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

[VinylTap]

I am worried that +12 will be too much.

That's why its called a play-test...

Its a nice system that gets more complicated as it goes on. At first you've only got your level one spells going into level one slots, next you've got a bit more flexibility... and even more as you go on. I don't think its unreasonable... just a new way of looking at it. You can always cap a spell if you have to (max 6d6). Instead of having people figure out which version of "cure wounds" they should remember, you just have your one spell and you can stick it in any slot you want for more or less effectiveness.

The only problem is figuring out how you wizard is going to keep track of all this with 10-15 slots at high level.

 

[Dausuul]

Why is everyone assuming that spell DCs will scale one for one with spell level (so a 9th-level spell has a DC 8 points higher than a 1st-level spell)? That seems highly unlikely to me. Mearls only said spell level would "factor in" to save DC, which could just as easily mean you add 1/2 or 1/3 the spell level.

That said, I share the dislike for varying spell DCs. Like GX.Sigma, I get tired of reminding the casual players at my table which of the five zillion numbers on their character sheet they're supposed to be using now. And I do not regard this as a "fix your broken friends" problem, I regard it as a "fix your overly complicated rules" problem. IMO, if you can learn to play Munchkin, you should be able to learn the basic version of D&D.

I hope they find a better solution.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

Mearls and Crawford have been saying for months now that to them, math fixes were the easiest thing for them to do, so rather than worry about that through the early part of the playtest, they focused on the "shape" of mechanics (my phrasing). Do people like Advantage? Do they like the Skill Die? Do they feel like they have enough interesting things to do as a fighter? The Barbarian is a good example, as it came out incredibly imbalanced, and the design team said this was on purpose, because they could always scale back the numbers, but they wanted people to get a clear take on the class features.

Now, the counterargument is that it helps to get a feel for a mechanic if the math is right. But the question is, does that apply to everyone? And just how close does the math have to be? I suspect the take of Blackwarder's group is not uncommon. "Okay, the math is a bit out of whack here. Note it in the feedback and move on."

4e has some of the tightest math in D&D since Moldvay, particularly in comparison to 3e, so I think math is a highly salient feature for many 4e fans. And the common refrain I see is, "Why didn't they work out the math first, and then fit the mechanics around it?" I think they did to an extent with bounded accuracy. And they expected to tweak it as things went on. Here's the thing though -- 4e has real tight math, and people understandably love it. But there seems to be this tendency to believe that 4e had it's tight math worked out from the beginning, and I'm not sure there's support for that. The designer notes for 4e note when the team broke through on certain mechanics, but not on the math. Given that the game was released with monster math still a bit out of whack, and Skill Challenge math still a bit out of whack, I'm inclined to believe that on 4e, like on Next, much of the design was done using approximate math, and the math was further tweaked and refined late in the design stage, like on Next.

I suspect that when the finished game is released, we'll have much tighter math than we've seen through much of the playtest. But I also suspect that the tightness will fall somewhere between 3e and 4e. While 4e has shown there's a big market of people who want tight math, the success of 3.x and Pathfinder show that there's another significant market of people who don't need it quite so tight. I think there's a fear there that making the math too tight will turn some folks off. I don't think that's how it should be, but unfortunately WotC has to design as much to perception as to execution. 4e showed them that you could make the math tight, and give folks tools to adjust it, but that's not how some folks want to D&D.

This. A thousand times this. We're seeing exactly what we should have been expecting to see at this point in the process. When the math fixes in this L&L make their way into a packet, they'll get plenty of feedback on what still needs to be tweaked and have plenty of time to implement it and playtest those fixes as well.

That said, I can honestly say that, wonky numbers aside, I'm already immensely pleased with Next. Even if the final product was as unbalanced as the playtest is now (and I agree that the final math should be between 3.5 and 4e in tightness), I'd be happier with a homebrew tweaked-math version of Next than I would be with either 3.5/Pathfinder or 4e; the speed of play and modular complexity are precisely what I've been wanting in my D&D.

The other common complaint I've been seeing in regards to Next is that each packet is becoming increasing complex and less rules-light. Which I don't think anyone needs to really worry about because we've already been told repeatedly by Mearls to expect Basic / Standard / Advanced tiers in the finished product. The increasing complexity we're seeing in the packets is them haphazardly implementing Standard and Advanced optional rules to see what sticks. When all is said and done, you'll be able to turn dials and drop rules subsystems to your heart's content, which is what 3.5 was always terrible at and the main reason I'm so on board with everything we've been hearing about Next.

 

[DEFCON 1]

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.

To be fair... my formula of 10 + mod + spell slot level is completely made up. It's what I've guessed as a possibility, but is in no way what it actually is. There are all kinds of ways to calculate the Save DC formula to get whatever WotC needs the numbers to be.

The big thing though is just to allow low-level spells to be cast by high level characters and have them maintain some type of effectiveness. More damage and/or higher save DC per spell slot level is the way to be accomplish it.

 

[Elodan]

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.
!

I'm really hoping they rethink this (it bothers me on attacks too).

 

[Ainamacar]

What if DC did not inherently vary by slot, but some spells could improve the DC for casting in a higher-level slot, just like many currently do with damage? So high-level spells (i.e. high minimum level) would usually have super splashy effects, but the normal DC. Some lower level spells could be cast in higher slots, but they trade the splashy effects off for greater reliability. That actually gives similar spells (but with different minimum level) separate niches while keeping the math simple.

Edit: Clarification about setting the DC.

 

[DEFCON 1]

That said, I share the dislike for varying spell DCs. Like GX.Sigma, I get tired of reminding the casual players at my table which of the five zillion numbers on their character sheet they're supposed to be using now. I do not regard this as a "fix your broken friends" problem, I regard it as a "fix your overly complicated rules" problem. IMO, if you can learn to play Munchkin, you should be able to learn the basic version of D&D.

I hope they find a better solution.

I dunno... I don't find calculating 10 + ability mod + (some number that is reflective of the spell slot you cast a spell in) to be all that complicated. Not when you can write it down on your character sheet.

Even Munchkin makes you read the cards if you want to play it. Why you would expect anything less for D&D is beyond me.

 

[Dausuul]

I dunno... I don't find calculating 10 + ability mod + (some number that is reflective of the spell slot you cast a spell in) to be all that complicated. Not when you can write it down on your character sheet.

I will repeat myself: I get tired of reminding the casual players at my table which of the five zillion numbers on their character sheet they're supposed to be using now.

Arithmetic is not the problem here.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I will repeat myself: I get tired of reminding the casual players at my table which of the five zillion numbers on their character sheet they're supposed to be using now.

Arithmetic is not the problem here.

If you're tired of asking your players what their Save DC is... then why don't you write them down yourself? That way you always have them and you never have to ask. Just like all the DMs did for Passive Perception and Passive Insight.

Problem solved, and it means WotC doesn't need to dumb the game down to avoid players shirking personal responsibility of remembering where the numbers on their sheet are.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I will repeat myself: I get tired of reminding the casual players at my table which of the five zillion numbers on their character sheet they're supposed to be using now.

Arithmetic is not the problem here.

The problem is that there will ALWAYS be these numbers on your character sheet. Even without changing DCs, we still have 6 stats and the modifiers for each. We have hp, ac, bonuses to hit and damage(possibly different bonuses to hit and damage with different weapons), gold/currency, number of uses of any class abilities you have as well as damage and effect, and saving throws(which are currently just the stat modifiers, but it sounds like they'll have to be separate numbers in the future due to getting scaling bonuses to them). If you are a caster then you also need to keep track of Spell DC and number of spells at each level.

If your players can keep track of the Approximately 25-30 numbers Wizards already have to keep track of then adding 8 more seems kind of a nobrainer. Especially given that having a place to put them on your character sheet simply means looking at under your spell DC section of your character sheet and checking level 3.

If they can't handle that, one would figure it would be nearly impossible for them to find their AC when you ask for that as well. It has all the same issues that spell DCs have.