D&D 5E Happy with Play Test 2 Direction BUT..

[ren1999]

There are a few things that I would like to see the designers drop.

1.) The first thing is to drop all complete immunity and automatic success from the game. That is just boring. Give Advantage or give a bonus to save if you want. Take away the dexterity bonus to armor class if the target is helpless if you want. No more automatic hits and automatic damage.

2.) Spell casters should pit their intelligence, wisdom or charisma against the target's armor class, or their abilities. Spell casters want to roll too. This is one of the things I don't like about the Pathfinder system and 5E shouldn't follow it. Magic +2? Huh? Spells don't work on targets with a certain number of hit points? Huh? No spell should be worthless at higher levels. Make that 1st level spell worthy to cast by a 20th level caster by giving it more capabilities.

3.) Feats are looking good. DC is looking good. But powers should be progressive. For example, levitate should be easier than fly, so organize it. Make levitate available to lower levels and fly available to higher levels. The same thing for feats, easier feats at earlier levels, hard feats at higher levels.

 

[slobo777]

No spell should be worthless at higher levels. Make that 1st level spell worthy to cast by a 20th level caster by giving it more capabilities.

You could probably change this to a more general:

* Don't fill up a character sheet with loads of trivial abilities that grant minor benefits at best, and create work for players and DM to manage them.

There is absolutely more than one way to remove the dermal layers from this particular member of felidae. And decisions made with this game element don't just impact spellcasters, but reach into the core of how the system is balanced out at higher levels.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Completely agree with point one. We have just been discussing this very thing on our boards. They have a cool new mechanic - Advantage - so use it.

As for the others, I don't really want spells to 'progress' unless you prepare them in higher slots (like they have initially said).

I too would prefer more generic spells whose effects can be rolled into one, like you Levitate > Fly eg. I think MANY spells could be done this way.

 

[Wiseblood]

There are a few things that I would like to see the designers drop.

1.) The first thing is to drop all complete immunity and automatic success from the game. That is just boring. Give Advantage or give a bonus to save if you want. Take away the dexterity bonus to armor class if the target is helpless if you want. No more automatic hits and automatic damage.

2.) Spell casters should pit their intelligence, wisdom or charisma against the target's armor class, or their abilities. Spell casters want to roll too. This is one of the things I don't like about the Pathfinder system and 5E shouldn't follow it. Magic +2? Huh? Spells don't work on targets with a certain number of hit points? Huh? No spell should be worthless at higher levels. Make that 1st level spell worthy to cast by a 20th level caster by giving it more capabilities.

3.) Feats are looking good. DC is looking good. But powers should be progressive. For example, levitate should be easier than fly, so organize it. Make levitate available to lower levels and fly available to higher levels. The same thing for feats, easier feats at earlier levels, hard feats at higher levels.

I disagree on the first two.

Immunities force creativity and remove math. The undead are immune to charm. I can't just throw charm and hope it works because that's exactly what I do in every other fight. That's boring.

HP caps on spell effectiveness means that you might actually have to wear an opponent down rather than just spam the SoS/SoD spells. That's a good idea in my book and it would go a long way in balancing earlier editions too.

 

[Jester David]

2.) Spell casters should pit their intelligence, wisdom or charisma against the target's armor class, or their abilities. Spell casters want to roll too. This is one of the things I don't like about the Pathfinder system and 5E shouldn't follow it.

Spells having to be avoided is a convention of the game that dates back to the OD&D so it's hard to just dump entirely.
Many single target spells do let the caster roll still. It's typically Area of Attack spells or the "daily" spells that allow a save, for a few reasons.

The first is who is acting.
The wizard isn't aiming a fireball at all the lizardmen. He's just trying to get it in a single square. It's the lizardfolk that are avoiding the fire. Or trying to resist the enchantment. They're the active party.

The second is speed.
This is something 4e demonstrated. When making an AoE spell you need to roll a die for each monster hit. If the DM rolls it they just have to announce success and failure, but if the player rolls they have to convey all the results across the table, and do all the math. And it all has to be done before the next player goes.

The third is avoidance.
If a creature has special powers that negate conditions (the typical solo beast, but also PCs with more resources) they typically need to make a roll or modify the roll. It's easier if they're rolling to avoid. That way they're not demanding a reroll. It sucks to have the DM make you reroll a successful hit, but it's less painful if they reroll a save. Likewise, if you're rolling a save a fail you feel more active when you get to roll again or spend resources to modify your roll.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I disagree on the first two.

Immunities force creativity and remove math. The undead are immune to charm. I can't just throw charm and hope it works because that's exactly what I do in every other fight. That's boring.

Immunities on the other hand should be very, very rare. To take a textbook 3.X example of what happens when they get out of control, Constructs were immune to Precision Damage. Which means that you couldn't get a damage bonus for being precise against a clockwork golem - for instance by jamming the gears.

I'd prefer consequences to immunities in the style of late 4e. If you hit a fire elemental with a fireball it should do damage in the same way as if you punch a flesh elemental. But the fire elemental should get hotter. Still a bad plan - but it works, and is actually interesting.

 

[Gadget]

There are a few things that I would like to see the designers drop.

1.) The first thing is to drop all complete immunity and automatic success from the game. That is just boring. Give Advantage or give a bonus to save if you want. Take away the dexterity bonus to armor class if the target is helpless if you want. No more automatic hits and automatic damage.

You know, this makes sense from a 'realism' or situationist point of view, but I really don't want to go too far down the 'realism' rat hole on this. It is a nice generality that merely requires a side note to explain that certain specific things can overcome according to GM adjudication. Yes, the poison milked from fangs of the world serpent can overcome a dwarf's poison immunity; and yes the devastating maelstrom of the Ancient Red Dragon's breath is enough to blow out your average fire elemental. It may be that we do indeed a more complex system, but I'm not sure I want to see another sub-system and/or charts cluttering up the game to make sure most of the 'corner cases' are handled.

2.) Spell casters should pit their intelligence, wisdom or charisma against the target's armor class, or their abilities. Spell casters want to roll too. This is one of the things I don't like about the Pathfinder system and 5E shouldn't follow it. Magic +2? Huh? Spells don't work on targets with a certain number of hit points? Huh? No spell should be worthless at higher levels. Make that 1st level spell worthy to cast by a 20th level caster by giving it more capabilities.

Your last sentence is the almost the very definition of the old Quadratic Wizard, Linear Fighter saying. If we are to return to a vancian or semi-vancian model as the default for the base magic user, this needs to be considered. Wizard's get higher level spells in part to help offset the lower level spell's loss of potency. It may be that Bounded Accuracy will help lower level spells stay relevant longer, but there is still the tried and true method of using your lower level slots for utility and defence, Comprehend Languages doesn't really need to scale. In any event, auto scaling of spells needs to be critically reviewed and perhaps taken out back and shot, or at least severely curtailed. If you want the spell to scale, prepare it in a higher level slot.

As for Hit Point Thresholds, it is obviously a work and progress, but something needed to be done about the second big problem with the vancian spell model: The ever popular Save or Die (And it's more common cousin Save or Suck). Reigning in the ability to make one's spells more difficult to save against and the ability to push one's save into the stratosphere would go a long way, but there probably needs to be more done. With thresholds, your spells can be pretty reliable against mooks and those that should be affected, yet not one-shot the dragon. This may have the side benefit of needing less immunities and spell resistance on any 'Boss' monster you wanted to last more than a round or two at mid to high levels, thereby not making the whole magical 'arms race' quite as bad as in some editions.

Having said that, there is a lot of work to do to make these solutions viable, and I sense that they might be concentrating on other things at the moment, rather tan the details of the spells.

 

[Gryph]

There are a few things that I would like to see the designers drop.

1.) The first thing is to drop all complete immunity and automatic success from the game. That is just boring. Give Advantage or give a bonus to save if you want. Take away the dexterity bonus to armor class if the target is helpless if you want. No more automatic hits and automatic damage.

I don't agree with this. The d20 is just not fine grain.ed enough to cover those types of situations. 5% chance to miss against a helpless opponent is simply too high. I find rolling to avoid a 1 pretty boring anyway

2.) Spell casters should pit their intelligence, wisdom or charisma against the target's armor class, or their abilities. Spell casters want to roll too. This is one of the things I don't like about the Pathfinder system and 5E shouldn't follow it. Magic +2? Huh? Spells don't work on targets with a certain number of hit points? Huh? No spell should be worthless at higher levels. Make that 1st level spell worthy to cast by a 20th level caster by giving it more capabilities.

3.) Feats are looking good. DC is looking good. But powers should be progressive. For example, levitate should be easier than fly, so organize it. Make levitate available to lower levels and fly available to higher levels. The same thing for feats, easier feats at earlier levels, hard feats at higher levels.

Jester Canusk covered point 2 pretty well. I like the system where some effects are targeted and the caster rolls to hit and some effects are actively resisted and the defender rolls to save. As long as only one or the other is rolling for any given casting I'm ok with it.

I think your point about cascading powers is the seeds to the answer for your point about low level spells not becoming worthless at higher levels of play. I do think if a 2nd level Levitate is going to become a 4th level Fly it should require that the spell be slotted at the higher level though.

Also with bounded accuracy leaving in play the hordes o' orcs scenarios as credible threats, then low level spells with low hp thresholds remain as very efficient options for casters to deal with large numbers of low hp enemies. Why blow a fireball or chain lightning when you can expect sleep to take out just as many orcs?

 

[P1NBACK]

Immunities on the other hand should be very, very rare. To take a textbook 3.X example of what happens when they get out of control, Constructs were immune to Precision Damage. Which means that you couldn't get a damage bonus for being precise against a clockwork golem - for instance by jamming the gears.

Why not?

As the DM, if the players figure out a way to bypass immunity, then why not allow them to take advantage of that? That's precisely the point of keeping immunities that the original poster you responded to was making. The DM or each monster entry (exception based design?) can simply say, "Yes, good idea. That would work."

 

[Neonchameleon]

Why not?

As the DM, if the players figure out a way to bypass immunity, then why not allow them to take advantage of that? That's precisely the point of keeping immunities that the original poster you responded to was making. The DM or each monster entry (exception based design?) can simply say, "Yes, good idea. That would work."

Because that's what the rules said for some unknown reason. You didn't get precision damage against undead or constructs. So a golem doesn't have weaker limbs than a torso and doesn't have a neck that can be broken. I guess all those statues I've seen missing arms just didn't happen.

It was a stupid rule. And you're committing the Oberoni fallacy there. The ability to houserule to override the rules doesn't mean that the rules aren't broken.