D&D 5E 2/11/13 L&L: This week in D&D

[Vikingkingq]

"We've known for a while that asking fighters to choose between damage and a maneuver was not an ideal situation, and we're working to fix that."

I refer you all to Zadok the Priest. Hallelujah.

Yeah. This new iteration sounds awfully like the Warblade. Which is a good thing.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I think at the level they're talking about, what they mean by combat is that there's a rules-system in place that says how you go about hitting someone, what damage you do and what effect that has (when you run out of hit points you are unconscious/dead). Literally nothing else. The rest is between you, your GM, and your horse, as Charles V might have said.

This is what I very briefly touched on, though. You included hit points. But there's wound/vitality. There's death flags. There's a lot more I won't go into.

And basically, if they're choosing this as the very baseline, why not more focus on things outside of combat? "There's also a very basic skill system based on attribute checks." That alone would cover a lot of "exploration" and "interaction" stuff, and you could always opt-in to more complex options if you're so inclined.

Honestly, I like some rules-light games. I like some complex games. I don't object to games which leave most areas light but pile on the complexity in the areas which the game focuses on.

Me too. I was lamenting the fact that it seemed like "Combat, Magic, and Movement" fit the "areas which the game focuses on", while I was rather hoping for more than that.

I think from previous threads that your tastes in gaming are rather different from mine. I do find it fascinating that D&D Next is managing to be something both of us have objections to.

I don't think it's that fascinating, but I guess we differ there, too. There are specific things from every edition of D&D that I'd object to if they included it. I imagine that for a lot of gamers, there's a bunch of stuff they dislike. I imagine it's easy to make a game that's meant to include something for everyone that has stuff that everyone objects to. It's just a matter of managing the objection.

Right now, for me, it's wait and see. They basically have no chance at converting me away from my own system, since I'm quite in love with it, but I still have a small stake in 5e, since my brother often uses other systems that I might play in from time to time (and he liked both 3.X and 4e, though not to the same degree). With that in mind, while I'm somewhat put off by where the focus seems to be, I'm not too concerned, since it largely won't effect it (or if my brother likes it less than his other options, pretty much not at all). But I'd still like to see the prime focus shifted from only "Combat, Magic, and Movement" to something more broad. But that's just me. As always, play what you like

 

[steeldragons]

"We've known for a while that asking fighters to choose between damage and a maneuver was not an ideal situation, and we're working to fix that."

I refer you all to Zadok the Priest. Hallelujah.

I don't get the reference, but besides that, I'm not really sure what it is they need to "work to fix".

If choosing between spending dice on damage or maneuvers is not ideal, then why not just put damage bonuses in the maneuvers? Make the "expertise" about bonuses to hit. Then choose maneuvers for extra damage with this or that weapon/this or that type of damage/this or that special stunt/or what have you. Take a different maneuver for more/different kinds of extra damage.

Does that not work, somehow? Seems to me it immediately allows even more diversity of fighter character concepts.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm with [MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION] in being a little disenchanted by the update. I guess I see this as very "D&D," though: rules for combat, with everything else left up to DM interpretation, has been something most editions have tried at one point or another. It *is* disappointing. I need robust rules for exploration and interaction. I noted as much in my playtester profile -- the game doesn't feel complete to me without these rules. (and, WotC, that includes rules for weather!).

But, hell, when I look at how other D&D editions over the years have handled exploration, I can't say they're objectively part of the D&D Experience. 4e didn't care. OD&D didn't care. 3e did, but 3e wanted rules for everything. There's plenty of folks who've never rolled a random encounter or counted daily rations or had HP that didn't come back when you slept in their entire D&D careers. It's core to me, but certainly not to everyone.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I don't get the reference, but besides that, I'm not really sure what it is they need to "work to fix".

If choosing between spending dice on damage or maneuvers is not ideal, then why not just put damage bonuses in the maneuvers? Make the "expertise" about bonuses to hit. Then choose maneuvers for extra damage with this or that weapon/this or that type of damage/this or that special stunt/or what have you. Take a different maneuver for more/different kinds of extra damage.

Does that not work, somehow? Seems to me it immediately allows even more diversity of fighter character concepts.

I think the problem is that you can't come up with a reasonable exchange rates for damage, chance to hit and special effects. Chance to hit and damage interact so that there's always going to be an 'optimal' choice - particularly if you know roughly how tough the creature you're going for is, or how many more hits you can take - it's the old Power Attack problem. Special effects are circumstantial - they might be critical (pushing someone off of a cliff) or pointless (pushing someone back 10' when you're surrounded anyway), and there's the usual caveat that Dead is the best possible condition. What many others have read into the article (but I can't quite see) is that there will be an encounter resource, a stamina type system - I don't want to believe this and be disappointed so I'll wait and see..

 

[dd.stevenson]

So, what I basically heard was "we care about combat, spellcasting, and movement. Everything else is secondary." (snip)

Gotcha. It makes sense that you would find this message disappointing. Like you, I spend most of my game time out of combat. Like you, I'll be pretty disappointed if "optional = not important" is the tack they take.

Maybe I need to go back and re-read the article, but that's certainly not what I took away from it. What I took away was more like: "we will definitely not crap all over somebody's play style by putting 1e/3e/2e/4e-style exploration rules in core. Instead, we will put these rules in optional modules. Where they effing belonged in the first place." Which makes me happy because it tells me that they actually are listening and they understand that most of us just flat out have no interest in playing the game the same way.

IMO 2e had a lot of clumsy mechanics, but liberal application of the "optional" tag was one thing it got right.

 

[Kraydak]

Dang it! I really should have gone out on a limb and predicted that Martial Dice weren't going to make it all those months ago. Interesting as a concept, but a pain to actually implement well. Here is hoping (without any actual hope) for a return to the Warblade or Crusader mechanics (which aren't Encounter abilities!). Fluff the Crusader mechanics as an opportunist and the Warblade as a tactician.

 

[Iosue]

I seriously can't see where "Outside of the basic mechanics for stuff like moving, combat, and casting spells, we're assuming that everything else is optional," means anything like "Focus on combat". Moving, combat, and casting spells are going to be part of everyone's D&D. Not everyone wants skills. Not everyone wants grungy dungeon exploration rules. Not everyone wants social interaction mechanics. They're not saying the game won't have those things! They're saying they'll be there only for the people who want them.

 

[Remathilis]

I seriously can't see where "Outside of the basic mechanics for stuff like moving, combat, and casting spells, we're assuming that everything else is optional," means anything like "Focus on combat". Moving, combat, and casting spells are going to be part of everyone's D&D. Not everyone wants skills. Not everyone wants grungy dungeon exploration rules. Not everyone wants social interaction mechanics. They're not saying the game won't have those things! They're saying they'll be there only for the people who want them.

I'm glad I read to the end of the thread before I typed this.

Remember, we're talking Basic Game, which is very BECMI/OD&D in format and doesn't need much more than moving around, attacking something, and casting a spell. (Beyond some basic exploration, like listening, searching, and perhaps some sort of charisma check to affect attitudes). The Standard game will probably have rules for complex exploration and interaction (up to and including skill challenges) but they will be removable if the DM wishes (so that a game that is very dungeon-lite doesn't need the Dungeon-crashers rules, while a dungeon-heavy group won't need to use skill challenges to talk to the king.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I seriously can't see where "Outside of the basic mechanics for stuff like moving, combat, and casting spells, we're assuming that everything else is optional," means anything like "Focus on combat". Moving, combat, and casting spells are going to be part of everyone's D&D. Not everyone wants skills. Not everyone wants grungy dungeon exploration rules. Not everyone wants social interaction mechanics. They're not saying the game won't have those things! They're saying they'll be there only for the people who want them.

Yup. Exactly. Some people seem to think that if what is described isn't exactly how they play the game, then ipso facto no effort is going into making the game possibly be able to do it.