D&D 5E 07/29/2013 - Legends & Lore It’s Mathemagical!

[GX.Sigma]

Well, look... if players at your table can't be bothered to read their character sheets to find the big "Save DC 14" written there... that's their problem, not WotCs. I don't want the designers to hamstring their own designs in order to placate lazy players. If they can find their attack bonus and damage for their attacks on their character sheet... they can find their Save DC.

Most of the people I play with are not hardcore TRPG players. They still struggle to remember that they have an attack bonus and not just a flat d20. The designers should be making it easier for people like them to play, not harder.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Don't get what bonus, the stat bonus? So effectively, in easy mode, you are only proficient in your classes skills, can try anything else at +0. In standard mode, obviously ability to specialize in a skill and lose proficiency in one you had (or skill points or something). Again, you can always try something, but a +0.

Effectively, a dexterous cleric +3 is as useless at "Dex" checks as a clumsy one -3 ... hmmm, not liking. Could have major pain points in multi-classing.

But, just therory-craft; will wait and see

You're mistaken. The +1 through +6 is a proficiency bonus (the name is mine).

For all checks, you roll d20 + ability modifier. If you have a related proficiency, you add your proficiency bonus. If you are specialized, you add double your proficiency bonus.

 

[bogmad]

2) While I can't say this for sure... that seems like a likely direction. Not all spells require a saving throw either, usually just the offensive ones.

I guess the sweet spot to design for, spell wise would be to have an estimated amount of spells that a caster is going to throw out as damage spells. Usually, low level, a lot of people might tend to pick the damage spells more than utility. Say a 3rd level mage has 4 spells slots total and uses them mainly for attack, then as he progresses in level try and build it to where he has the same amount of attack spells available in most fights as he always has. He just gets more and more utility spells to round him out without making him the quadratic power-wizard of past editions.
Of course how many spells are set aside for damage vary wildly enough among players and playstyle that it's largely a guessing and approximation problem and unlikely to please a lot of people. And then you also have to train players to not expect they'll have 100 chances to throw out a fireball like you may have had in past editions

 

[DEFCON 1]

I agree with your last statement - but doesn't this make the whole spell level, spell slot system a needlessly complex exercise? If you want to cast sleep, it's to achieve a particular effect. If you want to cast fireball, it's to achieve a particular effect. If you are low level, those effects are modest and easy to save against, if you're high level they are spectacular and harder to save against (at least for the same enemies). You get 'better' spell slots to cast 'better' spells as your level gets 'better' - so why can't we just give you a fixed number of spells you can cast in a day and ignore what level they are cast at?

Emphasis mine.

The answer is because not all spells will have or need more powerful versions of them, and we don't want our most powerful spells to be cast more than once per day (in the case of 6th level spells or higher.)

If you have 10 spells prepared for the day (one of which is Wish) and you have a set number of spells per day like you mention... what's to stop someone from casting Wish as many times per day as you have spells? Is that really what you mean, because that's what I got from what you said. Therein lies the road to madness.

You assign spells to levels so that you can only cast certain numbers of spells a certain amount of times per day. And this is exactly how it's always been done since the beginning of D&D. It's never been much of an issue, so I fail to see the reason to change it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Most of the people I play with are not hardcore TRPG players. They still struggle to remember that they have an attack bonus and not just a flat d20. The designers should be making it easier for people like them to play, not harder.

I'm sorry... but you don't have to be a hardcore TRPG player to just read your character sheet.

The sheet says-- Longsword: +5 to attack / 1d8+4 damage. If a player can't handle that... then that's their problem. WotC can not (and should not) idiot-proof the game to remove all player responsibility.

 

[variant]

I am worried that +12 will be too much.

 

[Grazzt]

But it's still either a math problem you need to do while playing, or something you write down and need to refer to while playing. There is no way that's good for gameplay.

If the character sheet has a space for "Spell DC" and you list 10 + stat modifier, and then just add spell level as the spell is cast....that's not really that disruptive. Simple math. "Ok my spell DC is 13. If I cast a 3rd level spell....13 + 3 = 16" A magic-using character likely has the "base spell DC" (10 + stat mod) memorized I would assume. Just add spell level. Done.

 

[Li Shenron]

Ugh, one of my least favourite features of 4th edition: everyone progresses at the same rate. One of the major advantages of bounded accuracy was that you didn't need this, because the specialist and the untrained characters wouldn't be that far apart. Fighters could get +6 to hit with weapons and Wizards nothing (unless they invested), skill modifiers would be capped at some bonus so the stealthy Rogue could still dabble in acrobatics, whilst the Thief-acrobat could be better than average at both. We've been reduced to three levels: you can't do it - no bonus, you can do it - bonus according to your level and you're great at it - double that. Where's the nuance?

That was also possibly one of my least favourite features of 4e.

I hate it with a passion when this is how skills work, that a high level PC that has never ever bothered climbing, using diplomacy or blacksmithing, is automatically better than a lower level PC that has been investing and doing it since day 1.

Oddly enough, it doesn't bother me that much when applied to attack tho... A Wizard with same BAB as a Fighter... yes it does feel odd, but still the Wizard is going to have lower Strength and swing a staff, and has no special maneuvers to use, so the Fighter doesn't feel penalized and the Wizard can occasionally contribute to the fight when spells-sparing. I am not sure, but I can accept this for attacks. After all, attacking is always pretty much a yes/no check.

Skills on the other hand are not binary, there are different possible things you can do depending on your score, and different degrees of success. Furthermore, using a skill is most of the time an individual's effort (and it's usually over in one roll) so I prefer niche protection of the PC who choose to specialize, while attacking is a group effort that requires many rounds.

Ugh, we're going back to save DCs for spells that are 10 + stat + spell level? Hooray for making low-level spells less useful, once again.

DEFCON stole my words:

No.. the spells themselves are still useful. It's the spell SLOTS that lose their usefulness.

I also don't like very much having to calculate the DC every time you cast a spell, but OTOH this system actually keeps lower level offensive spells still useful!

 

[Stalker0]

I agree. However, I'm a little concerned if that's the formula since saves appear to be going up by +6 over 20 levels, but DCs would appear to go up by 9, given the 9 levels of spells. It means the higher level you get, the harder it is to save against spells you would expect to face.

Its even a bit worse than that. Since classes tend to acquire ability scores/magic items to focus on certain stats, some saves tend to scale a bit more than others. A wizard who smartly targets saves can eek out a few more effective DC at those high levels.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

Emphasis mine.

The answer is because not all spells will have or need more powerful versions of them, and we don't want our most powerful spells to be cast more than once per day (in the case of 6th level spells or higher.)

If you have 10 spells prepared for the day (one of which is Wish) and you have a set number of spells per day like you mention... what's to stop someone from casting Wish as many times per day as you have spells? Is that really what you mean, because that's what I got from what you said. Therein lies the road to madness.

You assign spells to levels so that you can only cast certain numbers of spells a certain amount of times per day. And this is exactly how it's always been done since the beginning of D&D. It's never been much of an issue, so I fail to see the reason to change it.

Spell levels were originally to ensure that significant effects like Wish were obtained when you were high level, whilst things like Magic Missile were available right away.

We've already seen a good attempt to scale spells according to the spell slot they use - I admire this, I'd like to see more of it, and I think it takes a bit of a lack of imagination to figure out how to chain these effects into a single spell or make the spell scale up or down.

I also understand that we don't want every spell a Wizard casts to be Wish (personally I think that's because Wish should be a ritual and rituals shouldn't be contained within this spellcasting system). Spell slots can achieve this fairly well, agreed, but still, the 9 levels of quantisation and the maintenance of the lowest level slots is unnecessary. But even if we keep that, your spells could be arranged in a pyramid, 1x9, 2x8, 3x7, 4x6 and that's it. I could come up with a full scheme I'm sure.