 85% with 5% of that being a critical hit.
Weapon 1d10 + str 5 + magic 3 = 13.5 average x 5 attacks = 67.5 damage average per round on a normal hit.
critical 10+5+3=18 average x 5 = 90 damage average per round on a critical hit.
67.5 * .80% = 54
90 * .05% = 4.5
Total = 54 + 4.5 = 58.5

Oh look an increase of 20.625 average per round. Meaning an average 5 round fight will give us about a 100 damage increase from that +3. With the highest creatures in the game having 100-300 hp, that means the character with a +3 weapon will dominate combats.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-22, 03:14 PM
Yeah, see the problem here is you are assuming that the christmas tree items is a minor play style when it in fact appeals to a large type of fun: fun as obstacle course. Where player choice to overcome obstacles is paramount. Choosing which items to adorn your character with is a very big part of that.

Facts not in evidence. It is possible to have choices and overcome obstacles without having infinite (or even just many) option slots. Also ignores that Next still allows you to have as many magic items as the DM provides, it merely restricts to to attuning to 3 of them at a time. If this were 4e, the rough equivalent would be you can have as many magic items as you want for the bonuses, but you can only use the powers of 3 of them until a long rest.

Lokiare
2014-05-22, 03:18 PM
Facts not in evidence. It is possible to have choices and overcome obstacles without having infinite (or even just many) option slots. Also ignores that Next still allows you to have as many magic items as the DM provides, it merely restricts to to attuning to 3 of them at a time. If this were 4e, the rough equivalent would be you can have as many magic items as you want for the bonuses, but you can only use the powers of 3 of them until a long rest.

Other than all the people that like the christmas tree items then? Look around. People all over the internet come up with builds that have to do with having interesting sets of magic items for 3E and 4E. It is a legitimate play style. Anyone saying otherwise is sticking their heads in the sand.

Restricting players to 3 items is cutting what they normally get (from previous editions) in less than half. Its a lazy way to deal with stacking items. You would be better off just saying no bonuses stack or getting rid of magic item bonuses completely.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-22, 03:24 PM
Other than all the people that like the christmas tree items then? Look around. People all over the internet come up with builds that have to do with having interesting sets of magic items for 3E and 4E. It is a legitimate play style. Anyone saying otherwise is sticking their heads in the sand.

I didn't say it wasn't a "legitimate" play style, merely that it may not be a major playstyle. The fact that you can find plenty of builds using that means nothing about how popular the play style is because:

a) The people who produce builds online are by definition a minority of the players
b) They are effective ways to play the games in question, and therefore effective builds, but that doesn't mean they're the way people want to play the game

You need to provide evidence that people want the magic item christmas tree, and you need to prove that they want it in a game that otherwise isn't designed for it. That they might want it in a game where it's more or less mandatory is not in and of itself proof that they want that play style in general. Further, the popularity of the 4e inherent bonus system seems to be pretty strong evidence that many players and DMs alike do not like the magic item christmas tree play style.



Restricting players to 3 items is cutting what they normally get (from previous editions) in less than half. Its a lazy way to deal with stacking items. You would be better off just saying no bonuses stack or getting rid of magic item bonuses completely.

Luckily, players in D&D Next are not restricted to 3 magic items. You should really stop repeating things that aren't true.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-22, 04:02 PM
Thank you Lokiare, the math was very helpful. I appreciate it. I have a couple questions about this section of your post:



1. All creatures and characters add their constitution score to their hp at 1st level.

2. Hit Dice must be used in order to heal from anything that doesn't have a daily recharge such as from encounter healing spells or from potions.

3. Add the following powers to each non-caster class that they can choose instead of gaining a class feature at the given level ...

4. Replace the following deadly conditions with these multiple save conditions.

5. Replace the broken legendary mechanics with these mechanics that are similar to the 4E solo mechanics near the end.



1 - I somewhat agree with this, but instead of adding, I would replace the initial HD with the Con score instead.

2 - Is this supposed to replace the Long Rest rule? Forcing players to spend their Hit Dice?

3 - Does this mean pick from Group A, like 3.5 did with feats? Is this any different than giving a specific power? It seems like a false choice to me. One still has only so many choices to make either way.

4 - Is this in reference to the Death Roll mechanic?

5 - I skipped 4e so I'm not sure what you want to replace here.

Not attempting to nitpick, I'm just looking for clarification.

Stubbazubba
2014-05-22, 04:09 PM
Other than all the people that like the christmas tree items then? Look around. People all over the internet come up with builds that have to do with having interesting sets of magic items for 3E and 4E. It is a legitimate play style. Anyone saying otherwise is sticking their heads in the sand.

Restricting players to 3 items is cutting what they normally get (from previous editions) in less than half. Its a lazy way to deal with stacking items. You would be better off just saying no bonuses stack or getting rid of magic item bonuses completely.

Wouldn't that mean Attunements is just an even better obstacle course? Maybe not strictly at 3, but keeping it to a small number just increases the challenge of the obstacle course.

captpike
2014-05-22, 06:17 PM
Wouldn't that mean Attunements is just an even better obstacle course? Maybe not strictly at 3, but keeping it to a small number just increases the challenge of the obstacle course.

even if some people thought so, there are more then enough who think its too few to take the effort to do the math to provide a way to make more then three work.

and personally I don't think think three is enough, with that few you are more likely to just pick the best three rather then try for odd combos or to do things that are cool but sub-optimal.

D-naras
2014-05-22, 06:47 PM
What I got from this, is that magic items will function like 3.5's soulmelds. You have them on you, but only those that you have bound to a chakra function to their fullest, or in this case, the items that you have attuned to yourself. The article also suggests that items that require attunement will also add nuances to your character or be potential problems, like a 3.5 Binder's bad pact.

I like this approach. It adds much needed colour to the game by making items special, no matter their availability. Maybe there are magic marts everywhere but each item they sell that requires attunement can lead to fun times, not just another +3 flaming burst prismatic longsword of somethingness that in essence became a bonus to hit and some extra fire damage.

captpike
2014-05-22, 06:56 PM
What I got from this, is that magic items will function like 3.5's soulmelds. You have them on you, but only those that you have bound to a chakra function to their fullest, or in this case, the items that you have attuned to yourself. The article also suggests that items that require attunement will also add nuances to your character or be potential problems, like a 3.5 Binder's bad pact.

I like this approach. It adds much needed colour to the game by making items special, no matter their availability. Maybe there are magic marts everywhere but each item they sell that requires attunement can lead to fun times, not just another +3 flaming burst prismatic longsword of somethingness that in essence became a bonus to hit and some extra fire damage.

the problem is not that its a bad idea, its not. the problem is that they are forcing everyone to do it that way, in every game you will have to use that system or the game will not work.

Sartharina
2014-05-22, 07:26 PM
Where the heck are you getting the idea that magic items affect the math at all?

You don't need to attune a weapon or suit of armor or shield to get the static bonus to attack/damage/AC. Attunement is only required to access special abilities (Which might be activated or situational math boosts, like a +5 to Initiative)

captpike
2014-05-22, 07:36 PM
Where the heck are you getting the idea that magic items affect the math at all?

You don't need to attune a weapon or suit of armor or shield to get the static bonus to attack/damage/AC. Attunement is only required to access special abilities (Which might be activated or situational math boosts, like a +5 to Initiative)

ummm.... common sense? a basic understanding of how games work?

magic items, if they are in any way useful effect the power of the PC who has them. this means they effect the math of the game. how many creatures the PC can fight ect. this means they have to be taken into account when making the system.

Sartharina
2014-05-22, 07:47 PM
the problem is not that its a bad idea, its not. the problem is that they are forcing everyone to do it that way, in every game you will have to use that system or the game will not work.I'm sorry, but [citation needed]

Just because the designers of a tabletop game create a rule that helps provide the experience they want new players to have with the system doesn't mean that it can't be changed without breaking the system. It just means that changing the rule has the system provide a somewhat different experience than the one it was written for.

This isn't a computer-driven, inflexible RPG engine. The 'rules' made are simply guidelines, as any optimizer can tell you (And there's optimization in EVERY game. It's possible to make 4e parties that absolutely wipe the floor with level-appropriate encounters using all the guidelines that are supposed to make the encounters balanced, just as it's possible to make parties that struggle against level-appropriate encounters) - Threat and challenge HAVE to be discerned by the DM - and even then, decisions players make can turn a supposed-to-be-hard by-the-numbers encounter into a complete cakewalk, or a what the game dictates is a hardly-worth-their-effort encounter into a TPK.

captpike
2014-05-22, 08:02 PM
I'm sorry, but [citation needed]

Just because the designers of a tabletop game create a rule that helps provide the experience they want new players to have with the system doesn't mean that it can't be changed without breaking the system. It just means that changing the rule has the system provide a somewhat different experience than the one it was written for.

This isn't a computer-driven, inflexible RPG engine. The 'rules' made are simply guidelines, as any optimizer can tell you (And there's optimization in EVERY game. It's possible to make 4e parties that absolutely wipe the floor with level-appropriate encounters using all the guidelines that are supposed to make the encounters balanced, just as it's possible to make parties that struggle against level-appropriate encounters) - Threat and challenge HAVE to be discerned by the DM - and even then, decisions players make can turn a supposed-to-be-hard by-the-numbers encounter into a complete cakewalk, or a what the game dictates is a hardly-worth-their-effort encounter into a TPK.

its only possible for the DM to judge how hard a fight will be if the system gives you enough information to do it.

4e does this, I dont know if 5e will.

you seam to have this idea that every rule is optional, that no mater what rule you chip away the system as a rule will still hold up, this is not the case. what would happen if you gave a 3e or 4e character as many level 20 magic items as he wanted? or did not let their attack rolls scale (through half level or BAB) it would break the system.

rules are only really optional if changing them does not screw up the system.

if me giving my players 10 magic items means any creatures they fight are either not a challenge or are so high level they have no hope of winning then its not really optional.
or if me NOT giving my players 3 magic items means they become weaklings that cant fight anything the system would consider level appropriate, and that causes rippling problems then I have to give them the items.


as far as magic items go their are two options. A) they are powerful enough to effect the overall combat power of PCs and must therefor be taken into account to make sure the game is balanced B) they don't have an effect on the combat balance of the game, so they can be ignored entirely

Sartharina
2014-05-22, 08:12 PM
its only possible for the DM to judge how hard a fight will be if the system gives you enough information to do it.

4e does this, I dont know if 5e will.

you seam to have this idea that every rule is optional, that no mater what rule you chip away the system as a rule will still hold up, this is not the case. what would happen if you gave a 3e or 4e character as many level 20 magic items as he wanted? or did not let their attack rolls scale (through half level or BAB) it would break the system.

rules are only really optional if changing them does not screw up the system.

if me giving my players 10 magic items means any creatures they fight are either not a challenge or are so high level they have no hope of winning then its not really optional.
or if me NOT giving my players 3 magic items means they become weaklings that cant fight anything the system would consider level appropriate, and that causes rippling problems then I have to give them the items.


as far as magic items go their are two options. A) they are powerful enough to effect the overall combat power of PCs and must therefor be taken into account to make sure the game is balanced B) they don't have an effect on the combat balance of the game, so they can be ignored entirelyThe system cannot give the information you demand it does, because everyone is different. Also, you seem to have very little faith in your players' problem-solving skills.

4e DOESN'T do it to the extent you think it does - some parties, built by the rules, will absolutely curbstomp encounters 5 or more levels higher than they are without issue.

captpike
2014-05-22, 08:23 PM
The system cannot give the information you demand it does, because everyone is different. Also, you seem to have very little faith in your players' problem-solving skills.

4e DOESN'T do it to the extent you think it does - some parties, built by the rules, will absolutely curbstomp encounters 5 or more levels higher than they are without issue.

it takes alot of optimizing to curbstomp a +5 encounter if its build right, you would have to all be on the far end of the optimization curve. it also would be something that would be obvious (like 5 melee rangers and a warlord), your not going to be surprised by that.

95% of groups would be ok with the encounter creation rules as written. that is more then good enough, and all I want from the creation rules of 5e.

the rules can be perfect but they have to be good enough I am not just throwing dice to determine how hard fights are. they need to provide a at least a rough idea how hard a fight would be.

if I spend an hour making a boss fight I don't want to have it over in 2 turns because the PC got lucky on a crit.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-23, 08:08 AM
rules are only really optional if changing them does not screw up the system.



I am not seeing any evidence that changing the Attune limit changes the game enough to break it. Can I ask why you think this is happening?

Lokiare
2014-05-23, 08:31 AM
I didn't say it wasn't a "legitimate" play style, merely that it may not be a major playstyle. The fact that you can find plenty of builds using that means nothing about how popular the play style is because:

a) The people who produce builds online are by definition a minority of the players
b) They are effective ways to play the games in question, and therefore effective builds, but that doesn't mean they're the way people want to play the game

You need to provide evidence that people want the magic item christmas tree, and you need to prove that they want it in a game that otherwise isn't designed for it. That they might want it in a game where it's more or less mandatory is not in and of itself proof that they want that play style in general. Further, the popularity of the 4e inherent bonus system seems to be pretty strong evidence that many players and DMs alike do not like the magic item christmas tree play style.



Luckily, players in D&D Next are not restricted to 3 magic items. You should really stop repeating things that aren't true.

People who produce builds online are not a minority by definition. They are a small sampling of what might be a minority or a majority. You cannot draw conclusions like 'minority' from that. However you can tell by the number of build authors that it is in fact a popular play style, especially if you look at the number of visitors to those build guides.


Thank you Lokiare, the math was very helpful. I appreciate it. I have a couple questions about this section of your post:



1 - I somewhat agree with this, but instead of adding, I would replace the initial HD with the Con score instead.

2 - Is this supposed to replace the Long Rest rule? Forcing players to spend their Hit Dice?

3 - Does this mean pick from Group A, like 3.5 did with feats? Is this any different than giving a specific power? It seems like a false choice to me. One still has only so many choices to make either way.

4 - Is this in reference to the Death Roll mechanic?

5 - I skipped 4e so I'm not sure what you want to replace here.

Not attempting to nitpick, I'm just looking for clarification.

What I posted was just an example of what a decent module would include. This is not how 5E is or is being designed. Its how a 'game for everyone should be designed'


Wouldn't that mean Attunements is just an even better obstacle course? Maybe not strictly at 3, but keeping it to a small number just increases the challenge of the obstacle course.

Nope. See attunement slots take away options rather than adding them. Especially if you are used to having 11+ slots (head, neck, body, arms, hands, feet, left ring, right ring, tattoo, left weapon, right weapon). See 5E seems to be all about removing options, which is a death knell to the obstacle course style of fun.


I am not seeing any evidence that changing the Attune limit changes the game enough to break it. Can I ask why you think this is happening?

Um, how about all the things I've mentioned in this thread such as multiple bonuses to AC, saves, or attack and damage which increases a characters virtual combat effectiveness by 9-21 levels.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-23, 08:42 AM
Sorry Lokiare, I was asking Catpike about his thought process, not about yours, but thank you for the input.

Sartharina
2014-05-23, 09:28 AM
Nope. See attunement slots take away options rather than adding them. Especially if you are used to having 11+ slots (head, neck, body, arms, hands, feet, left ring, right ring, tattoo, left weapon, right weapon). See 5E seems to be all about removing options, which is a death knell to the obstacle course style of fun.I think you have no idea what attunement actually is. Attunement =/= Equipping. Attunement is unlocking extra abilities. Even then,


Um, how about all the things I've mentioned in this thread such as multiple bonuses to AC, saves, or attack and damage which increases a characters virtual combat effectiveness by 9-21 levels.You don't need to attune items to get bonuses to AC or Attack Bonus - you get that WITHOUT attuning them. Attunement is simply for extra magic effects. And, no, they don't increase combat effectiveness by 9-21 levels. Combat effectiveness is determined by hitpoints, damage-per-attack, number of attacks, class features, spell slots, spells known, feats, and ability to stretch the action economy, not the trivial proficiency bonus to the d20 rolls.

Lokiare
2014-05-23, 09:38 AM
I think you have no idea what attunement actually is. Attunement =/= Equipping. Attunement is unlocking extra abilities. Even then,

You don't need to attune items to get bonuses to AC or Attack Bonus - you get that WITHOUT attuning them. Attunement is simply for extra magic effects. And, no, they don't increase combat effectiveness by 9-21 levels. Combat effectiveness is determined by hitpoints, damage-per-attack, number of attacks, class features, spell slots, spells known, feats, and ability to stretch the action economy, not the trivial proficiency bonus to the d20 rolls.

So then attunement is basically worthless if it doesn't affect the AC and attack bonuses. Where are you getting that anyway? the attunement articles I've read say you can't use the item at all unless you are attuned.

The only point of having attunement at all would be to keep magic item effects from stacking, if it doesn't do that, its basically pointless.

Also I've already shown the math on it. You have the same HP as a lesser class, your damage per attack goes up significantly, your class features mostly don't matter since you only get 1 every 3-5 levels (in fact you can pretty much map the no option fighter build class features directly to damage output and get the same effect), we are talking about melee and ranged weapons, if you want to talk about spell slots and spells known take a look at the ring of wizardry that will likely show up at some point, also many magic items simulate the effects of feats, and some items allow you to break the action economy (dancing sword, ring of haste), and the 'trivial' proficiency bonus to the d20 rolls is what increases the damage to unrealistic proportions.

Again review the math I posted if you don't believe me. Its all there.

captpike
2014-05-23, 10:32 AM
I am not seeing any evidence that changing the Attune limit changes the game enough to break it. Can I ask why you think this is happening?

becuase I doubt they would put magic items in them game, and have them have no effect at all on your power. from what they are saying its probably that they will be more powerful then in 4e.

this means they will greatly effect the power of PCs, that means the system has to take that into account. that means that if you screw with the number of magic items the system stops working. or you get TPKs where there should be an easy fight (you dont have any magic items), or a hard fight becomes easy (you have 6+ magic items). see Lokiare's math

D-naras
2014-05-23, 11:02 AM
this means they will greatly effect the power of PCs, that means the system has to take that into account. that means that if you screw with the number of magic items the system stops working. or you get TPKs where there should be an easy fight (you dont have any magic items), or a hard fight becomes easy (you have 6+ magic items). see Lokiare's math

But isn't that the whole point of having magic items? To get stronger/more capable?

From what I've gathered reading all these threads and Mearl's articles, the game is designed with the assumption that an X level party with 0 magic items can face an X level monster fair and square. So giving magic items will make it easier for the party. Why is that a bad thing? Maybe you have X level PCs decked out like Iron-man. You won't have them fight X goblins, you will have them fight X+N level Mandarins. So you get 20% damage increase with a +3 weapon. That's great, that's why you got it in the first place. Now you can fight tougher/more baddies per day. How is that broken?

captpike
2014-05-23, 11:07 AM
But isn't that the whole point of having magic items? To get stronger/more capable?

From what I've gathered reading all these threads and Mearl's articles, the game is designed with the assumption that an X level party with 0 magic items can face an X level monster fair and square. So giving magic items will make it easier for the party. Why is that a bad thing? Maybe you have X level PCs decked out like Iron-man. You won't have them fight X goblins, you will have them fight X+N level Mandarins. So you get 20% damage increase with a +3 weapon. That's great, that's why you got it in the first place. Now you can fight tougher/more baddies per day. How is that broken?

if the game is made well with good math then yes that would be good, but it has to be made that with that in mind. if they don't make it well and with that in mind it will just screw things up. you might have to fight so many creatures it would become a slog if you had 6 magic items.

if they had said that they are making the game to work with 0-10 items and that for (on average) every 2 items per PC you add 2 at-level creatures it would be awsome, but they have not done that.

its not something that will just come together, its something that takes time, effort and skill to make work. and they are lacking in all of those things.

D-naras
2014-05-23, 11:11 AM
I think that most of us have outgrown Dnd by know and are just complaining due to sheer nostalgia of the game. :smalltongue:

Sartharina
2014-05-23, 11:21 AM
They dont' need to. They have plenty of guidelines on how to play the game and ensure a fun, challenging game. The rest is up to DM observation and reaction. You CANNOT cut DM interaction and observation out of the system and expect it to work, or design a system that ignores DM observation of the game. The more you try to nail down balance and math, the easier it is to break the game and render the system unplayable.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-23, 12:12 PM
I'm just throwing this out there....

Ignore the math for a minute. And I mean completely ignore it. Forget trying to break it down by attacks per round vs creature attacks, etc.

I agree with Sarathina, my packet says any number of magical items can be equipped and used that do not require attuning. But a Character is limited to 3 (default setting) attuned items.

Holy Avenger example

The default of a holy avenger is a +1 longsword.
Anyone can pick this up, and whack someone with the +1 bonus. And that makes it useful. No more or less useful than other +1 weapons. But in order to unlock its full potential, you have to be a Paladin, and then spend 10 game minutes attuning it to you, which changes the weapon into a +2 longsword that when drawn grants advantage vs spells to any ally within 10' of the Pally.

The weapon is useful to anyone, just better in the hands of a paladin. I believe this is the essence of attuning and a more careful eye should be shown to the magic items requiring attuning or not.

Examples: For old school players/DMs, items that have a name (Firebrand, Hammer of Thunderbolts) should be useful, but attuned, some with requirements, especially the high powered ones.

Utility items (Ring of Prot, Bag of Holding) shouldn't require attuning as they have no additional abilities to speak of.

Consumables (yes they count too) should not be attuned either.

This view is based entirely on the items themselves, and not on the mathematical principles behind them. Even with the math added, I am hard pressed to go against 3 attuned, largely because I expect items that need attuning, break the rules anyway, or grant significantly more abilities than normal items.

I don't see this as really any different than finding a magic weapons, smacking baddies with it (at +1) until you identify it and discover its full properties. Course this was back when you had Longswords +2/+4 vs Giants.

captpike
2014-05-23, 05:09 PM
if you ignore the math of the game, you are ignoring the game itself.

the game IS math, more then its anything else.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-23, 05:37 PM
the game IS math, more then its anything else.

No it isn't. The game is adventure. It's getting together with friends (or strangers) and escaping into a realm of the fantastic. It's killing kobolds, outsmarting dragons, saving the prince and exposing the doppelgänger queeen. It's slaying dire rats in the basement of your first inn, and making that lucky shot or save when everything was on the line. This is the game (http://vimeo.com/58179094) (warning may not be SWF), no math required.

captpike
2014-05-23, 05:57 PM
No it isn't. The game is adventure. It's getting together with friends (or strangers) and escaping into a realm of the fantastic. It's killing kobolds, outsmarting dragons, saving the prince and exposing the doppelgänger queeen. It's slaying dire rats in the basement of your first inn, and making that lucky shot or save when everything was on the line. This is the game (http://vimeo.com/58179094) (warning may not be SWF), no math required.

ok then play the game with no math or numbers at all and tell me how that works out.

D&D is math in the same way computer games are 0s and 1s, you may not see them, but without them you dont have anything.

Envyus
2014-05-23, 06:45 PM
if you ignore the math of the game, you are ignoring the game itself.

the game IS math, more then its anything else.

You ignored the rest of his comment.

captpike
2014-05-23, 06:56 PM
You ignored the rest of his comment.

the rest of his comment is built on the faulty assumption its possible to ignore the math and still get to a useful conclusion

Fwiffo86
2014-05-23, 07:44 PM
ok then play the game with no math or numbers at all and tell me how that works out.

D&D is math in the same way computer games are 0s and 1s, you may not see them, but without them you dont have anything.

Play the AMBER game system. It doesn't use dice. Barely uses a character sheet. Basically... No math

Knaight
2014-05-23, 07:51 PM
ok then play the game with no math or numbers at all and tell me how that works out.

D&D is math in the same way computer games are 0s and 1s, you may not see them, but without them you dont have anything.

Freeform roleplaying exists, and plenty of people enjoy it. A blank file, meanwhile, will never be a computer game. The analogy is ridiculous.

da_chicken
2014-05-23, 09:38 PM
I also reject the assertion that "good math" = "tight math", "bad math" = "loose math" and most of all that tight math is necessary and sufficient for a good roleplaying game (i.e., an RPG is good if and only if it has tight math). And, no, bounded math does not imply tight math. It implies a limit to stacking and rarity of bonuses more than anything else. Monopoly has some pretty bounded math as far as movement, but 2d6 movement for a board of 40 spaces is not exactly tight. The only way around that are Go To Jail, Chance, and Community Chest. 4e, on the other hand, has very tight math and absolutely no bounding.

1E/2E had horrible math (with 1E having very, very little bounding), rotten mechanics, cumbersome rules, and draconian DM guidelines. That does not change the fact that I have orders of magnitude more fun playing 1E/2E today than I do playing 4e. To me, 4e feels way too much like sitting down to a business meeting because if we don't stay on track with the agenda and push through each encounter in the most efficient manner, nothing gets done all night.

It essentially ties back to Luck vs Skill (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSg408i-eKw). Tight math = high skill, or more accurately for D&D, high benefit to system mastery. If you don't want to primarily reward high skill game, you actually don't want tight math. The analogy makes more sense if you consider it in the terms PC class tiering systems, and adversarial subgames of D&D like combat where it's players vs DM. As Dr. Garfield says in his preface, D&D it isn't straightforward to translate. There are people who are perfectly happy playing poker or Magic but find checkers or chess unplayable. Many people would play Risk, Monopoly, or backgammon before chess. That is not wrong. That is a choice.

captpike
2014-05-24, 12:57 AM
Play the AMBER game system. It doesn't use dice. Barely uses a character sheet. Basically... No math

I was not talking about AMBER, I was taking about D&D. in D&D the math is the backbone of the game, if its wrong nothing else in the universe will fix it.




It essentially ties back to Luck vs Skill. Tight math = high skill, or more accurately for D&D, high benefit to system mastery. If you don't want to primarily reward high skill game, you actually don't want tight math. The analogy makes more sense if you consider it in the terms PC class tiering systems, and adversarial subgames of D&D like combat where it's players vs DM. As Dr. Garfield says in his preface, D&D it isn't straightforward to translate. There are people who are perfectly happy playing poker or Magic but find checkers or chess unplayable. Many people would play Risk, Monopoly, or backgammon before chess. That is not wrong. That is a choice.


3e had much more of a system mastery problem then 4e, and is the game that the tier system was made for, there is no tier system for 4e. yet the math on 4e is tighter.

Sartharina
2014-05-24, 02:23 AM
The problem with 3e was that it had unbound loose math, which is a losing combination, combined with effects/tools that ignore the math entirely, or completely much it up with subsystems (Opposed checks, miss chance). Modifiers ranged from -12 or less to +100 or more on a 20-sided die.

And the math ISN'T the backbone of D&D. It's a part of the system, yes, but not that significant. It's more like the left leg of the system. The "backbone" of D&D is the DM.

Lokiare
2014-05-24, 07:07 AM
They dont' need to. They have plenty of guidelines on how to play the game and ensure a fun, challenging game. The rest is up to DM observation and reaction. You CANNOT cut DM interaction and observation out of the system and expect it to work, or design a system that ignores DM observation of the game. The more you try to nail down balance and math, the easier it is to break the game and render the system unplayable.

The problem is many DMs quit playing 3E because of that same thought process. The opposite is actually true of your conclusion about the more you try to pin down the math the easier it is to break the game or render it unplayabe. In fact as we've seen from 4E balance and well done math in fact does the opposite. Some people didn't like the game because of some of the styles of the mechanics, but we almost never hear of a broken game unless someone put some serious work into breaking it by combining dozens of magic items, powers, class features, racial traits, etc...etc...; whereas in other editions single spells or class features break the game outright.

The idea isn't to cut the DM out of the game. The idea is to remove all the things the DM shouldn't have to worry about keeping an eye on so they can focus on their real job: simulating an entertaining game world and challenging but not defeating the players. So we make the underlying game math work properly so they don't have to interfere unless they want to. I've known of 3E DMs that flat out quit when players trashed their game on accident. You just don't have that problem with a balanced system with well done math.


I also reject the assertion that "good math" = "tight math", "bad math" = "loose math" and most of all that tight math is necessary and sufficient for a good roleplaying game (i.e., an RPG is good if and only if it has tight math). And, no, bounded math does not imply tight math. It implies a limit to stacking and rarity of bonuses more than anything else. Monopoly has some pretty bounded math as far as movement, but 2d6 movement for a board of 40 spaces is not exactly tight. The only way around that are Go To Jail, Chance, and Community Chest. 4e, on the other hand, has very tight math and absolutely no bounding.

1E/2E had horrible math (with 1E having very, very little bounding), rotten mechanics, cumbersome rules, and draconian DM guidelines. That does not change the fact that I have orders of magnitude more fun playing 1E/2E today than I do playing 4e. To me, 4e feels way too much like sitting down to a business meeting because if we don't stay on track with the agenda and push through each encounter in the most efficient manner, nothing gets done all night.

It essentially ties back to Luck vs Skill (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSg408i-eKw). Tight math = high skill, or more accurately for D&D, high benefit to system mastery. If you don't want to primarily reward high skill game, you actually don't want tight math. The analogy makes more sense if you consider it in the terms PC class tiering systems, and adversarial subgames of D&D like combat where it's players vs DM. As Dr. Garfield says in his preface, D&D it isn't straightforward to translate. There are people who are perfectly happy playing poker or Magic but find checkers or chess unplayable. Many people would play Risk, Monopoly, or backgammon before chess. That is not wrong. That is a choice.

The problem with this thought process is that tight math is the only math the matters. If you have loose math where a +1 to a +5 are about the same thing, then it doesn't matter at all and they won't grab anything above a +1. In other words you might as well just free form role play at that point because the rest of the game doesn't matter. If you want that there are plenty of free form RPGs out there. D&D is not one of them.

You seem to be equating 4E to the only way that a game can be balanced. We already know that isn't true just by some of the posts I've made throughout the play test here and on the WotC forums. I've shown how you could balance all of the 3E style mechanics that they seem bent on shoving into 5E.

You then go on to hint at the idea that people have different types of fun that they enjoy, but then fail to realize that it goes both ways. Here is a good starting place to read up on it: http://angrydm.com/2014/01/gaming-for-fun-part-1-eight-kinds-of-fun/ After you read up on that, do a www.startpage.com search for research that's been done on the types of fun. You'll find that 4E which was wildly successful for 2+ years (but not according to Hasbro standards) as well as 3E and 2E and 1E and 0E. They all had different fun types. 5E doesn't appear to have any fun type, unless you count some kind of nostalgia trip. It doesn't cater to any particular fun type very well, certainly not as well as the particular previous edition that did it better.


The problem with 3e was that it had unbound loose math, which is a losing combination, combined with effects/tools that ignore the math entirely, or completely much it up with subsystems (Opposed checks, miss chance). Modifiers ranged from -12 or less to +100 or more on a 20-sided die.

And the math ISN'T the backbone of D&D. It's a part of the system, yes, but not that significant. It's more like the left leg of the system. The "backbone" of D&D is the DM.

Strangely 5E has all the same problems of 3E except for the modifiers that range from -12 to +100. Instead it has the problem that any modifier at all is equivalent to several levels. So instead of being insensitive to bonuses and penalties it is oversensitive.

You can play a free form role playing game all you want and totally ignore the math of the game, but for many the math of the game is at least half the game, if not more. The thing is if you take away the math, then you don't need anything to play the game. So if WotC wants to make money they better worry about the math.

Sartharina
2014-05-24, 11:49 AM
Strangely 5E has all the same problems of 3E except for the modifiers that range from -12 to +100. Instead it has the problem that any modifier at all is equivalent to several levels. So instead of being insensitive to bonuses and penalties it is oversensitive.

You can play a free form role playing game all you want and totally ignore the math of the game, but for many the math of the game is at least half the game, if not more. The thing is if you take away the math, then you don't need anything to play the game. So if WotC wants to make money they better worry about the math.Except it DOESN'T have those problems. The problem with 3e WAS with the range of modifiers possible, which broke the game down HARD at high levels.

The potential difference in performance in high-level 5e is barely different than the potential difference in performance in high-level 4e.

The only difference is the d20 numbers are lower. And, math is only half the game, not the be-all-and-end-all. And, bonuses and penalties DON'T provide several levels worth of power, because there is more to power than a simple d20 roll. I want to see your math again for a Level 7 character with all the magic item boosters' performance against a specific monster, then again with a mundane-item-only character with as many levels as you think the magic items add in effectiveness against that same monster.... lets go with Death Knight as our punching bag, a level 11 creature that is largely parallel to player characters in terms of abilities.

Heck, to check the system, we can even give it either or both of the magic weapons and spellcasting options it has available.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-24, 12:38 PM
Then lets try something really crazy and actually roll out the combat, three combats for each set up, and see if the math is at least an indicator of the represented outcomes. If so, I am willing to state the math argument has a basis in applicable theory.

Melee class: Base Level 7.
Caster class: Base Level 7.
Hybrid class: Base level 7.

Magic Item Standard load out:
Melee Class: Magic weapon, magic armor (As any other magic items infringe upon the base math being tested theoretically), Test at +1, +2, and +3 for each.
Caster class: Magic Armor, Wand/Stafff, Again, test at +1, +2, and +3.
Hybrid class: Magic weapon, magic armor, test +1, +2, +3

Non-magic Item load out: Test at +3, +6, +9 levels accordingly.

Assume perfect tactical knowledge and skill and flawless choices in strategy.

Fight!!!!

Pex
2014-05-24, 03:24 PM
I know, I'm late in the game, anyway . . .

I don't mind the concept, but I'm leery on the execution. Admittedly being totally cynical, the open-ended drawbacks the DM provides is what glares. Meta-game, regardless of edition, if you can't trust the DM you have problems that have nothing to do with the magic item attunement system. Still, I am concerned the drawback rule will be an excuse for a DM to be a Jerk. The drawback would be so punitive you're better off not using the item at all, which is just what the DM wants anyway.

On a less cynical note but still related, will the drawbacks not be worth it to use the item, in an Honest True No Harm Meant. For example I'm just making it up, attuning a Belt of Strength +4 means you also get Dexterity -4 or Dexterity -2 and Constitution -2. A Cloak of Resistance +2 to all saving throws also gives you +50% or even double damage if you fail a saving throw anyway against damage spells.

The article didn't go to that extreme. The staff that has you defend the descendent of a queen is ok re my concern. Even the duerger made armor that paralyses you when facing duerger is ok. I guess what's truly bothering me is the concept of a drawback almost always on that is akin to having a cursed item for the audacity of having a magic item. I can acquiesce a DM not wanting a party of Christmas trees, but neither should the party be flogged for having some cool ornaments.

da_chicken
2014-05-24, 06:40 PM
There are certainly rules in place for the DM to be a jerk about things. That +1 longsword the cleric of Hextor was wielding might make you compelled to worship Hextor. However, if magic items are going to be more fantastic than just directly better versions of mundane objects, they have to have some agency or danger that makes them such. I'd argue that DMs that use these rules to be complete jerks were already going to be complete jerks.

That said, the specifics on the items you're mentioning come across as cursed items to me rather than those with drawbacks. I'd be thinking more like... belt of dwarvenkind giving you disadvantage on Diplomacy checks vs non-Dwarves.

da_chicken
2014-05-24, 10:29 PM
The problem with this thought process is that tight math is the only math the matters. If you have loose math where a +1 to a +5 are about the same thing, then it doesn't matter at all and they won't grab anything above a +1.

You will if you can get your bonuses to stack.

You're asserting that a +1 must be the point that a bonus will matter. Why? +1 hit point doesn't matter. +1 to a skill check really doesn't matter much either since DCs are divisible by 5. Even +1 to initiative doesn't feel particularly relevant because the die roll is so rare. Why must +1 be the atomic unit of impact?


You seem to be equating 4E to the only way that a game can be balanced.

No, that's exactly wrong. That's closer to what others have been saying, IMO. As a premise I'm saying 4E has tight math. You and captpike are the ones I hear consistently and across multiple threads saying tight = good = balanced. I'm trying to say tight = brittle, and that tightness, goodness and balance aren't tied in an objective manner. I'm not talking about whether something can be balanced. Discounting multiclass rules and the powercreep in the splat books, 1E and 2E core is not that unbalanced at PC levels (i.e., below ~100,000 XP) in spite of the fact that it has tremendously loose math. Elves are wildly better than other races, but the math is so loose and you roll so few dice it's not like it matters that much.

4E is not that unbalanced either, taking just the first three core books. However, have you ever tried running a 4E game with rolled stats? It was pretty common in 3E, IMX, and other methods in 1E and 2E were just never used. You just always rolled. One of our players always wants to roll stats when he DMs, so we did when he ran a game. I can say that it is absolutely ridiculous in 4E. It completely breaks the game. Characters with higher than average stats -- even secondary stats -- feel like they're 2 levels ahead. Characters with lower than average stats feel like they're 2 levels behind. We tried it for three sessions before throwing in the towel and remaking our characters, and the first session involved zero dice rolling. That is some tight math, and the result is a brittle game. Nine out of ten of the die rolls in the game are either d20 + primary ability modifier or [W] + primary ability modifier. You're using that stat at least twice each round for every class. That makes a +1 to that ability modifier hugely important. The game is so closely tied to base level bonuses that getting ahead or behind on ability modifiers is game breaking. 5E, so far in my experience, doesn't feel that way to me, probably because bonuses just never get that high. That means the d20 as the RNG feel sufficient.


We already know that isn't true just by some of the posts I've made throughout the play test here and on the WotC forums. I've shown how you could balance all of the 3E style mechanics that they seem bent on shoving into 5E.

I really don't care what you've "shown" because I invariably disagree with your premises. I can't really find your arguments convincing when I don't agree your premises are true. Beyond that, I'm not going to accept that you must be correct because you've had the argument before. That's silly.


You then go on to hint at the idea that people have different types of fun that they enjoy, but then fail to realize that it goes both ways. Here is a good starting place to read up on it: http://angrydm.com/2014/01/gaming-for-fun-part-1-eight-kinds-of-fun/ After you read up on that, do a www.startpage.com search for research that's been done on the types of fun. You'll find that 4E which was wildly successful for 2+ years (but not according to Hasbro standards) as well as 3E and 2E and 1E and 0E. They all had different fun types.

I'm not trying to argue that one type of fun is better, I'm merely trying to argue that loose math games can be fun, so, no, tight math is not necessary and sufficient for a good roleplaying game. I don't need to define which type of fun is going on. That it exists is the point. Tight doesn't mean good. Good doesn't mean balanced. That is the point I'm making. Thus, arguing the math is not tight does not imply the game is not good, and does not even imply the game is not balanced. It merely says that the game has tight math. Tight math just means that if the game is balanced, then the game can be imbalanced very easily by breaking the assumptions inherent in the game's math. That is, that the math is brittle. I would agree that a game with tight math is easier to balance, and it is easier to find game elements which are imbalancing when math is tight, but again those qualities do not in and of themselves make a game good.


5E doesn't appear to have any fun type, unless you count some kind of nostalgia trip. It doesn't cater to any particular fun type very well, certainly not as well as the particular previous edition that did it better.

I don't see any evidence supporting this claim. It's spurious at best, and reveals some pretty strong bias at worst.

captpike
2014-05-24, 10:54 PM
You will if you can get your bonuses to stack.

You're asserting that a +1 must be the point that a bonus will matter. Why? +1 hit point doesn't matter. +1 to a skill check really doesn't matter much either since DCs are divisible by 5. Even +1 to initiative doesn't feel particularly relevant because the die roll is so rare. Why must +1 be the atomic unit of impact?



because otherwise any +1 anything is worthless and a waste of time. it literally would not be worth the effort of writing down.

da_chicken
2014-05-24, 10:57 PM
because otherwise any +1 anything is worthless and a waste of time. it literally would not be worth the effort of writing down.

So you can only get one bonus? They never add up?

Edit:
Example: You've got 17 Dex. Do you change your initiative modifier from Dex to +4 when you increase it to 18 at level 4? The game says that one feat's worth of initiative is +4. Surely that extra +1 isn't worth writing down. It's such a minuscule amount.

Example 2: You're a Wizard with Mind Over Matter. At level 12, you take Twin Spell. Do you bother to increase your HP from 56 to 57?

captpike
2014-05-24, 11:03 PM
So you can only get one bonus? They never add up?

they might but it would not mater if all you have is a +1.

that is why a +1 must matter, otherwise you would have low level characters throwing away +1 magic weapons, because if +1 does not matter, then why keep a +1 magic longsword.

that is why +1 is the quantum of value, it must be or you screw things up.

captpike
2014-05-24, 11:10 PM
So you can only get one bonus? They never add up?

Edit:
Example: You've got 17 Dex. Do you change your initiative modifier from Dex to +4 when you increase it to 18 at level 4? The game says that one feat's worth of initiative is +4. Surely that extra +1 isn't worth writing down. It's such a minuscule amount.

Example 2: You're a Wizard with Mind Over Matter. At level 12, you take Twin Spell. Do you bother to increase your HP from 56 to 57?

you were questioning why +1 must be the quantom of value, I was saying why it is and must be.

in your Dex example then +1 DOES matter, its not as high as +4, but it does mater because it could effect where you are on initiative.

da_chicken
2014-05-24, 11:46 PM
you were questioning why +1 must be the quantom of value, I was saying why it is and must be.

in your Dex example then +1 DOES matter, its not as high as +4, but it does mater because it could effect where you are on initiative.

You're missing the point. It's not that the +1 doesn't do anything. It's whether or not it affects anything enough to matter from a design perspective. Like moving Int to 20 at level 8, adding 1 hp, incrementing initiative by 1, or adding the 0.5 to your cross-class skills. Hit points, for example, are generally given out in chunks called Hit Dice because a single HP is of such marginal value. These are examples of cases where the actual unit of meaning is higher than 1. Damage is the same way, of course. Dealing 1 damage extra is extremely marginal, although it's not nearly as bad as 1 extra HP. D&D has very few cases where the math is based on something other than a 1 because D&D is a very simple system. That doesn't mean such designs are impossible.

How about DCs vs skills. It's explicit in 5e, but 3.x and 4.x did this, too, for many non-opposed skills: DCs are set to be divisions of 5. Thus, to actually do something new, you need +5 to do it. Therefore, in a very real sense, +5 is the division of meaning. Do you write down all the +1s in between?

So far, all you've said is "+1 is the quantum of value because +1 must be because +1 is the quantum of value".

captpike
2014-05-24, 11:58 PM
You're missing the point. It's not that the +1 doesn't do anything. It's whether or not it affects anything enough to matter from a design perspective. Like moving Int to 20 at level 8, adding 1 hp, incrementing initiative by 1, or adding the 0.5 to your cross-class skills. Hit points, for example, are generally given out in chunks called Hit Dice because a single HP is of such marginal value. These are examples of cases where the actual unit of meaning is higher than 1. Damage is the same way, of course. Dealing 1 damage extra is extremely marginal, although it's not nearly as bad as 1 extra HP. D&D has very few cases where the math is based on something other than a 1 because D&D is a very simple system. That doesn't mean such designs are impossible.

How about DCs vs skills. It's explicit in 5e, but 3.x and 4.x did this, too, for many non-opposed skills: DCs are set to be divisions of 5. Thus, to actually do something new, you need +5 to do it. Therefore, in a very real sense, +5 is the division of meaning. Do you write down all the +1s in between?

So far, all you've said is "+1 is the quantum of value because +1 must be because +1 is the quantum of value".

+1 is becuase it can in fact matter. if it could never matter, then it would not be the quantum.

the fact DCs are in segments of 5 does not matter because your dice are not.

if easy is 5, medium is 10 and hard is 15. and I have a 6 climb then getting a +1 to a total of 7 is useful because it makes it that much more likely that I will get a higher score.
with a 6 I only had a 80% chance of getting to medium DC, with a 7 I now have a 85% chance of doing so.

Lokiare
2014-05-25, 07:15 AM
You will if you can get your bonuses to stack.

You're asserting that a +1 must be the point that a bonus will matter. Why? +1 hit point doesn't matter. +1 to a skill check really doesn't matter much either since DCs are divisible by 5. Even +1 to initiative doesn't feel particularly relevant because the die roll is so rare. Why must +1 be the atomic unit of impact?

Because you only get so many ways to add things in 5E. So that +1 you get from a feat or magic item better be worth something. Its not like 3E or 4E where you have 3 ways every level to gain a +1 or +2. You literally only have about 20 ways to get a bonus over about 20 levels (and that's including magic items).


No, that's exactly wrong. That's closer to what others have been saying, IMO. As a premise I'm saying 4E has tight math. You and captpike are the ones I hear consistently and across multiple threads saying tight = good = balanced. I'm trying to say tight = brittle, and that tightness, goodness and balance aren't tied in an objective manner. I'm not talking about whether something can be balanced. Discounting multiclass rules and the powercreep in the splat books, 1E and 2E core is not that unbalanced at PC levels (i.e., below ~100,000 XP) in spite of the fact that it has tremendously loose math. Elves are wildly better than other races, but the math is so loose and you roll so few dice it's not like it matters that much.

4E's math isn't as tight as you might think. You are probably going on the rumors that you hear about feat taxes and things like that without having actually played 4E. Not having a +1 or +2 by a certain level doesn't mean endless TPKs. It means a combat will take 1-2 rounds longer. Because everything depends on a d20 the math is centered around 5% chances. Increasing a roll by 5-10% in 4E doesn't matter as much because you have a very nice hp buffer through actual hp, second wind (1/4 total hp heal), and various other healing methods that mostly heal about 1/4 of your characters hp. In 5E they don't really have that. I mean there are unlimited potions and Clerics get some healing spells, but they are very limited and unlikely to heal even half as much over the course of a day. So 4E's math is buffered by hp so it can be wildly swinging and still provide a very stable game.

5E is the opposite. A +3 can cause the game to become extremely easy, especially since they don't scale AC. What you have at 1st level with your chosen armor type is about what you'll have at 20th level. So a DM can't just throw higher level monsters at you because you'll still hit them more often and the DM will risk a TPK due to the higher damage output the higher level monsters can dish out.

Just a note, but 1E and 2E core (and beyond) played RAW were wildly swingy in terms of balance due to extremely low hp and very deadly consequences for saves. I always had my players make at least 1 backup character in case they died. 1E and 2E had no encounter building guidelines so it was perfectly fine to put a 12 HD dragon up against a level 1 party or a clay golem up against a level 20 party. In most cases a lucky critical hit could outright kill the lower hp members of the party even if you matched HD to party level. I know a lot of people have nostalgia for these editions, but if you go back and read, play, or do the math you'll realize how badly they were put together. In fact go read the rules for grappling (wrestling) and then pit a level 1 fighter with a short sword up against a 12 HD dragon and see who wins.


4E is not that unbalanced either, taking just the first three core books. However, have you ever tried running a 4E game with rolled stats? It was pretty common in 3E, IMX, and other methods in 1E and 2E were just never used. You just always rolled. One of our players always wants to roll stats when he DMs, so we did when he ran a game. I can say that it is absolutely ridiculous in 4E. It completely breaks the game. Characters with higher than average stats -- even secondary stats -- feel like they're 2 levels ahead. Characters with lower than average stats feel like they're 2 levels behind. We tried it for three sessions before throwing in the towel and remaking our characters, and the first session involved zero dice rolling. That is some tight math, and the result is a brittle game. Nine out of ten of the die rolls in the game are either d20 + primary ability modifier or [W] + primary ability modifier. You're using that stat at least twice each round for every class. That makes a +1 to that ability modifier hugely important. The game is so closely tied to base level bonuses that getting ahead or behind on ability modifiers is game breaking. 5E, so far in my experience, doesn't feel that way to me, probably because bonuses just never get that high. That means the d20 as the RNG feel sufficient.

Which method? Because to equal the probability of getting point buy you have to use the 5d6 drop the 2 lowest assign as desired.

So your little rolling experiment likely failed because you got extremely lucky.


I really don't care what you've "shown" because I invariably disagree with your premises. I can't really find your arguments convincing when I don't agree your premises are true. Beyond that, I'm not going to accept that you must be correct because you've had the argument before. That's silly.

It doesn't matter if you don't believe my premises. You do still believe that 1+1=2 right? If you believe that, then you should agree that you can actually put out a balanced 3E style game, because I've demonstrated how on several occasions.


I'm not trying to argue that one type of fun is better, I'm merely trying to argue that loose math games can be fun, so, no, tight math is not necessary and sufficient for a good roleplaying game. I don't need to define which type of fun is going on. That it exists is the point. Tight doesn't mean good. Good doesn't mean balanced. That is the point I'm making. Thus, arguing the math is not tight does not imply the game is not good, and does not even imply the game is not balanced. It merely says that the game has tight math. Tight math just means that if the game is balanced, then the game can be imbalanced very easily by breaking the assumptions inherent in the game's math. That is, that the math is brittle. I would agree that a game with tight math is easier to balance, and it is easier to find game elements which are imbalancing when math is tight, but again those qualities do not in and of themselves make a game good.

I agree, loose math can be fun, but what you don't seem to understand is that every edition of D&D has had tight math, just done badly. This is because everything depends on a multiple of a 5% chance dictated by the d20 roll. In 3E that's why you can break the game. You are literally given 3-5 ways to add multiple +1s or +2s to your attacks and damage every level and if done properly you can make your character able to take on threats that are +5 levels higher. Then there is the save or die thing where the roll of a random dice can instantly kill things and you can do the same +1 or +2 stacking to make it near impossible to make the save.


I don't see any evidence supporting this claim. It's spurious at best, and reveals some pretty strong bias at worst.

Just look at it. The evidence should be the play test packets and the articles that are right before your eyes. Does 5E create a consistent believable world? Not really, it keeps saying there will be low magic or no magic, but characters find 100+ magic items over their careers. So the world is low magic but the characters are christmas trees of magic items. It says you need 4-6 adventurers to take out the dragon, but in fact 20-30 commoners with bows can do that with few or no losses if they have solid cover due to the movement rules. The game world is less consistent or believable than 1E and 2E where you would actually send out some adventurers because you couldn't afford to lose your 20-30 commoners to one burst of dragon breath.

Does it allow you to express yourself by making wild combinations or customizing your character? Not as well as 3E and 4E. Probably not as well as 2E either depending on class. All the expression you can muster in 5E is in the role playing which can be done in any edition of D&D.

You can look at any of the different fun types and realize that 5E does it worse than other editions.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-25, 07:52 AM
I would just like to comment how amusing I'm finding it that just a few months ago this forum had a long drawn out discussion about how +1s in 5e weren't worth anything and how them being rare doesn't change their worth and how pcs don't get much better over their careers because they only get a max improvement of roughly +3.

Today were having the exact opposite discussion. That in 5e +1s are sooo powerful, that a +3 magic item (which is inherently rare in the system) will fundamentally alter the difficulty curve of the game and turn it into a cakewalk.

Bezhukov
2014-05-25, 04:13 PM
It doesn't matter if you don't believe my premises. You do still believe that 1+1=2 right? If you believe that, then you should agree that you can actually put out a balanced 3E style game, because I've demonstrated how on several occasions.

You keep talking about math as if it's the number one thing in TRPG design. Particularly with D&D. You also seem to believe that you could do a better job than WotC in design. Perhaps you should attempt to make your own TRPG. I would be most interested to see if your math based design philosophy would create a fun and engaging game.

With a TRPG I believe that the number one focus should be the roleplaying, and 5E seems to be catering to that thought as well. The final playtest packet had tables for determining the origin of a magic item. Flavour wise the difference between a dwarven made +1 flaming sword and a demonic one are immense. If you can engage the imaginations of the players then the math isn't as important.

captpike
2014-05-25, 04:22 PM
You keep talking about math as if it's the number one thing in TRPG design. Particularly with D&D. You also seem to believe that you could do a better job than WotC in design. Perhaps you should attempt to make your own TRPG. I would be most interested to see if your math based design philosophy would create a fun and engaging game.

With a TRPG I believe that the number one focus should be the roleplaying, and 5E seems to be catering to that thought as well. The final playtest packet had tables for determining the origin of a magic item. Flavour wise the difference between a dwarven made +1 flaming sword and a demonic one are immense. If you can engage the imaginations of the players then the math isn't as important.

except that you cant fix the math after the game comes out, but you can easily fix any fluff issues.

for example if I want to play eberon where magic items are common as dirt, then all the time spend describing flaming sword #87 is wasted. I would just say "I buy a flaming sword when I am in town"

the math had to be very tight, the fluff just had to be in the ballpark.

Lokiare
2014-05-25, 04:28 PM
You keep talking about math as if it's the number one thing in TRPG design. Particularly with D&D. You also seem to believe that you could do a better job than WotC in design. Perhaps you should attempt to make your own TRPG. I would be most interested to see if your math based design philosophy would create a fun and engaging game.

With a TRPG I believe that the number one focus should be the roleplaying, and 5E seems to be catering to that thought as well. The final playtest packet had tables for determining the origin of a magic item. Flavour wise the difference between a dwarven made +1 flaming sword and a demonic one are immense. If you can engage the imaginations of the players then the math isn't as important.

Due to market conditions its impossible to create a top selling TTRPG without a lot of advertising and money behind it. So if you are willing to fork over a million dollars, I'll roll out something that will rival D&D and Pathfinder, otherwise its wasted effort.

We do already know that a well balanced game sells like crazy and can hit best seller lists, especially if it has the D&D logo on it. 4E was a top seller and hit best seller lists for 2+ years.

If you don't get the math right, you can't focus on the role playing. Instead it knocks you out of the role playing suspension of disbelief. For instance when the fighter heroically pushes the evil lich off the cliff and clings to him preventing him from casting spells as they fall to their deaths, only to find the damage wasn't enough to kill either of them because of the game math. Or when a low level caster summons a bunch of zombies and takes out a dragon 10 levels higher than them or any number of things. Without good math, you might find that role playing part pretty hard to do. You literally can't engage the imaginations of the player if they keep getting knocked out of their suspension of disbelief.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-25, 04:34 PM
I'm enjoying the concept that 5e character careers have been proven to be adorned on over 100 magic items. Especially for a game that technically isn't even out yet. The only logic I can put behind this is counting the ridiculously cheap healing pots as 1 each, magic arrows/bolts as 1 each, scrolls as 1 each etc.

I request magic item parameters. Are we discussing ALL magic items? Or substantiative magic items such as magic armor or weapons?

Kurald Galain
2014-05-25, 04:38 PM
We do already know that a well balanced game sells like crazy and can hit best seller lists, especially if it has the D&D logo on it.
We actually don't know that. We know that any official D&D game will sell well; there is no evidence that balance has anything to do with that.

After all, 4E ceased being the top seller when the (clearly less balanced) Pathfinder came on the market, and WOTC is about to replace 4E with the (clearly less balanced) 5E. Guess why? This is because both WOTC and Paizo have realized that balance isn't what sells a roleplaying game.


With a TRPG I believe that the number one focus should be the roleplaying, and 5E seems to be catering to that thought as well.
Indeed, roleplaying is what sells a roleplaying game.

captpike
2014-05-25, 04:46 PM
Indeed, roleplaying is what sells a roleplaying game.

too bad you cant sell that.

all you can sell is a framework, the DMs and players provide the RP. WoTC cant make people RP anymore then someone selling me a car can make me drive safely

if you try to sell RP all you do is limit options. the best example of this is the old paladin. they tried to add some RP to the class, and in so doing cut off a great many good RP options. they did not trust you to RP a palidan well, so they forced you to RP it their way.

Lokiare
2014-05-25, 04:49 PM
We actually don't know that. We know that any official D&D game will sell well; there is no evidence that balance has anything to do with that.

After all, 4E ceased being the top seller when the (clearly less balanced) Pathfinder came on the market, and WOTC is about to replace 4E with the (clearly less balanced) 5E. Guess why? This is because both WOTC and Paizo have realized that balance isn't what sells a roleplaying game.


Indeed, roleplaying is what sells a roleplaying game.

Hilarious. Pathfinder sells more than 4E because around that time WotC stopped producing content and slowed their release schedule. They were also told by Hasbro to make an 'evergreen' D&D that could sit on shelves and never change. They then angered most of their 4E fans by putting out Essentials. Not only that from the end of 3E on, WotC had constantly had bad business practices.

What Paizo knows sells a TTRPG is picking a discarded fan base and producing quality adventures. What WotC knows is that Paizo's Pathfinder was somehow more successful than 4E. What nobody seems to understand is that customers aren't stupid and when they get mistreated they move on to another business.

Balance allows role play, so it does in fact sell games. Now some customers are willing to overlook imbalance in order to play a game, but overall many people were soured on 3E because of the lack of balance, many more didn't pick up Pathfinder because it wasn't balanced either.

Many people also keep equating balance to be 4E. 4E was balanced, but balance is not 4E. You can balance things in many ways, but you cannot balance non-comparables like fluff with crunch.

Lokiare
2014-05-25, 04:52 PM
I'm enjoying the concept that 5e character careers have been proven to be adorned on over 100 magic items. Especially for a game that technically isn't even out yet. The only logic I can put behind this is counting the ridiculously cheap healing pots as 1 each, magic arrows/bolts as 1 each, scrolls as 1 each etc.

I request magic item parameters. Are we discussing ALL magic items? Or substantiative magic items such as magic armor or weapons?

Just pick up the random magic item chart and the rules associated with it in the play test documents and do some math. On average if you use those charts you'll get over 100 magic items in a parties career over 20 levels. Not only that its not 1 magic piece of ammo, but it is one healing potion or 1 scroll. Still even if half the items they get are consumables, they still get 50+ solid re-usable magic items like swords and armor.

Like I said, they simply don't understand the underlying math of the game.

Kurald Galain
2014-05-25, 05:23 PM
Hilarious. Pathfinder sells more than 4E because around that time WotC stopped producing content and slowed their release schedule.
Hilarious indeed. You've got it backwards, though: WOTC stopped producing content because it was not selling well. PF came out late in 2009, and by most neutral accounts was outselling 4E in 2010 (source: enworld). WOTC didn't stop producing content until well into 2011.


What Paizo knows sells a TTRPG is picking a discarded fan base and producing quality adventures.
Precisely. Quality adventures sell; balanced rulesets don't. And this is easily seen by the fact that throughout history, almost none of the famous and popular RPGs have been particularly balanced.

I get the impression that what you want from WOTC is a tweaked/improved version of 4E, with some of the flaws cleaned up and some of the worst parts removed. There's nothing wrong with that, but that's not what 5E is. In the eyes of WOTC, your opinion is a minority opinion (as proven by the fact that PF outsold 4E as of four years ago), and they're not going to cater to that.

captpike
2014-05-25, 05:28 PM
PF only started to outsell 4e when 4e stopped putting out new stuff. and of course WoTC has terrible business practices.

when 4e was in full swing (before essentials basically) it easily outsold every other RPG

Kurald Galain
2014-05-25, 05:56 PM
PF only started to outsell 4e when 4e stopped putting out new stuff.
And your source on that is?

My source is Enworld and it says the exact opposite of what you just wrote. The order of events is (1) Pathfinder came out, (2) PF started outselling 4E, (3) WOTC launched the HOFL/HOFK line as a counteroffensive, and (4) only after that failed did they stop creating new books. This is easily confirmed by any publication timeline, as well as the fact that it makes zero business sense to "stop putting out new stuff" when you're the market leader.

As a forum member who runs a store puts it,

Pathfinder won the edition wars. I have a rack full of pathfinder, and a few used 4e books for cheap down lower, with the third party books and oddball systems. The used 3.5 books have higher rack priority than 4e, because they sell.

It is very clear: PF didn't outsell 4E because WOTC stopped making books, but WOTC stopped making books because PF was outselling 4E. If we're going to have an edition war later this year, it's going to be 5E vs PF, not 5E vs 4E.


So anyway, about those magic items. Focusing on item flavor instead of item mechanics is a great idea. It's not innovative per se, but earlier editions usually hid it away somewhere, so it's good to have it right up front in Core. I don't have a strong opinion on attunement, I don't think it will really affect gameplay much.

captpike
2014-05-25, 06:47 PM
And your source on that is?

My source is Enworld and it says the exact opposite of what you just wrote. The order of events is (1) Pathfinder came out, (2) PF started outselling 4E, (3) WOTC launched the HOFL/HOFK line as a counteroffensive, and (4) only after that failed did they stop creating new books. This is easily confirmed by any publication timeline, as well as the fact that it makes zero business sense to "stop putting out new stuff" when you're the market leader.

your assuming they acted competently, were that the case essencals would not have happen.



So anyway, about those magic items. Focusing on item flavor instead of item mechanics is a great idea. It's not innovative per se, but earlier editions usually hid it away somewhere, so it's good to have it right up front in Core. I don't have a strong opinion on attunement, I don't think it will really affect gameplay much.

I would rather pay for something I cant do. anyone can make good fluff for items, it takes alot of time and effort to make a good balanced game, or to offer different options for magic items that all work in the same system.

particularly given how often it will change. every table that changes the fluff on magic items will find all the default fluff useless at best. and this happens alot more often then changing the mechanical ways that items change.

Sartharina
2014-05-25, 10:42 PM
We do already know that a well balanced game sells like crazy and can hit best seller lists, And yet, the current best-selling TTRPG has absolutely atrocious math - like 3.5's, but even swingier, less bounded, and wonkier scaling.

If Pathfinder was found only in second-hand bargain bins, you might have a point.

The current best-selling TTRPG is sold on the concepts it carries, extensive fluff, flexibility, and wealth of options. Not anything close to resembling even half-balanced math.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-25, 11:51 PM
Just pick up the random magic item chart and the rules associated with it in the play test documents and do some math. On average if you use those charts you'll get over 100 magic items in a parties career over 20 levels. Not only that its not 1 magic piece of ammo, but it is one healing potion or 1 scroll. Still even if half the items they get are consumables, they still get 50+ solid re-usable magic items like swords and armor.

Like I said, they simply don't understand the underlying math of the game.

Why is anyone using tables to choose magic items. That's just ludicrous! Have never, will never randomly choose magic items. Doing so removes DM control over rewards.

Sartharina
2014-05-26, 01:52 AM
Are you being sarcastic, Fwiffo? I hope so.

Also, Lokaire - The party should receive consumables at a rate a significant order of magnitude greater than permanent/re-usable magic items. I'll have to check the tables to see the specific ratio.

Lokiare
2014-05-26, 06:16 AM
And your source on that is?

My source is Enworld and it says the exact opposite of what you just wrote. The order of events is (1) Pathfinder came out, (2) PF started outselling 4E, (3) WOTC launched the HOFL/HOFK line as a counteroffensive, and (4) only after that failed did they stop creating new books. This is easily confirmed by any publication timeline, as well as the fact that it makes zero business sense to "stop putting out new stuff" when you're the market leader.

As a forum member who runs a store puts it,


It is very clear: PF didn't outsell 4E because WOTC stopped making books, but WOTC stopped making books because PF was outselling 4E. If we're going to have an edition war later this year, it's going to be 5E vs PF, not 5E vs 4E.


So anyway, about those magic items. Focusing on item flavor instead of item mechanics is a great idea. It's not innovative per se, but earlier editions usually hid it away somewhere, so it's good to have it right up front in Core. I don't have a strong opinion on attunement, I don't think it will really affect gameplay much.

Our source is the IcV2 reports. You can start by looking here http://www.icv2.com/search/index.php?go.x=0&go.y=0&np=1&q=%22top+5+roleplaying+games%22 and then finish by matching dates on WotC release schedule here http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Catalog.aspx?category=rpgproducts

You'll notice when Pathfinder overtakes D&D is when WotC basically slows down from 1 book per month to 1 book every 2-4 months and right around the time they announce Essentials. The decision had nothing to do with Paizo and Pathfinder. WotC and 4E weren't meeting Hasbro's sales goals and were told to make an 'evergreen' RPG that would sit on shelves and never be updated like a box of monopoly. They attempted to do this with Essentials but it was rejected. So now they are trying it again with 5E. Which was why one of the main goals was to make 5E appeal to fans of every edition.

Here is some related reading http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?315975-WotC-DDI-4E-and-Hasbro-Some-History

and

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/columns/writersroom/8115-Complete-Mike-Mearls-D-D-4th-Edition-Essentials-Interview


And yet, the current best-selling TTRPG has absolutely atrocious math - like 3.5's, but even swingier, less bounded, and wonkier scaling.

If Pathfinder was found only in second-hand bargain bins, you might have a point.

The current best-selling TTRPG is sold on the concepts it carries, extensive fluff, flexibility, and wealth of options. Not anything close to resembling even half-balanced math.

Pathfinder reined in the math, it did not make it worse, and many people play it for that. Others won't touch it because it didn't go far enough and they are still playing "trump the spellcasters of the party" and "he who casts first wins".

The current best selling TTRPG is best selling because it has zero competition. Even then WotC is hanging on at 4th place just selling old PDFs and their back stock of 4E. I think that speaks for itself.

Kurald Galain
2014-05-26, 07:13 AM
Our source is the IcV2 reports. You can start by looking here http://www.icv2.com/search/index.php?go.x=0&go.y=0&np=1&q=%22top+5+roleplaying+games%22 and then finish by matching dates on WotC release schedule here http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Catalog.aspx?category=rpgproducts
Your sources say the opposite of what you claim. Yes, at this moment Pathfinder has no competion. However, ICV2 and the catalog show that during the entire period from Q2 2011 until Q2 2012, or about fifteen months, Pathfinder was directly competing with 4E and winning. And for a year after that, until Q3 2013, Pathfinder was directly competing with earlier edition reprints sold and marketed by WoTC, and still winning.



You'll notice when Pathfinder overtakes D&D is when WotC basically slows down from 1 book per month to 1 book every 2-4 months and right around the time they announce Essentials. The decision had nothing to do with Paizo and Pathfinder.
The interview with Mike Mearls, again, says the opposite of what you claim here: he states that there were many complaints about 4E's unrealistic mechanics, and that he created HOFL in an attempt to fix that and get back to the spirit of earlier editions.

That goes a long way towards explaining why 5E resembles 3E more than it does 4E, doesn't it?

Lokiare
2014-05-26, 08:23 AM
Your sources say the opposite of what you claim. Yes, at this moment Pathfinder has no competion. However, ICV2 and the catalog show that during the entire period from Q2 2011 until Q2 2012, or about fifteen months, Pathfinder was directly competing with 4E and winning. And for a year after that, until Q3 2013, Pathfinder was directly competing with earlier edition reprints sold and marketed by WoTC, and still winning.


The interview with Mike Mearls, again, says the opposite of what you claim here: he states that there were many complaints about 4E's unrealistic mechanics, and that he created HOFL in an attempt to fix that and get back to the spirit of earlier editions.

That goes a long way towards explaining why 5E resembles 3E more than it does 4E, doesn't it?

Don't look at what Mearls says, he's been known to stretch the truth. Look at the release schedule and compare the dates. Each quarter of a year is 3 months. When you compare the release dates of the books and the slowdown you'll notice that it happens before Pathfinder pulled ahead.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/18504.html

Quarter 3 2010 which is October November and December is when Pathfinder tied with WotC. The first Essentials book Heroes of the Fallen Lands was released in September http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/247520000 predating the tie.

Same with the Essentials Starter set http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/247520000

Before that around 8-2010 they were releasing 2-3 books per month. The month after they slowed down to release essentials Pathfinder pulled ahead. Not before, after. Its all there in the links. You could say that Essentials was the death knell of 4E.

Sadly I have to argue this point over and over even though I provide the links and proof, people stick to the rumors they heard on the internet or at their local game shops rather than look at the facts that are presented.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-26, 09:12 AM
Are you being sarcastic, Fwiffo? I hope so.

Also, Lokaire - The party should receive consumables at a rate a significant order of magnitude greater than permanent/re-usable magic items. I'll have to check the tables to see the specific ratio.

I am not being sarcastic, but it is in good humor. I cannot conceive of randomly rolling magic items for my players. At best, maybe a potion (non-healing) could be randomly rolled. Now, specifically, magic items in my game have stories that go with them. There are reasons for their creation, and histories that go with them. Not some random schlock that can be purchased at the Magi*mart.

I like that magic items are rare, and special, and have meaning to both story and character power. Devolving them down to nothing more than "you have to have it to defeat X" takes away the majesty of the items to me. But we aren't having that discussion now are we? We are having a discussion about sterilizing a living, breathing game system so it can be judged on something that is nothing more than a guideline.

Don't like the math, change it. Don't like the system, don't play it. I however have not found anything inherently wrong with the system, it's sleek, easy, and I don't need to spend 30 hours a week trying to figure out how to challenge my players because they pulled some ridiculous build off of the internet using some 3rd party source that does nothing but lend itself to power creep and finding new ways to build unstoppable characters. But again, I digress.

If you guys choose to leave decisions about Character power up to a random die roll, by all means, do so. It is no less valid, and isn't wrong to do so. It is an option. I think many people have gotten caught up in trying to prove that they are right, while forgetting that no game is the same, no DM or player is the same, and just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't mean they are wrong.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-26, 09:23 AM
I would rather pay for something I cant do. anyone can make good fluff for items, it takes alot of time and effort to make a good balanced game, or to offer different options for magic items that all work in the same system.

Amusingly enough, the exact opposite is true. Mechanical balance is blindingly easy to do, and even if you personally can't do them, US law prevents the copyrighting of game mechanics, only the presentation is protected. That means, you can legally take any balanced mechanic system you prefer (4e, GURPS, whatever), file off the existing fluff and non generic terminology and replace with your own and sell it. Even better, with the OGL releasing much of the D&D proprietary wording into use, you can even use a lot of what would previously have been copyright protected.

On the other hand, good, evocative, inspiring fluff and settings are much more difficult. Unlike purely mathematical mechanics, settings and fluff are blurry and squishy. Minor changes have unpredictable consequences and questions are posed by every answer you give. Sure every DM and their mother has produced their own settings from time to time, but very few of them arise to the level of something sellable. And it's especially difficult when you have to keep producing more and more every week or month. Mechanics are one and done, settings and fluff we forever evolving. This is why pathfinder has seen such succes with their adventure paths.

You might think mechanics are hard (and maybe for you they are,that's cool) but I would lay odds that more people would rather buy awesome settings and fluff for a flawed system than awesome mechanics for a sterile and uninspiring setting (or no setting at all). For support for this theory I offer the relative successes of D&D, VtM, and Shaddow Run, vs systems like GURPS

captpike
2014-05-26, 09:57 AM
Amusingly enough, the exact opposite is true. Mechanical balance is blindingly easy to do, and even if you personally can't do them, US law prevents the copyrighting of game mechanics, only the presentation is protected. That means, you can legally take any balanced mechanic system you prefer (4e, GURPS, whatever), file off the existing fluff and non generic terminology and replace with your own and sell it. Even better, with the OGL releasing much of the D&D proprietary wording into use, you can even use a lot of what would previously have been copyright protected.

On the other hand, good, evocative, inspiring fluff and settings are much more difficult. Unlike purely mathematical mechanics, settings and fluff are blurry and squishy. Minor changes have unpredictable consequences and questions are posed by every answer you give. Sure every DM and their mother has produced their own settings from time to time, but very few of them arise to the level of something sellable. And it's especially difficult when you have to keep producing more and more every week or month. Mechanics are one and done, settings and fluff we forever evolving. This is why pathfinder has seen such succes with their adventure paths.

You might think mechanics are hard (and maybe for you they are,that's cool) but I would lay odds that more people would rather buy awesome settings and fluff for a flawed system than awesome mechanics for a sterile and uninspiring setting (or no setting at all). For support for this theory I offer the relative successes of D&D, VtM, and Shaddow Run, vs systems like GURPS

a system with only good fluff, or one that stole its rules does not have to make as much money, the costly part of making a good RPG Is making the rules, not the fluff. you can easily just throw together the fluff at the end, and you can change any part of it without effecting any other part, unlike rules.

I could easily whip up the fluff to a new class in half an hour, try making 20 or 30 levels of a class that is balanced against other classes in that time.

not to mention that fluff changes too much to be worth spending half your money on. everyone who plays a 4e druid uses the rules, only some use the fluff. and of course if they put in the rules that every druid must use the druid fluff, then it cuts off alot of RP opportunities

1337 b4k4
2014-05-26, 10:29 AM
a system with only good fluff, or one that stole its rules does not have to make as much money, the costly part of making a good RPG Is making the rules, not the fluff. you can easily just throw together the fluff at the end, and you can change any part of it without effecting any other part, unlike rules.

A) No, the mechanics are easy and cheap. Art and design is expensive. That's why there are so many RPGs out there. Hundreds if not thousands of them. And it's all very easy. Throw some numbers into a spread sheet and run them again and again until you get the results you're looking for. It's a one person job if you have the patience for it. Type them up in a word processor and you're done. Now find someone to write compelling stories and fluff and art and you've got expenses

B) The "rules" and the "fluff" are interconnected. What makes designing an RPG hard is putting fluff together that matches the rules, and rules together that support evocative fluff.



I could easily whip up the fluff to a new class in half an hour, try making 20 or 30 levels of a class that is balanced against other classes in that time.

And thus you miss entirely the reason people play TTRPGs. Yes, individual fluff for a given class is easy. Now make fluff that goes with all the classes, ties them together in an interesting world and gives DMs and players alike inspiration and desire to play your system.

Pex
2014-05-26, 12:33 PM
You keep talking about math as if it's the number one thing in TRPG design. Particularly with D&D. You also seem to believe that you could do a better job than WotC in design. Perhaps you should attempt to make your own TRPG. I would be most interested to see if your math based design philosophy would create a fun and engaging game.

With a TRPG I believe that the number one focus should be the roleplaying, and 5E seems to be catering to that thought as well. The final playtest packet had tables for determining the origin of a magic item. Flavour wise the difference between a dwarven made +1 flaming sword and a demonic one are immense. If you can engage the imaginations of the players then the math isn't as important.

If all that matters was the roleplaying you wouldn't need a game. You can just have people sitting around a table telling stories to each other. The math behind the game is equally important. It's what makes the game a game. They are not mutually exclusive entities nor bitter rivals in need of attention. The question is whether the math of 5E is good enough for play, but to dismiss accusations of it not being good because the math is unimportant is to dismiss the game existing at all.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-26, 12:46 PM
If all that matters was the roleplaying you wouldn't need a game. You can just have people sitting around a table telling stories to each other. The math behind the game is equally important. It's what makes the game a game. They are not mutually exclusive entities nor bitter rivals in need of attention. The question is whether the math of 5E is good enough for play, but to dismiss accusations of it not being good because the math is unimportant is to dismiss the game existing at all.

This is all very true. It's not that the math of a game doesn't matter, it's that the math doesn't need to be perfect for the game to be good. And indeed this is one of the places where perfect is the enemy of good. A good example are the old weapon speed rules from AD&D. They do a much better job on making the math of combat work. And many people simply ignored them because they added more complication and more perfection to something that was otherwise good enough.

captpike
2014-05-26, 02:04 PM
A) No, the mechanics are easy and cheap. Art and design is expensive. That's why there are so many RPGs out there. Hundreds if not thousands of them. And it's all very easy. Throw some numbers into a spread sheet and run them again and again until you get the results you're looking for. It's a one person job if you have the patience for it. Type them up in a word processor and you're done. Now find someone to write compelling stories and fluff and art and you've got expenses

GOOD math is hard, just putting any old math together is easy. and its not a one person job, its not the kind of thing one person could do well.



B) The "rules" and the "fluff" are interconnected. What makes designing an RPG hard is putting fluff together that matches the rules, and rules together that support evocative fluff.

not in a good RPG. if they are too connected then you cant change the fluff without also changing the math. that means you cut down by alot the number of character concepts.

having default fluff for classes is good, it can start ideas flowing. but that is all it should be. the game should encourage you to change it.

if in my world warlocks gain their power from pacts with neutral gods, then I should be able to implement that without changing a single rule.



And thus you miss entirely the reason people play TTRPGs. Yes, individual fluff for a given class is easy. Now make fluff that goes with all the classes, ties them together in an interesting world and gives DMs and players alike inspiration and desire to play your system.

that is mostly world design, something that is up to the DM not the system.

I dont know about you but when I play a game I do so to play my character, NOT so I can play a character someone else made (ie following the default fluff exactly). when I DM I do so so I can use a world I made, not so I can be handcuffed by the world they made for me.

da_chicken
2014-05-26, 04:41 PM
Because you only get so many ways to add things in 5E. So that +1 you get from a feat or magic item better be worth something. Its not like 3E or 4E where you have 3 ways every level to gain a +1 or +2. You literally only have about 20 ways to get a bonus over about 20 levels (and that's including magic items).

Irrelevant. That discussion is not about bonuses in 5e, since 5e uses +1 as the quantum of meaning for just about everything. That's one effect of flattening the math everywhere.


4E's math isn't as tight as you might think. You are probably going on the rumors that you hear about feat taxes and things like that without having actually played 4E.

Nope.

We played from the time Martial Power was released (my character in the first campaign was a Battlerager, and the book was brand new) and the summer before Red Box and Heroes of Fallen Lands (I remember looking through the HoFL material at my LGS and deciding it was too little, too late). So, Fall of 2008 to Spring of 2010. By late Summer 2009, we'd switched to one 3.x campaign and one 4E campaign playing on off weeks. So roughly one year of weekly sessions that run 6-8 hours. It was about 3 different campaigns.

I don't think we would have lasted so long if the Character Builder wasn't so good.


Not having a +1 or +2 by a certain level doesn't mean endless TPKs. It means a combat will take 1-2 rounds longer. Because everything depends on a d20 the math is centered around 5% chances. Increasing a roll by 5-10% in 4E doesn't matter as much because you have a very nice hp buffer through actual hp, second wind (1/4 total hp heal), and various other healing methods that mostly heal about 1/4 of your characters hp. In 5E they don't really have that. I mean there are unlimited potions and Clerics get some healing spells, but they are very limited and unlikely to heal even half as much over the course of a day. So 4E's math is buffered by hp so it can be wildly swinging and still provide a very stable game.

My experience was that the players who were ahead (about 2) dominated every combat and accounted for about three times the kills of the other players (4 others at the time). The characters who were behind started to just leave the table because they felt so ineffective. We'd never experienced that before.


5E is the opposite. A +3 can cause the game to become extremely easy, especially since they don't scale AC. What you have at 1st level with your chosen armor type is about what you'll have at 20th level. So a DM can't just throw higher level monsters at you because you'll still hit them more often and the DM will risk a TPK due to the higher damage output the higher level monsters can dish out.

That hasn't been my experience with the game so far, but we've not played it very much yet. I don't see anything strictly preventing the DM from giving particular enemies higher AC. When I DM I routinely fudge about with hit points, armor classes, and saves. It's difficult to do with the playtest materials, but I'm sure there will be some mechanism for advancing monsters. I'm sure the Legendary modifier isn't the only possibility. I agree it's a major change in philosophy that numbers just don't get bigger except for hit points, but I don't agree that that means the game will be too easy at high level.

I'm not sure what you mean by armor type. As a player, I'm used to wearing breastplate or chain shirt at low level, full plate or mithral shirt/breastplate at mid level, and mithral plate at high level. Looking at the cost of things in the playtest documents, this looks about the same. I'm also used to armor being pretty marginal by level 12 if you're playing strict core and don't have a magic shield. That largely appears to be the case here, too. You go from being hit about 30% of the time at low levels to being hit about 70% of the time at high levels. That's when HP comes in to play. 3E and even 1E/2E was like that as I recall. Even 3/4 attack bonuses scale faster than AC (which I think is closer to 2/3).


Just a note, but 1E and 2E core (and beyond) played RAW were wildly swingy in terms of balance due to extremely low hp and very deadly consequences for saves. I always had my players make at least 1 backup character in case they died. 1E and 2E had no encounter building guidelines so it was perfectly fine to put a 12 HD dragon up against a level 1 party or a clay golem up against a level 20 party. In most cases a lucky critical hit could outright kill the lower hp members of the party even if you matched HD to party level. I know a lot of people have nostalgia for these editions, but if you go back and read, play, or do the math you'll realize how badly they were put together. In fact go read the rules for grappling (wrestling) and then pit a level 1 fighter with a short sword up against a 12 HD dragon and see who wins.

1E/2E have very different assumptions. They assume you have hirelings and NPC allies that do things, for one. Second, they don't assume that just because the players are level 1 that they magically find the dungeon labelled "level 1". There are no monster zones (http://www.realmofdarkness.net/dq/img/nes/dw/maps/alefgard-4.jpg) on the world map. I mean, if you're in a town and hear that a dragon has been terrorizing the towns near the great eastern forest, it's a pretty metagame decision to decide that your party is capable of defeating it. Not everything is a MacGuffin or Chekhov's gun in 1E AD&D.

Remember: Gygax was a jerk as a DM. He's remembered (along with Dave Arneson) as creating a fantastic game, not as a particularly good DM. I mean, have you ever actually run Tomb of Horrors? I knew a group that ran through it in college. Five players and the DM had them bring 3 characters each. They ran out of characters.

Citing the grappling rules is also a pretty unfair assessment. Like multiclassing rules, grappling rules are a known fault of the system. Highlighting corner cases is not the point I'm making. We all know 1e/2e has a lot of broken bits, and the game relied on the DM to say "you can't grapple a dragon like it's a bar fight, dumbass; all you can do is grab on while he takes you for a ride" because the game was so simulationist. THAC0 was such a bad design that, when they finally removed it, the game's popularity exploded (3E).


Which method? Because to equal the probability of getting point buy you have to use the 5d6 drop the 2 lowest assign as desired.

So your little rolling experiment likely failed because you got extremely lucky.

Of course it was luck. That rolling involves luck is not the point.

The point is that my experience with this taught me that unless every player sticks to an identical point buy system, you end up with a horribly unbalanced party. In previous editions we didn't often run into this issue, it wasn't nearly as severe, and it was always the result of class choice not ability scores. The difference was essentially +2 to primary stat, +4 to secondary stat. Racial selections could have made that +4 or +6 in difference.

I'm saying the difference between a 16 Str 14 Con Fighter and an 18 Str 18 Con Fighter is ridiculously higher in 4e than it is in 3.x. The math in 4e is so tight, IMX, as to be brittle.


It doesn't matter if you don't believe my premises. You do still believe that 1+1=2 right? If you believe that, then you should agree that you can actually put out a balanced 3E style game, because I've demonstrated how on several occasions.

I do agree with that. I also would say there are multiple ways to balance a game. You don't have a monopoly on balanced mechanics.


I agree, loose math can be fun, but what you don't seem to understand is that every edition of D&D has had tight math, just done badly. This is because everything depends on a multiple of a 5% chance dictated by the d20 roll. In 3E that's why you can break the game. You are literally given 3-5 ways to add multiple +1s or +2s to your attacks and damage every level and if done properly you can make your character able to take on threats that are +5 levels higher. Then there is the save or die thing where the roll of a random dice can instantly kill things and you can do the same +1 or +2 stacking to make it near impossible to make the save.

I disagree that just because we're using a d20 that the math must be tight. I think the d20 is a popular die size because it's easier to roll than d%, while still having enough of a range to allow the math to be loose.


Just look at it. The evidence should be the play test packets and the articles that are right before your eyes. Does 5E create a consistent believable world? Not really, it keeps saying there will be low magic or no magic, but characters find 100+ magic items over their careers. So the world is low magic but the characters are christmas trees of magic items.

That's hardly the case. 100 randomly generated magic items sounds like a lot, but in reality it's pretty bad. I'm not going to use 4e, because 4e's "give the players precisely what they ask for" doesn't compare at all to random treasure. I'm also not going to calculate with 5e's sample tables. I would, but I just don't have the time to do so and we don't even know what the final tables will look like. Instead, I'll look at the 3.x tables because generators for that are common, and I don't believe that 5e's generators are truly that different.

In 3.x there were supposed to be 13-14 encounters per level. Using this (http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/treasure/index.cgi) to generate 13 standard treasures for the ten odd level between levels 1 and 19, I end up pretty consistently with ~150 magic item results (I've ranged about 140 to 165). (If I use each level 1-10, I get about 100, but I figure using every other level helps even things out a bit.) Note: That's magic item results, so if you roll 1d4 scrolls or potions, or roll 00 to double a weapon or armor that's still one item result.

So compared to 3.x, you're getting 2/3 the amount of magic items in about double the time. Or, about 1/3 the number of items overall, randomly generated 3.x vs 5e.

Now, if you actually look at the items you get, you notice a few things. First, you notice that a ton of the items are potions and scrolls. Literally, half the items are potions and scrolls. There's also a ton of wands, some of which have such fantastic spells as detect secret doors, or charm person (DC 11!). You also see things like this:


Heavy Steel Shield (Medium) (+1 shield) (1170 gp)
Heavy Steel Shield (Small) (+1 shield) (1170 gp)
Heavy Steel Shield (Medium) (+2 shield) (4170 gp)
Heavy Steel Shield (Medium) (+3 shield, Blinding) (16170 gp)

How many parties of 4 adventurers are going to use 4 heavy steel shields? The wizard, monk, bard, and rogue can't use it. The barbarian and ranger probably don't want any of that. The druid can't use metal. Strictly speaking, the cleric needs a hand free to cast spells, so heavy shields are out. This is four items that only some fighters and paladins can use. Assuming you've even got one of those, they can't use four at once. This is not truly finding four items then.

Even with the unique items, the stuff you get is often very limited. A ring of swimming? A ring of minor sonic resistance? A rod of flame extinguishing?

That last one, the rod of flame extinguishing, is pretty narrow and worth 15k in 3.x. However, in 3.x, you can sell it. That's not an assumed option in 5e. You're just stuck with a rod of flame extinguishing unless you can find someone to trade it with.

So, if you have 100 magic items, and half of them are potions and scrolls, and half of what's left is too narrow or not useable for your party or uses the same slot or are consumable items, and you only get a quarter of what remains because you're in a party of 4... you're not looking at 100+ magic items. You're looking at 6. If we instead say that 5e doesn't drown us in potions and scrolls (which is what it looks like in the playtest docs) then you're looking at 9-12 real items over the course of 20 levels compared to at least double that 3.x. For reference, it's slightly more than what the NPCs in the 3.5 DMG get at level 20. Considering you can convert magic items to gold and gold to magic items in 3.x without even considering item creation feats, yes, I'm confident at saying that 5e is low magic. Lower than 4e. Lower than 3e. Low enough to be called "low".


It says you need 4-6 adventurers to take out the dragon, but in fact 20-30 commoners with bows can do that with few or no losses if they have solid cover due to the movement rules. The game world is less consistent or believable than 1E and 2E where you would actually send out some adventurers because you couldn't afford to lose your 20-30 commoners to one burst of dragon breath.

Good! When you go hunt down a dragon, it's a good idea to bring a dozen hirelings then, isn't it? We did that all the time in BECMI. I mean, if the dragon is going to sit there and let itself get peppered by arrows while it's apparently unable to move and builds it's lair right outside town it deserves to get overrun by angry peasants. I'm perfectly fine with the idea that numbers mean something even to a dragon.

Dragons in the playtest documents appear to be fairly weak dragons anyhow. Level 10-13, no spellcasting, etc. They're not 3.x dragons, they're not 4e solos, they're not even 2e dragons. These are 1e dragons that appear in groups of 1-4.


Does it allow you to express yourself by making wild combinations or customizing your character? Not as well as 3E and 4E. Probably not as well as 2E either depending on class. All the expression you can muster in 5E is in the role playing which can be done in any edition of D&D.

That's grossly unfair, since all we're looking at are playtest documents and teaser articles. We're looking at an incomplete parital sample from three books which was assembled to test the game externally. There's about 300 pages here, a third of which are monsters, and PDFs run out of Word have a much lower word count per page than any published book will. Complaining about a lack of material when we know it's incomplete is ridiculous. WotC has explicly not given us a full range of options because they still want us to buy the books.


You can look at any of the different fun types and realize that 5E does it worse than other editions.

That's a purely subjective opinion, not the least reason being you can't objectively quantitize fun no matter how discretely you categorize it.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-26, 04:49 PM
GOOD math is hard

No it really isn't. Especially since it's already been done for you. If your building a TTRPG these days and your selling point is "good math" you're doing it wrong.



having default fluff for classes is good, it can start ideas flowing. but that is all it should be. the game should encourage you to change it.

And the game should encourage you to change the math too. The math is also a starting point.



if in my world warlocks gain their power from pacts with neutral gods, then I should be able to implement that without changing a single rule.

Except you just changed a rule. Fluff is rules and if the game says "warlocks get their powers from pacts with devils" and you change it to "warlocks get their powers from pacts with neutral gods" that's a rules change. Just because it doesn't necessarily alter the numbers doesn't mean it isn't a rules change.

And if you don't believe me that fluff is rules, here's a simple question for you: How does the fireball work in your world?

Is it really fire? That's a fluff question, but if you answer yes, there's a whole host of implications (can set fire to things, may not work under water, does not work in a vacuum etc) that alters the very nature of huge game.

Does it spontaneously appear, or does it fly as a small marble of fire to a specific point and explode? Again, a fluff question with a whole host of implications.

Does it require spell components? Is it a detonation?

All fluff questions, all questions that are rules to the game.



that is mostly world design, something that is up to the DM not the system.

The is a non insignificant number of people who play D&D and don't have the time to do world building. World building done right is both time and labor intensive. Not all of us are high school kids with loads of free time. And there are plenty of people who would (and can) DM a game, but don't like (or can't) world build.



I dont know about you but when I play a game I do so to play my character, NOT so I can play a character someone else made (ie following the default fluff exactly). when I DM I do so so I can use a world I made, not so I can be handcuffed by the world they made for me.

Indeed, which is why I choose to play TTRPGs that have hugely evocative worlds and settings, and math that is good enough to work, but loose enough that I can change anything I want without worrying that the whole damn thing will come crashing down around my ears.

Dr.Starky
2014-05-26, 05:14 PM
It kind of irks me how the word "math" is being used in this thread.

What hell does "good math" or "bad math" even mean?

captpike
2014-05-26, 05:46 PM
No it really isn't. Especially since it's already been done for you. If your building a TTRPG these days and your selling point is "good math" you're doing it wrong.

good math is like good music in a movie, done right you hardly notice it, but it makes everything else better.

good math lets you RP easier because you know everyone on your team is valuable, and you can pick any option you want to on level up without having to stay away from traps, or pick certain ones just to stay relevant. (or at least any bad option is obviously a bad option, like bumping your Str as a wizard)

it lets the tactical and strategic elements work because you can't just use one ablity and win, and you know that you CAN win the fight (unless the DM made the fight unwinable on purpose)

you may not advertise "Has Good Math" but if its lacking everything else will suck



And the game should encourage you to change the math too. The math is also a starting point.

if you change some of the math you have to change almost all of it.

what if I was playing 3e and decided that fighters should do 10x the damage? that rule would require alot of other changes some large and some small.

not to mention the math IS the game. why buy the game if your just going to change it. it would be like buying a novel then ripping out half the pages.



Except you just changed a rule. Fluff is rules and if the game says "warlocks get their powers from pacts with devils" and you change it to "warlocks get their powers from pacts with neutral gods" that's a rules change. Just because it doesn't necessarily alter the numbers doesn't mean it isn't a rules change.

yes that is a fluff change where classes get their powers is the definition of fluff

you CAN make where warlocks get their powers a rule (3e did this alot) but you should not, you cut down almost limitless character options to only a few. in short WoTC is telling me how to play my warlock rather then giving me to tools to make the most awsome warlock I can


And if you don't believe me that fluff is rules, here's a simple question for you: How does the fireball work in your world?

Is it really fire? That's a fluff question, but if you answer yes, there's a whole host of implications (can set fire to things, may not work under water, does not work in a vacuum etc) that alters the very nature of huge game.

Does it spontaneously appear, or does it fly as a small marble of fire to a specific point and explode? Again, a fluff question with a whole host of implications.

Does it require spell components? Is it a detonation?

All fluff questions, all questions that are rules to the game.

is it fire? that is easy in a good system that would be defined. how does being fire effect it? that depends on the system. in 4e (I am 90% certain, it does not come up much) it means you take a -2 to the attack rolls
both of those are mechanics not fluff.

as to the second part, that would be up to the DM, the world setting, or the player. its not rules because it changes too much and would clutter the rule books for no good reason.

if the system wants to say you need line of sight to use a [fire] spell then fine. but it should not say more then that.



The is a non insignificant number of people who play D&D and don't have the time to do world building. World building done right is both time and labor intensive. Not all of us are high school kids with loads of free time. And there are plenty of people who would (and can) DM a game, but don't like (or can't) world build.

and they can use the default fluff, or a campaign setting book. but they should easily be able to change the fluff of them to work.

nor should everyone else be forced to have massive houserules because someone at WoTC wants people to play their way or not at all.



Indeed, which is why I choose to play TTRPGs that have hugely evocative worlds and settings, and math that is good enough to work, but loose enough that I can change anything I want without worrying that the whole damn thing will come crashing down around my ears.
there are two kinds of TTRPGs, ones with math so bad no amount of screwing with it will make it worse (3e, and the games with "loose" math) and games with good and tight math.

if a system has such loose math that you can tug and pull at it without end and it wont change that means it was never balanced in the first place, that in short, the numbers are utterly meaningless.


It kind of irks me how the word "math" is being used in this thread.

What hell does "good math" or "bad math" even mean?
good math holds up, you wont break it because you tried to optimize, and when there is a problem with it its obvious there is a problem.

an example of bad math would be with 3e mulitclassing. the system says that a level 5 wizard|level 5 fighter is equal to a level 10 wizard. but that just is not the case.

good math also is clear, if you change X then you know A, B and C will change, and change in a certain way.

Kurald Galain
2014-05-26, 05:55 PM
What hell does "good math" or "bad math" even mean?

It means that the math accomplishes what you set as your goals.

For example. Suppose the design goal is that magic items are rare, and we define "rare" as "two or three items per character, tops, over their entire career", and that magic shops don't exist so magic items are found as treasure only.

Now good math would be doing e.g. the following: [items per character] = [levels] x [encounters per level] x [magic items per encounter] / [number of PCs]. We know most of those numbers, so we get 3 = 20 x 4 x N / 5. Solve for N, and we get N = 3 x 5 / 20 x 4 = 15 / 80 = 18.75%. This shows us that given the above assumptions, about one in six encounters should give a magic item.

On the other hand, bad math would be saying "weeeelll, it's probably fine if every encounter gives 1d4-1 magic items, I'm sure that will pretty much add up, amirite?"

da_chicken
2014-05-26, 08:30 PM
It kind of irks me how the word "math" is being used in this thread.

What hell does "good math" or "bad math" even mean?

It's going to vary from person to person, primarily because "good" is a subjective term. Generally, good math is hard to spot, but truly bad math is really obvious.

THAC0 is bad math, but for a somewhat unusual reason. It's unintuitive and easy to screw up, since calculating "THAC0 - (die roll + bonus) = AC hit" is very easy to miscalculate as "THAC0 - die roll + bonus = AC hit". No kidding, when 3e was released people were upset because THAC0 was supposed to be some kind of barrier to entry that you had to overcome. 3e was easy mode for casuals. Early grapple rules are also bad math, particularly if you go back to 1e where you had to consult a half dozen tables to determine the percentage chance of doing anything. Weapon vs armor modifiers, weapons speed modifiers, spell casting speed modifiers, etc. are also bad math because it adds a lot of extra work to the game for no real benefit. Facing rules, shield rules (for a measly +1 AC) etc. Lots of fiddly bits that make the game difficult to use because you're constantly referring to tables of modifiers to resolve events instead of, well, playing the game.

3.x's trip rules are bad math because it's trivial to keep someone permanently prone. That's not really a desirable outcome. 3.x's crafting math is bad because it produces results that are not congruent with what the math is trying to model. It's been awhile since I've looked at it, but as I recall the more difficult (higher DC) the item you were crafting was to make, the faster you craft it. The game designers assumed the increased difficultly to make something would be outstripped by the additional base price inherent to making a more difficult item. If that doesn't happen, though, you end up making more complex items of the same cost faster than less complicated items of the same price. The math doesn't model reality and breaks the player's suspension of disbelief. Some DMs allow the player to voluntarily choose a higher DC if he wants to in order to mitigate this problem.

With high optimization, 3.x's general math becomes bad because the die roll stops mattering. When the DC is 20 points below the bonus to the die roll, then the die roll's ability to randomly determine outcomes is spoiled. When things that are on the chart as "impossible" are things that the players can't fail to do, it becomes problematic since the game world no longer resembles reality. The game still works because very few people are high op players, IMX, and those that are high op are interested in a fun game instead of a broken one.

4e tried to fix the above by making DCs explicitly scale by level, but now you're in a situation where your ability to convince the Duke to help you at level 5 is DC 15, but the DC to do the same thing when you're level 25 and known as heroes worldwide is DC 30. Things got harder for no good reason other than you were higher level.

4e's skill challenge system doesn't model reality well in the general case like they originally said it did. Getting modules that require you to get 5 diplomacy check successes before 3 failures doesn't encourage roleplay and fails to model reality when the party needs to retry the challenge. Like, you tried once and pissed the guy off, but now you can just do it again? The math itself isn't terrible, per se, but the application is nonsensical.

So bad math is:
1. Hard to use when you need to.
2. Easy to screw up when you calculate it.
3. Doesn't model what it's trying to model.
4. Makes the die roll not matter when the die roll is supposed to matter.
5. Creates counter-intuitive results.
6. Breaks player immersion.

There's other things, too, but similar to that.

Notice, however, that terms like "hard to use" and "easy to mess up" and "doesn't model what it's trying to" may be subjective opinions. That's why there's so much discussion about it.

captpike
2014-05-26, 08:38 PM
4e tried to fix the above by making DCs explicitly scale by level, but now you're in a situation where your ability to convince the Duke to help you at level 5 is DC 15, but the DC to do the same thing when you're level 25 and known as heroes worldwide is DC 30. Things got harder for no good reason other than you were higher level.


this is NOT how it works. please stop spreading misinformation

you pick the level of the challenge, then how hard it would be.

the universe did not scale, the system just gave you options to scale DCs, so a wooden door is Lv5, a steel one is Lv10 ect. it is much easier then having 20 charts of DCs

the only things that do scale like that are things that are inherit to the PCs, like some endurance checks.

Sartharina
2014-05-26, 08:43 PM
the only things that do scale like that are things that are inherit to the PCs, like some endurance checks.

So that the stronger and more capable you got, the harder it is to maintain yourself!

captpike
2014-05-26, 08:51 PM
So that the stronger and more capable you got, the harder it is to maintain yourself!

I said SOME, if you are incapable of reading, please learn, if you cant learn please don't waste everyone else's time by pretending you can.

things like pushing yourself hard. say you want to run for an entire day.
in that case a character who is running all day at 20 would cover alot more ground then at 10, but running all day would probably be just as hard relatively.

most things would scale by level of course, things that done would be really rare.

Lokiare
2014-05-26, 09:25 PM
I am not being sarcastic, but it is in good humor. I cannot conceive of randomly rolling magic items for my players. At best, maybe a potion (non-healing) could be randomly rolled. Now, specifically, magic items in my game have stories that go with them. There are reasons for their creation, and histories that go with them. Not some random schlock that can be purchased at the Magi*mart.

I like that magic items are rare, and special, and have meaning to both story and character power. Devolving them down to nothing more than "you have to have it to defeat X" takes away the majesty of the items to me. But we aren't having that discussion now are we? We are having a discussion about sterilizing a living, breathing game system so it can be judged on something that is nothing more than a guideline.

Don't like the math, change it. Don't like the system, don't play it. I however have not found anything inherently wrong with the system, it's sleek, easy, and I don't need to spend 30 hours a week trying to figure out how to challenge my players because they pulled some ridiculous build off of the internet using some 3rd party source that does nothing but lend itself to power creep and finding new ways to build unstoppable characters. But again, I digress.

If you guys choose to leave decisions about Character power up to a random die roll, by all means, do so. It is no less valid, and isn't wrong to do so. It is an option. I think many people have gotten caught up in trying to prove that they are right, while forgetting that no game is the same, no DM or player is the same, and just because someone disagrees with you, doesn't mean they are wrong.

Unfortunately the default option in 5E is to use the random charts and less experienced DMs will use those charts. So for those of us that are not 20+ year DM veterans 5E is basically lying to them. "Low or no magic, but uh 25-50 non-consumable magic items over the course of a parties career along with 50-75 consumables. That about 2-3 consumables per party member per encounter. You are likely to hear things like "Anyone got any haste potions I'm running low.", "yeah, give me potion of extra healing and I'll give you one of mine." which is not what you want to hear in a low or no magic game.


No it really isn't. Especially since it's already been done for you. If your building a TTRPG these days and your selling point is "good math" you're doing it wrong.



And the game should encourage you to change the math too. The math is also a starting point.



Except you just changed a rule. Fluff is rules and if the game says "warlocks get their powers from pacts with devils" and you change it to "warlocks get their powers from pacts with neutral gods" that's a rules change. Just because it doesn't necessarily alter the numbers doesn't mean it isn't a rules change.

And if you don't believe me that fluff is rules, here's a simple question for you: How does the fireball work in your world?

Is it really fire? That's a fluff question, but if you answer yes, there's a whole host of implications (can set fire to things, may not work under water, does not work in a vacuum etc) that alters the very nature of huge game.

Does it spontaneously appear, or does it fly as a small marble of fire to a specific point and explode? Again, a fluff question with a whole host of implications.

Does it require spell components? Is it a detonation?

All fluff questions, all questions that are rules to the game.



The is a non insignificant number of people who play D&D and don't have the time to do world building. World building done right is both time and labor intensive. Not all of us are high school kids with loads of free time. And there are plenty of people who would (and can) DM a game, but don't like (or can't) world build.



Indeed, which is why I choose to play TTRPGs that have hugely evocative worlds and settings, and math that is good enough to work, but loose enough that I can change anything I want without worrying that the whole damn thing will come crashing down around my ears.

There's no problem with having pre-done worlds, however 5E should have in big bold letters ALL FLUFF IS MUTABLE.


It kind of irks me how the word "math" is being used in this thread.

What hell does "good math" or "bad math" even mean?

Good math does what you desire it to do. Bad math is difficult, or does not do what it is intended. Taking disadvantage for +5 to damage is bad math because on the surface it looks like a good idea until you run some numbers and find out your -16% damage is much more than that +5. Its not immediately obvious which is better.


It's going to vary from person to person, primarily because "good" is a subjective term. Generally, good math is hard to spot, but truly bad math is really obvious.

THAC0 is bad math, but for a somewhat unusual reason. It's unintuitive and easy to screw up, since calculating "THAC0 - (die roll + bonus) = AC hit" is very easy to miscalculate as "THAC0 - die roll + bonus = AC hit". No kidding, when 3e was released people were upset because THAC0 was supposed to be some kind of barrier to entry that you had to overcome. 3e was easy mode for casuals. Early grapple rules are also bad math, particularly if you go back to 1e where you had to consult a half dozen tables to determine the percentage chance of doing anything. Weapon vs armor modifiers, weapons speed modifiers, spell casting speed modifiers, etc. are also bad math because it adds a lot of extra work to the game for no real benefit. Facing rules, shield rules (for a measly +1 AC) etc. Lots of fiddly bits that make the game difficult to use because you're constantly referring to tables of modifiers to resolve events instead of, well, playing the game.

3.x's trip rules are bad math because it's trivial to keep someone permanently prone. That's not really a desirable outcome. 3.x's crafting math is bad because it produces results that are not congruent with what the math is trying to model. It's been awhile since I've looked at it, but as I recall the more difficult (higher DC) the item you were crafting was to make, the faster you craft it. The game designers assumed the increased difficultly to make something would be outstripped by the additional base price inherent to making a more difficult item. If that doesn't happen, though, you end up making more complex items of the same cost faster than less complicated items of the same price. The math doesn't model reality and breaks the player's suspension of disbelief. Some DMs allow the player to voluntarily choose a higher DC if he wants to in order to mitigate this problem.

With high optimization, 3.x's general math becomes bad because the die roll stops mattering. When the DC is 20 points below the bonus to the die roll, then the die roll's ability to randomly determine outcomes is spoiled. When things that are on the chart as "impossible" are things that the players can't fail to do, it becomes problematic since the game world no longer resembles reality. The game still works because very few people are high op players, IMX, and those that are high op are interested in a fun game instead of a broken one.

4e tried to fix the above by making DCs explicitly scale by level, but now you're in a situation where your ability to convince the Duke to help you at level 5 is DC 15, but the DC to do the same thing when you're level 25 and known as heroes worldwide is DC 30. Things got harder for no good reason other than you were higher level.

This has been refuted so many times, the refutation should be a meme by now, just like the premise. They literally had DC tables in the DMG1 and never said the DC scales with level. They said X DC is an easy, moderate, or hard challenge for Y level ranges. If you want to challenge a party of Z level, then use Y range of DCs. If you don't, then just pick at random.


4e's skill challenge system doesn't model reality well in the general case like they originally said it did. Getting modules that require you to get 5 diplomacy check successes before 3 failures doesn't encourage roleplay and fails to model reality when the party needs to retry the challenge. Like, you tried once and pissed the guy off, but now you can just do it again? The math itself isn't terrible, per se, but the application is nonsensical.

That would be nonsensical, good thing 4E skill challenges don't work that way. 4E skill challenges were a fork in the road. If you failed a skill challenge you were meant to take a harder path to your goals. You were not meant to retry the skill challenge over and over until you won it. In fact without the role play you didn't get to roll the dice at all, so it did in fact encourage role play because you didn't roll until you described what your character did and the DM would give you a +2 or -2 bonus depending on if you were particularly clever or particularly ignorant. "I try to use the snakes as ropes and climb up." DM: Face palm. So yes, your application is nonsensical. The one included in 4E is exactly what was needed to codify a series of skill checks into an encounter that gave a set amount of xp based on difficulty and level.


So bad math is:
1. Hard to use when you need to.
2. Easy to screw up when you calculate it.
3. Doesn't model what it's trying to model.
4. Makes the die roll not matter when the die roll is supposed to matter.
5. Creates counter-intuitive results.
6. Breaks player immersion.

There's other things, too, but similar to that.

Notice, however, that terms like "hard to use" and "easy to mess up" and "doesn't model what it's trying to" may be subjective opinions. That's why there's so much discussion about it.

For the most part this is true. While there might be opinions on what good math and bad math are. Its more about what people can ignore and what they can't. Some people play 3E and ignore the broken math because other things (like the customizability) allow them to have fun. This goes back to the scientific quantification of fun that's been done in recent years. Some people don't care about obstacle course decision based challenges (4E's main fun style). They care more about character expression and consistent worlds (3E's main types of fun). Some players don't care about any of that and enjoy exploring the DMs world (1E/2E's main type of fun).

1337 b4k4
2014-05-26, 09:32 PM
There's no problem with having pre-done worlds, however 5E should have in big bold letters ALL FLUFF IS MUTABLE.


Personally, every chapter should start with a page in big bold letters that says "Everything in this chapter is mutable and may be changed to better suit your group's particular game or preferences"

Then every chapter should end with a page in big bold letters that says "The forgoing chapter was full of mutable guidelines. Any of the previous material may and should be changed to better suit your group's particular game or preferences.

Maybe that would once and for all stave off RAW vs RAI arguments.


Edit
---------------


This has been refuted so many times, the refutation should be a meme by now, just like the premise. They literally had DC tables in the DMG1 and never said the DC scales with level. They said X DC is an easy, moderate, or hard challenge for Y level ranges. If you want to challenge a party of Z level, then use Y range of DCs. If you don't, then just pick at random.

A big problem is, despite this being the better way to use the charts in question, the example the book gave on page 42 encourages the "things get harder as you get better line of thinking". Here's the example as printed in the book (emphasis mine):



Example: Shiera the 8th-level rogue wants to try the classic swashbuckling move of swinging on a chandelier and kicking an ogre in the chest on her way down to the ground, hoping to push the ogre into the brazier of burning coals behind it. An Acrobatics check seems reasonable.
This sort of action is exactly the kind of thinking you want to encourage, so you pick an easy DC: The table says DC 15, but it’s a skill check, so make it DC 20. If she makes that check, she gets a hold on the chandelier and swings to the ogre.
Then comes the kicking. She’s more interested in the push than in dealing any damage with the kick itself, so have her make a Strength attack against the ogre’s Fortitude. If she pulls it off, let her push the ogre 1 square and into the brazier, and find an appropriate damage number.
Use a normal damage expression from the table, because once the characters see this trick work they’ll try anything they can to keep pushing the ogres into the brazier. You can safely use the high value, though— 2d8 + 5 fire damage. If Shiera had used a 7th-level encounter power and Sneak Attack, she might have dealt 4d6 (plus her Dexterity modifier), so you’re not giving away too much with this damage.

As you can see, the example heavily implies that you set difficulties for tasks based on the level of the character, not on the difficulty of the task. The example implies that were Shiera instead a 6th level rouge, and we wanted to encourage swinging from chandeliers, that we would still pick an easy DC, but this time it would be 18 (13+5) instead of 20. And it would do 2d8+4 damage instead of 2d8+5. And realistically, if you're using this table to adjudicate improvised actions, that's exactly what's going to happen unless you do what DMs do without the table and start writing down what you adjudicate, such that because at level 8 you decided swinging on a chandelier should be DC 20, that it will always be DC 20. But even this is problematic as it implies that the difficulty of a task is directly related to how early in the game you attempt it.

In short, 4e's fantastic improv table suffered from the same problem D&D has always suffered from. Geeks and nerds. People who read the rules (and examples for that matter) as iron clad law rather than helpful tools and guidelines to producing the game you want to produce.

captpike
2014-05-26, 09:37 PM
Personally, every chapter should start with a page in big bold letters that says "Everything in this chapter is mutable and may be changed to better suit your group's particular game or preferences"

Then every chapter should end with a page in big bold letters that says "The forgoing chapter was full of mutable guidelines. Any of the previous material may and should be changed to better suit your group's particular game or preferences.

Maybe that would once and for all stave off RAW vs RAI arguments.

except that if you change the math or mechanics the game stops working. even in a good system it takes time to understand where you can safely poke and where you cant.

you change fluff the game still works fine. your warlock getting his power from a deal with the color pink does not change anything else. your warlock dealing 3x normal damage or having DR10 will

Lokiare
2014-05-26, 09:38 PM
Personally, every chapter should start with a page in big bold letters that says "Everything in this chapter is mutable and may be changed to better suit your group's particular game or preferences"

Then every chapter should end with a page in big bold letters that says "The forgoing chapter was full of mutable guidelines. Any of the previous material may and should be changed to better suit your group's particular game or preferences.

Maybe that would once and for all stave off RAW vs RAI arguments.

Well if they designed a decent game, RAW wouldn't ever come up. Instead we get a phrase that is very unclear and can be interpreted multiple ways like the grease spell. It says it knocks you prone and stops all your movement. Then in the prone section it says you can crawl at half speed while prone. So some DMs would make grease super powerful by making it not allow movement but others would allow you to crawl out because the rules weren't clear.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-26, 09:47 PM
Well if they designed a decent game, RAW wouldn't ever come up. Instead we get a phrase that is very unclear and can be interpreted multiple ways like the grease spell. It says it knocks you prone and stops all your movement. Then in the prone section it says you can crawl at half speed while prone. So some DMs would make grease super powerful by making it not allow movement but others would allow you to crawl out because the rules weren't clear.

Please see my edit above for context to this reply. They did design a decent game with 4e, and it still causes RAW issues. A large part of that (IMHO) is because we have this strange obsession with defining "rules" that can't change (rules) and "rules" that can (fluff).



except that if you change the math or mechanics the game stops working. even in a good system it takes time to understand where you can safely poke and where you cant.

you change fluff the game still works fine. your warlock getting his power from a deal with the color pink does not change anything else. your warlock dealing 3x normal damage or having DR10 will

Only if dealing with demons and devils is painless, easy and without any impact at all on anything and everything else you do for the rest of your life.

captpike
2014-05-26, 09:55 PM
Only if dealing with demons and devils is painless, easy and without any impact at all on anything and everything else you do for the rest of your life.

maybe in my world it is. maybe in my world demons are slaves to humans who use them to gain power.

that is exactly the kind of thing that belongs in a character backstory, with some DM input. NOT the system telling me what it means.

if one player wants to play a warlock who sold his soul to a demon to gain power, and another wants to play one who stole the power and got away free and clear it should be possible to do both.



Please see my edit above for context to this reply. They did design a decent game with 4e, and it still causes RAW issues. A large part of that (IMHO) is because we have this strange obsession with defining "rules" that can't change (rules) and "rules" that can (fluff).

if you STILL don't know what fluff is then please ask, and we will explain in very small words.

if you seperate fluff and crunch you make everyone happy (well everyone who does not need others to be unhappy to be happy themselves) those like you can take the default fluff as holy writ, everyone else can change it. everyone wins

all it takes is them taking the time to make sure you don't intertwine them too much (like the 3e palidan was).

1337 b4k4
2014-05-26, 10:08 PM
if one player wants to play a warlock who sold his soul to a demon to gain power, and another wants to play one who stole the power and got away free and clear it should be possible to do both.

It is possible to do both. But either one or the other (or both) are rules changes and they will have an impact on your game. It may me small or it may be huge, but it will be an impact because fluff is rules is fluff.



if you STILL don't know what fluff is then please ask, and we will explain in very small words.

I know exactly what fluff is and I will thank you to not assume I'm an idiot simply because I disagree with you. Especially because this next line of yours:



those like you can take the default fluff as holy writ, everyone else can change it.

shows that you haven't been paying attention at all to what I've been saying. If you had, you would realize you just said the exact opposite of what I've been saying for this entire exchange. So perhaps before you go about insulting your opponents because they disagree with you, you should make sure you understand what it is they're saying in hue he first place.

captpike
2014-05-26, 10:22 PM
It is possible to do both. But either one or the other (or both) are rules changes and they will have an impact on your game. It may me small or it may be huge, but it will be an impact because fluff is rules is fluff.



what is wrong with having it JUST be fluff, and letting any changes be up to the DM and players rather then the system?
not to mention that if you say "all warlocks gain power from pacts with demons or devils and must not be good" then alot of DMs will take that as a given and not allow changes.

what disadvantage is there to ANYONE ANYWHERE to have a fluff and crunch separation? you get what you want, we get what we want everyone wins. you don't like having the line there you ignore it. but everyone else needs the line or the system will not work for us.

EDIT:
so is your position that you want everything changeable, but that you MUST change fluff and crunch at the same time?

so those of us who like good math should not have a game we like because you cant change math willy nilly like you can fluff.

Dr.Starky
2014-05-26, 11:15 PM
So bad math is:
1. Hard to use when you need to.
2. Easy to screw up when you calculate it.
3. Doesn't model what it's trying to model.
4. Makes the die roll not matter when the die roll is supposed to matter.
5. Creates counter-intuitive results.
6. Breaks player immersion.

Sounds pretty good.

I do think that "you can just change it" is a pretty weak response to broken math, but I do think the haters here are making a mountain out of a molehill out of 5E's supposed brokenness.

Like, I don't think it's fair to call developers incompetent because they don't want to cater to gamers who want to be magical Christmas trees. I also don't think this approach impedes on high magic games; just because you can't wear a bazillion magic trinkets at once doesn't mean that having loads of magic items won't be super convenient.

captpike
2014-05-26, 11:23 PM
Like, I don't think it's fair to call developers incompetent because they don't want to cater to gamers who want to be magical Christmas trees. I also don't think this approach impedes on high magic games; just because you can't wear a bazillion magic trinkets at once doesn't mean that having loads of magic items won't be super convenient.

if their stated goal was a low magic game then it would be one thing. their stated goal is a "game for everyone" that means they have to support high magic games just as much as low magic games. part of high magic games is having alot of items on you, its something that has to be supported if they want to support high magic.
this means they are either incompetent or outrite liers, either way they should not be taken at their word.

also see previous math about how on the one hand they said "magic is rare" and on the other game an official chart of when to give out magic items at something like 1 per person per level on average (that would be a very high magic game in 4e)

Fwiffo86
2014-05-26, 11:27 PM
Well if they designed a decent game, RAW wouldn't ever come up. Instead we get a phrase that is very unclear and can be interpreted multiple ways like the grease spell. It says it knocks you prone and stops all your movement. Then in the prone section it says you can crawl at half speed while prone. So some DMs would make grease super powerful by making it not allow movement but others would allow you to crawl out because the rules weren't clear.

What is unclear about this? You fall to the ground, halting any movement you have for this round, then you begin crawling. I see the point you are trying to make. But that falls into munchkin maneuvers, basically trying to manipulate any hole they can get to get an advantage.

da_chicken
2014-05-27, 12:13 AM
This has been refuted so many times, the refutation should be a meme by now, just like the premise. They literally had DC tables in the DMG1 and never said the DC scales with level. They said X DC is an easy, moderate, or hard challenge for Y level ranges. If you want to challenge a party of Z level, then use Y range of DCs. If you don't, then just pick at random.

See, but there were published modules that did exactly this. You had to convince a noble or a wizard that X was a problem and they should do Y. Whether you succeed or not (you get some bonus later on if you succeed) you go on a side trek for more evidence during which you gain a few levels. You come back and talk to him again, have to convince him again that X is a problem and they should do Y. Except now the DC is higher because your levels are higher. In spite of the evidence that your trek brings. That's why it's such a common example. The module author wanted the event to be a challenge both times so the players would earn XP, so both times the DC specified was moderate for that level.

Now, you can argue that the module author made an error in creating the situation, but the fact that the math so obviously got weird is an indication that the math is bad. The DC for some tasks is determined by the level of the party instead of the difficulty of the task, and while they do list fixed DCs as well they don't provide much guidance for when you should use that or fixed DCs. Many skills like Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, Stealth, and even Insight to a degree are presented as always being opposed or level-based checks, meaning fixed DCs should never apply to them.


That would be nonsensical, good thing 4E skill challenges don't work that way. 4E skill challenges were a fork in the road. If you failed a skill challenge you were meant to take a harder path to your goals. You were not meant to retry the skill challenge over and over until you won it. In fact without the role play you didn't get to roll the dice at all, so it did in fact encourage role play because you didn't roll until you described what your character did and the DM would give you a +2 or -2 bonus depending on if you were particularly clever or particularly ignorant. "I try to use the snakes as ropes and climb up." DM: Face palm. So yes, your application is nonsensical. The one included in 4E is exactly what was needed to codify a series of skill checks into an encounter that gave a set amount of xp based on difficulty and level.

Except, again, that's exactly how they worked in multiple published adventures because I played them.

There was one where you're in a town and have to make 5 or 7 successful Intimidate, Diplomacy, or Streetwise (or whatever those skills are called in 4e... it was 3 skills like that) checks before 3 failures. Additionally, you couldn't make more than 2 checks with whichever of the two skills we were actually trained in, so we failed a ton. If you fail, you have a random battle with town guards and have to try again. I think we must have depopulated the guards from this town. We went through like 20-30 of them. Still apparently welcome in town, though, as that was the only consequence.

There's one where you're travelling through caves. You have to make 5 successful Survival or Dungeoneering checks before 2 or 3 failures to navigate the caves. Failure means you're lost and everybody makes a Fort save vs exhaustion or loses healing surges, and you have to start over.

There's no way around either of these other than brute force. After we ran into the third one, the DM just ignored it because they were obviously stupid.

Again, you can say, "well, that's not how it's supposed to be used," but at some point it stops being about bad authors and starts being about poorly designed mechanics. It shouldn't be so easy to make those kinds of mistakes. The only thing this author did wrong was the consequences, and the DMG supplies literally two paragraphs about consequences that basically say "skill challenges grant XP so make sure your skill challenges have consequences, but the adventure must continue".

Kurald Galain
2014-05-27, 03:19 AM
I do think that "you can just change it" is a pretty weak response to broken math,
Yes. This is generally known as the "Oberoni Fallacy"; i.e. the fact that you can change a bad rule doesn't make it any less a bad rule.



THAC0 is bad math, but for a somewhat unusual reason. It's unintuitive and easy to screw up, since calculating "THAC0 - (die roll + bonus) = AC hit" is very easy to miscalculate as "THAC0 - die roll + bonus = AC hit". No kidding, when 3e was released people were upset because THAC0 was supposed to be some kind of barrier to entry that you had to overcome. 3e was easy mode for casuals. Early grapple rules are also bad math, particularly if you go back to 1e where you had to consult a half dozen tables to determine the percentage chance of doing anything. Weapon vs armor modifiers, weapons speed modifiers, spell casting speed modifiers, etc. are also bad math because it adds a lot of extra work to the game for no real benefit. Facing rules, shield rules (for a measly +1 AC) etc. Lots of fiddly bits that make the game difficult to use because you're constantly referring to tables of modifiers to resolve events instead of, well, playing the game.

3.x's trip rules are bad math because it's trivial to keep someone permanently prone. That's not really a desirable outcome. 3.x's crafting math is bad because it produces results that are not congruent with what the math is trying to model. It's been awhile since I've looked at it, but as I recall the more difficult (higher DC) the item you were crafting was to make, the faster you craft it. The game designers assumed the increased difficultly to make something would be outstripped by the additional base price inherent to making a more difficult item. If that doesn't happen, though, you end up making more complex items of the same cost faster than less complicated items of the same price. The math doesn't model reality and breaks the player's suspension of disbelief. Some DMs allow the player to voluntarily choose a higher DC if he wants to in order to mitigate this problem.

With high optimization, 3.x's general math becomes bad because the die roll stops mattering. When the DC is 20 points below the bonus to the die roll, then the die roll's ability to randomly determine outcomes is spoiled. When things that are on the chart as "impossible" are things that the players can't fail to do, it becomes problematic since the game world no longer resembles reality. The game still works because very few people are high op players, IMX, and those that are high op are interested in a fun game instead of a broken one.

4e tried to fix the above by making DCs explicitly scale by level, but now you're in a situation where your ability to convince the Duke to help you at level 5 is DC 15, but the DC to do the same thing when you're level 25 and known as heroes worldwide is DC 30. Things got harder for no good reason other than you were higher level.

4e's skill challenge system doesn't model reality well in the general case like they originally said it did. Getting modules that require you to get 5 diplomacy check successes before 3 failures doesn't encourage roleplay and fails to model reality when the party needs to retry the challenge. Like, you tried once and pissed the guy off, but now you can just do it again? The math itself isn't terrible, per se, but the application is nonsensical.
That's a good summary. It also explains well why one of the first public statements of the 5E design team is that "skill challenges should die in a fire".

Sartharina
2014-05-27, 04:16 AM
Yes. This is generally known as the "Oberoni Fallacy"; i.e. the fact that you can change a bad rule doesn't make it any less a bad rule.That said, a lot of people seem to misapply that term to mean "A DM shouldn't have to change or tailor any of the rules of the system to match his personal playstyle and preferences when it veers from the system's expected function."

In response to most of what Captpike and Lokaire have been saying... yes, changing rules changes the game. It doesn't break it, though. You can change how crits work in 3e without breaking the game. You can run 3e as a low-magic game without breaking the system (Though doing so requires extensive changes across the board - but the DMG has guidelines for that). You can change... anything. It WILL change the tone of the game. You can tighten the math. You can loosen the math. You can import ideas from previous editions into new ones. You can export ideas from new editions back into older ones.


what is wrong with having it JUST be fluff, and letting any changes be up to the DM and players rather then the system?
not to mention that if you say "all warlocks gain power from pacts with demons or devils and must not be good" then alot of DMs will take that as a given and not allow changes.

what disadvantage is there to ANYONE ANYWHERE to have a fluff and crunch separation? you get what you want, we get what we want everyone wins. you don't like having the line there you ignore it. but everyone else needs the line or the system will not work for us.

EDIT:
so is your position that you want everything changeable, but that you MUST change fluff and crunch at the same time?

so those of us who like good math should not have a game we like because you cant change math willy nilly like you can fluff.The disadvantage of having fluff and crunch be separate is that it completely destroys system and setting consistency, enables excessive minmaxing (Such as ignoring 'fluff' requirements that make two options mutually exclusive). Fluff also allows 'soft' limits on crunch effects, instead of a demand for heavy-handed application of even more crunch to reign in crunch (See: A large number of complaints about the ADEU system on martial characters.)

We are playing TTRPGs here. It is almost impossible to make the system 'not work', especially not one as loose as D&D Next. It's tight/rigid/brittle systems that break down and stop working.

Lokiare
2014-05-27, 07:36 AM
What is unclear about this? You fall to the ground, halting any movement you have for this round, then you begin crawling. I see the point you are trying to make. But that falls into munchkin maneuvers, basically trying to manipulate any hole they can get to get an advantage.

Its unclear because it can be interpreted as completely stopping movement. Crawling is a form of movement. However being prone allows crawling. So different DMs will view it in different ways and in one game Grease will be a minor inconvenience and in another it will be a super powerful spell even into high levels. Its the fact that the wording isn't very clear. If for instance they changed it to "the targets fall prone and lose the rest of their movement this turn, they may crawl out of the grease area." Then its perfectly clear what's going on and there is no confusion. There are clear rules that no one thinks is ambiguous "Roll 4d6 drop the 1 lowest and assign as desired" and then there are rules that aren't clear and can be interpreted multiple ways "The targets fall prone and cannot move. If you are prone you can crawl."


See, but there were published modules that did exactly this. You had to convince a noble or a wizard that X was a problem and they should do Y. Whether you succeed or not (you get some bonus later on if you succeed) you go on a side trek for more evidence during which you gain a few levels. You come back and talk to him again, have to convince him again that X is a problem and they should do Y. Except now the DC is higher because your levels are higher. In spite of the evidence that your trek brings. That's why it's such a common example. The module author wanted the event to be a challenge both times so the players would earn XP, so both times the DC specified was moderate for that level.

Now, you can argue that the module author made an error in creating the situation, but the fact that the math so obviously got weird is an indication that the math is bad. The DC for some tasks is determined by the level of the party instead of the difficulty of the task, and while they do list fixed DCs as well they don't provide much guidance for when you should use that or fixed DCs. Many skills like Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, Stealth, and even Insight to a degree are presented as always being opposed or level-based checks, meaning fixed DCs should never apply to them.



Except, again, that's exactly how they worked in multiple published adventures because I played them.

There was one where you're in a town and have to make 5 or 7 successful Intimidate, Diplomacy, or Streetwise (or whatever those skills are called in 4e... it was 3 skills like that) checks before 3 failures. Additionally, you couldn't make more than 2 checks with whichever of the two skills we were actually trained in, so we failed a ton. If you fail, you have a random battle with town guards and have to try again. I think we must have depopulated the guards from this town. We went through like 20-30 of them. Still apparently welcome in town, though, as that was the only consequence.

There's one where you're travelling through caves. You have to make 5 successful Survival or Dungeoneering checks before 2 or 3 failures to navigate the caves. Failure means you're lost and everybody makes a Fort save vs exhaustion or loses healing surges, and you have to start over.

There's no way around either of these other than brute force. After we ran into the third one, the DM just ignored it because they were obviously stupid.

Again, you can say, "well, that's not how it's supposed to be used," but at some point it stops being about bad authors and starts being about poorly designed mechanics. It shouldn't be so easy to make those kinds of mistakes. The only thing this author did wrong was the consequences, and the DMG supplies literally two paragraphs about consequences that basically say "skill challenges grant XP so make sure your skill challenges have consequences, but the adventure must continue".

WotC published modules were notoriously bad and it appears the authors didn't bother to read the chapter on skill challenges. That's one of the reasons 4E didn't do as well as it could have. They rushed things out and many times they didn't even follow their own rules. It clearly says in the 4E DMG not to do that kind of thing. It says that a skill challenge is a fork in the road and if you fail you go down a more difficult path. It even says skill challenges aren't supposed to be repeatable. They are supposed to be one time things. So those module creators weren't using the rules.


That said, a lot of people seem to misapply that term to mean "A DM shouldn't have to change or tailor any of the rules of the system to match his personal playstyle and preferences when it veers from the system's expected function."

That would be the difference between a well designed game that is for all play styles and a very narrowly designed game for a very specific play style. The more we have to mess with the rules, the less well designed the game is. It might be exactly perfect for one particular play style, but it is not good for many or all play styles. The problem with having to change the system to match our play style is that making changes echoes throughout the system having unintended consequences. For instance if we added in weapon speed and casting time to 5E, suddenly casting spells becomes extremely hard because of concentration which means casters are going to be a lot less effective. Its this kind of thing that we pay the developers to do on our behalf because they are supposed to know what they are doing and have the capacity to test any changes to make sure there are no unintended consequences.


In response to most of what Captpike and Lokaire have been saying... yes, changing rules changes the game. It doesn't break it, though. You can change how crits work in 3e without breaking the game. You can run 3e as a low-magic game without breaking the system (Though doing so requires extensive changes across the board - but the DMG has guidelines for that). You can change... anything. It WILL change the tone of the game. You can tighten the math. You can loosen the math. You can import ideas from previous editions into new ones. You can export ideas from new editions back into older ones.

It can actually easily break it though. That's the part you don't seem to be getting. If for instance we were to allow unlimited attuned items, then suddenly players have 25+ AC and attack and damage bonuses of +5 or higher which means that suddenly they can take on challenges that are level + 10 as long as they gain initiative and strike first. So in order to challenge them we risk a TPK in every encounter (due to the higher level monsters attack and damage scaling). If there is a 40% chance of a TPK in every encounter that's about 3-4 encounters before we end up with a near guaranteed TPK. The problem is people think that the math of the game is mutable or that its somehow 'loose' when its neither. In fact due to the removal of the treadmill, the math is tighter than ever because you can't make it hard to be hit or gain enough damage to make a huge difference so you are forced to throw monsters at the party that are in a very narrow range. You can't even really use monsters that are much lower level or they don't give enough xp to be worth it or you risk a TPK due to sheer critical hit chances. In 4E a party can take on creatures that are level +/-6 or more, but it takes up a lot of resources. In 5E you are risking a TPK.

The only 'loose' math that I've heard of that you seem to be talking about is MMO math. In that over the course of 70+ levels you gain about a 20% increase in abilities. You can optimize like crazy but you won't ever add more than a 2% effectiveness above the baseline. This isn't so in 5E where you can get virtually 9-21 levels worth of attack, damage, and AC increases from a single +3 item. I'm not sure where you are getting this idea that the math of 5E is mutable. Its less mutable and more tight than any edition before it due to the bounded accuracy system. If you don't believe me throw your players into an arena with monsters and let them 'borrow' +3 armor, shield, and weapon. Give the casters a bundle of scrolls of level + 3 spells, then give everyone 5 potions of level + 3 to choose from and see what happens.


The disadvantage of having fluff and crunch be separate is that it completely destroys system and setting consistency, enables excessive minmaxing (Such as ignoring 'fluff' requirements that make two options mutually exclusive). Fluff also allows 'soft' limits on crunch effects, instead of a demand for heavy-handed application of even more crunch to reign in crunch (See: A large number of complaints about the ADEU system on martial characters.)

We are playing TTRPGs here. It is almost impossible to make the system 'not work', especially not one as loose as D&D Next. It's tight/rigid/brittle systems that break down and stop working.

Fluff will be ignored anyway by some people even if its intertwined in the rules and nearly inseparable. Instead they should make hard and fast rules that make sense. "You can't have two animal companions, even if you are multi classed into two classes that grant it due to the difficulty in controlling or tending to both animals." is a nice solid rule. You could even override it with a feat later on if you wanted to. "animal companions are jealous and dislike other animals being too close to their master." is going to get ignored by quite a few people allowing the game to be horribly broken.

Fwiffo86
2014-05-27, 09:04 AM
Its unclear because it can be interpreted as completely stopping movement. Crawling is a form of movement. However being prone allows crawling. So different DMs will view it in different ways and in one game Grease will be a minor inconvenience and in another it will be a super powerful spell even into high levels. Its the fact that the wording isn't very clear. If for instance they changed it to "the targets fall prone and lose the rest of their movement this turn, they may crawl out of the grease area." Then its perfectly clear what's going on and there is no confusion. There are clear rules that no one thinks is ambiguous "Roll 4d6 drop the 1 lowest and assign as desired" and then there are rules that aren't clear and can be interpreted multiple ways "The targets fall prone and cannot move. If you are prone you can crawl."

I think I understand. You want to ensure that there is no possibility that it can be misinterpreted, I get that. My response to that is that you must have a pretty low opinion of the populace to assume they can't figure out the spirit of the spell. Yes, I agree it can be misconstrued, and I see your point. I'm just saying that it took me 2 seconds to figure out what was supposed to happen with the description. I'm certain a majority of DMs and players would have come to the same conclusion and used the spell in its intended format. You always have people who nit-pick every word and sentence to get out what they want. They are often not worth my time dealing with, because they are unwilling to compromise or fail to listen to any viewpoint other than their own.



It can actually easily break it though. That's the part you don't seem to be getting. If for instance we were to allow unlimited attuned items, then suddenly players have 25+ AC and attack and damage bonuses of +5 or higher which means that suddenly they can take on challenges that are level + 10 as long as they gain initiative and strike first. So in order to challenge them we risk a TPK in every encounter (due to the higher level monsters attack and damage scaling). If there is a 40% chance of a TPK in every encounter that's about 3-4 encounters before we end up with a near guaranteed TPK. The problem is people think that the math of the game is mutable or that its somehow 'loose' when its neither. In fact due to the removal of the treadmill, the math is tighter than ever because you can't make it hard to be hit or gain enough damage to make a huge difference so you are forced to throw monsters at the party that are in a very narrow range. You can't even really use monsters that are much lower level or they don't give enough xp to be worth it or you risk a TPK due to sheer critical hit chances. In 4E a party can take on creatures that are level +/-6 or more, but it takes up a lot of resources. In 5E you are risking a TPK.

I agree with your statement here entirely, I just want to add, that if players choose to fight such things, then they must shoulder some responsibility when they suffer losses. If a DM hands out 25 Magic Items to each player, they also must shoulder the responsibility. Neither of these are the fault of the system. These are DM and player choices, which while valid, makes this statement largely irrelevant IMHO. Arguing about it is fruitless and a waste of time.


The only 'loose' math that I've heard of that you seem to be talking about is MMO math. In that over the course of 70+ levels you gain about a 20% increase in abilities. You can optimize like crazy but you won't ever add more than a 2% effectiveness above the baseline. This isn't so in 5E where you can get virtually 9-21 levels worth of attack, damage, and AC increases from a single +3 item. I'm not sure where you are getting this idea that the math of 5E is mutable. Its less mutable and more tight than any edition before it due to the bounded accuracy system. If you don't believe me throw your players into an arena with monsters and let them 'borrow' +3 armor, shield, and weapon. Give the casters a bundle of scrolls of level + 3 spells, then give everyone 5 potions of level + 3 to choose from and see what happens.

Did this, as it was a playtest packet and we were testing the limits of the system. The players (experienced players across several editions) had less difficulty with the encounter than normal.
Things I noticed:

The Warrior (Prot, Sword & Board) laid waste to whatever he came into contact with. But he was doing that without the magic items in the first place. So there was no change in his effectiveness. He missed less, yes. But his hits were consistently dangerous at all levels. (A welcome change from previous editions IMO).

The Rogue (Burglar) found new ways to gain sneak attack beyond normal, such as blinking in and out of invisibility if alone, otherwise his skill checks remained unaffected, essentially, his main job remained unchanged at all levels, neither getting more difficult, nor easier. Mainly in combat the rogue assisted the Warrior, attempting to RP taunt enemies to prevent the Warrior from having to run across the battlefield.

The Priest (Life) held back for the most part, slinging buff spells. It is important to note that the priest saved their Higher spell slots exclusively for heals, so several rounds of damaged players was common during fights, the first rounds with buffs going up instead. When participating in melee combat, the Priest stayed near the Mage to offset loose monsters attacking the Mage.

The Mage (Illusion) spent time between plugging things with their crossbow and dropping illusions to cut off sections of the attacking forces. Occassionally using their illusions to simulate damage dealing spells. Saves were (I'm only guessing here, didn't count the number to calculate) probably only 30% successful from the enemies, resulting in 70%ish successfully cast spells.

The Monster Tiers:

Equal level: Players win 19/20
Higher +1: Players win 17/20
Higher +2: Player win 18/20 (players changed tactics)
Higher +3: Players win 14/20 (multiple tactic changes)
Higher +4: Players win 9/20 (extensive tactic changes)
Higher +5: Players win 3/20 (drastic tactic changes)

Monsters used: Single massive creature at each level (players always won this combat, prepared or not)
Small group = to players (Players win consistently even when not prepared)
Big group = to players +2 (players win consistently when prepared)
Large group = to double players (players won when prepared only)
Army group = to 3x or more players (won only when prepared and only occasionally)

This was my experience. I did not track math. But we ran monster scenarios for a week, trying at no magic items, 3 magic items, 7 magic items, unlimited magic items. All combats were done at level 7. Monsters used were Orcs, Cultists, Dragon, and Demons. Monsters remained unmodified, using only options found within the test packet. My conclusion from these play tests is that the mitigating factor isn't the gear the players use, but the tactics they use. Granting that all classes were not tested, nor were all options in the test packet tested, the basic four served our purposes to provide a glimpse into what we can expect.

Your math is solid. And I agree with it (aside from +1 equating to +3 levels). But my experience playing it out says otherwise. I am forced to conclude that either I am doing something with my encounters others are not, or they are doing something with their encounters I am not. It is the only logical conclusion. You're results obviously will be different.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-27, 09:29 AM
so is your position that you want everything changeable, but that you MUST change fluff and crunch at the same time?

so those of us who like good math should not have a game we like because you cant change math willy nilly like you can fluff.

My position is that fluff and crunch are both rules (just different forms and types) and changing either will be definition alter your game. Sometimes it will change it very little, sometimes it will have significant changes. But they are both rules and changing either willy nilly will change your game.


Its unclear because it can be interpreted as completely stopping movement. Crawling is a form of movement. However being prone allows crawling. So different DMs will view it in different ways and in one game Grease will be a minor inconvenience and in another it will be a super powerful spell even into high levels. Its the fact that the wording isn't very clear. If for instance they changed it to "the targets fall prone and lose the rest of their movement this turn, they may crawl out of the grease area." Then its perfectly clear what's going on and there is no confusion. There are clear rules that no one thinks is ambiguous "Roll 4d6 drop the 1 lowest and assign as desired" and then there are rules that aren't clear and can be interpreted multiple ways "The targets fall prone and cannot move. If you are prone you can crawl."

It's worth noting that your version of the 5e grease spell is out of date. The last one simply states that it make the terrain difficult and that creatures failing DEX saving throws on entering, ending their turn or being there when the spell starts fall prone. It says nothing about ending movement.

captpike
2014-05-27, 01:28 PM
My position is that fluff and crunch are both rules (just different forms and types) and changing either will be definition alter your game. Sometimes it will change it very little, sometimes it will have significant changes. But they are both rules and changing either willy nilly will change your game.


you keep saying that fluff is rules. again I ask if you know what fluff is, because that statement is a tautology

yes changing or adding fluff will change my game, most games will be altered in this way. the game should allow this to happen with no mechanical changes. this allows the game to remain balanced regardless of what fluff I am using. it also allows PCs to add their own fluff to the classes they play without balance problems.

as was mentioned upthread you cant rely on fluff to balance anything anyway, because people will just ignore fluff they that does not make sense in their setting.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-27, 01:49 PM
you keep saying that fluff is rules. again I ask if you know what fluff is, because that statement is a tautology

It must not be a tautology because you keep treating the fluff as if it isn't rules. As if it doesn't matter and can be just thrown away without any consideration. That's simply not true.



yes changing or adding fluff will change my game, most games will be altered in this way. the game should allow this to happen with no mechanical changes. this allows the game to remain balanced regardless of what fluff I am using. it also allows PCs to add their own fluff to the classes they play without balance problems.

Changing the fluff is making a mechanical change. The fluff dictates how the world works just as much as the dice do. You're drawing a distinction that doesn't exist.



as was mentioned upthread you cant rely on fluff to balance anything anyway, because people will just ignore fluff they that does not make sense in their setting.

And you can't rely on crunch to balance things either because people will just ignore the crunch that doesn't make sense in their setting. What do you think house rules are?

captpike
2014-05-27, 02:03 PM
It must not be a tautology because you keep treating the fluff as if it isn't rules. As if it doesn't matter and can be just thrown away without any consideration. That's simply not true.

the fact they are not rules is why it works, fluff CAN be thrown out without any changes to anything else. if I change the warlock fluff from "gets power from demons or devils" to "gets power from non-evil gods" then NOTHING ELSE IN THE SYSTEM CHANGES and everything still holds up.

there may be some RP considerations, but its not something that would require changing any math.




Changing the fluff is making a mechanical change. The fluff dictates how the world works just as much as the dice do. You're drawing a distinction that doesn't exist.

it might change the setting, but it wont change the math.

given the entirety of 4e was build on this idea, and it worked it seams your wrong, otherwise 4e as a system would be so flawed it would be unusable. if I change the fluff of any class it would break down



And you can't rely on crunch to balance things either because people will just ignore the crunch that doesn't make sense in their setting. What do you think house rules are?
[/QUOTE]
....
I refer again to the meaning of fluff

when people look at a system and see fluff most people think "this is a good starting point, maybe I can improve it" when they see crunch they see something complicated that they don't want to touch because it could cause rippling changes throughout the system.

this is because a most people wisely think that the math is too complicated to change without a good understanding of the system. if a rule says "you can only multiclass once" then it generaly will be obeyed because they will trust that it is there for a reason, even if they lack an understanding of why.

if some fluff says "it is hard, often impossible to learn more then one extra skillset" then people will ignore it, because its just suggested fluff.

THAT is one major difference between fluff and rules. the system assumes all rules are obeyed, and should not assume any fluff is.

Kurald Galain
2014-05-27, 02:55 PM
given the entirety of 4e was build on this idea, and it worked it seams your wrong,

Whether or not it "worked" is rather subjective; it's important to realize that many players don't like this idea (i.e. that fluff is completely separable from crunch), and in fact the foremost criticism of 4E is that it's built on this idea.

So no. WOTC does not "have" to go with this idea; nobody's forcing them and it's not objectively better. They may well go with the exact opposite idea.

1337 b4k4
2014-05-27, 03:11 PM
the fact they are not rules is why it works,

Fluff is rules.



there may be some RP considerations, but its not something that would require changing any math.


What are the rules of an RPG if not the things that produce the RP considerations?



given the entirety of 4e was build on this idea, and it worked it seams your wrong, otherwise 4e as a system would be so flawed it would be unusable. if I change the fluff of any class it would break down

I never said that. Again, this is the third time I've asked you and I won't ask you again, stop putting words into my mouth that I did not say. I did say that fluff and crunch are both rules and are not as separable as you appear to think they are. There is a system that is almost entirely devoid of fluff (although even it has fluff because mechanics mean nothing without descriptions of what they model). The system is called GURPS, and you will note that GURPS is not a game. People play RPGs using GURPS rules, but GURPS on its own is an incomplete game. There are no "GURPS" adventures. There are GURPS supplements that add the missing fluff, and adventures for those supplements but there is no core GURPS game.




when people look at a system and see fluff most people think "this is a good starting point, maybe I can improve it" when they see crunch they see something complicated that they don't want to touch because it could cause rippling changes throughout the system.

this is because a most people wisely think that the math is too complicated to change without a good understanding of the system. if a rule says "you can only multiclass once" then it generaly will be obeyed because they will trust that it is there for a reason, even if they lack an understanding of why.

This is only true if your mechanical system is so intertwined and inflexible as to cause such massive ripple effects and so obscure and obfuscated as to be difficult to predict the results of such ripple effects. If you system is either disconnected enough, or obvious enough, then most changes to the crunch of the system (whether large or small) can be adequately handled. Seriously, just like a system should be able to (and make it obvious to the DM and players that it can) handle "Warlocks should get their powers from the color purple" it should also be able to handle (and be obvious) "Magic items don't exist / Magic items are so common they're used for kids toys" or "Dragons can move on off turns / Dragons can't move on off turns". This doesn't mean you don't have to make changes, but that it should be obvious where and how those changes will have impacts. If your crunch is so complicated and intertwined that people are afraid to change it, you've created a system that's just as bad as if your fluff is so complicated and intertwined that people are afraid to change it.



if some fluff says "it is hard, often impossible to learn more then one extra skillset" then people will ignore it, because its just suggested fluff.


And that is a failure of the people, not the game. If it's in the book, it's a rule. Whether it's a rule you use or not is still up to you, but it's a rule. After all, if everyone is ignoring the fluff, why bother even writing it at all?



THAT is one major difference between fluff and rules. the system assumes all rules are obeyed, and should not assume any fluff is.

Why? Why should a system or it's designers assume that one part of the rules will be obeyed because they're written with numerals and the other part will be ignored because it's written with words?

Fwiffo86
2014-05-27, 04:23 PM
*snickers*

Rule = Published in TTRPG source material. A series of steps used to resolve abilities or combat, determine parameters, and to ensure everyone is interacting with the game in the same way.

(*) Also published in TTRPG source material are statements saying you can add or remove any rule you feel as they are only guidelines.

Fluff = Sample setting used as a default to express the purpose and execution of the game included with TTRPG source material. As a default it is assumed it will be modified, adjusted, or squeezed into situations where it is needed.

Crunch = Rules that when modified have large impacts on physics, balance of abilities, or generally tick off members of the gaming group. Recommended to remain intact if possible, which inherently goes against the "guidelines" statement.

captpike
2014-05-27, 04:41 PM
What are the rules of an RPG if not the things that produce the RP considerations?

they give the opportunity for the DM and players to do RP, the rules are a framework on which to build RP. they should not be chains on which you are forced to RP a certain way (see 3e paladin)



There is a system that is almost entirely devoid of fluff (although even it has fluff because mechanics mean nothing without descriptions of what they model). The system is called GURPS, and you will note that GURPS is not a game. People play RPGs using GURPS rules, but GURPS on its own is an incomplete game. There are no "GURPS" adventures. There are GURPS supplements that add the missing fluff, and adventures for those supplements but there is no core GURPS game.


GRUPS is very much a game, its a generic RPG ruleset, D&D is a fantasy ruleset for groups of 4-5ish




This is only true if your mechanical system is so intertwined and inflexible as to cause such massive ripple effects and so obscure and obfuscated as to be difficult to predict the results of such ripple effects. If you system is either disconnected enough, or obvious enough, then most changes to the crunch of the system (whether large or small) can be adequately handled. Seriously, just like a system should be able to (and make it obvious to the DM and players that it can) handle "Warlocks should get their powers from the color purple" it should also be able to handle (and be obvious) "Magic items don't exist / Magic items are so common they're used for kids toys" or "Dragons can move on off turns / Dragons can't move on off turns". This doesn't mean you don't have to make changes, but that it should be obvious where and how those changes will have impacts. If your crunch is so complicated and intertwined that people are afraid to change it, you've created a system that's just as bad as if your fluff is so complicated and intertwined that people are afraid to change it.

when a system gets past a certain complexity, no mater how much effort is spent on making it simple and intuitve there is a learning curve, D&D is such a system.

and alot of changes would have effects that would not be obvious. magic items being the big one. this is particularly true for things that have to be balanced but its not obvious how to do so. for example how many levels higher should the big bad be if the players have 10 magic items and not 3? if I want to the fight to be very hard. that is not something that will pop out at you when you glance at the system.




Why? Why should a system or it's designers assume that one part of the rules will be obeyed because they're written with numerals and the other part will be ignored because it's written with words?

first I said fluff not rules, please pay more attention when you are reading.

because fluff changes from one campaign world to the next, and is easy to modify without other changes in the system. you can change fluff without knowing most of it. if I started reading the 4e system and decided that my warlock was going to get his power from the color purple it would work without me knowing anything else about the system.

rules don't work like that. if I decided that my warlock was going to use 3d6 dice to hit with instead of a d20 it would change alot of other things in the system. I would need to know the entire system fairly well to make such a change and have it work.




And that is a failure of the people, not the game. If it's in the book, it's a rule. Whether it's a rule you use or not is still up to you, but it's a rule. After all, if everyone is ignoring the fluff, why bother even writing it at all?

as a starting point, as inspiration to make the class. for new players who would not know how to play a "heavy armor/melee defender" but can get behind the idea of a "Fighter"

default fluff is good, it should not be a straitjacket, nor should it be required to balance a class.


Whether or not it "worked" is rather subjective; it's important to realize that many players don't like this idea (i.e. that fluff is completely separable from crunch), and in fact the foremost criticism of 4E is that it's built on this idea.

So no. WOTC does not "have" to go with this idea; nobody's forcing them and it's not objectively better. They may well go with the exact opposite idea.

there are some people you should not try to please, people who WANT to force people to play their game or not at all are some of those.

if fluff and crunch are separate then those who like such a system win, those who don't can just say "you cant change the default fluff, what the PHB says about how your class got its powers is a rule" and they also can play their game.

the only reason NOT to separate them is because you want to FORCE other players to either A) play your way or not at all or B) to come up with long and elaborate house rules to forceably separate the fluff and crunch (...see page 10 about how to make a non-lawful good paladin...)

Kurald Galain
2014-05-27, 05:13 PM
if fluff and crunch are separate then those who like such a system win, those who don't can just say "you cant change the default fluff, what the PHB says about how your class got its powers is a rule" and they also can play their game.
The point that you're missing is that the second group of people want crunch to reinforce the fluff, and that's not possible if the two are separate.

As soon as you agree to join a campaign in, say, Dark Sun or Eberron, then you're already agreeing to play the game either in a specific way or not at all. That means that within Dark Sun, you can't just refluff an elf to a mul, or a cleric to a fighter, or a bone weapon to a metal one: they are very distinct concepts in fluff, and have the crunch to match. And if you separate the two, you break the setting (at least, in the eyes of many of its fans).

Because for refluffing, we're not just talking about refluffing warlocks from "getting power from extraplanar entities" to "getting power from slightly different extraplanar entities"; we're talking about refluffing arcane casting into pistols, or a high strength score into speed and agility, or dwarves into githzerai (and most of that in the name of wanting a bigger bonus on something). No, that's not hypothetical. That's the flipside you're not seeing, and that's what many people dislike.

captpike
2014-05-27, 05:22 PM
The point that you're missing is that the second group of people want crunch to reinforce the fluff, and that's not possible if the two are separate.

As soon as you agree to join a campaign in, say, Dark Sun or Eberron, then you're already agreeing to play the game either in a specific way or not at all. That means that within Dark Sun, you can't just refluff an elf to a mul, or a cleric to a fighter, or a bone weapon to a metal one: they are very distinct concepts in fluff, and have the crunch to match. And if you separate the two, you break the setting (at least, in the eyes of many of its fans).

Because for refluffing, we're not just talking about refluffing warlocks from "getting power from extraplanar entities" to "getting power from slightly different extraplanar entities"; we're talking about refluffing arcane casting into pistols, or a high strength score into speed and agility, or dwarves into githzerai (and most of that in the name of wanting a bigger bonus on something). No, that's not hypothetical. That's the flipside you're not seeing, and that's what many people dislike.

all refluffing is voluntary, if you don't like it then don't do it. yes some will bend over backwards to refluff to gain a +1, don't allow that in your games and your good.

when in doubt the game should try to accomidate as many people as possible, even if only 10% of people want to be able to easily refluff then they should still support it because if you dont want it you can just ignore it. yes I know you said you want them to support each other, well guess what you can CHANGE the fluff to support the crunch.

there is a big difference between what should go into a setting book like dark sun and the PHB. a setting book CAN and often SHOULD tie the fluff to the crunch, because it can assume that if your playing dark sun you are playing it a certain way.

the PHB should not do that, the PHB has to work for dark sun, eberon, forgotten realms, or my own homebrew, not just for one setting.

Lokiare
2014-05-27, 05:43 PM
I think I understand. You want to ensure that there is no possibility that it can be misinterpreted, I get that. My response to that is that you must have a pretty low opinion of the populace to assume they can't figure out the spirit of the spell. Yes, I agree it can be misconstrued, and I see your point. I'm just saying that it took me 2 seconds to figure out what was supposed to happen with the description. I'm certain a majority of DMs and players would have come to the same conclusion and used the spell in its intended format. You always have people who nit-pick every word and sentence to get out what they want. They are often not worth my time dealing with, because they are unwilling to compromise or fail to listen to any viewpoint other than their own.

Not really, I've just been around playing D&D since early 2E. Its what people do. Some people read a thing one way and others read it another way. It doesn't matter that you instantly saw how it was meant to be applied, others won't see it that way and arguments will break out over it. The only way we can all get what we want is if the rules are not ambiguous at all.


I agree with your statement here entirely, I just want to add, that if players choose to fight such things, then they must shoulder some responsibility when they suffer losses. If a DM hands out 25 Magic Items to each player, they also must shoulder the responsibility. Neither of these are the fault of the system. These are DM and player choices, which while valid, makes this statement largely irrelevant IMHO. Arguing about it is fruitless and a waste of time.

Sometimes the players don't have a choice because the DM intended for them to fight it because they thought the system worked as advertised:

DM "You enter the large domed room and the reinforced iron door closes and locks behind you, ahead of you a large scaly face with horns and large rows of teeth the size of swords surges forward out of the shadows. You realize you are facing a very large angry red dragon."
Players "We're just not gonna fight it."
DM "It sucks in its breath and you see flames begin to lick out of its nostrils."
Players "Nope not gonna fight it."
DM "It breaths killing the party."

Doesn't work too well does it?

If a DM hands out 25 magic items to the party, they are just following the built in defaults and suggestions of the system. Its not really their fault. Its not really the choices of the DM or party. Its only a choice for extremely experienced players and DMs. The game should not assume extreme experience as a default. It should work for noobs just as much as for 20 year veterans.


Did this, as it was a playtest packet and we were testing the limits of the system. The players (experienced players across several editions) had less difficulty with the encounter than normal.
Things I noticed:

The Warrior (Prot, Sword & Board) laid waste to whatever he came into contact with. But he was doing that without the magic items in the first place. So there was no change in his effectiveness. He missed less, yes. But his hits were consistently dangerous at all levels. (A welcome change from previous editions IMO).

The Rogue (Burglar) found new ways to gain sneak attack beyond normal, such as blinking in and out of invisibility if alone, otherwise his skill checks remained unaffected, essentially, his main job remained unchanged at all levels, neither getting more difficult, nor easier. Mainly in combat the rogue assisted the Warrior, attempting to RP taunt enemies to prevent the Warrior from having to run across the battlefield.

The Priest (Life) held back for the most part, slinging buff spells. It is important to note that the priest saved their Higher spell slots exclusively for heals, so several rounds of damaged players was common during fights, the first rounds with buffs going up instead. When participating in melee combat, the Priest stayed near the Mage to offset loose monsters attacking the Mage.

The Mage (Illusion) spent time between plugging things with their crossbow and dropping illusions to cut off sections of the attacking forces. Occassionally using their illusions to simulate damage dealing spells. Saves were (I'm only guessing here, didn't count the number to calculate) probably only 30% successful from the enemies, resulting in 70%ish successfully cast spells.

The Monster Tiers:

Equal level: Players win 19/20
Higher +1: Players win 17/20
Higher +2: Player win 18/20 (players changed tactics)
Higher +3: Players win 14/20 (multiple tactic changes)
Higher +4: Players win 9/20 (extensive tactic changes)
Higher +5: Players win 3/20 (drastic tactic changes)

Monsters used: Single massive creature at each level (players always won this combat, prepared or not)
Small group = to players (Players win consistently even when not prepared)
Big group = to players +2 (players win consistently when prepared)
Large group = to double players (players won when prepared only)
Army group = to 3x or more players (won only when prepared and only occasionally)

This was my experience. I did not track math. But we ran monster scenarios for a week, trying at no magic items, 3 magic items, 7 magic items, unlimited magic items. All combats were done at level 7. Monsters used were Orcs, Cultists, Dragon, and Demons. Monsters remained unmodified, using only options found within the test packet. My conclusion from these play tests is that the mitigating factor isn't the gear the players use, but the tactics they use. Granting that all classes were not tested, nor were all options in the test packet tested, the basic four served our purposes to provide a glimpse into what we can expect.

Your math is solid. And I agree with it (aside from +1 equating to +3 levels). But my experience playing it out says otherwise. I am forced to conclude that either I am doing something with my encounters others are not, or they are doing something with their encounters I am not. It is the only logical conclusion. You're results obviously will be different.

How much improvisation did they do? Did you play the monsters to their full intelligence (no dumb dragons or anything)? The other thing to think about is that the numbers were on the players side to begin with. If the players were steam rolling encounters before you added the extra magic items, then its possible the math is so broken as to not matter if you add +3 items to the game. Which means anyone that likes even a modicum of balance will not like the game.

Kurald Galain
2014-05-27, 05:46 PM
the PHB should not do that, the PHB has to work for dark sun, eberon, forgotten realms, or my own homebrew, not just for one setting.

No, the PHB should have a default setting, because otherwise you're forcing players to buy yet another book to find out where the setting went. D&D is not GURPS, after all.

Besides, we already know that 5E has the Forgotten Realms as its default setting.

captpike
2014-05-27, 05:51 PM
No, the PHB should have a default setting, because otherwise you're forcing players to buy yet another book to find out where the setting went. D&D is not GURPS, after all.

Besides, we already know that 5E has the Forgotten Realms as its default setting.

sure it can suggest some default fluff and gods and whatnot. but it should not tie that so much to fluff that you have to spend alot of time untangling them.

you hardly need a setting book to run a game, even if you feel you need one you don't need an up to date one. a good setting book is about fluff, most would need some rules (arcane defiling, dragonmarks ect) but they are small and not hard to improvise.

Kurald Galain
2014-05-27, 06:01 PM
sure it can suggest some default fluff and gods and whatnot. but it should not tie that so much to fluff that you have to spend alot of time untangling them.

Well, it's nice that you feel that way, but it should be obvious by now that this is not a majority opinion.

Yes, it is possible to build a system like that. No, this is not what WOTC has chosen for 5E. Ultimately, you're just stating that they "need" to make strawberry ice cream when they've already decided to make chocolate ice cream instead. Given that it's very close to the release date, there's little point in debating what the rules "should" and "must" do, as none of us are in a position to change any of that. We can just wait for the free samples to come out and see what they taste like.

captpike
2014-05-27, 06:06 PM
Well, it's nice that you feel that way, but it should be obvious by now that this is not a majority opinion.

Yes, it is possible to build a system like that. No, this is not what WOTC has chosen for 5E. Ultimately, you're just stating that they "need" to make strawberry ice cream when they've already decided to make chocolate ice cream instead. Given that it's very close to the release date, there's little point in debating what the rules "should" and "must" do, as none of us are in a position to change any of that. We can just wait for the free samples to come out and see what they taste like.

the difference is that if they do what I want everyone gets what they want.

if they do what you want, only those who want exactly what you want gets anything close to what they want.

even if its not a majority opinion, which I doubt honestly, it would not matter. if 10% of people want A and B, and 90% want B, then you should not bow to the majority.

in short what you want is a game that only works for a small subset of people, rather then for most people.