D&D 5E Notes from the underground: a few opening thoughts about D&D Next or 5e.

[Raith5]

I dont understand the feel of there being a hp ceiling for sleep and charm etc. (These spells only fully effect creatures with less than 10 hp). I will be interested to see how this plays out. BUt I dont understand how somebody you have just bashed the crap out of of is going to be more open to you magical suggestions! Id ont see how that makes sense.

 

[mlund]

I dont understand the feel of there being a hp ceiling for sleep and charm etc. (These spells only fully effect creatures with less than 10 hp). I will be interested to see how this plays out. BUt I dont understand how somebody you have just bashed the crap out of of is going to be more open to you magical suggestions! Id ont see how that makes sense.

Some who is low on endurance, stamina, and willpower after exhausting danger or many rounds of torture is generally more pliable.

Also, peasant/mook level NPCs (typically with single-digit HP) can be easily dominated while dangerous monsters and hardy adventurer types are tougher nuts to crack.

Beating the crap out of someone can be demoralizing to them, but it could also be antagonistic. I always took Charm Person in mid-encounter to appear like one is extending the olive branch to an enemy - "There's no reason we should fight until one of us is dead, friend. Won't you join me one the winning side / side of peace / righteous side."

If your allies have been doing all the damage instead of you a character could even try the "good cop, bad cop" routine. "My associate here is a dangerous man, but I know we can trust you, friend." Heck, that's probably worth Advantage if the bad cop is really intimidating and the fight looks like it won't go well for the enemy.

- Marty Lund

 

[YRUSirius]

I dont understand the feel of there being a hp ceiling for sleep and charm etc. (These spells only fully effect creatures with less than 10 hp). I will be interested to see how this plays out. BUt I dont understand how somebody you have just bashed the crap out of of is going to be more open to you magical suggestions! Id ont see how that makes sense.

Rest assured that in real life you don't even need magic for that. Just let an ultimate fighter pummel you to near death and you will do nearly anything to make him stop and be able to befriend him instead.

-YRUSirius

 

[Raith5]

mlund and YRUSirius - both good lines of thought!

 

[Tovec]

Spells casting seems to have been streamlined. Either attack or save, not both, and no caster check. (wizard casting also a little more "vancian" then cleric casting).

Sleep slows everything, can only drop goblins, etc. Might want to build in some scaling there.

EDIT: And thanks for the info!

Personally I was always of the opinion that sleep should cause creatures to sleep but depending on the save DC they should wake up.

I can much easily picture the following happen:

Character A casts sleep on... lets say guards
Character B approaches.
Guards are asleep
Character B attacks/kills a guard
Rest of guards wake up because their life is in danger.

It could easily scale up and down to be:

Character M casts sleep on... lets say goblins
Character N approaches.
Goblins are asleep
Character N attacks/kills a goblin
Goblins stay asleep.
Party attacks and kills goblins
No goblins wake up.

And:

Character Y casts sleep on... lets say a fellow PC/BBEG/important or named NPC
Character Z approaches.
PC/BBEG/I or N NPC feels life in danger/someone in the room and wakes up.
Party: Whaaa?

 

[Sunseeker]

All in all, the game felt like a heavily houseruled Moldvay BASIC D&D. And that is a very, very good thing.

So to sum up: Themes: YAY. Magic: BOO! Combat: YAY! Modularity: WTF.

Great, so it's the game I already own with the rules I already made.

I'm paying $40 a book for that? hmmm...naw.

Gonna have to do a lot better than trying to sell me a heavily houseruled version of a product I own.

 

[Libramarian]

I dont understand the feel of there being a hp ceiling for sleep and charm etc. (These spells only fully effect creatures with less than 10 hp). I will be interested to see how this plays out. BUt I dont understand how somebody you have just bashed the crap out of of is going to be more open to you magical suggestions! Id ont see how that makes sense.

Me neither. If someone is kicking your butt you presumably would be intimidated and afraid, and more likely to yield to their commands for that reason, but if anything you would be more suspicious and guarded to their magical charms.

I could sort of see the good cop bad cop thing, but I don't see any clause saying that the person who casts the spell can't also be the person who beats them up first.

We'll see how it plays, but if players refuse to use charm magic on an NPC unless they can fight them for a while first, I will not be pleased.

It's obvious that the designer didn't have any "feel" in mind when they came up with this mechanic. We might be able to construct one post-hoc but clearly the purpose here is just to make these spells less swingy in effect.

Maybe I will come up with a house rule to the effect that if you're out of combat and on neutral or better terms with an NPC, you can treat them as if they have 1 HP for the purpose of charm spells. It's only once you've started attacking them that you need to knock them senseless for charm spells to be full effective.

 

[Libramarian]

Modularity: WTF.

Haha yeah I already figured this one out.

Obviously they're going to have us thoroughly playtest one set of rules and then throw a bunch of untested optional rules into the game right before release (no).

 

[mlund]

Me neither. If someone is kicking your butt you presumably would be intimidated and afraid, and more likely to yield to their commands for that reason, but if anything you would be more suspicious and guarded to their magical charms.

No, not really. People who are beaten down and intimidated are generally easier to "charm" via psychological conditioning. They want to believe someone is their friend and won't hurt them anymore even though it is completely irrational. That's the thing about breaking people down - desperate people will jump to grasp at straws.

On top of that, where did we lose sight of the whole bit about magical compulsion and how low HP makes someone more vulnerable to being overcome by swords and sorcery?

- Marty Lund

 

[Libramarian]

We're not talking about sophisticated torture procedures here. We're talking about (potentially, it doesn't matter how you reduce their HP) being locked in mortal combat with them, until they're nearly dead (but still fighting as hard as ever), and then sleep and charm person become super effective. Maybe it's a close fight and you're almost dead too when you cast the spell, it doesn't matter.

I would rather that sleep and charm person are most effective on someone who isn't paying that much attention to you. Say a guard who is nearly dozing off to himself, who barely notices you intoning some magical syllables under your breath, or a bored shopkeeper who has no reason to be put on their guard by how supernaturally charming your words are in casual conversation.

I'm just not feeling this idea that the best way to charm the guard or the shopkeeper is for the rest of the party to go in and nearly murder them first.