D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

[pemerton]

Well, it was oWoD, so the rules were a bit different - nevertheless, you have a seven dice pool and need two successes - what is your chance of success? No cheating and using calculator or spreadsheet, now...

That's not trivial.

If each die is successful 3/10, then you fail if you get no successes (3/10 ^ 7) or one success (7C1 * 3/10 * 7/10^6). Chance of success is 1 minus the sum of those two other values: 3^7 + 7 * 3 * 7^6, all over 10,000,000.

I am cheating and using a calculater to get the numerator: nearly 2,500,000. So chance of success is a little over 75%.

Burning Wheel makes it a little easier because the default chance of success on a die is 1/2. But this is one of the irritating features of a dice pool system.

 

[Hussar]

Grenades don't light underwater. Yeah, I know, magic. I might allow a bonus to saves, (I already said fire resistance should hold out against steam) and defintely nothing is catching on fire.

Umm, just as a point, grenades do work very well underwater.

 

[pemerton]

I think your missing the point of my post. Why do you level? Whats the point of leveling? Once you have that, why are there different leveling methods (AEDU in 4E vs each class has different rates in 1E, eg)? Is there a narrative difference?

There are pacing differences.

In 1E the narrative was wizardry was hard, difficult, and scholarly which took time and so you had a steeper curve versus say thievery. Was it fair? was it balanced? Was it a satisfying narrative? All arguable.

But this is all arbitrary. I could break the AD&D wizard into more levels - say 3 levels for every current two levels. This would put the wizard onto an XP table more like the thief. I could then adjust the combat, save and spell tables to keep the ration of XP to spells, bonuses etc more-or-less the same. And I could drop hit dice from d4 to (say) d3, or even - at the extreme - 1 per level, plus CON.

What would that do to the narrative? Nothing that I can see. All I've done is present wizardry in more fine-grained detail.

(Also, your narrative of "wizardry as difficult" ignore the fact that a MU needs fewer XP to reach 11th level than any other class except a thief or druid.)

Grenades don't light underwater. Yeah, I know, magic.

<snip>

Magic breaks the rules. Its why its magic.

I'm not sure about your position on magic. If magic is magic, why can't a fireball work underwater?

There are corner case, and then there is rationalizing an onrushing mage charging, dagger first, at a full-plated fighter with a greataxe...

Why would you narrate it that way, and introduce absurdity into your fiction? The notion that a fighter with a greataxe wrongfoots a mage armed only with a dagger strikes me as pretty plausible.

I'd say that CaGI fails. The gnolls (assuming they're not stupid, I don't know the average gnoll Int off the cuff) have a superior tactical position and the halfling is at horrendous disadvantage. The power isn't wasted, but the halfling hurls threats and insults, the gnolls respond with some arrows that miss, and the halfling reconsiders his tactics.

Why are you adjudicating Come and Get IT as taunts in this sort of case?

With CaGI it's the same thing. All these theoretical "corner cases" with the wizard and the archers, and the halfling with a toothpick are simply that "corner cases" that I'm coming up with in my mind. I think gnoll archers would be highly susceptible to CaGI from a halfling with a toothpick. They are cruel pack animal creatures. They see weakness and they pounce. But that's just me.

Nice way to do it.

That's actually the point. Perhaps the gnolls, chaotic and evil, pounce on the halfling looking for hobbitburgers. But perhaps they're guarding something. Perhaps they enjoy they're position of cover, or perhaps they're waiting for some other prey to come buy. That is for me, the DM, to decide.

Well, not if Come and Get It is in play. That's the point of the power - it shifts authority over these NPCs' actions, in this context, from GM to player.

An Ability like CaGI takes the DM's right to play monster's intelligently away from him

That's the point. A high Charisma, or a Charm spell, do the same thing - take the GM's power over NPCs away. Slightly orthogonally, Come and Get It also contributes to a fiction that is more like a roleplaying game and less like a boardgame or wargame - sometimes the NPCs act irratitionally (just as happens in the real world).

The DM has three jobs: Referee (rules-adjuster), Narrator (scene setter), and Loyal Opposition (monster runner).

I'm surprised that the person complaining that the "prone" condition, in 4e, doesn't always have that literal meaning, offers a definition of "referee" which is so far from ordinary usage!

I am happy with the GM as referee, but "referee" means "rules applier and adjudicator", not "rules adjuster".

His job is to make sure all three of these things are in balance. He has the right to smack down those who use one area to break down another. If using the rules breaks either the setting of world (verisimilitude, if you will) or his ability to run encounters in a reasonable, challenging way, the DM has imperative to put on his referee hat and smack that rule down.

You seem to be adding in a couple of extra jobs here that you didn't mention in your list of three above: setting/verisimilitude preserver; runner of encounters in a reasonable and challenging way.

As for the first of these, I agree that is something the GM has special responsibility for. But given that the players have certain abilities, verisimilitude/genre appropriateness is to be preserved consistently with the action resolution mechanics. Thus, when the halfling with the toothpick uses Come and Get It, a GM preserving versimilitude will narrate it like D'Karr suggestsed, rather than as taunts that fail. When a PC falls over an impossibly high cliff but has enough hit points to survive, a GM preserving verisimilitude will narrate the divine providence that saves the PC, rather than just break the rules and tell the player "Sorry, you're dead."

I've not yet encountered an instance where I have to break the rules to preserve verisimilitude.

if someone otherwise happy running 4E who doesn't want the players to have any kind of narrative control, then said DM should ban CAGI and/or house rule it to work some other way. They should not allow it under some mistaken fidelity to the letter of 4E making power choice a player decision, but then effectively neuter that decision by arbitrarily imposing their vision of the power.

Agreed.

One of the things I'm a little unclear on in this discussion is exactly what players/PC's should and shouldn't be aware of...

<snip>

what about a situation where I've decided that in my world fire elementals can't be hurt by fire... do I need to inform or consult the players about this?

<snip>

Do the players/PC's know all the capabilities, vulnerabilites, powers, etc. of the various monsters? Should they before engaging with them?

My feeling is that the answer to these questions will be very table-specific.

There is a tradition in D&D of the GM surprising the players by sprining mechanically unpredicatable monsters on them. If a group plays with that tradition, the answer to your questions is presumably No.

There is also a tradition in D&D of ingame options to learn about monsters: ask a sage (in AD&D); draw on your own training as a scholar (monster knowledge checks in 4e - and 3E?). If you give the players full info about monsters in advance, you negate those options. This might be a problem at some tables, depending on the players' expectations for how their PCs might deploy those ingame options.

Then there are broader, thematic issues: many players are going to assume a lot of radiant vulnerability for undead, because (i) it is tradition, and (ii) it is mechanically expressed via many divine powers. Changing that, as a GM, is a big enough change that I think for many groups it probably should be called out and discussed in advance. Because now we're not making one ooze immune to "prone" - we're making a big change to an underlying presumption of a whole category of monsters and of PC powers.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

One of the things I'm a little unclear on in this discussion is exactly what players/PC's should and shouldn't be aware of... I get if a DM decides to change how a power works overall the knowledge of that change should be shared with the players... But what about a situation where I've decided that in my world fire elementals can't be hurt by fire... do I need to inform or consult the players about this? Is this any different than me creating a custom monster that is similar to a fire elemental but that has invulnerability to fire? Do the players/PC's know all the capabilities, vulnerabilites, powers, etc. of the various monsters? Should they before engaging with them?

I don't really disagree with the various answers thus far, but for my part I had something a little more abstract in mind. Namely, consistency in the spirt of the rules. As a practical matter, I've found it easer to communicate that then the details, though obviously a certain amount of consistency in details is required to get overall consistency.

So to use your example, I have no problem with running a world where fire elementals can't be hurt by fire (or the opposite or some partial version of either). I may or may not inform the players of this beforehand. I may or may not allow this information to be found by clues, lore checks, roleplaying with sages, or only by experience. But however I do it, you can bet your last copper piece that any ice elementals are going to work in parallel ways.

That is, particular instances are taken as parts of the larger pattern, and this is true even if no other particular instances are readily encountered. The pattern is expressed in the spirit, and is used to make my rulings.

Now, that leaves the custom monster, who by definition breaks the pattern(s). I might have something like that. However, if I do, it will be an exception with a reason, and most likely that reason is something that the players can discover if it interests them enough. I don't mind having exceptions, as long as they are consciously exceptions, and tracked as such. (I often need notes for this kind of thing, where the patterns I can internalize and keep in my head for months at a time, even if I change them the next campaign.)

Finally, as is probably obvious from the above, I do believe that "system" is the rules used plus whatever local/campaign changes one makes, and then modified by the social contract and cues of the participants. So it's the whole thing that I'm concerned with transmitting the spirit of, not necessarily the RAW in the book. For example, it's typically important in my group that obscure NPCs have a name, even though everyone knows that it is made up on the spot by someone at the table, often overtly. That implies a certain spirit about the narrative that is different than, say, a DM who religiously names every minor NPC to some world-specific pattern. My way would seem arbitrary to an outsider, but it has a pattern at our table.

Edit: I should also say that I usually pick 2-5 fairly moderate to major things to change, and then proceed to change the heck out of them for a given campaign. But I don't typically change anything else, or at least keep it rather minor and unimportant if I do. Our long-standing group thrives on having such surprises, but if everything changes, we lose all consistency. I think the same thing works within the campaign if you have consistent "elemental resistance" rules across fire, ice, etc. even if the nature of those rules changes in the next campaign.

Were I running for a group of experience D&D players that were new to me, I'd either restrain this impulse, or more likely let them know it is a now ingrained tendency, and then ask them what they thought about it. I certainly would not make such a major change that radically changed what certain classes could do or not do, without informing the group ahead of time.

 

[Bluenose]

In 1E the narrative was wizardry was hard, difficult, and scholarly which took time and so you had a steeper curve versus say thievery. Was it fair? was it balanced? Was it a satisfying narrative? All arguable.

Then perhaps the rules should have attempted to reflect this supposed narrative, and actually made casting spells hard rather than 100% reliable. As they actually made thievery hard, 50% chance to do things other than Climb Walls being beyond Thieves for several levels, I'd suggest wizardry was the easy skill for slow learners would be a good interpretation of what the rules say about the world.

With Vancian casting its clear fluff came first (Jack Vance's novels) and what we have is Gygax's clunky attempt to model that with AD&D mechanics. It may be bad mechanics, it may not even fit the fluff well (if you read Jack vance's novels, you'll know what I mean), but the fluff certainly influenced that mechanical expression.

I rather suspect that your interpretation of what came first, the mechanic or it's justification, is exactly the wrong way round. The concept that you can't keep throwing around powerful spells all the time without unbalancing the game came first, and "Oh, that's Vancian magic!" came later.

 

[Imaro]

You miss mine.

AEDU mechanics don't jump out and say anything about the character. They are shared between all classes - and the thing they say to me is story pacing. Default background/1 per scene signature move/1 per episode piece of awesome.

1/episode??? Where are these powers located at? I thought it was once per day... I kinda agree encounter powers are pacing (since they are based on a meta-game consruct... (the encounter) but there are no per episode powers and a day is an in-game construct.

 

[Aenghus]

One of the things I'm a little unclear on in this discussion is exactly what players/PC's should and shouldn't be aware of... I get if a DM decides to change how a power works overall the knowledge of that change should be shared with the players... But what about a situation where I've decided that in my world fire elementals can't be hurt by fire... do I need to inform or consult the players about this? Is this any different than me creating a custom monster that is similar to a fire elemental but that has invulnerability to fire? Do the players/PC's know all the capabilities, vulnerabilites, powers, etc. of the various monsters? Should they before engaging with them?

Take for instance the example of a PC specialising in fire damage. If the adventure you are running with this houserule involves fighting with lots of fire immune elementals, that PC is going to be less useful, maybe a lot less useful, and probably much less fun to play.

Houserules like this should be known to the players, IMO, if they significantly affect the game. While this takes away a little discovery, that sort of discovery can only happen once, I personally would like to avoid discoveries like is "My PC is useless for this campaign, I'm going to act as drain on group resources, or need to roll up a new PC" (I've seen this happen, it's happened to me, it's a symptom of poor communication and a referee prioritising his idea of the game over player satisfaction).

If they are only dealing with a few elementals, then keeping this secret from the players is more viable.

 

[Imaro]

Take for instance the example of a PC specialising in fire damage. If the adventure you are running with this houserule involves fighting with lots of fire immune elementals, that PC is going to be less useful, maybe a lot less useful, and probably much less fun to play.

Houserules like this should be known to the players, IMO, if they significantly affect the game. While this takes away a little discovery, that sort of discovery can only happen once, I personally would like to avoid discoveries like is "My PC is useless for this campaign, I'm going to act as drain on group resources, or need to roll up a new PC" (I've seen this happen, it's happened to me, it's a symptom of poor communication and a referee prioritising his idea of the game over player satisfaction).

If they are only dealing with a few elementals, then keeping this secret from the players is more viable.

But, and this is getting at the heart of the matter, in an exception based game where every monster is exception based... is having fire resistant monsters or fire immune monsters houseruling?

 

[slobo777]

But, and this is getting at the heart of the matter, in an exception based game where every monster is exception based... is having fire resistant monsters or fire immune monsters houseruling?

I would say not, technically it's Homebrewing.

Whether or not it is then fair, for the group as a whole, is still open to debate, whatever you categorise your game setup as.

It may be better to either to explain that the game world concept makes a fire specialist a bit vulnerable, or that you have a problem in general with over-optimisation. Given that both the DM and player will have invested a fair bit into the game by the point it crops up in play . . .

 

[D'karr]

Houserules like this should be known to the players, IMO, if they significantly affect the game. While this takes away a little discovery, that sort of discovery can only happen once, I personally would like to avoid discoveries like is "My PC is useless for this campaign, I'm going to act as drain on group resources, or need to roll up a new PC" (I've seen this happen, it's happened to me, it's a symptom of poor communication and a referee prioritising his idea of the game over player satisfaction).

This type of communication is very similar to when the player of a 3.x ranger decides to choose a particular monster as his favored enemy. If as a DM, I know that there will be no interaction with that particular monster, in the campaign, I'll talk to the player and help him select something that might help him better.

Changing one monster here, or there to have a particular immunity is no big issue. Custom monsters are a "staple" of D&D. Changing all Fire Elementals to have fire immunity might be a bit much, but I think it's still perfectly within the spirit of the game. Probably Ice Elementals should then have Cold Immunity. Sometimes the characters encounter some things that they didn't expect. Though in the case of elementals the immunity might be a valid "customization".

If all creatures the characters ever encounters will have this immunity, and that will screw the plans of one of the players that is a different issue. Communication is the key to not make it an issue.



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