D&D 5E How Can D&D Next Win You Over?

[Jester David]

If you make sure to avoid anything that has to do with the type of abilities you use, sure. My invoker MC druid does in fact have to worry about what is divine or not, since he has abilities that trigger only on divine powers. This is the consequence of a choice I made.

Yes, they're important to characters. But that does not make keywords really different. They're a label. And not a label like "fat free" where the content is fundamentally different. As long as you stuck to your role, you could pick powers from your power source and the game would not break. (Probably exceptions but rare and not the average.)
It's a meaningless label, like renaming a brand overseas. You can add too it and differentiate, but the base isn't any more different.

You can absolutely build a character that doesn't get much out of the nuances of their abilities, but that's your decision. Someone could just as easily build a character who abuses their favored damage type. Even if you never ever fight any enemies with immunity or resistances, and you avoid all damage type interactions like Frost Cheese or the Radiant Mafia or Elementals with Poison immunity, and you never play a dwarf or a shardmind or a tiefling or a genasi, at the very very least you aren't going to be using psychic, poison, necrotic damage against most objects, nor are you going to use Will attacks on them.

What you're suggesting is homogenizing the effects of damage types, but you forget how many threads involved people trying to get around the limited concepts attached to particular damage types. Many people don't want damage types to be one-trick ponies, especially since those tricks rarely stack.

But that has nothing to do with the damage effects themselves and has everything to do with the options added to the damage types and keywords. Remove those options and all that goes away.
Looking at the damage design independent of four years of added crunch, the different types are mostly irrelevant in terms of what powers are spells and what powers are prayers and what powers are evocations. It matters when choosing a power for your build but, at at its very basic level, different damage does not make an exploit different from a spell any more than radiant damage makes a prayer different than a spell.

 

[Jester David]

And because it was the first book in the line, sure. Perhaps even because it was a rush job and had more than a fair share of actual errors... But the reason Essentials has relatively little errata is because they changed their policy and gave up on trying to fix things. Essentials is loaded with overpowered feats and imbalanced classes, among other failings. Some of the simplest and most obvious get errata'd, but a lot of it is just reflective of a change in policy and philosophy. Not that changes extensive enough to fix the class balance issues it introduced are even within the scope of errata.

Another way of putting it is that the broken bits in the PH1 were unintentional, thus fixed with errata, while the class imbalance in Essentials was intentional (to meet the same percieved demand that 5e is struggling to fill), and thus is not being errata'd.

Intentional? Really?
I've heard as many people say that Essentials classes are underpowered as I have say they're overpowered. So it's likely dead on in terms of balance.
And when they said they were reducing errata, I took that to partially mean they were working harder to not release broken content, not fixing terribly broken elements.

But the question is not the inclusion of any broken elements, the statement was more. You said:

Funny that pre-Essentials didn't have much in the way of balance problems, then, isn't it?

Which seems laughably wrong, given the bad design of the PHB1. You're allowed to dislike Essentials but c'mon. It's not that bad. Not 27 pages of bad. Not like errata where they had to fix the base rules, clarifying keywords and conditions and skills.

 

[Cybit]

For the record, I suspect many people will be surprised at how different the 3.5 reprints are from what the originals were. If they bothered to reprint all of the books, you'll find that even 3.5 had a fair amount of errata.

Official D&D Updates

D&D Next can win me over if it does the following

a) kill the numbers game = from a DM's perspective, 3.5 is just as terrible at 4th about simulationist gameplay for higher levels. "Natural Armor" bonuses work the same damn way as level + X for defenses in 4E. (Except making touch attacks ludicrously broken at higher levels). I heartily approve of the blasting of all bonuses. Multi-attacks + stacking bonuses are what always ends up making a game imbalanced.

b) balance: although many groups are composed of friends who can talk to each other about playing broken characters (and not doing so), it is frustrating as a player to see a much better option to play than what I want to play, and frustrating as a DM to have to pore through books to allow / disallow things. 20 options are meaningless if 3 of them are heads and tails above the rest. Everything gets balanced around the three.

c) Presentation: 4E was far too blatant in their presentation of gamist mechanics. I have been running D&D Encounters for a local gaming store recently, and my table consists of a mother and her three little girls. When they asked me the rules, I simply said "Tell me what you want to do, roll a d20, and roll high, and I'll explain the rest". Once I removed the gamist mechanics explanations from the beginning, the little girls were having a blast trying out random actions. (I also gave them essentials characters, which help immensely in this regard).

Having DM'd 3.5E and 4E extensively for years now (multiple games a week for both systems over a period of years), and DM'ing Pathfinder (2 games a week, started about two months ago), you can do the same things in each edition. But 4E's presentation was too jarring for most, and broke people out of immersion (hence all the complaints about feel). 4E is actually, mathematically & mechanically speaking, not that different from 3.5E. 3.5 took the time to obfuscate the hell out of those mechanics, and that helped the immersion factor. But numbers scale up at a certain mathematical rate, damage scales, skills quickly turn into "either I am awesome or I am terrible", wooden locks turn into iron locks turn into mithril locks, etc etc. 4E made the mistake of saying it outright, and breaking the immersion for some folks.

D) Have an awesome initial pre-generated module. I think KOTS doomed 4E. It highlighted the best aspects terribly (the combat), and was a terrible example of the other pillars. The initial module needs to be the single best module the game ever has. Do that, and people will flock to the game. Good modules create memories, and those memories can power people through, frankly, some terrible mechanics.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've heard as many people say that Essentials classes are underpowered as I have say they're overpowered.

Sure. Some Essentials classes are underpowered, some are unable to fulfill their stated roles, and some are overpowered. Thus 'imbalance.'

And when they said they were reducing errata, I took that to partially mean they were working harder to not release broken content, not fixing terribly broken elements.

That would have been a reasonable (or at least hopeful) conclusion at the time. It's not how it turned out.

 

[Balesir]

Here's a couple power from somewhere:

Daily
Standard Action
Close burst 1
Target: Each creature in the burst you can see
Attack: Ability vs. Defence
Hit: 1d10 + Ability modifier damage, and ongoing 5 damage (save ends)
Miss: Half damage.
Kicker: If you have the right class option, targets you hit are also knocked prone.

Daily
Standard Action
Personal
Effect: You shift your speed, including through squares occupied by enemies. Until the end of your next turn, you can squeeze without penalties to your attack rolls or speed.
Targets: Creatures whose spaces you shift through
Attack: Ability vs. Defence
Hit: 3d8 + Ability modifier damage, and you push the target 1 square.
Miss: You push the target 1 square.

Encounter
Standard Action
Target: One creature
Attack: Ability vs. Defence
Hit: 2d8 + Ability modifier damage, and the target treats all squares as difficult terrain until the end of your next turn. You and your allies ignore difficult terrain until the end of your next turn.
Kicker: If you have the right class option, until the end of your next
turn, your allies can ignore difficult terrain even if you miss.

Encounter
Standard Action
Target: One creature
Attack: Ability vs. Defence
Hit: 2d10 + Ability modifier damage. If the target leaves the space it currently occupies before the start of your next turn, it takes an extra 1d10 + Ability modifier damage.

Quick, which are spells, which are prayers, and which are exploits?

None of them are anything - you have given only partial ability descriptions in every case. Without keywords any power is incomplete; the keywords tell you a great deal about how they interact with inanimate objects, just for example.

So - give actual complete powers and I might actually play this daft game, just for laughs.

Balance is irrelevant to this discussion and sidesteps the issue. The discussion was on variety of play style.

Balance - or lack of it - can enable or disable a range of play styles, so is intensely relevant to the discussion as you describe it.

The balance of Essentials is the subject of many debates.
Personally, I think the only reason they seem underpowered at times is the number of options available to other classes, especially the overpowered options. The problem isn't Essentials, but the balance of everything prior.

It's quite simple; the no-daily essentials classes are underpowered in short (1-2 encounter) adventure days and overpowered in long (5+ encounters) adventure days. The imbalance of the no-daily classes is not "errata" or due to abusable game elements - it's a systemic imbalance that is part of the basic design. Whether it matters or not depends on the play style you follow; pick a "wrong" one and it will matter, otherwise it won't.

Yes, they're important to characters. But that does not make keywords really different. They're a label. And not a label like "fat free" where the content is fundamentally different.

But that has nothing to do with the damage effects themselves and has everything to do with the options added to the damage types and keywords. Remove those options and all that goes away.

Keywords affect how the powers work in several ways. I had a major case in point, recently, because necrotic damage doesn't affect inanimate objects, for example. Resistances and Vulnerabilities are actually quite common; the party's tiefling warlock can make good use of being reisitant to fire, for example, being able to ground-zero fire powers that are not really designed for close defence.

The equivalent, in older editions, would be looking at fireball and ice storm and ignoring that one is composed of flames while the other is whirling ice.

Oh - and, the stuff about Rogues apparently ignores Stealth, for heaven's sake! The rogue in the game I run is only ever stuck near a fighter if she's not hidden somewhere! Stealth is the Rogue's combined best defence and top rank way to get CA.

 

[Jester David]

None of them are anything - you have given only partial ability descriptions in every case. Without keywords any power is incomplete; the keywords tell you a great deal about how they interact with inanimate objects, just for example.

So - give actual complete powers and I might actually play this daft game, just for laughs.

All I removed was names, the fluff text, energy types, and changed any [W] to static damage (chosen randomly) with things like ability scores made generic.

They're all from Dragon 375, the May 2009 issue.

 

[Neonchameleon]

All I removed was names, the fluff text, energy types, and changed any [W] to static damage (chosen randomly) with things like ability scores made generic.

They're all from Dragon 375, the May 2009 issue.

In short all you removed was almost everything anyone would actually see in the gameworld, and then picked a random value when what different classes get is very different - and that's factored into the math (whether it's rogue-light, one handed, or two handed being the main parts).

Why didn't you go the whole way and say "In one round the PC and the monster started 30' away. By the end of the round the monster had taken 25 damage. Which class was the PC?"

 

[dkyle]

It either needs to provide (in at least one combination of rules modules) a significantly improved evolution of 4E, or new, revolutionary take on D&D.

The tepid rehash of pre-4E D&D we've seen so far is diametrically opposed to what I want.

 

[Manbearcat]

Here's a couple power from somewhere:

Daily
Standard Action
Close burst 1
Target: Each creature in the burst you can see
Attack: Ability vs. Defence
Hit: 1d10 + Ability modifier damage, and ongoing 5 damage (save ends)
Miss: Half damage.
Kicker: If you have the right class option, targets you hit are also knocked prone.

Daily
Standard Action
Personal
Effect: You shift your speed, including through squares occupied by enemies. Until the end of your next turn, you can squeeze without penalties to your attack rolls or speed.
Targets: Creatures whose spaces you shift through
Attack: Ability vs. Defence
Hit: 3d8 + Ability modifier damage, and you push the target 1 square.
Miss: You push the target 1 square.

Encounter
Standard Action
Target: One creature
Attack: Ability vs. Defence
Hit: 2d8 + Ability modifier damage, and the target treats all squares as difficult terrain until the end of your next turn. You and your allies ignore difficult terrain until the end of your next turn.
Kicker: If you have the right class option, until the end of your next
turn, your allies can ignore difficult terrain even if you miss.

Encounter
Standard Action
Target: One creature
Attack: Ability vs. Defence
Hit: 2d10 + Ability modifier damage. If the target leaves the space it currently occupies before the start of your next turn, it takes an extra 1d10 + Ability modifier damage.

Quick, which are spells, which are prayers, and which are exploits?

Sport 1
This is a team sport, played in a confined space, makes use of a ball, has a goal to defend and a goal to score in, and ends by way of clock running out.

Sport 2
This is a team sport, played in a confined space, makes use of a ball, has a goal to defend and a goal to score in, and ends by way of clock running out.

Sport 3
This is a team sport, played in a confined space, makes use of a ball, has a goal to defend and a goal to score in, and ends by way of clock running out.

Sport 4
This is a team sport, played in a confined space, makes use of a ball, has a goal to defend and a goal to score in, and ends by way of clock running out.

Quick, which is Basketball, which is Soccer, which is Field Hockey, Which is American Football.

Conclusion: Basketbal, Soccer, Field Hockey and American Football are essentially the same game and therefore watching or playing one is essentially the same experience as watching or playing the other...or...If you eliminate all descriptors and nuance that delineate hierarchy or distinction within taxonomic ranks, then by tautological rule, there will be no hierarchy, distinction, rank...or Reductio Ad Absurdum.

This is not helpful to understand differing tastes/preferences. We can play this game with anything from sports to cars to cultures to fashion to religions to whatever else you would like.

The above really gets absurd if I include all of the actual games that fall under those elements...or if I reduce it further and take the ball component from the equation.

 

[Incenjucar]

Yes, they're important to characters. But that does not make keywords really different. They're a label. And not a label like "fat free" where the content is fundamentally different. As long as you stuck to your role, you could pick powers from your power source and the game would not break. (Probably exceptions but rare and not the average.)
It's a meaningless label, like renaming a brand overseas. You can add too it and differentiate, but the base isn't any more different.

I'm sorry, but you are fundamentally mistaken. If you don't like the WAY that keywords differentiate things, fine, but they differentiate the heck out of things in a way that doesn't straightjacket players. It's like saying that because you and I are both made of meat that we're the same creature.

But that has nothing to do with the damage effects themselves and has everything to do with the options added to the damage types and keywords. Remove those options and all that goes away.
Looking at the damage design independent of four years of added crunch, the different types are mostly irrelevant in terms of what powers are spells and what powers are prayers and what powers are evocations. It matters when choosing a power for your build but, at at its very basic level, different damage does not make an exploit different from a spell any more than radiant damage makes a prayer different than a spell.

Damage types have always been meaningless in and of themselves. I have never seen a "lightning damage track" or something in D&D.

I mean even in real life, the difference between an acid burn and an oil burn only come into play in niche scenarios.