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

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

The math behind ​

D&D Next is the focus of Mike’s article this week. Find out where things are now and learn about what the team plans to tackle in the more immediate future.


Read it all in here: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130729

Warder

Blackwarder said:

Warder

Click to expand...

Just a note: I can't easily read this on a black background (which is what I use). Just a heads up.

On to the post:

Mike Mearls said:

We want to focus on growing hit points, rather than attack or saving throw bonuses (or DCs), as the way we reflect growing character power.

Click to expand...

Ew. I strongly dislike this. HP has enough blips in it that I'd rather downplay it, rather than focus on growing it. Also, I'd rather those growing in power have effects that connect more regularly or are harder to resist (against weaker creatures). Two strikes for me in this statement.

Mike Mearls said:

Since the gap doesn't grow too large, you don't have to rely on system mastery—your mastery of how to manipulate the game system—to make an effective character.

Click to expand...

You can do this with scaling bonuses and classes (see 4e). It works especially well if your other options don't break this (don't allow broken Orb Wizards / Pixie Chargers, or Batman Wizards / CODzillas). You can have completely broken characters due to system mastery even if you don't scale things too much (such as letting Wizards pick which stat they attack with spells, while their save DCs are high).

Mike Mearls said:

Since AC, attack, and saving throw numbers don't grow too much, low-level monsters can still hit and damage you (though for a smaller portion of your hit points) as you reach higher levels.

Click to expand...

I have no problem with this. I like it

Mike Mearls said:

Saving throws against effects that take you out of the fight, like a ghoul's paralysis, mess up monster scaling. A ghoul is equally deadly to a 3rd- or 17th-level fighter. If either one blows a saving throw, the fighter is out of the battle.

Click to expand...

Yes. Scaling would fix this.

Mike Mearls said:

Our skill DCs are out of whack. They don't match up well with the actual bonuses that characters accrue at all levels.

Click to expand...

Yes. Looks into fixing this, please.

Mike Mearls said:

Those changes are as follows:

• We're instituting a consistent bonus progression for characters...
• For characters who are truly experts in some areas, that bonus can go as high as +12...
• The optional skill system allows you to reach +12...
• We're plotting out monster saving throw DCs by level so that lower level critters have lower save DCs than higher level ones...
• We're pushing the DCs used by player character casters down a bit and factoring effective spell level into the equation...
• We're revising the DC table to match our expected bonuses...
• It's not clear if we'll continue to use a skill die or swap to a flat bonus...

Click to expand...

Wow, I'm impressed with all of these. These all sounds like positive changes, and trying them out and getting feedback will be good. Good job, Mike. Though, go ahead and change the skill die to a flat bonus. I do hate me some skill dice... As always, play what you like

1) Any reason this was started as a separate thread, rather than adding to [MENTION=14391]Warbringer[/MENTION]'s earlier one?

2) I echo the 'black text' comment, and

3) The main thing I find surpassingly odd, here, is why skill bonuses can go up to +12 but attacks only go up to +6?? Looked at from one perspective, attacks are just skills in "weapon use" or "fighting" and "magic use" or "spellcasting". Why do non-combat skills, specifically, have to have double the expertise range?

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk 4 Beta

I honestly did not see the other thread

Edit: I'm using the default font and color, haven't changed anything since registering
Warder

Everything there seems sensible, but we'll have to see how it plays out. I'm not sure why +6/+12 rather than +5/+10, which are nice divisions of a d20. I am also happy to see the back of the skill dice, let's stick with a d20+X universal mechanic.

And now, a suggestion. The problem with certain effects, such as paralysis and stun, is that the saving throw model insists they be make-or-break. You save, no worries, you don't, goodbye. Could a specific condition not be broken into an ascending scale to represent that condition? My idea is a little like the progression of petrification in 4E, where each failed saving throw would make things worse until you were a nice new piece of decor. A suitable example would be paralysis: stage 1 halves your speed, stage 2 denies you your move action and stage 3 denies you all physical actions. This is basically slow -> immobile -> paralysis. How would it operate in practice? Well, for any given spell or effect, a saving throw would reduce the result by one level - save against ray of frost and you can move fine, save against hold person and you can act but not move. For creatures such as ghouls, they don't paralyse you with a successful attack, they add another stage of the effect if you fail your save. So if a ghoul hits you three times and you save once, you're immobile, save twice and you're slow, and so on. For the duration of effects, you should be able to take a mental action to attempt a saving throw against some effect on you - so if paralysed, you can will yourself back in the game. Obviously this makes stun the most powerful effect as it would deny mental actions, but stuns should (hopefully) never last more than a round.

It gets better though, because you can start to play with the way monsters make saving throws. Legendary creatures don't need their handful of autosaves, simply give them an impressive save bonus, a legendary action to make a saving throw, and locking them down will be hard, but not a waste of time if they save, since you'll still immobilise or slow or something them, you still deny them some action somewhere. It also brings in the idea of lots of low-level guys having a chance against a high-level thing, since a small group of spellcasters could all cast the same spell and effectively make Ray of Frost act to paralyse.

Mearls writes:


I find this interesting, and a little surprising. I would have thought getting this stuff right is a big deal, and something you'd try and sort out early rather than late. How can you judge whether a fighter plays over- or underpowered, for instance, if you're not testing the real system maths which gives you a real sense of how often s/he hits and how often s/he saves. Mutatis mutandis for thieves and skill checks.

Hm, just realised through a second reading that spell save DCs will be tied to spell level. I'm not sure I like this. Firstly it's a 1-9 scale, whereas most other things are working on a 1-6 (or the sum of two 1-6s) scale. Secondly, spell effects already scale with spell level. Thirdly, how will a high spellcasting ability score help you if you don't use direct attack spells?

pemerton said:

Mearls writes:

our playtest data is showing that while people notice this issue, it isn't distorting the game as a whole​

I find this interesting, and a little surprising. I would have thought getting this stuff right is a big deal, and something you'd try and sort out early rather than late. How can you judge whether a fighter plays over- or underpowered, for instance, if you're not testing the real system maths which gives you a real sense of how often s/he hits and how often s/he saves. Mutatis mutandis for thieves and skill checks.

Click to expand...

I haven't played Next for a couple of months now but I'll try to answer that, IMX D&DNext lend itself better to fudging rolls or changing stuff on the fly, much better than 4e or 3e were for me, another thing from my testing groups is the fact that the player tend to look more at what is cool and how you do it than at the math of the game, my groups look at this as a playtest and they are currently more interested in the basic mechanics than bonuses and such and when we do find mathematical inconsistencies they just mark it down for comment on the surveys.

My point is, the math was never the make or break thing for our groups, and I suspect that it's the same thing for many more people.

Warder

Sounds like a plan! I am onboard with the concept if it help better balance the game.

Also on board with allowing the option to build your own subclass through available class features selection for complete class customization as long as class features are enought balanced against each others.