Legends & Lore: A Few Rules Updates

[Plaguescarred]

A Few Rules Update
Legends & Lore
By Mike Mearls

In this week’s Legends & Lore, Mike talks about the latest rules refinements for D&D Next.

What do you think of these?

 

[Savage Wombat]

Looks OK. I'm glad they're addressing the multi-actions problem.

 

[Blackwarder]

I dislike the passive perception in exploration, it takes us back to the days when DMs knew the passive perception scores of their players and while stocking their dungeons had to decide if the PCs will find the trap/hazard or not.

I wouldn't mind if coupled with passive perception, the traps/hazards would roll for their "hide" check against the PCs passive perception, that way you still got a measure of randomness in the game so it wouldn't be predetermined.

I would also want the passive perception to work at full efficiency on the slow pace, anything above and you got a small penalty.

Warder

 

[JamesonCourage]

The speed penalty for smaller characters and dwarves doesn't differentiate them from the other races in any interesting way.

I suppose if it was the only thing that differentiated them, this would be true. But, speed not making a difference? Ask any group who played 4e. Or had a party that walked somewhere (probably at low levels) where time was a factor.

Also, I don't get this:

Moreover, goblins and kobolds have had a speed of 30 feet since the days of 3rd Edition, so in some ways, we're simply adjusting gnomes, halflings, and dwarves to an existing standard.

Heavy armor is . . . well, heavy, so making your Strength play a role in its effectiveness is intuitive.

Okay, so, we're changing shorter legs to higher speed because game (fun?). Also, we're changing heavy armor to be easier to wear if you're strong because game (intuitive). I'm not sure what they're judging things on. I just don't see the consistency yet.

As far as the rest goes, it sounds meh. Not bad, just nothing interesting. Closing rule abuse? Good, glad it happened (not sure why action abuse is apparently a problem this late in the game, though). Passive perception? Meh, good for certain groups, but easily toggled on/off, so not a big deal (unless they strongly tie it into the rest of the exploration rules). Overall, just meh, other than my confusion above.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I'm ambivalent about passive perception. On the one hand, it's nice to cut down on die rolls in the exploration rules (since in my experience, that's all the exploration rules boiled down to). On the other hand, it makes dungeon design weird. The DM knows the players' passive perception scores, so does he make something that the party will definitely detect, or something the party will definitely not detect?


Also, it adds even more upside to Perception, which is already the most useful skill.


For myself, I'd rather not rely on game rules for perception (I think it's more fun to have the players ask questions and describe how they're searching), and I'm wondering if this will make it easier or harder to run a game the way I want.

 

[howandwhy99]

I wouldn't mind if coupled with passive perception, the traps/hazards would roll for their "hide" check against the PCs passive perception, that way you still got a measure of randomness in the game so it wouldn't be predetermined.

This is my answer too. At least until I can go read the article some more.

 

[dd.stevenson]

For myself, I'd rather not rely on game rules for perception (I think it's more fun to have the players ask questions and describe how they're searching), and I'm wondering if this will make it easier or harder to run a game the way I want.

Exactly my take on it. As long as the rules don't make it too hard to cut Perception out of the game when its not wanted, I'm good.

 

[Argyle King]

Quick thoughts...


I like passive perception as a concept, so no complaints from me there.

I have felt there was a problem with Extra action stacking, but somehow the answer isn't satisfactory either. I think it's something that needs to be addressed, but something about the very arbitrary limit and one of the metagame structures of the game suddenly becoming much more visible bothers me. It's weird; they're doing a good thing by fixing something that I feel should be fixed, but, somehow, even though I (think I) agree with the method being used to fix it, I don't like the feel of it.

Heavy armor... in general, the way D&D tends to handle armor bothers me, so I try not to think about it too much.

 

[Plaguescarred]

I am not against the idea of using Passive Perception as it usually simplify things. Good to hear Exploration has been simplified and standarized even more.

I like the idea of Bonus Action streamlined mechanic with a limited usage frequency of 1/round as it will limit possible abuse. I am not sure Two-Weapon Fighting's additional attack should be a Bonus Action though, as its supposed to be one's bread & butter, not something that interfere with (pseudo) action economy so its more balanced.

As for character speed, i liked that there was a variety among races for speed so not a fan of this one speed fit all. I like that shorter races may be slower such as the halfling or that more athletic ones may be faster, such as the wood elf.

 

[delericho]

Not a big fan of the change to character speeds. Perhaps Mearls is right that it didn't differentiate races in an "interesting" way, but it seemed a good place for one of those "nods to realism" he's talked about in the past.