D&D 5E D&DN going down the wrong path for everyone.

[AbdulAlhazred]

Success is not a bad option but I don't want to sit down to a game that is geared more towards winning or success. I don't play to win or even succeed, I play the game and whatever happens whether I succeed or I don't I accept it. Success and failure need to be equal options unless I go the extra mile and work more towards my success.

Don't guarantee me success or a happy ending. If my first character doesn't make it through then I accept he wasn't meant to. Some people have trouble with that concept and I don't want a game that is built around that default assumption. I don't need the rules to hold my hand. I'm not that one guy who can only come up with one character concept her game who wants to be reassured that his character will make it to the end.

First of all, ALL that 4e did was make a reliable dial on which it was possible to measure how likely success was, at least for the DM. If you believe that it is some sort of easy-peasy game come on over and join our online Saturday evening game, and you'll rapidly discover just how easy it is to get into a horrible situation which kills characters. Nor do I have to do any sort of hacking on the system to get that. So that's one problem that I see, you're just not realistically contrasting the options. When you characaturize one option it really becomes in essence a straw man sort of thing, and frankly I'm not here to prove points anyway.

Secondly though, there's no logical reason whatsoever that "Success and failure need to be equal options", that's not only not something you've demonstrated, it has been shown to be objectively less likely to please most people. There's a sweet spot, and it is generally somewhere in the 60/40 to 80/20 success/fail range as I understand it. There was plenty of discussion on this topic several years ago when 4e came out. I see no reason to believe this has changed.

 

[billd91]

My observation would be that of course things get more difficult as you level up in 3e. Why would level 9 PCs wander around taking on challenges that are so trivial for them that level 1 PCs could probably succeed? You don't fight goblins at level 9, nor do you play around with simple snares and pits. If you DO run into those things they're just set dressing at that point.

You're primarily dodging Derren's point. Nobody expects challenges to not rise as you go up in levels in 3e, but the difficulties of individual tasks aren't expected to rise with the level of the PCs. Using an acrobatic move to get on top of the triceratops should be expected to be the same DC whether PC is 1st level or 20th - how easy it is depends on how much he invests in his acrobatic skills. Moreover, the GM isn't encouraged to set the DC based on the PC's level like he is for generally undefined maneuvers and actions in 4e on page 42.

3e's skill system does lead to some pretty big differences in abilities. Never spend ranks on it vs always spend ranks on it will lead to pretty wide results - current level +3 for class skills, in fact. Add in the effects of disparate abilities scores (and the assumption that a skill you spend a lot on may be based on a stat you improve a lot). Yet the place this mostly shows up is in opposed contests. With most skills that don't involve opposed rolls, tapering off investment is a perfectly viable strategy once the PC has reached a level of success he is comfortable with - enabling investment in other skills. So it's the opposed rolling that really needs the most revision. 4e's solution was to cap the gap, but still left as many as 13 points in difference (I personally noted as much in our 4e campaign and I can come up with 16 point differences easily enough) so I'll consider that a relatively weak attempt at a solution.

For my money, while I liked 3e/PF's skill customization, I'm not opposed to D&D Next's focus on making skill checks largely stat checks. The game can stand a fairly radical simplification compared to the number bloat we've seen over the last 13 years and there is a lot about the play test that I'm enjoying. If this is going on the wrong path, I hope they do more of it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

You're primarily dodging Derren's point. Nobody expects challenges to not rise as you go up in levels in 3e, but the difficulties of individual tasks aren't expected to rise with the level of the PCs. Using an acrobatic move to get on top of the triceratops should be expected to be the same DC whether PC is 1st level or 20th - how easy it is depends on how much he invests in his acrobatic skills. Moreover, the GM isn't encouraged to set the DC based on the PC's level like he is for generally undefined maneuvers and actions in 4e on page 42.

Nothing in 4e suggests that the designers intended anyone to set different DCs for the SAME TASK. Look at the door breaking tables and the traps sections of the various DMGs/DMKs. The advice on page 42, as I interpret it, is that the challenge WILL BE level appropriate, because that's the way you generally run a game. If I write up an adventure for level 5 PCs on Saturday, it will be designed with level 5 challenges in it, and when I run it on Monday evening if a PC does something 'page 42' then chances are the situation will be such that the DC will fall into the level 5 range. If a PC happens to attempt something easy, then it could be a lower level DC, but generally there's not a huge amount of reason to bother with checks that PCs only fail on a 2.

I'd just note however that, though 4e closes the gap between skilled and unskilled, the difference is still pretty large. The notion [MENTION=91812]ForeverSlayer[/MENTION] has, that 4e somehow makes everything easy for everyone, is nonsense. A level 10 hard DC is 26. Your average level 10 wizard has an Athletics bonus of say +6 (it could be worse, a character could be as low as +2 at level 10 on that check). In other words it is still QUITE possible to be hopelessly bad at hard tasks. The Medium DC is 18, our hypothetical wizard still needs a 12+ to climb something that is an at-level (modest) challenge for his level. In my usage where stepping up to challenges would be riskier whatever complication meets failure of one of those checks is going to be interesting. I'd note here that IMHO for the type of stepping up idea I'm outlining a lower variance in success chances would actually be better. Another way to handle that would be some sort of hero point (IE the wizard can blow a resource to make it to the top of the climb), 4e lacks a generalized system for that.

3e's skill system does lead to some pretty big differences in abilities. Never spend ranks on it vs always spend ranks on it will lead to pretty wide results - current level +3 for class skills, in fact. Add in the effects of disparate abilities scores (and the assumption that a skill you spend a lot on may be based on a stat you improve a lot). Yet the place this mostly shows up is in opposed contests. With most skills that don't involve opposed rolls, tapering off investment is a perfectly viable strategy once the PC has reached a level of success he is comfortable with - enabling investment in other skills. So it's the opposed rolling that really needs the most revision. 4e's solution was to cap the gap, but still left as many as 13 points in difference (I personally noted as much in our 4e campaign and I can come up with 16 point differences easily enough) so I'll consider that a relatively weak attempt at a solution.

Sure, as I noted above, the range in 4e is still not entirely suitable. Frankly I think the design of 4e was caught between competing aesthetics within WotC, some designers wanted process sim and some wanted narrative control, and neither side really got exactly what it wanted. This is hinted at in a remark Mike or one of the other devs once made about the 4e skill system's design being a huge bone of contention during development.

For my money, while I liked 3e/PF's skill customization, I'm not opposed to D&D Next's focus on making skill checks largely stat checks. The game can stand a fairly radical simplification compared to the number bloat we've seen over the last 13 years and there is a lot about the play test that I'm enjoying. If this is going on the wrong path, I hope they do more of it.

In practice I'm not convinced DDN's system IS simpler. In fact as it stands now I'd argue that it is entirely more complex than that of either 3e or 4e. IMHO 4e's skill system was the simplest to use in play. It was rarely unclear which skill to use and once that was decided the skill bonus was always a single pre-calculated number (with a very rare buff or debuff, etc). Frankly I'm dubious you CAN make a simpler system and still have it be a skill system. Obviously Basic DDN will be even simpler, but then again, it can't really be said to have skills.

 

[Weather Report]

You're primarily dodging Derren's point. Nobody expects challenges to not rise as you go up in levels in 3e, but the difficulties of individual tasks aren't expected to rise with the level of the PCs. Using an acrobatic move to get on top of the triceratops should be expected to be the same DC whether PC is 1st level or 20th - how easy it is depends on how much he invests in his acrobatic skills. Moreover, the GM isn't encouraged to set the DC based on the PC's level like he is for generally undefined maneuvers and actions in 4e on page 42.

3e's skill system does lead to some pretty big differences in abilities. Never spend ranks on it vs always spend ranks on it will lead to pretty wide results - current level +3 for class skills, in fact. Add in the effects of disparate abilities scores (and the assumption that a skill you spend a lot on may be based on a stat you improve a lot). Yet the place this mostly shows up is in opposed contests. With most skills that don't involve opposed rolls, tapering off investment is a perfectly viable strategy once the PC has reached a level of success he is comfortable with - enabling investment in other skills. So it's the opposed rolling that really needs the most revision. 4e's solution was to cap the gap, but still left as many as 13 points in difference (I personally noted as much in our 4e campaign and I can come up with 16 point differences easily enough) so I'll consider that a relatively weak attempt at a solution.

For my money, while I liked 3e/PF's skill customization, I'm not opposed to D&D Next's focus on making skill checks largely stat checks. The game can stand a fairly radical simplification compared to the number bloat we've seen over the last 13 years and there is a lot about the play test that I'm enjoying. If this is going on the wrong path, I hope they do more of it.

Nice; I agree, I am digging the path 5th is going, I wanted a new edition, and 4th Ed delivered on many points/addresses problems, but in some it seemed to be dealing with a zit by decapitation.

I also think on classes they should have gone with 4: Controller, Defender, Leader and Striker, then choose a Power Source and Features (that would have cut down on a thousand or so powers).

 

[Derren]

My observation would be that of course things get more difficult as you level up in 3e. Why would level 9 PCs wander around taking on challenges that are so trivial for them that level 1 PCs could probably succeed? You don't fight goblins at level 9, nor do you play around with simple snares and pits. If you DO run into those things they're just set dressing at that point. I'd also point out that 4e DOES establish default conventions for the DCs of specific challenges. There are numbers for climbing, opening doors, and several other things (the RC has at least one example per skill, though weirdly it switches halfway through to level scaling them, but whatever). Anyway, the point is you will know what DC a specific type of door is in 4e. In both games relevant challenges are going to have similarly high DCs. The problem with 3e is that the spread is monstrous, you're either taking levels in a skill or you are totally irrelevant to any situation that's relatively challenging that uses that skill. That's the problem.

No the problem is that you again scale the DCs like 4E advises you to do. A river or a cliff does not automatically become a trivial challenge to 9th level PCs because they don't get better at climbing/swimming automatically. And just because you are hunting a lvl 20 BBEG you can still encounter such obstacles.

I don't really agree. The problem is you can't take just the core 4e skill mechanics in isolation. First of all nothing stops you from running a game much in the vein of 3e where if the party can't unlock the door tough luck. It is just more likely that someone has a decent chance of breaking it down or picking the lock and a single lone character will have SOME chance of doing either or both, even if they aren't his specialities. Said character will still probably want an alternative in that mode of play.

However, you have to understand that in 4e there are powers, feats, items, and even some racial features, that provide specific narrow situational capabilities to do specific things. Beyond that skills in the raw are not intended to be the last word. There are backgrounds, which will allow the DM to adjudicate things like "you were once a blacksmith, you know X, Y, or Z about that" without needing to pin down exactly what that means or turn it into another skill nobody else can be good at. Finally, and most importantly, the basic skill system is the complement for SCs. If you have a situation that is meant to be interesting and challenging then its not going to be a simple skill check, its going to be developed into a process.

The nice thing about 4e skills is that they ARE broad, so they act as a pretty good set of descriptors of your character. In fact they are a lot closer to being in the same vein as FATE descriptors than they are specific knowledge indicators. The character trained in Athletics is a guy who solves problems by physical means. He's ATHLETIC. He may also be the village strongman and have a 20 STR, etc, or not. Likewise with the other 4e skills (though I note some people have expressed dissatisfaction with knowledge skills being lumped in with the others). Personally I like it. If my character has Athletics, Perception, and Streetwise its pretty easy to get a handle on what sort of chap he is. He's observant, solves problems with physical means, and has developed a knack for rooting out information from people. Even without knowing stats or class we have a handle on at least part of the character's personality and background. While I wouldn't say 3e style skills have NO value there they are too narrow to really contribute a whole lot to the big picture.

You can run a 4E game like 3E, but there is no point in it. As everyone is good in everything in 4E all challenges must be scaled to their level or they are trivial. A 9th level party comes across a door? If it is a normal door everyone in the party can overcome it. To be really worthy of actually being a challenge it has to be a adamantium door with a clockwork lock. In the end you still just have a scene with a generic obstacle. It doesn't even matter much what the obstacle is as everyone gets better at everything. The level of the PCs decide what door they face.
In 3E this is different. Here the exact nature of the obstacle matter much more as PCs are not automatically good at everything. The best lvl 15 lockpicker in the world will still have trouble scaling a moderately challenging cliff if he never bothered to train climbing. And when they face a door it is just a door appropriate for its location. Maybe the rogue int the group is good enough to open it, maybe not.

And the broad skills in 4E reinforce this "skills being redundant". You are good with athletics? Congratulations, you are a good swimmer (despite never having seen water deeper than your knee), climber (despite the highest elevation in your home country just being a mild 300 meters), etc.
Someone being good in Athletics, Perception and Streetwise tells you nothing about that person as every category is so broad. It works for "hero" characters who are awesome at everything (Climbing, swimming, running, spotting, listening, gossiping, etc.). And that is just three skills. Considering that under the 4E system you get good in everything it means every PC is a walking superhero. But some people still want their characters to be humans with flaws and weak points. Those weak points are denied in 4E as it could result in someone not participating in an skill obstacle scene and that obviously wouldn't work with skill challenges.

In 5E it seems to be the same, just less drastic. Because of the flat math everyone has a chance to do nearly anything and the space where a trained person can succeed and a untrained person can't is very narrow (because of the huge variance the D20 gives).

 

[Mournblade94]

I don't think it's a matter of the character getting better at the particular skill, as more that the challenge because significantly less important. The party has resources to bypass a particular challenge without relying on skill checks. If a party has the resources necessary to lop off a dragons head, then they probably have the resources to get over the cliff without much effort (like flying or levitating, or teleporting). Like in 3x when a wizard reaches 3rd level, locks are no longer a problem for a party. At 5th level cliffs are no longer a problem. When a party has resources that expand beyond the simple challenges, whether or not they have ranks in the skills to deal with them, use of those skills become annoyances rather than interesting scenarios. Oh no, a locked door, my fighter does 150 points of damage to it in one swing. Locked doors are a non-issue. 4e attempted to deal with that in its own way, more on the metagame level, which is why you add level. It's assumed that a party will have the resources necessary to handle the challenge, so why bog down game play. (There are other issues that the 4e skills systems attempts to address, but I'm focusing on resources.) Anyway, that's the way I see it. I personally am not a fan of it, but I appreciate 4e attempting to deal with it. I would like a different system, one that makes skills more important rather than less important based on party resources, but that would require another thread.

Locks are no longer a problem for the 3rd level party IF the wizard memorized Knock. If he didn't it is still a problem. If a party of epic level characters get to a cliff and they don't have flying devices, they have messed up and if none of them are climbers, that could be a problem.

A 20th level character may not run into a regular snare because the designer of the epic dungeon is prepared for epic level characters, not because the character is 20th level.

Some make it sound like in 4e adventures all doors suddenly become adamantine once the adventurer reaches a certain level.

It should not be assumed just because the party has the resources to destroy a dragon they have the resources to get through the castle gate.

If the wizard did not take the spell, he does not have the capability. Likewise if the fighter did not pack his rope and grappling hook the party should not be assumed to get through the task because well they are cool high level guys and they just 'know'.

 

[Obryn]

No, its not just skill checks, it is, in the end, two different styles of gaming.
Scene based where skill checks are just another level appropriate obstacle and supposed to be overcome, thus PCs need to be good at everything to "participate" and goal based where the players have more control over the obstacles (which is difficulty based independent from the PCs levels) they face and success is not guaranteed. In that case its is OK if some PCs are bad at something.

First off, I think it's funny you put "participate" in scare quotes as if it's a bad thing to participate at a game people are sitting around a table playing. But moving on - you're conflating the system's mechanics with your preferred playstyle.

Really, like I said, this is trivial. Option A: More restricted skill choice. Skills are more granular. No by-level bonuses, but give more "points."

Option B: Add in a by-level bonus with added bonuses for Trained skills.

It's really not hard, in the grand scheme of things, compared to everything else the designers are trying to do.

-O

 

[Derren]

First off, I think it's funny you put "participate" in scare quotes as if it's a bad thing to participate at a game people are sitting around a table playing. But moving on - you're conflating the system's mechanics with your preferred playstyle.

Really, like I said, this is trivial. Option A: More restricted skill choice. Skills are more granular. No by-level bonuses, but give more "points."

Option B: Add in a by-level bonus with added bonuses for Trained skills.

It's really not hard, in the grand scheme of things, compared to everything else the designers are trying to do.

-O

I put participate in quotations because the idea that everyone has to roll dice all the time is one reason why 4E is implemented the way it is. Of course people should participate in the game, but in every obstacle? This automatically means that every player, through his PC, must be able to contribute no matter what the obstacle actually is. Meaning automatic skill gain.

And we simply have to agree to disagree. This is more than just a mathematical question of how skills are handled, it goes down to the core of the game itself and the expectation of how it is supposed to be played. You can't just support both systems and leave the rest alone. That would just create a horrible mess. You practically need two different games for those two different approaches of gameplay.

 

[LostSoul]

The level of the PCs decide what door they face. In 3E this is different.

I don't think it's mechanically different; I think the difference is found in adventure design. It's easy enough to say, in 4E, "This is a simple wooden door with a normal lock, so it's a level 1-3 obstacle; DC 15". It's also easy enough to say, in 3E, "This adventure is made for 1st-level PCs, so the Break DC for the door needs to be 13 and Open Lock DC 25; which means it's a simple door with an average lock."

Now 4E doesn't have a table that tells you what each level means in the game world; this is either a feature or a flaw, depending on what you want.

 

[Derren]

I don't think it's mechanically different; I think the difference is found in adventure design. It's easy enough to say, in 4E, "This is a simple wooden door with a normal lock, so it's a level 1-3 obstacle; DC 15". It's also easy enough to say, in 3E, "This adventure is made for 1st-level PCs, so the Break DC for the door needs to be 13 and Open Lock DC 25; which means it's a simple door with an average lock."

Now 4E doesn't have a table that tells you what each level means in the game world; this is either a feature or a flaw, depending on what you want.

4E does have an advice which flat out tells you to place challenges with DCs scaled by PC level though.
At while a single door in a dungeon the PCs have to go through is pretty much the same in 3E and 4E, what about a door which is not required to be opened for the adventure? It comes back to goal based versus scene based game design.
In a scene based design the door is an obstacle supposed to be overcome by team effort not unlike combat (hence skill challenges). If the PCs had chosen a different path they would still encounter an obstacle and it would have the same DC as the door as otherwise it would not be an obstacle.
In a goal based design though the difficulty of reaching a goal may vary widely. The PCs might go one path, encounter a door and have to turn back as they are not trained in picking locks. Or they might have a master doorsmith and could open the door even though its very difficult.

If you replace door with cliff for example it might become clearer what I mean. When you place a cliff somewhere in a scene based game then it is an obstacle the PCs have to overcome and its DC is set in such a way that the PCs face some difficulties and ultimately overcome it.
In a goal based game the cliff might only be there because it is according to the map. And the difficulty climbing it would only depend on what type of cliff it is. The PCs might be able to scale it or might not. If not, then they have to look for a other way more aligned with their skills. Or they expend resources in the form of money or spell slots.
This of course requires the DM to build the world under a simulationist aspect, something many people did not do in 3E which let them to be unsatisfied with the skill system.