D&D 5E 2/18/13 L&L column

[sheadunne]

People pretending something isnt a problem by focusing on narrowed situations ... the "my game never has time sensitive adventures and I never have higher challenging fights and I never have longer numbers of battles per day" all of which you have to conform to OR the Uber Healer is functionally Party Member x 2.

A time sensitive single fight (must be done in fewer rounds.) is perhaps the only reason to pick the fighter as the 4th man... the rest of the time uber healer is hands down superior.

Play styles there isnt just one... and designing for the above string of asumptions is crappy design.

It may be crappy design but people ain't gonna buy it if it ain't there. Wizards isn't trying to improved the game, they're trying to recapture the feels of the various editions into a single edition. If the cleric doesn't feel the same, by by purchaser. They have to design viscerally and not logically to accomplish that. If there isn't an assumption of in combat healing and lack of mundane healing, the players I've gamed with will have no interest in switching. They won't even buy the books or look at them. They're the same people who kept on playing 3x or switched to PF, not because it was better, but because it was more viscerally appealing to them. And at least half of them hate the cleric. But if its changed they're not interested in even looking at it. In all fairness though, they've already bailed on 5e though because of the advantage mechanic. Which I can't blame them. Definitely not D&D feeling to me, although logically more appealing.

 

[pemerton]

The ability for a spellcaster to expend all their magic, rest for eight hours, and have it all back when the magic is as potent as high level D&D spell-casting gets to be isn't exactly a common one in tabletop RPGs.

[MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION] was referring to experiences that I had GMing Rolemaster, and that I have posted about on these threads on other occasions.

The thing is - I'm rather hoping that WotC can be a leader here instead of doing the same things wrong that most systems, historically, have done wrong.



As for the whole fights/day thing ... For me, I'm a lot more interested in constraints placed on my adventure pacing than on PCs intentionally angling for a five-minute work-day.

I agree with all this.

My goal upthread isn't to defend D&Dnext's design - I'm only concerned with the more narrow thesis, that being able to do more encounters between recharges is, per se, a power-up. In a system in which recharging itself is not systematically constrained, that's not the case.

But that doesn't tell us anything about whether or not recharching should be constrained! If it's going to be a meaningful part of the game, arguably it should.

One elegant feature of 4e, in my view, is that it tackles resources at two levels. In-encounter resources are built right into the game, via encounter powers, short rest surge-expenditure rules, the max-one-AP-per-encounter rule, etc. And then per-day resources are of optional significance - some groups can constrain extended rest availability, others not - but because every PC is on roughly the same resource suite (martal Essentials PCs excepted) the game probably won't break either way.

My concern with D&Dnext isn't so much that it doesn't, per se, make recharges significant - it's that it has class builds that will be of significantly different effectiveness depending whether recharges are at-will, or rationed. Worrying about the effects of clerical healing, while ignoring this broader feature of the systems, strikes me as somewhat misplaced priorities.

Saving the princess is a real trope , game world urgency a valued parameter... thats why even out of combat healing needs reins on itl

I agree the trope is real. But so is the "swarms of orcs" trope, and that clearly makes wizards' AoE's more effective. It's when the trope becomes ubiquitous, or is built into the system, that the balance issue becomes a serious one.

People pretending something isnt a problem by focusing on narrowed situations

<snip>

A time sensitive single fight (must be done in fewer rounds.) is perhaps the only reason to pick the fighter as the 4th man... the rest of the time uber healer is hands down superior.

Play styles there isnt just one... and designing for the above string of asumptions is crappy design.

Well, the system has to be designed around some assumptions, doesn't it?

But seriously, leaving aside ingame time pressures, what prevents the 5-minute day in Next? And if the answer is "nothing", then out-of-combat healing isn't that important, and more concerning is the ability of wizards to nova, and thereby to overshadow fighters and rogues.

Until I've seen how the system is handling this, and is in some fashion mandating the "4 encounters per day" around which the wizard/fighter relative effectiveness is balanced, I'm not going to worry too much about the effects of clerical healing that emerge under an assumption (4 encounters between recharges) that the system has no means of rendering true.

 

[Obryn]

Wizards isn't trying to improved the game

This is fairly evident at this point.

-O

 

[Libramarian]

That always felt like an error... oh look you are a really healthy dude but it takes you longer to get better than the sickly fellow. Oh look you the young guy on the ground dying and the guy next to you barely injured lets give the barely injured guy a massive magic to fix him and slap a cure light wounds on the dying guy... that will do the trick.

Doesn't bother me much -- I think of hp as the capacity to continue fighting (at full strength) while more and more beat up, so it takes a highly skilled fighter longer to get back to full strength than a weak one.

It's the same thing with sports, a championship boxer/mma fighter has to rest for months between fights, while children can get into a fight and then are fine the next day. The rule of thumb for race running is to rest for 1 day per mile in length the race was. I couldn't complete a marathon to begin with, so I'll never be in a situation where I have to rest for 26 days after a run.

I could see increasing the healing rate for higher level characters a little bit, but I don't like fully proportional healing. I like this idea that higher level characters get beaten up more before they are susceptible to a killing blow (and therefore take longer to recover) than lower level chars.

thats a feature of 1e... in effect it created an expected wealth per level before there was one, not sure about the numbers but it felt like the xp * .75 or some such.

Yes! I think it's a really elegant solution to the wealth by level problem. IME in 1e it's more like 2/3 of XP (you get more xp from monsters and magic items) and in Basic it's 3/4-4/5.

I don't disagree with the sentiment of satisfying fans of various classes/races, but why does that entail making them more powerful than other classes/races? We see this, too, with the wizard afficionadoes. If any putative future D&D is to provide cleric fans with "properly powerful" clerics, wizard fans with "properly powerful" wizards, fighter fans with "properly powerful" fighters and rogue fans with "properly powerful" rogues, what is going to be left as merely "average"? It reminds me of the latter day miners union leader, Joe Gormley, who once said it was his aim that "no-one should be paid below the national average, and miners should be paid above the national average" - thus demonstrating either breathtaking ambition to transcend the laws of reality, or a complete ignorance of the meaning of the word "average".

My thought -- and this is kind of speculative because I'm not personally really a cleric fan, nor is anyone in my group, but I have some familiarity with the archetype from MMOs, and then I'm also going by [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] 's opinions, since he seems like the thread's representative of fans of the traditional cleric -- is that with the cleric it's kind of all-or-nothing: you either have enough of an impact on the group's stamina to get into that strong "altruistic" support role, or you don't. I absolutely think that reducing the cleric's other abilities can be part of the solution--I know when we playtested the first round the cleric had a "laser beam" at-will thing that felt really OP and unnecessary.

This is really quite interesting; my immediate thought was "well, of course gamism starts right during character creation", but I'm obviously missing something. I did wonder, hitherto, where the "step on up" element came in the play of "fantasy effin' Vietnam". If you have no choice but to battle through some Nietzchian nightmare of random death, how are you "stepping up to a challenge"? But this would explain it - and I wonder how widespread this approach is among "Combat as War" fans? Is taking some selected degree of suboptimal party and/or character build where you select just how big a set of cojones you are going to display?

A little bit IME with early editions. We just did character creation for a 1e hexcrawl campaign and the party doesn't have a Cleric. It's probably going to be more difficult, but maybe not if the party finds a lot of healing portions and doesn't run into many undead, and it's uncertain how much more frequent natural resting is going to cost them, and if they really need one they can probably find a Cleric henchman later. It would be nice to have a cleric PC but there's not really enough predictability about what the game will be like for rolling without one to have been a major cajones displaying moment. A better example of this kind of thing would be the gamist pride associated with accepting and playing with crappy ability score rolls. That is a choice, because the players know that if they really, really want another set then they can have one, but it will elicit some playful tongue-clucking around the table.

I bet this is more common in 3e groups where the classes are so unbalanced that there's actually a widely accepted tier classification system for them. I could see it being a point of pride to complete an Adventure Path with all Tier-4 classes.

Where I'm really familiar with this is playing multi-player Medieval II Total War, which is a similar experience to playing gamist D&D in a few ways (there's no "end", you just keep playing until you have so many cities and armies and it gets so complicated that it becomes unplayable, and then you start over). During the game every once in a while you brag to each other about what you've been able to accomplish vis-a-vis your starting position and resources. If you play as Scotland then you've done well if you manage to conquer England before the end of the game, if you play as the Fatimid Caliphate then you need to conquer like all of Asia Minor to get the same amount of props.

It's only less fun if any of the players considers fiero to be important -- overcoming challenges and meeting goals. Which, I think, a significant enough number of players do that it would be a problem to have the basic game pretend like that's not going to happen.


I'm working under that assumption because that assumption is true often enough to warrant working under it. If it didn't happen, I'd expect to see more dwarven bards and elven barbarians. Yet, in part because those are not optimal choices, those become rarer in play.

This isn't a binary, of course, and not every group gives a flip, but it's a pressure that does exist.


My problem is that forcing someone to choose between playing the character they WANT to play, and playing the character they feel the MUST play (or weaken the entire party and create a more difficult challenge for everyone) is an unfair choice to force someone -- especially a newbie -- to make. I don't think D&D players should have to choose between effective in mechanical terms and cool in their own minds. If the cleric is better than any other class, that's a choice we're forcing on them.

I dunno, how often do 3e groups do something like "let's complete Red Hand of Doom with all Tier-4 classes!"? Is that a thing?

What I'm saying is the more transparent the game is about class/group balance and the more predictable it is in play the more you would see groups purposefully choosing less optimal configurations because they can play with the shared understanding that their in-game success is to be judged relative to their starting choices.

Char-op becomes a bigger part of the challenge of the game the more that the game is a black box about what's going to happen* and the more complex and opaque the various character options are, so pre-play the players all research their separate spheres of character options and the in-game if somebody ends up having a particularly powerful character everybody else says "huh, they must have made good choices in the character-creation minigame" and gives them props that way.

So reducing that charop pressure is part of the solution I think, to reaching this desired situation where the cleric is useful enough that the cleric fan can feel needed and get into that strong support role, but without being so necessary that groups without cleric fans feel like they need to have one.

*Of course, this is one of D&D's best features so there's tension here.

The issue is that it's a false choice. They shouldn't have to choose between what they want and what is the most efficient. They should be able to play whatever they want without any drop in efficiency. That's a choice that the design of the game is forcing on them. Not every group or every player gives a flip about drops in efficiency, so the pressure isn't always present or dominant, but why force the choice if you don't have to?

I like the extra texture of having to weigh aesthetics against pure fun against effectiveness sometimes, and I feel slightly insulted/this-is-lame when the game seems to be trying really hard to make sure I don't have to.

What should a party with a cleric be giving up, in order to balance its greater endurance compared to a party that does not have one?

If clerical healing is mostly out-of-combat then clerics trade power at the individual encounter level for greater inter-encounter endurance (in addition to whatever other special abilities other classes have). Not just because of their lesser offensive output but because the other classes' damage mitigation abilities are used in-combat. A cleric decreases the resources used over 5 encounters, a Fighter decreases the chance of a TPK in a single "boss" encounter. Assuming that the Cleric's buffing ability is kept under control of course.

 

[Libramarian]

I have an idea cure spells should be of improved efficiency out of comat then there would be a trade of survivability peak performance vs stamina

Oops, this has already been said. Yes I agree. Although that implementation sounds kind of clunky, I would prefer if in-combat healing cost an action and the damage mitigation stuff was a free or low cost reaction, so you naturally wouldn't see much in-combat healing.

 

[JamesonCourage]

The thing is - I'm rather hoping that WotC can be a leader here instead of doing the same things wrong that most systems, historically, have done wrong.

O....kay?

As for the whole fights/day thing ... For me, I'm a lot more interested in constraints placed on my adventure pacing than on PCs intentionally angling for a five-minute work-day. The latter can happen, sure, but with my games I often don't have more than 1 fight in a day - or even week - since I run a travel-heavy game. I want the system to allow me to pace adventures however I see fit rather than constrained either by random encounter checks, numbers of encounters per day, or anything of that nature.

I feel you, since this is much closer to how I play. Traveling occurs often in my games, and, like I said, two fights in one day happen, but it's not often, and three is rare (maybe during a mass combat or something). As always, play what you like

but simply cant because your Cleric is UBER over powered and contributes twice the "stamina"

Man, I'm sorry, but I'm just not following you. We okay to agree to disagree?

Sorry about the quote fix.

Thank you, it's cool. We're good. I know you didn't do it to purposefully irritate me.

We are talking about somethings value being great enough its stupid not to use it.... is that the same as need... might as well be for most D&D players.

Depending, of course. And that was my point. As always, play what you like

The ability for a spellcaster to expend all their magic, rest for eight hours, and have it all back when the magic is as potent as high level D&D spell-casting gets to be isn't exactly a common one in tabletop RPGs.

I said this to pemerton for a reason, though. I wasn't defending it, I was just commenting on his experience with this particular play phenomenon. As always, play what you like

 

[FireLance]

If clerical healing is mostly out-of-combat then clerics trade power at the individual encounter level for greater inter-encounter endurance (in addition to whatever other special abilities other classes have). Not just because of their lesser offensive output but because the other classes' damage mitigation abilities are used in-combat. A cleric decreases the resources used over 5 encounters, a Fighter decreases the chance of a TPK in a single "boss" encounter. Assuming that the Cleric's buffing ability is kept under control of course.

The irony is that I think this approach is more feasibly implemented in 4e than in previous editions and how 5e looks like it is shaping up to be.

In 4e, it is theoretically possible for a party to be all brought to 0 hit points, losing the encounter, and then continuing to adventure after taking a short rest, spending healing surges and recovering encounter powers.

In other editions, the only fight a party really loses (barring special scenarios with additional goals beyond "kill them all") is the last one. In other fights, not being able to kill the enemy fast enough simply means losing more hit points.

I do take the point that a party with a cleric might have less spike offensive capability, so that such a party might (say) only be able to take on level+3 enounters instead of level+4 encounters. It is not my preferred method of balancing (it makes the rules for determining party-appropriate encounters a bit more fiddly), but I do recognize it is not a problem for all playstyles, and the rule can be simplified for inexperienced DMs (e.g. don't use encounters more than 3 levels higher than the party).

 

[Ratskinner]

Saving the princess is a real trope , game world urgency a valued parameter... thats why even out of combat healing needs reins on itl

True enough, but much like facing Undead, its not something that matters in every, or even most, games or adventures. If this was the only thing healing was doing...I don't think we'd be having such a discussion.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It may be crappy design but people ain't gonna buy it if it ain't there. Wizards isn't trying to improved the game, they're trying to recapture the feels of the various editions into a single edition. If the cleric doesn't feel the same, by by purchaser. They have to design viscerally and not logically to accomplish that. If there isn't an assumption of in combat healing and lack of mundane healing, the players I've gamed with will have no interest in switching. They won't even buy the books or look at them. They're the same people who kept on playing 3x or switched to PF, not because it was better, but because it was more viscerally appealing to them. And at least half of them hate the cleric. But if its changed they're not interested in even looking at it. In all fairness though, they've already bailed on 5e though because of the advantage mechanic. Which I can't blame them. Definitely not D&D feeling to me, although logically more appealing.

I see this complaint a lot in these debates and to me it sounds like people are equating solving problems they have with the game with good design. I think what this debate really shows is that the problems people encounter are not universal and solutions to those problems are not universally satisfactory. Clearly some people want clerics that do all or most of the healing and some people dont. But this isnt a good versus bad design issue, its an issue of identifying what people who play the game want and trying to make the most number of players happy. Good or bad design doesnt exist in a vacuum. You have to consider what people want and what they are doing at the table. There are certainly design improvements that can be measured (mechanics that speed up play, slow play down, math that doesnt line up, mechanics that claim to x but actulaly do y). However I think people are taking refuge in the arguments that just try to paint things they dont like as bad design, and stuff they do as forward looking good design.

 

[sheadunne]

I see this complaint a lot in these debates and to me it sounds like people are equating solving problems they have with the game with good design. I think what this debate really shows is that the problems people encounter are not universal and solutions to those problems are not universally satisfactory. Clearly some people want clerics that do all or most of the healing and some people dont. But this isnt a good versus bad design issue, its an issue of identifying what people who play the game want and trying to make the most number of players happy. Good or bad design doesnt exist in a vacuum. You have to consider what people want and what they are doing at the table. There are certainly design improvements that can be measured (mechanics that speed up play, slow play down, math that doesnt line up, mechanics that claim to x but actulaly do y). However I think people are taking refuge in the arguments that just try to paint things they dont like as bad design, and stuff they do as forward looking good design.

I think Wizards has a real challenge in maintaining the feel of each edition while providing a core set of mechanics that work across the editions. I feel like I'm arguing for the aesthetics of the game, while others are arguing for the mechanics of the game. It's the middle ground that Wizards is trying to hit. I fully accept that I'm going to lose some feel (advantage/disadvantage) I just don't what to lose all feel, especially when it comes to one of my favorite classes and types of play (the cleric and support). Only I (being any individual) can determine whether the feel has been maintained. No amount of mechanics argument can change one's mind, when it's not the mind that's making decision. And that's not bad design, it's the process Apple uses in all their design decisions (and also why sometimes they fail mechanically and achieve successfully). Continuing with that line of thinking, in the 1980s everyone thought that Jobs' refusal to license the Mac OS was a horrible idea (after all Microsoft was doing it and dominating the market) and yet, ten years later when Jobs returned to Apple, using the same closed system mentality, showed that the idea worked and now it's in the top three companies of all time. We can't say that Gygax was wrong in his design decisions unless we're willing to go back and see if they're right. Lots of people right now (over the last five to ten years) have fled modern game design and returned to the older systems. I myself am drawn to the early games of my youth and their systems of play, but I still enjoy much of modern game design. If Wizards can combine the best of both worlds, I'll be content. Otherwise, I'll be just another player playing an out of print game (well, not so out of print anymore thanks to WOTC brining back the PDFs) and having a grand old time!

That said, I've really enjoyed the discussions on the topic and find it both beneficial to my own thinking about game design and to solidifying my own needs and desires when it comes to RPGs.