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5E imbalance: Don't want to play it
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<blockquote data-quote="Lokiare" data-source="post: 6262247" data-attributes="member: 83996"><p>Nope. You are mischaracterizing my argument. Go back and read it again. Let me rephrase it for you to make it clearer (I know I am not the best communicator):</p><p></p><p>Wizards have more flexibility than Fighters, not only this but they can deal the same amount of damage as fighters (which is one of the things that Fighters are supposed to be good at). In addition they can shut encounters down without dealing damage, just recently I did the math on the Web spell in the last public packet. If not changed low level casters will be able to shut down encounters that don't have fire for 2-4 rounds. At higher levels it will be 4-6 rounds.</p><p></p><p>I could care less if 5E is different from 4E. I'm sure there is some way to balance Vancian casting with at-will attacks (Fighters vs. Wizards in 5E), however they aren't doing it in 5E from what we can see.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No where did I say 4E didn't have imbalances. It had less imbalances and was harder to break than editions previous to it. It was a step forward to the kind of game I want to play. It was not the end goal.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is another mischaracterization. I am talking about flexibility and the ability for casters to outmatch other classes with their spells. So their emergent property is that they can do anything in the game where a non-caster character can only do a few things.</p><p></p><p>We don't have to have power riddled fighters. We can have a simple fighter that gets static bonuses right alongside a Fighter that can expend, burn, or whatever expertise dice to simulate a more tactical type experience. The mistake people make is assuming it has to be one way or the other and can't be both at the same time (but not for the same character).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I can only work with the facts and evidence that has been presented. What we've been presented so far does not indicate they will make any changes to alleviate my fears. They could well change the entire game up before release, but there are no INDICATIONS that this is going to happen.</p><p></p><p>We've been over this before: Absense of evidence is not proof of change.</p><p></p><p>Now if I've missed an article where they talk about fixing these things or discuss them, please, post a link. I'll definitely read over it and change my tune. For now though there is no EVIDENCE or FACTS to base a change of my opinion on.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Can you explain (and possibly give an example) of how I could frame my concerns in a more 'constructive' way without losing any of the content?</p><p></p><p>If all I have to do is present solutions to the problems, I've already done that in other threads. If needed I'll do it in this thread too and we can discuss that.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I understand why they don't have OA's in 5E, but the problem is if you add them in with a module then you end up changing how everything works and class features and spells completely change. A spell that was not overpowered can become worthless or overpowered with a change like this. Something like Stinking Cloud that stops creatures from taking actions, suddenly becomes a game changer because as long as they can't take an action to turn or OA the Rogue can now sneak attack every round with no problems. Suddenly that BBEG goes down in 2 rounds instead of 5. There are many of these interactions. Fear is another one. Suddenly creatures must flee and take OA's left and right. Which means a group using the tactical module get 4-5 extra attacks per round. They run up hit the target and then the target runs and then they get OA's.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The effects of the change will alter the balance of the classes. A class that can only get sneak attacks when the target isn't aware of them, suddenly gets to sneak attack much more often because being behind someone qualifies in the same way that flanking qualifies. Spells that prevent movment suddenly become ultra important instead of other spells.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree with this and they should design the game this way and let modules redefine keywords. Unfortunately keywords were used heavily in 4E and so they will be largely forgotten in 5E, when they could be used to solve 85% of the problems most of us have with the game.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I disagree. Combined with Zones, OAs and other 4E mechanics, it made the game much more tactical. You could set up a zone and force move an enemy into the zone so that on the start of their turn they took damage or gained a negative condition. You could move a bunch of enemies into the knights aura (or a player out of an enemies aura) to completely change up the situation in an encounter.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I've already explained why this doesn't work, without 5' OAs character can alway move to the most advantagous position (even if your back is against the wall they can move to your side and get a lesser bonus). It ends up with the best tactic being to go back to back with an ally or find a wall to put your back to. It just recreates a different kind of static battle rather than a dynamic tactical battle.</p><p></p><p>They can't add any option that is so good it obviates the need for another option and that's about all facing does.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There are already too many things that eat your reaction up. Its already an overloaded mechanic. If you can spin using your reaction, then there is no point to facing. You could easily just say "lose your reaction if a creature moves around you or take a -2 penalty to AC and saves" and save quite a bit of page space.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>No it really can't. I'm basing things on math and logic and its pretty clear that facing was removed from the game for some very good reasons.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>1) Refuted, it only matters to eat up your reaction or everyone gets it.</p><p>2) See 1.</p><p>3) Movement is no more encouraged than if you gave them a choice between a +2 or take away the enemies reaction. In fact movement is discouraged because characters would go back to back and stand still or find a wall and stand still.</p><p>4) It really doesn't. It encourages a 'best way to play' which should be discouraged.</p><p>5) You haven't demonstrated this, unless you mean back to back play which is static and not tactical. It becomes one of those non-choices.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Complexity is almost never a good thing on its own. If you add complexity you want to be sure and add more choices or a better play experience and facing really doesn't add enough to justify the complexity.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The problem is different conditions and benefits and penalties have different effects on the game. If you add something like this into a tactical module you completely change the balance of the game. You would have to test every combination to realize that the Fighter can impose 3 conditions and deal quite a bit of damage each round and that might be a little overpowered (though still not as powerful as the casters).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is the classic either/or arguement. Having codified powers in no way prevents improvisation. A codified power should only be slightly more reliable, but anyone can try anything, which is why I liked 4E's page 42. It worked great. You could emulate a powers effecs, but you usually had to make some kind of skill roll which meant you had less chance of succeeding, but nothing was off the table. In fact in my 4E level 1 game yesterday I had a Rogue improvise an attack by jumping through a hole in a roof and landing on a gnoll. In 4E when you improvise, the DM, can choose to make it a skill check against a defense which I did and because getting back up to the hole in the roof would have been a pain and taken a few rounds I chose the medium limited damage category so the Rogue did slightly more damage than his regular attack.</p><p></p><p>The only benefit a codified power gives is reliability.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is very situational. It only works if you will deal twice as much damage the next round than you would if you just attacked or if there is some negative condition you apply that is worth giving up your potential damage. I can see for thematic reasons that this might appeal to people, but from a mechanics perspective it doesn't make sense at all.</p><p></p><p>In fact I made an encounter where the players were in a locked room against a golem that was many levels higher than them. There were holes all around the room and I wanted them to try to defeat it by pushing it into a hole. At first they tried this, but after a few rounds of not being able to do it due to some unlucky rolls, they realized how much damage they could have done and switched to attacking it with daily and encounter powers and overcame it coming close to death. It was literally better for them to deal damage to it than to try to push it into a pit.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Unless people were swapping out characters every session, the powers didn't change. You got a new power on level up and an option to retrain one power you already knew. So maximum on some session changes you might have each player having up to 2 powers you didn't know about. In fact this problem is worse in 5E because casters can swap out quite a few 'powers' on each extended rest.</p><p></p><p>"I thought you had fireball, that's why I clumped them up for you." "Nope, I have lightning bolt this time."</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Which is not in and of itself bad, but with everyone having that ability it cheapens classes whose features grant them the ability to apply one of those conditions. If a Monk's big draw is his ability to grapple, when suddenly everyone can grapple, then there is no reason to play the Monk.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>For the most part, with the exception of low level, casters will almost never run out of spells and due to the neo-vancian system they can choose several negative condition spells and cast the one they want when they want. Which makes them extremely versatile. You can also improvise and do it anyway, which would make a tactical module that granted things like this redundant.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The monster part is true, but the rest of it is not really true. I've proven mathematically over and over that the casters are not anywhere balanced with non-casters, not even close. In fact you would have to add quite a few powers to non-casters to get them close to the level of the casters. However that's not what I want added to the game in anyway. I want additional choices at level up, and from round to round that make sense within a class and promote tactical play. Giving everyone the same options does not promote tactical play. It gives them an optimal handbook that they then repeat over and over and it doesn't matter what class they are playing.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree with this, modules content should work regardless of class choice, however this is just a reason not to put it in a module. It should be baked into the game at a core level with the option of ignoring it or of choosing another option instead. Otherwise you end up with modules conflicting and possibly skewing the balance of the game to extremes.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The key difference is that each class had unique powers so that you had to choose a class and then choose powers that complemented your party or formed a strategy. This would not be so in a universal tactical module.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is only true in 4E because everyone has enough hit points to withstand several hits so its actually beneficial to impose a condition that will give everyone an advantage. In 5E this isn't so. There is no condition in the game worth giving up an attack, because most of the time an attack that deals damage is enough to bloody or defeat an enemy.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The thing is even with the more simple Essentials classes you could get many tactical options because of things like aura's and stances or a choice of at-will attacks. Complexity has almost nothing to do with tactical choices. You can have very simple tactical choices based on just a few emergent properties.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not sure how this post applies to anything I've posted in this thread, can you point out specifics?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lokiare, post: 6262247, member: 83996"] Nope. You are mischaracterizing my argument. Go back and read it again. Let me rephrase it for you to make it clearer (I know I am not the best communicator): Wizards have more flexibility than Fighters, not only this but they can deal the same amount of damage as fighters (which is one of the things that Fighters are supposed to be good at). In addition they can shut encounters down without dealing damage, just recently I did the math on the Web spell in the last public packet. If not changed low level casters will be able to shut down encounters that don't have fire for 2-4 rounds. At higher levels it will be 4-6 rounds. I could care less if 5E is different from 4E. I'm sure there is some way to balance Vancian casting with at-will attacks (Fighters vs. Wizards in 5E), however they aren't doing it in 5E from what we can see. No where did I say 4E didn't have imbalances. It had less imbalances and was harder to break than editions previous to it. It was a step forward to the kind of game I want to play. It was not the end goal. This is another mischaracterization. I am talking about flexibility and the ability for casters to outmatch other classes with their spells. So their emergent property is that they can do anything in the game where a non-caster character can only do a few things. We don't have to have power riddled fighters. We can have a simple fighter that gets static bonuses right alongside a Fighter that can expend, burn, or whatever expertise dice to simulate a more tactical type experience. The mistake people make is assuming it has to be one way or the other and can't be both at the same time (but not for the same character). I can only work with the facts and evidence that has been presented. What we've been presented so far does not indicate they will make any changes to alleviate my fears. They could well change the entire game up before release, but there are no INDICATIONS that this is going to happen. We've been over this before: Absense of evidence is not proof of change. Now if I've missed an article where they talk about fixing these things or discuss them, please, post a link. I'll definitely read over it and change my tune. For now though there is no EVIDENCE or FACTS to base a change of my opinion on. Can you explain (and possibly give an example) of how I could frame my concerns in a more 'constructive' way without losing any of the content? If all I have to do is present solutions to the problems, I've already done that in other threads. If needed I'll do it in this thread too and we can discuss that. I understand why they don't have OA's in 5E, but the problem is if you add them in with a module then you end up changing how everything works and class features and spells completely change. A spell that was not overpowered can become worthless or overpowered with a change like this. Something like Stinking Cloud that stops creatures from taking actions, suddenly becomes a game changer because as long as they can't take an action to turn or OA the Rogue can now sneak attack every round with no problems. Suddenly that BBEG goes down in 2 rounds instead of 5. There are many of these interactions. Fear is another one. Suddenly creatures must flee and take OA's left and right. Which means a group using the tactical module get 4-5 extra attacks per round. They run up hit the target and then the target runs and then they get OA's. The effects of the change will alter the balance of the classes. A class that can only get sneak attacks when the target isn't aware of them, suddenly gets to sneak attack much more often because being behind someone qualifies in the same way that flanking qualifies. Spells that prevent movment suddenly become ultra important instead of other spells. I agree with this and they should design the game this way and let modules redefine keywords. Unfortunately keywords were used heavily in 4E and so they will be largely forgotten in 5E, when they could be used to solve 85% of the problems most of us have with the game. I disagree. Combined with Zones, OAs and other 4E mechanics, it made the game much more tactical. You could set up a zone and force move an enemy into the zone so that on the start of their turn they took damage or gained a negative condition. You could move a bunch of enemies into the knights aura (or a player out of an enemies aura) to completely change up the situation in an encounter. I've already explained why this doesn't work, without 5' OAs character can alway move to the most advantagous position (even if your back is against the wall they can move to your side and get a lesser bonus). It ends up with the best tactic being to go back to back with an ally or find a wall to put your back to. It just recreates a different kind of static battle rather than a dynamic tactical battle. They can't add any option that is so good it obviates the need for another option and that's about all facing does. There are already too many things that eat your reaction up. Its already an overloaded mechanic. If you can spin using your reaction, then there is no point to facing. You could easily just say "lose your reaction if a creature moves around you or take a -2 penalty to AC and saves" and save quite a bit of page space. No it really can't. I'm basing things on math and logic and its pretty clear that facing was removed from the game for some very good reasons. 1) Refuted, it only matters to eat up your reaction or everyone gets it. 2) See 1. 3) Movement is no more encouraged than if you gave them a choice between a +2 or take away the enemies reaction. In fact movement is discouraged because characters would go back to back and stand still or find a wall and stand still. 4) It really doesn't. It encourages a 'best way to play' which should be discouraged. 5) You haven't demonstrated this, unless you mean back to back play which is static and not tactical. It becomes one of those non-choices. Complexity is almost never a good thing on its own. If you add complexity you want to be sure and add more choices or a better play experience and facing really doesn't add enough to justify the complexity. The problem is different conditions and benefits and penalties have different effects on the game. If you add something like this into a tactical module you completely change the balance of the game. You would have to test every combination to realize that the Fighter can impose 3 conditions and deal quite a bit of damage each round and that might be a little overpowered (though still not as powerful as the casters). This is the classic either/or arguement. Having codified powers in no way prevents improvisation. A codified power should only be slightly more reliable, but anyone can try anything, which is why I liked 4E's page 42. It worked great. You could emulate a powers effecs, but you usually had to make some kind of skill roll which meant you had less chance of succeeding, but nothing was off the table. In fact in my 4E level 1 game yesterday I had a Rogue improvise an attack by jumping through a hole in a roof and landing on a gnoll. In 4E when you improvise, the DM, can choose to make it a skill check against a defense which I did and because getting back up to the hole in the roof would have been a pain and taken a few rounds I chose the medium limited damage category so the Rogue did slightly more damage than his regular attack. The only benefit a codified power gives is reliability. This is very situational. It only works if you will deal twice as much damage the next round than you would if you just attacked or if there is some negative condition you apply that is worth giving up your potential damage. I can see for thematic reasons that this might appeal to people, but from a mechanics perspective it doesn't make sense at all. In fact I made an encounter where the players were in a locked room against a golem that was many levels higher than them. There were holes all around the room and I wanted them to try to defeat it by pushing it into a hole. At first they tried this, but after a few rounds of not being able to do it due to some unlucky rolls, they realized how much damage they could have done and switched to attacking it with daily and encounter powers and overcame it coming close to death. It was literally better for them to deal damage to it than to try to push it into a pit. Unless people were swapping out characters every session, the powers didn't change. You got a new power on level up and an option to retrain one power you already knew. So maximum on some session changes you might have each player having up to 2 powers you didn't know about. In fact this problem is worse in 5E because casters can swap out quite a few 'powers' on each extended rest. "I thought you had fireball, that's why I clumped them up for you." "Nope, I have lightning bolt this time." Which is not in and of itself bad, but with everyone having that ability it cheapens classes whose features grant them the ability to apply one of those conditions. If a Monk's big draw is his ability to grapple, when suddenly everyone can grapple, then there is no reason to play the Monk. For the most part, with the exception of low level, casters will almost never run out of spells and due to the neo-vancian system they can choose several negative condition spells and cast the one they want when they want. Which makes them extremely versatile. You can also improvise and do it anyway, which would make a tactical module that granted things like this redundant. The monster part is true, but the rest of it is not really true. I've proven mathematically over and over that the casters are not anywhere balanced with non-casters, not even close. In fact you would have to add quite a few powers to non-casters to get them close to the level of the casters. However that's not what I want added to the game in anyway. I want additional choices at level up, and from round to round that make sense within a class and promote tactical play. Giving everyone the same options does not promote tactical play. It gives them an optimal handbook that they then repeat over and over and it doesn't matter what class they are playing. I agree with this, modules content should work regardless of class choice, however this is just a reason not to put it in a module. It should be baked into the game at a core level with the option of ignoring it or of choosing another option instead. Otherwise you end up with modules conflicting and possibly skewing the balance of the game to extremes. The key difference is that each class had unique powers so that you had to choose a class and then choose powers that complemented your party or formed a strategy. This would not be so in a universal tactical module. This is only true in 4E because everyone has enough hit points to withstand several hits so its actually beneficial to impose a condition that will give everyone an advantage. In 5E this isn't so. There is no condition in the game worth giving up an attack, because most of the time an attack that deals damage is enough to bloody or defeat an enemy. The thing is even with the more simple Essentials classes you could get many tactical options because of things like aura's and stances or a choice of at-will attacks. Complexity has almost nothing to do with tactical choices. You can have very simple tactical choices based on just a few emergent properties. I'm not sure how this post applies to anything I've posted in this thread, can you point out specifics? [/QUOTE]
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