Minor 5th Edition Updates for Monday, 16 January, 2012

I'm A Banana · Jan 17, 2012

Remathilis said:
I doubt they expect "a 4e brutal scoundrel rogue, a 3e warlock, a 2e specialty priest of Talos, a 1e fighter, and a BD&D elf all go into the Caves of Chaos were they fight a group of OD&D orcs, all using their native systems". I think they mean "A tactical/powers rogue, a simple at-wills warlock, a vancian cleric, a simple basic-attack fighter, and a elven fighter/multi-classed mage go into the caves of chaos and fight down an orc horde, using a unified resolution mechanic that is fairly simple but can be layed with some complex choices if the GM/player wants".

The question will be if that simplified mechanic can suit the general needs of all those edition players to convert to the universal language.

My half-formed abortion of an idea is that it might look something like this.

Something like:

[sblock]
Monsters and Other Obstacles
The simplest way to fight a monster is to describe it. If the DM places a monster between your character and their goal, you can describe how you overcome it.

For instance, if the DM says, "Before you stands a hideous troll, dripping pus from an open sore," you can say, "I cut it down with my axe!"

If the DM wants to include some chance for failure in your attack, they will have you use some conflict resolution mechanic (such as a die roll, or a coin toss). Success indicates that you slay it, and failure indicates that you don't slay it -- perhaps, in fact, it slays you.

Some DMs may add more steps between an attempt and ultimate failure or success. Perhaps, for example, you will have to get two or three successful rolls or coin tosses before the monster gets the same amount.

This works no matter the obstacle that stands in your way, though, depending on your DM's chosen ruleset, you may have more detailed ways to overcome certain obstacles.
[/sblock]

Agamon · Jan 17, 2012

Kzach said:
Nobody, not even someone who prefers a 'simple' character is going to enjoy sitting at a table with their simple character who can do X and Y, next to a player with a character who can do the whole alphabet. People will resent that player having more options and taking more time at the table, regardless of how 'balanced' it is (which is another issue entirely given how arbitrary and subjective 'balance' is).

Simple guy can do cool stuff, too. He's just not bound by rules. So, potentially, he can actually do more cool stuff than complex guy.

vagabundo · Jan 17, 2012

I'm not seeing these updates on the 5e info page. In fact it looks the same to me since it was first put up. Anyone else notice that?

SlyDoubt · Jan 17, 2012

broghammerj said:
Well for one, I haven't played it in about 20 yrs.....but more importantly the game didn't depend on mapping. A game like 3e and more so 4e do. However, you point is well taken.

All I've really played and DMd is 3E. To a much lesser extent 4e.

We only really used grids to do big encounters with a lot of stuff going on. Otherwise we just used pennies on a piece of paper and gave ranges and general positions.

*shrug*

Celtavian · Jan 17, 2012

re

This sounds like madness. I wonder if they can pull it off.

Jhaelen · Jan 17, 2012

Lwaxy said:
But isn't this where the freedom of the GM comes into play?

Yeah, that's the biggest question mark for me:
How am I as a DM supposed to deal with this mess?

Firstly, it seems to be a given that as the DM I will have to know the game rules at every level of complexity to deal with the variously complex pcs.

I mean, say, I'm telling a player to make a Perception check. So the player tells me: "Sorry, dude, my character doesn't have any skills."

How do the monsters work? What rules do _they_ use? "The orc shaman cast a spell at you and gets a 21 vs. your Reflex defense. Does that hit?"
Player: "Well, I only have an AC. Do you want me to save vs. spells instead?!"

Also, how are power levels supposed to be equal across complexities: E.g. the high-complexity character has to get a feat allowing her to disarm an opponent while the 'simple' pc's player simply states "I try to disarm the guy."

Doesn't this basically mean you cannot have binary feats like this? All a disarm feat may do is to grant a bonus when attempting an action (the alternative being a simple char cannot disarm an opponent _ever_).

I don't see how this is supposed to work at all.

Jhaelen · Jan 17, 2012

Agamon said:
Simple guy can do cool stuff, too. He's just not bound by rules. So, potentially, he can actually do more cool stuff than complex guy.

If that was actually the case, why would anyone _ever_ want to play a complex guy?

This is insane!

Erdrick Dragin · Jan 17, 2012

No one else wondering how the game material is going to be produced? Will it be for all 4 editions, because that's the only way this will work.

Sammael · Jan 17, 2012

Jhaelen said:
If that was actually the case, why would anyone _ever_ want to play a complex guy?

This is insane!

Because the complex guy will actually have the bonuses that will allow him to succeed?

The simple guy will say "I try to disarm him." The DM will make him roll a d20, add his level (if he is a fighter) or half level (if he is not) and compare the result to the target's anti-disarm-stat (whatever it is).

The complex guy will also say "I try to disarm him" and then roll d20 + attack skill + weapon bonus + feat bonus + misc bonus + whatever. The total modifier should be much better than the simple guy's modifier.

The complex guy will be rewarded when it comes to specialized stuff. The simple guy will have unlimited breadth, but won't be as effective.

thzero · Jan 17, 2012

catsclaw227 said:
...I look at 1e AD&D just as much as TRUE D&D as I did 2e, 3.x and 4e.

See I disagree here, I just don't see 4e as "True D&D". There was just a fundamental shift in the game which makes it different - not even touching the merits of game on its own. It's like going from D&D to say Tunnels and Trolls, or Hackmaster. Actually more so. The fluff isn't the issue, its the crunch and the crunch effects the way you play.

SlyDoubt said:
We only really used grids to do big encounters with a lot of stuff going on. Otherwise we just used pennies on a piece of paper and gave ranges and general positions.

That's the basics of what most of the various folks I've ever played with (not only with D&D but also other systems from BootHill, GammaWorld, RoleMaster, etc. to more modern stuff) have done.

broghammerj said:
Well for one, I haven't played it in about 20 yrs.....but more importantly the game didn't depend on mapping. A game like 3e and more so 4e do.

To some extent sure, because 3e/4e do have things like AoO that sorta require it to make it less of a pain. So by that token it didn't depend on mapping sure, but as someone pointed out movement was in inches. And 1e came from Basic, which came from OD&D, i.e. Chainmail, which was a based on a WARGAME.

The title for Chainmail is "Chainmail rules for medieval minatures.".

Jhaelen said:
Yeah, that's the biggest question mark for me:
How am I as a DM supposed to deal with this mess?

Valid question I think. I suppose the answer is "yes", if you as a DM decide to allow all play styles in your game. Hopefully the DMG would give you guidance on some of the questions you pose, but I suppose a lot of that is going to be depend on the DM making decisions on the fly. If on the other hand you limit the game to one or two play styles, it might not be such an issue.

In the first case, that just seems to take away from the pleasure of DMing if you have to keep juggling decisions on how the various play styles interact on top of making decisions on what happens to the world/setting/etc. based on what the PCs are doing.

The more I read what various people have to say the more I think this is almost a mountain to tall to tame, because there are too many competing ideas and concept. It almost seems like a better strategy would be to resurrect (doesn't WotC have a high enough level cleric working there to cast the spell?!) 3e and starting producing both 3e and 4e core products. Then in the splat books you include the fluff + 3e crunch and 4e crunch.

Or at least the core books would have the option for a 3e play style and 4e play style. Common concepts, such as abilities, obviously would be shared between the two. Maybe a few 4e style things find there way into the 3e side, and a few more 3e style things find there way into the 4e style. Either you play 3e style or 4e style, and not try and correlate the two together. This seems to be a better option, economics wise, than producing two sets of core books but I'm sure the economics for it won't really work anyways.