Bugbears are Easy Kills (Play-Test)

[BobTheNob]

....

No, no, no. There is no such thing as automatic success in the real world. You could sneeze and miss a helpless Kobold.

You could break your pick off in a lock. There is always a chance for Mr. Murphy's failure.

Automatic successes, damage and half-damage is boring. It would be a deal breaker. Game designers please kill automatic success in a flame strike.

Hmmm. This is interesting. I find it interesting because it is how I USED to think about it. Till one day I picked up a game system called FATE. Very different to D&D, but very cool piece of design. FATE takes an entirely different approach to what a tabletop should be doing, its not an in depth mechanical marvel (though it is a highly elegant concept) but it stresses time and again (and again) that the purpose of the game is to create narrative...

...pause...

...what? Isnt the point of RPG's to level up, get new powers and kit and find new ways to smite my foes? Well, if I was playing diablo 3 (which I am btw) the answer would be yes. For a table top RPG, Im more for what FATE said = its about narrative.

When you sit down with a group, ultimately what you are doing is collectively telling a story, where the DM sets the framework, and the players then fill in. You work together to tell a tale of heroic proportions.

So now I start thinking, what do rules exist for? Simple, to enable narrative. To make the story happen. This, frankly, was an epiphany for me, and my thinking about what mechanics and rules did shifted.

So now I ask myself, "does automatic success enable narrative?". Well, the rogue automatically picks the lock and the door opens. Fine. Its rewards the characters capability at the same time as keeping the story rolling forward.

Now, your right in saying "The lock pick could have broke" or "the mechanism could have had rust" or any one of a number of reasons for justifying the chance of failure. But for me, we are not trying to simulate the real world. What we are trying to do is tell a story, and automatic success does that just fine.

More than fine, it keeps things moving forward, so we dont get bogged down in rolling, and we dont get "stuck" because the gate is not "unopenable" and we have to spend the next hour trying to think of an alternative. No, the story keep progressing, and in doing so, we can get more done with the play time available. Which, to me, is very exciting.

 

[Grazzt]

There's minor variance between minimum 1 and 0 points of damage dealt... but under no edition of D&D (or any other system) has a penalty to damage resulted in healing, and there's no logical reason for anyone to ever think it could heal, so I think we're all fairly safe there

True- but it would be funny as hell to see the halfling rogue with say Str 6 stabbing the crap out of Mr Fighter cause the cleric died, they had no way to heal, and no one wanted to make the journey back to town.

 

[triqui]

The ElfWizard just has to sneeze a MagicMissile in a Kobold's direction and the little lizard fries. Not very exciting.

Not very different to most other editions, except some kinds of kobolds in 4th (minions die too)

In the weapons table it says that the morningstar is a 1d10 damage weapon.
In the bugbear's stats it says it is a 2d4+2 damage weapon. +2 comes from the strength advantage. Where does the 2d4 come from?

Weapon proficiencies seem to change weapon damage. See the fighter axe damage.

I finally understand the Rogue's take 10. It was also explained that if the DC+5 is less than the character's 10+skill ranks that he or she doesn't have to roll.

No, no, no. There is no such thing as automatic success in the real world. .

A surgeon that kills 5% of their appendicitis patients will find himself sued.

I noticed that when the Kobold attacks with damage of 1d4-2 that if it rolls a 1 that means the character gets healed +1 hit points. This was a problem in other editions. We made a rule that said that the damage is just 0. But still. I think 5th edition should eliminate all negative damage bonuses for this reason.

Negative damage has never healed the target, minimum was 1. If you are going to play the devil's advocate role and attack everything in the playtest, you should at least try not to make up points.

 

[heptat]

Now, your right in saying "The lock pick could have broke" or "the mechanism could have had rust" or any one of a number of reasons for justifying the chance of failure. But for me, we are not trying to simulate the real world. What we are trying to do is tell a story, and automatic success does that just fine.

More than fine, it keeps things moving forward, so we dont get bogged down in rolling, and we dont get "stuck" because the gate is not "unopenable" and we have to spend the next hour trying to think of an alternative. No, the story keep progressing, and in doing so, we can get more done with the play time available. Which, to me, is very exciting.

I think the OP is right in raising the issue of auto-failures – there's always some chance you will fail. Problem is, as posters have already pointed out, 5% is too large for a lot of skill checks (but hey, maybe not when you're under stress, eg. in combat). This is why a system that uses a normal distribution for skill checks is good. 2d10 means there is 1% chance of an auto fail, and 3d6 means there is 0.5% of an auto fail (although GURPS takes 3 and 4 as an auto fail, which is about 2%). I guess Wizards are not going to replace the d20 any time soon (although hey, I'd love to see 2d10 as an *option*).

But BobTheNob has hit the nail on the head – story telling is the key. I find that looking at the Halfling Thief, he doesn't even have to roll to open a typical lock (DC15) and this just feels *right* (for my group at least) during play.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It was also explained that if the DC+5 is less than the character's 10+skill ranks that he or she doesn't have to roll.

No, no, no. There is no such thing as automatic success in the real world. You could sneeze and miss a helpless Kobold.

All the folks above give pretty good reasons why 5e might want to include the rule, but if it still bothers you, it's really easy to turn off. It's something a DM has the option to do. They could just not use that option.

I don't think I actively used the rule once in my playtests so far, but I like having it for situations that aren't very tense.

 

[SteveC]

Just a quick note: there's nothing in the playtest that indicates you do a minimum of 1 damage. Now that doesn't mean you heal damage, but if you're going by what's written, you can certainly deal 0 damage. Probably a good note for something to add a definitive statement about.

 

[Stormonu]

The ElfWizard just has to sneeze a MagicMissile in a Kobold's direction and the little lizard fries. Not very exciting.

Yes, so now the 1 kobold is dead. Too bad his 12 remaining friends are peppering you with sling stones or poking you with spears.

Magic missile, in every edition, has always killed single kobolds, no questions asked, no save and right between the eyes. The only thing that's changed is the wizard gets to throw a magic missile every round now ad infinatum, ad nauseum.

By the way, this little stunt doesn't work so well against goblins or creatures tougher than rats or kobolds. Even goblins have a 75% chance or better surviving a single magic missile and the Slayer's strike won't kill one on a miss.

 

[The Shadow]

What if automatic success passes its save? Should it take half damage?

The divine half of the damage might prove tricky, if the gods feel strongly enough about it.

 

[Stalker0]

No, no, no. There is no such thing as automatic success in the real world.

While true, in the real world most tasks don't have a 5% chance of failure for the stuff we do....more like .0001%

 

[Quickleaf]

While true, in the real world most tasks don't have a 5% chance of failure for the stuff we do....more like .0001%

In support of your claim, I have never gouged myself with my toothbrush.