D&D 5E Why the HP Threshold on Spells is a Bad Idea

kinem said:

If there is no way to bypass the hp track, I will definitely bypass NEXT.

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If they fix the rest of the game to the point that I find everything better than any previous edition and, yet, still leave the hit point threshold in place, I will, definitely, pass a well.

Yea, severely dislike the hp threshold mechanic. I get it, I understand the motivations, but this has so many pitfalls directly in front of us that I just cant believe this is the only way to resolve the spells.

One other thing people havent mentioned is Constitution. Already a really useful stat for having high hit points (which has been pretty darn essential regardless of your class) now, with HP (roughly) equaling spell resistance its SUPER stat, almost completely obligating players to allocate at least a certain minimum.

billd91 said:

"They gave me options to maximize my casting stat! How can I resist? I'm not made of stone! *sob*"

The optimizer who pushes at the limits of the game while the rest of his fellow players don't is hardly a victim. It's totally fair to expect to draw a line well short of the maximums just as you would in any other RPG that offers a lot of customization options if it's best for that particular gaming group.

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Really? Again, look at my examples? Where do you draw the line? Is Spell Focus okay? Greater Spell Focus? Should a Wizard avoid items that boost Intellect? Should they maybe put a 14 in Int to make things fairer?

The problem with your school of "you should only use some of the stuff that's printed" is that it's completely and utterly arbitrary. You might think Greater Spell Focus is abuse. Someone else might thing Greater Spell Focus is a waste of a feat.

We're not talking Pun-Pun or other obvious abuses here. We're talking about pushing one stat "too high."

And actually, most of the time when you have "abuses" you actually have a hole in your entire system. Would a feat that gave fighters +1 to hit with a specific weapon be broken? Obviously not. Yet the same feat, for wizards (+1 to hit with a specific spell) is?

What's the difference? Well, the answer is that hitting with spells is superbly good, so raising your chance to hit is superbly good, while hitting with melee is mediocre, so raising your chance to hit raises your chance to do some mediocre things.

Or in other words your complaint is "if you maximize your chance of your spells actually working it becomes apparent that your spells are actually totally broken."

GreyICE said:

Really? Again, look at my examples? Where do you draw the line? Is Spell Focus okay? Greater Spell Focus? ....

And actually, most of the time when you have "abuses" you actually have a hole in your entire system. Would a feat that gave fighters +1 to hit with a specific weapon be broken? Obviously not. Yet the same feat, for wizards (+1 to hit with a specific spell) is? .....

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A simple base rule of feats/magic items/whatever can never more than double your natural modifiers (int, str, etc) ... So +4 int can never be enhanced beyond +8?

Yes, this does make the primary stat even more important ...

Warbringer said:

A simple base rule of feats/magic items/whatever can never more than double your natural modifiers (int, str, etc) ... So +4 int can never be enhanced beyond +8?

Yes, this does make the primary stat even more important ...

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So a fighter with 18 strength could never get more than +8 to hit?

That's an interesting idea for Next, but doesn't really address the fact that the original quote is a handwave of the fact that spells are a hell of a lot better than swords. "Well it only becomes super apparent if the Wizard maximizes his hit chance!"

Well okay, but a fighter who maximizes his chance to hit a monster has yet to break a campaign in half.

And all of that is the symptom of a much greater problem - that in a game that is supposed to be about overcoming the most challenging problems and fiercest of foes, some people think that the system shouldn't care about whether those problems and foes are actually difficult, and should count on the players making a gentlemen's agreement to gimp their characters until the problems and foes are actually challenging.

I'd replace the HP threshold with a Hit Dice threshold. This gets rid of the problem of low level fighters being more resistant to mental attacks than high level wizards.

GreyICE said:

Really? Again, look at my examples? Where do you draw the line? Is Spell Focus okay? Greater Spell Focus? Should a Wizard avoid items that boost Intellect? Should they maybe put a 14 in Int to make things fairer?

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They should roll their dice for their stats. That's what's fairer.

GreyICE said:

The problem with your school of "you should only use some of the stuff that's printed" is that it's completely and utterly arbitrary. You might think Greater Spell Focus is abuse. Someone else might thing Greater Spell Focus is a waste of a feat.

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D&D, with all these options, is a tool kit for a DM and players to go through and use the ones appropriate for their campaign and not use the ones not appropriate. That's not arbitrary.

GreyICE said:

Or in other words your complaint is "if you maximize your chance of your spells actually working it becomes apparent that your spells are actually totally broken."

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I am really getting tired of this "broken" claim. I can't say I've ever had much trouble with anything being "broken" in D&D. But then, I also work with my players to make the game work for everyone and I will expect my players not to disrupt the game with parts of the toolkit that do not work with it. I have some players who are definitely not min-maxers and the closest one I have to being one makes sure he doesn't outshine the rest of the PCs on a regular basis. And that works for us, as it should.

[MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION]: See, some of us don't like being sold a car where the engine doesn't work unless you get out and gently massage it every few miles. The car is the system. The DM is the driver. And I want to be going places, not stopping every few miles to get out and gently massage the engine because without that it falls to pieces.

I'm running a new D&D campaign right now. It has two classes I've never seen in play before being used, and I have at best marginal ideas what certain players spells and abilities do. They tell me the effects as we're playing, and I think "oh, that's nifty."

Do you have any idea how liberating that feeling was, the first time I felt it? I didn't have to care if the players took a new class I was unfamiliar with. I didn't have to care what abilities they picked. I could just tell the story, and let the players do what they do, and it tends to work out.

I. Am. Not. Going. Back.

I don't like the HP threshold either, unless the spell effects the target physically, and then it should be based on current HP. I think mind effecting spells should definitely be a HD threshold.

I also think any spell that doesn't meet the threshold requirement, but the victim fails their saving throw, should have some sort of effect anyway, though not quite as powerful.

billd91 said:

They should roll their dice for their stats. That's what's fairer.

D&D, with all these options, is a tool kit for a DM and players to go through and use the ones appropriate for their campaign and not use the ones not appropriate. That's not arbitrary.

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I'm having trouble reconciling your first paragraph with your second. On the one hand, only rolling dice for stats is fair (according to you, and using a strange definition for fair - if everyone being subject to the whims of chance is fair, how is everyone having the power to assign points to stats in the same way not fair?). On the other hand D&D is a tool kit and players should be able to decide for themselves what is best for their campaign. Interesting.

billd91 said:

I am really getting tired of this "broken" claim. I can't say I've ever had much trouble with anything being "broken" in D&D. But then, I also work with my players to make the game work for everyone and I will expect my players not to disrupt the game with parts of the toolkit that do not work with it. I have some players who are definitely not min-maxers and the closest one I have to being one makes sure he doesn't outshine the rest of the PCs on a regular basis. And that works for us, as it should.

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First, I'll hope you grant that it is theoretically possible for a game to include options that are so powerful that they are "broken".

With that assertion a given, we now design a single game with 2 playstyles in mind. 1) Your proposed style, where GM and players work in tandem with mutual trust to use only the options that further the goals of their game. I'll agree with you that this is the ideal. 2) A game where, for whatever reason, the mutual trust hasn't developed. Maybe everyone hasn't played together before, and the group is going through growing pains. Maybe they are all friends but have some pretty different ideas on what they want from a P&P RPG. Whatever. The point is, not everyone gets to play in an ideal group and we shouldn't punish them even more just because they are unlucky.

If we include broken options in the game, it probably isn't a problem for playstyle 1. They work well enough together that they will recognize a problem and be able to fix it. This is how you claim your group works, and I compliment you for it. If we do not include any broken options, it is of course still not a problem for playstyle 1, though they'll have to find something else to spend their time houseruling.

For playstyle 2, however, including broken options is a big problem. It's a focus point for the preexisting differences, or maybe it starts misunderstandings that never would have happened with a more balanced, transparent system. Some people will be upset that they were tricked into "trap" options, others will object to their being able to swap them out because they should have to roleplay the consequences of their decisions. Things get ugly.

With no broken options, playstyle 2 has a much better chance to mature to playstyle 1 over time.

So why would we consciously ignore broken and trap options when designing our game? Removing them only improves it, even if leaving them in is fine for some people. And, from a game designers perspective, blaming a player for taking an effective option is silly; if you knew it was a broken option, why didn't you remove it?