D&D General Hit Points. Did 3.0 Or 3.5 Get it Right?

[Schmoe]

That's cool. In my experience 3.5 was all about save or die and buff spells.

We had situations where fireball was great. This is why I said: usually. Level times d6 damage in 3.5 was not what it used to be in 2e, as hitpoints were so much higher on both sides of the screen.

Fighters did not fear 5d6 damage, nor did level appropriate challenges.

Maybe with 5e encounter design we had made the same experience as you. But back then we usually did not fight lots of lower level foes.

Different tables, different experiences.

• A 5th level wizard against a party of 3rd level PCs (a hard encounter): A single fireball could easily wipe out 2-3 of them and leave the rest hanging on by a thread.
• A 5th level wizard against a party of 5th level PCs (an on-level encounter): A single fireball could put down the arcane and bring the rest of the party to 1/2 HP or lower.
• A 5th level wizard PC against a horde of 12 orcs: Instant death, encounter over
• A 5th level wizard PC against a pair of ogres: Not optimal, but anywhere between 16 and 35 points of damage for a single action (on average)

Sure, it's not optimal all of the time, but a far cry from a wasted action. In fact, in my current game Fireball has held up surprisingly well into 12th level.

 

[Celebrim]

That's really only true if that fortune is going to be evaluated as a direct comparison between the parties involved, or if both parties are making a comparison against a static obstacle. Attack vs. AC breaks down if the characters can't hit or be hit, and a wall that must be climbed, a rogue can definitely climb and a cleric definitely can't, for example.

Alright. I agree you understand the problem.

But I don't understand how what you are declaring is the solution is a system design issue rather than an encounter design issue.

Ideally the game design task should be using fortune in a more interesting way than those direct comparisons. It's not a problem if wall climbing is an ability only in one character's skill set, if the situation at hand has more points of interaction and could be solved in multiple ways (and especially if climbing is only one step in a broader set of necessary actions).

Agreed, but that seems to be a tangential comment. If the problem is, "I need to get over the wall", then different characters might have different approaches to the problem such as "I jump over the wall", "I cast a spell that lets me levitate.", "I shape change into a bird", "I summon a spirit to carry me over the wall", "I ride my giant hornet steed over the wall." as well as the more straightforward "I climb the wall", and additionally you might have dynamics of "I'm the problem solver here." such as "I climb the wall and let down a rope for others to use." or "I use telekinesis to lift us all over the wall." Additionally, climbing might not be the only way to deal with the wall - they might break through it like the juggernaut, teleport to the other side, find a side door and unlock it, disguise themselves as a servant or teamster and con their way through the gate, or turn invisible and sneak through the gate when it is opened for another party. But none of that is particularly relevant to the problems that explain why high-level play starts breaking down nor does any of that have anything to do with fortune mechanics or system but rather simply how capable the GM is with dealing with broad approaches to problem solving both in designing for it and handling it when it happens.

The worst possible use of randomness is "roll high enough to win." Ideally the gameplay should exist above that, with the fortune representing a risk for players to evaluate in their declared move, instead of the inevitable arbiter of success.

This is where your explanation starts really breaking down for me. I can't think of a single system that has fortune and doesn't have "use randomness to determine if you were lucky enough to win" (whether roll high, roll low, or roll enough successes). The gameplay always exists above that and the fortune always represents risks for players to evaluate in their declared move as well as the arbiter of success. You've provided no counterexample nor is it obvious what the counterexample would be.

 

[Schmoe]

Fireball in 3.Xe was designed for a type of game that was no longer the majority of popularity when 3e came out: random or on the fly dungeons with random/otf monsters

Fireball was for when a DM said "Surprise. You made a bunch of noise so 3d6 orcs!"
A squad of 11-20 1st level orcs plus 2 3rd-level sergants and 1 leader orc of 3rd-6th level.
A 5th-6th level wizard's fireball kill all the regular orcs, half the sergants, and takes the leader down to 12hp.

The question is now, how many times has a DM thrown 20 orcs at you at once since 2000?

I've done it a bunch. Parties like to flex their muscles sometimes, and mowing through a horde of enemies is a great opportunity for that. It gets boring when every encounter is with 2-4 level-appropriate opponents. There are limits, though. I wouldn't send a patrol of 20 orcs standard orcs against a 10th level party. But 20 orcs against a 5th level party still presents a tactical challenge that can turn deadly quickly if they aren't dealt with swiftly. Variety is the spice of life, and all that.

 

[Pedantic]

Alright. I agree you understand the problem.

But I don't understand how what you are declaring is the solution is a system design issue rather than an encounter design issue.

Oh, I wouldn't argue that point, except insomuch as the system should make it clear what an "encounter" entails. I think most of the scaling issues people have with D&D come down to mistaking a pit or an army or a locked door as an evergreen problem.

Agreed, but that seems to be a tangential comment. If the problem is, "I need to get over the wall", then different characters might have different approaches to the problem such as "I jump over the wall", "I cast a spell that lets me levitate.", "I shape change into a bird", "I summon a spirit to carry me over the wall", "I ride my giant hornet steed over the wall." as well as the more straightforward "I climb the wall", and additionally you might have dynamics of "I'm the problem solver here." such as "I climb the wall and let down a rope for others to use." or "I use telekinesis to lift us all over the wall." Additionally, climbing might not be the only way to deal with the wall - they might break through it like the juggernaut, teleport to the other side, find a side door and unlock it, disguise themselves as a servant or teamster and con their way through the gate, or turn invisible and sneak through the gate when it is opened for another party. But none of that is particularly relevant to the problems that explain why high-level play starts breaking down nor does any of that have anything to do with fortune mechanics or system but rather simply how capable the GM is with dealing with broad approaches to problem solving both in designing for it and handling it when it happens.

Yeah, my proposition here is that the problem should never be "a wall." The wall should be contextualized as part of a broader situation, and it should ultimately be alright for "walls can't stop this character" to be true.

This is where your explanation starts really breaking down for me. I can't think of a single system that has fortune and doesn't have "use randomness to determine if you were lucky enough to win" (whether roll high, roll low, or roll enough successes). The gameplay always exists above that and the fortune always represents risks for players to evaluate in their declared move as well as the arbiter of success. You've provided no counterexample nor is it obvious what the counterexample would be.

I'm drawing a line between a specific action declaration and "winning." The gameplay should be in deciding actions to deploy, and whether each action has a 100% or 65% chance of success is another data point in that decision making, not the ultimate challenge itself. Success or failure might come down to a die roll, but rolling dice isn't the gameplay. In our wall example, a game that puts all characters between 60-80% chance of success at wall climbing, and doesn't offer any other action when faced with a wall but to make that roll and see isn't a particularly compelling design.

Basically, you're right that if the game is entirely down to a recurring set of randomizer rolls, then you'd want all the participants (averaged out over all rolls in the game's lifetime) to have relatively equal chances of success, but just solving that problem doesn't actually make for a good game (see skill challenges). Better to focus on how and why you're deploying randomness in the first place, which as you suggested above, is largely an issue of encounter design.

 

[Celebrim]

Different tables, different experiences.

• A 5th level wizard against a party of 3rd level PCs (a hard encounter): A single fireball could easily wipe out 2-3 of them and leave the rest hanging on by a thread.
• A 5th level wizard against a party of 5th level PCs (an on-level encounter): A single fireball could put down the arcane and bring the rest of the party to 1/2 HP or lower.
• A 5th level wizard PC against a horde of 12 orcs: Instant death, encounter over
• A 5th level wizard PC against a pair of ogres: Not optimal, but anywhere between 16 and 35 points of damage for a single action (on average)

Sure, it's not optimal all of the time, but a far cry from a wasted action. In fact, in my current game Fireball has held up surprisingly well into 12th level.

Agreed. Also in my experience, in a battle between wizards who are squishy and yet resistant to save or suck, the wizard with the bigger fireball has a significant advantage. One of the few PC deaths in my long campaign that didn't occur because of poor player choices was in the long awaited fight against the BBEG of the first few years of the game occurred because the BBEG opened the fight with an 8d6 fireball centered on the party and ended up basically one shotting the party's wizard with a high roll and a failed save (IIRC, the PC was out of narrative currency as well).

And that doesn't even get into the fact that if you really did feel direct damage was not effective, it takes very little support in terms of feats to alter that math enough to make it competitive with just about anything.

Again, I think that direct damage in 3.X was largely fine and well balanced and suffers only in comparison to the win button it was in 1e/2e AD&D and the win button that was save or suck spells in RAW high level 3.Xe D&D, or in comparison to some of the brokenness you could achieve through spellcasting PrCs.

 

[Staffan]

Which is perfectly fine and reasonable. But as you level up, weird things happen. Let's say you have this thing you are good at and so have a 75% chance of success and that makes for a reasonable test. At low levels of play, probably every member of the party has a 40-50% chance of being able to succeed in that same task, so whatever the task is you can face it together or work on it together - your character just probably gets more spotlight during that challenge because that's "the thing you are good at" whether it is combat, parkour, evasion, investigation, or whatever. But as you level up, any test you have a 75% chance of succeeding at, your colleagues now have like a 5% chance of succeeding at.

4e and 5e both have tried to deal with this math by making everyone level up at everything, but one consequence of that is that you never get really good at something even if it is the thing you do. This is more observable in non-combat challenges in those systems than in combat challenges. For combat, both 4e and 5e usually do reasonably well albeit get grindy (the topic of this thread). For non-combat verisimilitude often demands "I have a 95% chance to craft a masterwork sword and you have a 0% chance to do it."

That's why some things should just be a thing you can do. If you have X level in Crafting (however that's expressed), you can make masterwork items. If you don't, you either can't or have a fairly low chance.

I mean, we have many, many class abilities that work like that in D&D. The barbarian can rage. There's no roll for it or anything, it just happens. The barbarian's increased focus over their rage is reflected by being able to rage more often and/or getting more benefits out of it, but unless there are some sort of artificial calming shenanigans going on, the barbarian can rage on demand. And if you're not a barbarian (or get access to the Rage ability somehow), you can't. You can get angry, but it won't help.

 

[Minigiant]

The Leverage crew always struck me as a bit too competent for a game with challenges. Also, really not a fan of meta-currency if it can be avoided.

Well eventually PCs will get to that level of competency.

That's the crux of the issues.

Humaniods will get better. Giants and dragon's hides will get tougher.

So HP has to grow. Or AC. Or both. And you have to accept and guide the process instead of pretending it won't happen

 

[jgsugden]

The answer to your issue is having the PCs do less damage and reduce hit points across the board. You know, like they did in the old days.

So - rather than have the monsters have 60 hit points and the PCs deal 15 per strike, you'd prefer the PCs deal 10 per strike and the monsters have 40 hit points?

That is going to turn out to be essentially the same situation. Either way you need 4 hits to take a foe down. This is essentially a meaningless change. The only difference is that you reduce how precisely you can control hit points when you make the reduction you suggest. It isn't two bad at the levels I propose above, but people that played the old 'Dungeons and Dragons Minis' game in the early 00s can tell you that they limited themselves severely when they followed that idea to an extreme. It worked ok for a quick skirmish game - but it was pretty weak overall.

 

[Voadam]

4e and 5e both have tried to deal with this math by making everyone level up at everything

I can see this in 4e where all skills and defenses and attacks went up one every two levels, but in 5e it is only proficiency bonus that goes up with levels, so only attacks and some skills and saves get better. More than half of the saves and skills never advance.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well eventually PCs will get to that level of competency.

That's the crux of the issues.

Humaniods will get better. Giants and dragon's hides will get tougher.

So HP has to grow. Or AC. Or both. And you have to accept and guide the process instead of pretending it won't happen

But it doesn't have to grow as fast as it does in WotC D&D, or as evenly.