D&D 5E What needs to be fixed in 5E?

[KarinsDad]

For example, I think the DMG needs some discussion of how to narrate combat and how variations in that technique generate different a different tone in the campaign. For example, if every "hit" is a solid hit instead of an experienced dodge that turns an otherwise lethal strike into a bruising glance, then high level characters will end up absorbing heroically (or comically) large amounts of unrealistic physical injury.

I agree. But, my narrative view is slightly different.

Years ago pre-4E, I came up with a concept of Cure Light healing 25% of damage, Cure Moderate healing 50% of damage, and Cure Critical healing 75% of damage.

It didn't matter if a Cure spell or potion was used on a commoner, or a King. They both healed the same relative amount.

This is how I view damage in 4E.

PCs are actually getting damaged to some extent. A 50% hit point shot at level 3 is identical to a 50% hit point shot at level 23.

To me, such a shot is not a minor bruise. It's a slightly cracked rib and the reason PCs run out of healing surges is that there is only so many slightly cracked ribs that a PC can have before attrition sets in.

If 100% of hit points means that a PC is unconscious, that PC is not fatigued. That PC is not asleep. That PC is seriously hurt.

Even in 1E, hit points were not just damage, they were a series of detrimental effects. But, they were still damage as well.

4E has for the most part, removed damage from the equation almost completely for hit points. A PC is only really damaged if s/he fails 3 death saving throws and dies. Otherwise, the PC is napping.

Every hit should not be a "solid damaging hit". But, hits should still do damage, even if it is minor bruising.

The game mechanics should mirror the narrative that hit points represent. It's not just luck and it's not just dodging. It's also actual damage.

For ease of game play, the designers said "Oh well, a PC can use as many healing surges as required to get fully healed during a short rest" destroys the narrative when the PC was 1 death saving throw away from dying a moment earlier. I would prefer that 4E put some more magic back into healing, at least if the DM wants to play a grittier more narratively plausible game.

These are aspects of D&D that I think lost their way in 4E and I think that the game system should have optional rules for this type of thing. A 4E version vs. a pre-4E version as options.

For example, an optional rule that a Warlord cannot do more than just hand out Second Winds. The Warlord is not actually healing his allies in a grittier game, he's merely encouraging them.

 

[KidSnide]

I agree with [MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION] 's comment on Fly and Teleport. I think of Teleport as being "particularly magical", and I think it was a mistake to give that ability as a racial talent for a PH1 race. Yes, it's just a conceit, but conceits about the gameworld are important. 4e takes the view that long-range teleportation is difficult, typically requiring the assistance of teleportation circles and the like. I think that's cool, but it's a little odd seeing every Eladrin capable of a short-range version of the same thing.

Oh, and [MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION] , this may be a pet peeve of mine, but I find your ideas interesting and worth reading. Your writing is much easier to follow when it is organized into paragraphs. I don't think the past few posts did justice to the ideas you are trying to express.

-KS

 

[Fanaelialae]

Regarding teleportation and flight, I think that as long as the system maintains reasonable internal consistency, it's fine.

For example, in the world from the Wheel of Time novels magical teleportation is feasible, but flight is impossible. A caster can levitate others with magic, but they can't lift themselves even an inch.

 

[SkidAce]

[MENTION=2011]KarinsDad[/MENTION], see if you can get a copy of the Arcanum, first book in the Atlantean trilogy put out in the mid 80's I think. By Bard Games.

They do multiclassing by power source very similar to what you have laid out.

i.e. a fighter is pure martial, while a ranger would be nature/martial.

The book has been a source of inspiration for me since 85 or so, it has tons of great ideas and may be of some use to you.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I agree, but I would go on to say that 4e provides more room for this type of character than either of you is giving it credit for. While it might be fairly difficult to make a striker that convincingly pulls off the bumbling 'drunken master' type of shtick for an extended period of levels you can certainly do a pretty credible job of it with a leader or controller. There are certainly several builds like the lazy warlord that suite this trope fairly well. You can build a bard that is reasonably combat-challenged too, yet still quite effective in combat and even more effective in other situations.

Oh, I'm not saying you can't do that with 4e. I actually played such a character (bard warlord multiclass). However, it's a lot easier to say that the game supports such a concept if you create a class for that specific purpose. Otherwise the player has to carefully pick/reflavor powers and bodge features to purpose.

If the class actually exists, no one can complain that the system doesn't support the concept. They might still argue that they don't like the way it was implemented, but the concept definitively exists. The design space exists for it, so why not? That's all I was getting at.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, well, just think of Healing Surges as your real "hit points". That's the way I see it. The hit points you expend in fights in 4e is a lot like fatigue and other short term factors. When you hit 0 hit points you ran out of juice, luck, whatever, and yeah, someone obviously hammered you, you MIGHT die. OTOH you're very unlikely to actually die unless you were out of HS. Nothing says 'unconscious' must be strictly interpreted either. Your character might have given up, collapsed from exhaustion, be lying on the floor holding his hand over a bleeding wound, etc.

No system of hit points is ever going to perfectly conform to reality. The only question then is does it work reasonably as a game mechanic and can you provide reasonable narrative consistency? I think 4e does both QUITE well. I have no desire to see any changes there at all personally.

As for physics, you get to take it or leave it, there are no half measures. Neither flight as presented in D&D, nor teleportation are physically possible. There are no degrees of 'impossible', it is purely binary. You don't get to choose some laws of nature that you might be able to beat and others that you can't.

Really, tactical teleportation certain IS better than the 'extended hop' sort of flight you can get at heroic tier, yes. It is NOT AT ALL better than continuous flight, not even close. I never argued otherwise though. Teleport is heroic, continuous flight is paragon, so it makes perfectly good sense.

The real problem with these kinds of debates is that for a game designer they're a no-win proposition. There are at least SOME objective criteria for mechanical quality of a game, there are none for questions like "is teleportation more magical than flight?" or "should a warlord be able to heal someone?". To start down the path where you try to please everyone's tastes in a purely subjective category like that is a slippery slope, especially when the slope is the 'verisimilitude slope' or the 'realism slope'. You can only end in some kind of mire where the system is still unacceptable to some people and is also a lousy game to boot.

The choices they made are interesting RP choices and let players do a variety of different things. Nobody can say this or that were THE BEST choices in that regard, but there at least seems to be some method to their madness. We'll just have to mildly disagree on that one. Frankly if they exiled all teleportation to paragon tier, I wouldn't probably care all that much. OTOH I want to keep my 'action movie hero' style healing system. I like it

 

[KarinsDad]

Yeah, well, just think of Healing Surges as your real "hit points". That's the way I see it. The hit points you expend in fights in 4e is a lot like fatigue and other short term factors. When you hit 0 hit points you ran out of juice, luck, whatever, and yeah, someone obviously hammered you, you MIGHT die. OTOH you're very unlikely to actually die unless you were out of HS. Nothing says 'unconscious' must be strictly interpreted either. Your character might have given up, collapsed from exhaustion, be lying on the floor holding his hand over a bleeding wound, etc.

Except that healing surges are not just used for healing. They aren't "hit points". They are used for rituals, and environmental factors, and traps, and other game mechanics.

D&D hit points used to be the equivalent of Champions Body points. They were serious damage and required magic or serious rest to recover. D&D hit points are now the equivalent of Champions Stun points. They require a short rest to recover shy of being out of healing surges.

D&D hit points are no longer what they were. And the only reason for that is because of game designer perceived problems that really didn't exist in the game.

This is really one aspect of computer games that bled into D&D. Characters don't really get hurt (shy of dying) and they recover from their 'fatigue' quickly.

Healing surges are not the equivalent of Champions Body points because unlike earlier D&D versions of hit points, that is not the purpose of Healing Surges and it is very difficult for Healing Surges to be magically healed (they can be party shared somewhat easily). The main magical way to recover healing surges in 4E is the one hour Fantastic Recuperation ritual and even that is really just a way to do an extended rest faster.

If there is one thing that I hope they do with 5E, it's go back to hit points being (for the most part) real damage which requires magic or significant rest to heal. PCs not getting really damaged is silly.

Neither flight as presented in D&D, nor teleportation are physically possible. There are no degrees of 'impossible', it is purely binary.

Teleportation in D&D has more versatility and power, and should mechanically result in flight being lower level than teleportation. Just like Stunned has more versatility and power than Dazed where Dazed should be lower level.

There is nothing binary about the power and versatility of teleportation. It's just hands down better than flight in 4E, so it should be higher level and more rare. Just like any other more powerful effect.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

OK, you show me how your character can use a teleport to be permanently out of reach of the enemy for the whole encounter, which is often trivial with flying. Heck, I can fly over a wall, you can't teleport through it. Of course there will be specific tactical situations where you'd rather be able to teleport, but as a general thing I'd clearly rather have a flying speed than a teleport, even if the teleport was at-will (though that would be mighty handy).

Healing Surges represent the vitality of your character. Not every HS loss may represent a 'wound' but neither does every HP loss either, nor did it ever. I disagree that HP were ever 'physical damage', but we don't really need to have THAT discussion again, its been had many times on this board. The very fact that HS require time (admittedly not a lot of time) to recover indicates they are a more significant indicator of the health of your character than hit points are. Truthfully neither HS nor HP precisely conforms to one specific thing.

We'll just have to disagree about the whole 'perceived problem' thing. Clearly there was a problem that was perceived. Clearly the purpose of the design was to allow PCs to be both vulnerable enough within the context of an encounter to be at risk and yet durable enough overall that they can go on for the day. Seems like they largely succeeded there.

I can't even comprehend what you mean by 'not really damaged', come over and play and we'll see. I mean when your character gets ganked by some monster it looks a LOT like 'hurt' to me. Anyway, this debate has been had many times before. I don't want to go back to the bad old days of "You MUST have magical healing or else" which just made healing magic trivialized and mandatory, and basically made hit points a matter of either gold pieces spent on potions or if you couldn't buy them then DM whim.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This thread really proves that the problems of D&D cant be solved by a new edtion. Infact in order to fix it you need eaither A a time machine, or B a mind control ray.

See the problem is us. Me, Morris, all of us.

D&D grew way too big. In the good old days everyone house ruled...I dont belive you could find 5 groups that played RAW 1e. Most likely the same with 2e.

As we players took the game new ways, with house rules, interpreted rules, and just styles, we made D&D our own.

NOW with the more solid rules and the hardcoded ways of doing things everyone wants there rules, there inteprtations, and there styles...but no game could be everything we all want.


Do you want magic items to just be little things, or character defineing?
Do you want fighters and wizards to play the same or very diffrent?
Do you want HP and healing surges to be abstract or actual damage?
Should the system be about building and customizing?

We could have 20 page arguements about all of these and more... don't even think about math holes and alignment, and wish spells...

How can 5e be what we all want...it can;t

 

[Fanaelialae]

D&D hit points used to be the equivalent of Champions Body points. They were serious damage and required magic or serious rest to recover. D&D hit points are now the equivalent of Champions Stun points. They require a short rest to recover shy of being out of healing surges.

D&D hit points are no longer what they were. And the only reason for that is because of game designer perceived problems that really didn't exist in the game.

This is really one aspect of computer games that bled into D&D. Characters don't really get hurt (shy of dying) and they recover from their 'fatigue' quickly.

That's not really accurate, unless a scrape is your definition of serious damage. Loss of hit points in earlier editions didn't represent serious damage until the last few hp. The only real difference in this respect between 1e and 4e is that fatigue/luck recovers much more quickly in 4e.

It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability
in his or her class that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain
physical damage takes place. It is preposterous to state such an
assumption, for if we are to assume that a man is killed by a sword thrust
which does 4 hit points of damage, we must similarly assume that a hero
could, on the average, withstand five such thrusts before being slain! Why
then the increase in hit points? Because these reflect both the actual
physical ability of the character to withstand damage - as indicated by
constitution bonuses- and a commensurate increase in such areas as skill
in combat and similar life-or-death situations, the "sixth sense" which
warns the individual of some otherwise unforeseen events, sheer luck,
and the fantastic provisions of magical protections and/or divine
protection. Therefore, constitution affects both actual ability to withstand
physical punishment hit points (physique) and the immeasurable areas
which involve the sixth sense and luck (fitness).

Harkening back to the example of Rasputin, it would be safe to assume
that he could withstand physical damage sufficient to have killed any four
normal men, i.e. more than 14 hit points. Therefore, let us assume that a
character with an 18 constitution will eventually be able to withstand no
less than 15 hit points of actual physical damage before being slain, and
that perhaps as many as 23 hit points could constitute the physical makeup
of a character. The balance of accrued hit points are those which fall into
the non-physical areas already detailed. Furthermore, these actual
physical hit points would be spread across a large number of levels,
starting from a base score of from an average of 3 to 4, going up to 6 to 8 at
2nd level, 9 to 1 1 at 3rd, 12 to 14 at 4th, 15 to 17 at 5th, 18 to 20 at 6th, and
21 to 23 at 7th level. Note that the above assumes the character is a fighter
with an average of 3 hit points per die going to physical ability to withstand
punishment and only 1 point of constitution bonus being likewise
assigned. Beyond the basic physical damage sustained, hits scored upon a
character do not actually do such an amount of physical damage.

Consider a character who is a 10th level fighter with an 18 constitution.
This character would have an average of 5.5 hit points per die, plus a constitution
bonus of 4 hit points, per level, or 95 hit points! Each hit scored
upon the character does only a small amount of actual physical harm -
the sword thrust that would have run a 1st level fighter through the heart
merely grazes the character due to the fighter's exceptional skill, luck, and
sixth sense ability which caused movement to avoid the attack at just the
right moment. However, having sustained 40 or 50 hit points of damage,
our lordly fighter will be covered with a number of nicks, scratches, cuts
and bruises. It will require a long period of rest and recuperation to regain
the physical and metaphysical peak of 95 hit points.

Each character has a varying number of hit points,' just as monsters do.
These hit points represent how much damage (actual 01: potential) the
character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit
points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained.
The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands
for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take
about 5 hit points of damage before being Killed. Let us suppose that a 10th
level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his
constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This IS the equivalent of about 18 hit
dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It
is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic flghter can take that much
punishment. The some holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and
the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit paints are symbolic of combat
skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.

...

Rest also restores hit points, for it gives the body a chance to heal itself and
regain the stamina or force which adds the skill, luck, and magical hit
points.

In 1e, skill/luck/"that supernatural something" took a while to come back. In 4e, it is restored fairly readily, though characters still have limited reserves each day. Considering that skill/luck and particularly magic are difficult to quantify from a real world perspective, I don't think it can be easily argued that one approach is "more right" than the other.