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

[thecasualoblivion]

Sorry I am not following your logic here. Are you saying that bad adventure/encounter design can't lead to a 5 minute adventuring day? That if the DM starts the day off with an encounter that totally thrashes the party and expends all thier hit points/healing surges/resources that he bears no responsibility for this 5 minute adventuring day?

No, he's saying that planning out an adventure that is mostly social, storytelling, lacks multiple combats or "one big fight" and overall is light on resource consumption ISN'T bad adventure design, or at least shouldn't be. If the system makes that sort of adventure bad design(as 5E is proposing to do) that is a problem with the system.

 

[Neonchameleon]

That's not really the issue. The issue is that a character is causing another character to move-this is generally considered a bull rush-without physically touching him. Why you're not in charge of your own movement, I don't get.

Generally in more recently written powers the ally being moved is. More modern powers tend to phrase ally movement as a shift.

1. Strong Guy: Smashes things
2. Agile Guy: Stealthy and skilled
3. Smart Guy: Reshapes the world
4: Wise Guy: Heals people

So, either:

A: None of them are special. They all have distinguishing characteristics.

B: They are all special. One is a good fighter, the second is a good rogue, the third is a good wizard and the fourth is a good cleric.

C: Reshaping the world means the smart guy can smash far more than the strong guy ever could, and can reshape the world so that he can be stealthier than the agile guy ever could and can make the agile guy irrelevant. Meanwhile the wise guy doesn't just heal people, he also knows how to take them apart and given that most of what the strong guy smashes is people, the wise guy can match him at that.

So you get:
Strong Guy: Smashes inanimate objects almost as well as the smart guy and animate ones about as well as the wise guy.
Agile Guy: Mostly irrelevant skills and can hide mundanely
Smart Guy: Reshapes the world and has control over almost all inanimate objects
Wise Guy: Heals people and kills them efficiently

The smart guy's archetype makes the others redundant to the point that what's special about the Agile Guy is that he can almost keep up with the smart guy at what he is supposed to be good at. And the Strong Guy is just as pointless.

"Best buggy whip manufacturer" and "Can lick the tip of your own nose" are both special. But they aren't special in a relevant way.

Now if you were to change smart guy to "Slowly reshapes the world" you'd do better. But "reshapes the world" is just too broad.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

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?"

Effin' brilliant.

 

[Shadeydm]

No, he's saying that planning out an adventure that is mostly social, storytelling, lacks multiple combats or "one big fight" and overall is light on resource consumption ISN'T bad adventure design, or at least shouldn't be. If the system makes that sort of adventure bad design(as 5E is proposing to do) that is a problem with the system.

Where exactly has 5E proposed that this is bad adventure design?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Where exactly has 5E proposed that this is bad adventure design?

Where they said that if you had less than the assumed amount of combat per day, the spellcasters would dominate. More generally speaking, they said that the game was balanced around an "adventuring" day of a certain length, and deviating from that length would result in the game no longer being balanced.

 

[Shadeydm]

Where they said that if you had less than the assumed amount of combat per day, the spellcasters would dominate. More generally speaking, they said that the game was balanced around an "adventuring" day of a certain length, and deviating from that length would result in the game no longer being balanced.

I believe that they in fact said if you wanted only one big battle you just spend your full XP budget on that battle. Nice try though.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I believe that they in fact said if you wanted only one big battle you just spend your full XP budget on that battle. Nice try though.

What if you don't want one big battle? What if you just want to be combat light for a change and have one regular combat? Why must the one combat be big? Why must we be forced to make the combat big if we ant an adventure with only one?

 

[Shadeydm]

What if you don't want one big battle? What if you just want to be combat light for a change and have one regular combat? Why must the one combat be big? Why must we be forced to make the combat big if we ant an adventure with only one?

I don't believe they said you had to.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I believe that they in fact said if you wanted only one big battle you just spend your full XP budget on that battle. Nice try though.

Right - so, if you're only going to have one battle in a day, it has to be an absolutely *huge* one: equivalent to 4 or 5 smaller, "normal" battles all happening at once.

Because, if you don't do that - by, say, having the evil nobleman have 30 guards immediately at-hand instead of a more reasonable, say, 10* - then the encounter (and adventure / daily!) balance doesn't work.

* Alternatively, all his guards have to be specially trained spec forces commandos, rather than, you know, halberd-jockeys.

I don't believe they said you had to.

In which case, the balance doesn't work out, and the Wizards "win" the encounter.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I don't believe they said you had to.

They said it wouldn't be balanced if you did so, and I care about balance.

I don't see resource consumption as a required feature of every D&D adventure. Many story ideas just don't involve resource consumption, and I don't think the system should run poorly(unbalanced) if you choose to run those scenarios.