D&D 5E L&L December 16th Can you feel it?

[delericho]

That's only because we are defining Sneak Attack so narrowly.

I'm defining it the way the mechanics do - a means to cause massive damage if the situation is right. That's all it really does, which is certainly quite different from the Wizard's spells' ability to cause damage of various different types, to trip opponents (grease), to paralyse (hold person), to turn an enemy into an ally (charm person), etc etc.

But fair point on the Fighter.

Sneak Attack, although it only does "one thing"(doing damage), if it is defined as "the ability to know the best way to harm every monster" it becomes much like combining all the Wizard's combat spells together into one class feature where the player doesn't even have to choose the best option, it is chosen for them.

Not quite. It's like combining all the Wizard's direct damage spells together. It does nothing comparable to the area effect damage spells, nor all the indirect combat spells (as above). And pretty much any optimiser worth his salt, in 3e at least, very quickly abandons the direct damage spells - they're just not worth it. (Of course, that's a whole other weakness in 3e, but there it is...)

 

[dmgorgon]

I'm actually on board with backstab being a much more powerful attack that can only be done before combat starts. It positions the thief and the mage as specializing in encounter nullification. The thief handles single targets and traps, and the mage handles environmental hazards (via spider climb, fly, etc) and large groups of weak enemies (via sleep, fireball, etc). Fighters and clerics are then the clean up crew for when the s*** hits the fan.

I agree, that's the problem. Backstab started off as a kill shot and then became a semi-useful combat skill.

Now we have players who are expecting to use it in every combat situation. I'm fine with giving the rogue a few in combat tricks and maneuvers, but the game should bring the situational kill shot back.

 

[ExploderWizard]

It wasn't any better in 1E.

Exploration can be made fun, but it's hard, because you have neither an active antagonist nor any support from the rules to help you keep the players challenged and engaged. Without those, there is a tendency to quickly settle into a routine: Announce everything you can think of to poke with sticks, knock on, listen to, examine with a magnifying glass, peer behind, and cast divination spells on. Roll a whole bunch of d20s. Then move a bit and do it again. In most cases, you are punished for not being exhaustive enough in listing off things to poke/knock/listen to/examine/peer behind/divine, but there is no penalty for being too exhaustive, so the incentive is to throw dice at the exploration scenario until you knock loose all the traps and treasure.

An additional problem is that in many cases, failure at the exploration scenario brings the adventure to a halt. DMs who don't think to plan for this often end up being ridiculously lenient, allowing players to try everything under the sun, because the alternative is no game. Result: No chance of failure, which means no tension.

IMO, most good exploration scenarios add an element of time pressure and provide for failure. When you don't have time to try everything, you have to set priorities and make decisions, which is what makes the game exciting. If you've only got five minutes before the next shift of guards comes on duty, and a search takes one minute, what are you going to search? You only get five chances, better make them count! If you make good decisions, you either find what you're after or find a clue that will help you in subsequent checks. If you make bad decisions, you'll have to pull out and try something else.

But building a whole adventure around scenarios like this is difficult to say the least. In my experience, combat and social encounters make up the bulk of most adventures.

What you do have to keep the players engaged is an opportunity for them to directly interact with the environment. Wandering monster checks can force prioritization on where and when thorough searching will take place. The engagement is generated when results can be gained purely from player effort without needing to add a die roll just because. Failure at exploration doesn't need to bring anything to a halt unless the participants all agree that nothing in the rest of the world exists, just that secret door and what lies behind it.

That's only because we are defining Sneak Attack so narrowly. If we instead define it as "a particular combat style that involves capitalizing on weak points, distractions, and fighting dirty" then it simply isn't any more narrow than a fighter's shtick.

The problem is, and this is what the article says almost precisely, that when you define Sneak Attack as hitting things in vital organs, then you have problems with "How do you reach the vital organs of Giants?", "Do Oozes have vital organs?", and so on.

If you define it that narrowly then it's not a good idea for you to base an entire class around it. So, simply don't define it that narrowly and the issue goes away.

Actually you just trade that issue for another one. If the rogue generally knows how to consistently hit everything where it hurts all the time doing far more damage than the dedicated fighter who has trained exclusively in combat, where does that leave the fighter?

The rogue is now better at fighting than the fighter AND can sneak around and disarm/open things, etc. Meanwhile the fighter gets to be better at taking a beating .

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I don't game to discover the twists and turns that lead to inevitable victory. I game to play. Seeing if I win or lose is kind of the point of the game. I can understand that others want to play differently but if the mechanics of the game support inevitable victory as a standard then those of use who seek a more objective game will look elsewhere.

I still maintain that the mechanics have always supported this. Try running through the original Tomb of Horrors in 1e. There are only two ways the game goes: You get to the end of the dungeon and "win" or you all die and stop playing the game. I suppose there's a third option where you all die and roll up new characters to try again. Then you keep trying until you "win" or you stop playing.

If we are going to define the game more broadly and instead say "the game is about whatever actions the PCs take for the rest of their lives" and isn't ABOUT the Tomb of Horrors, then we have the same problem. What counts as winning? What counts as losing? If the PCs fail to stop the Orc lord from destroying the town, did they lose? Or is that just one minor setback in a story that will have them rebuilding the town later?

I'd argue that in D&D there ARE only two options: Playing the game or not playing the game. Winning and losing don't even factor into it. It's a lot like life.

The only real difference is that you are dealing with life or death situations the vast majority of the time in D&D and death ends the game the same way it does in real life. So if continuing to survive counts as winning, then as long as the game continues, you are winning.

 

[TwoSix]

What you do have to keep the players engaged is an opportunity for them to directly interact with the environment. Wandering monster checks can force prioritization on where and when thorough searching will take place. The engagement is generated when results can be gained purely from player effort without needing to add a die roll just because. Failure at exploration doesn't need to bring anything to a halt unless the participants all agree that nothing in the rest of the world exists, just that secret door and what lies behind it.

I do agree that any adventure with a "fail-stop" where you can't move forward without a success is a bad adventure. I do like the wandering monster checks, though...the more fights, the better, I say.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I guess I just don't understand this. How do you win/lose in a cooperative game? Is surviving winning? Is the goal to see how high of a level you can get before you die?

You can lose in an adventure without a character death. You can fail to achieve your objectives, fail to find significant treasure, and make your situation in the game world generally worse than it was when you started. Your character can also die.

You can win by achieving your objectives, finding great treasures, gaining wealth & power, gaining both fame & prestige.

That is the game. Sometimes you get a little of both. Without the possibility of loss, gains don't feel satisfying.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Failure at exploration doesn't need to bring anything to a halt unless the participants all agree that nothing in the rest of the world exists, just that secret door and what lies behind it.

Technically, nothing in the rest of the world does exist unless the DM wants it to. If the DM doesn't want it to, then the secret door and what lies behind it might be everything. It certainly matters if you care about mysteries. It's very unfulfilling for a lot of people to find out that this dungeon was the final resting place of an ancient warrior and find pieces of his legendary sword only to come up with 9 out of the 10 pieces simply because you didn't find a secret door.

That's the kind of thing that would cause people to dedicate their entire life to searching that dungeon for the last piece and ignoring the rest of the world.

Actually you just trade that issue for another one. If the rogue generally knows how to consistently hit everything where it hurts all the time doing far more damage than the dedicated fighter who has trained exclusively in combat, where does that leave the fighter?

The rogue is now better at fighting than the fighter AND can sneak around and disarm/open things, etc. Meanwhile the fighter gets to be better at taking a beating .

That's only better if you actually make them better than a fighter. That's not a requirement. They can do extra damage because they have "sneak attack" without making it so the extra damage makes them do more than fighters.

Either way, getting better at surviving IS an advantage. A really good advantage.

I'd say the value of doing slightly more damage in exchange for dying much easier is a valid one.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I do agree that any adventure with a "fail-stop" where you can't move forward without a success is a bad adventure. I do like the wandering monster checks, though...the more fights, the better, I say.

The problem is that MOST adventures will have at least one "fail-stop" in them. Dungeons require you to get to the end of the dungeon or the adventure is over. Most "prevent something bad from happening" adventures stop when you fail to prevent the something bad from happening. Finding stuff requires actually finding it.

I can't really think of an adventure that DOESN'T have one of these without resorting to "The win conditions have changed, now you are going on adventure B instead of adventure A." I'd argue that this isn't an adventure without a "fail-stop" but is instead writing a bunch of adventures in case the PCs reach a "fail-stop".

 

[TwoSix]

The problem is that MOST adventures will have at least one "fail-stop" in them. Dungeons require you to get to the end of the dungeon or the adventure is over. Most "prevent something bad from happening" adventures stop when you fail to prevent the something bad from happening. Finding stuff requires actually finding it.

I can't really think of an adventure that DOESN'T have one of these without resorting to "The win conditions have changed, now you are going on adventure B instead of adventure A." I'd argue that this isn't an adventure without a "fail-stop" but is instead writing a bunch of adventures in case the PCs reach a "fail-stop".

Well, that's probably why I don't really like adventures. A classic sandbox or an indie game both just assume the game will continue without continuing the current storyline, which is why I like both of those ways of playing.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Well I'm a 2e player and I can certainly respect your reservations with 3e. As you know, in 2e a rogue's backstab ability was not something that was used during combat that often. Perhaps it might be used once if the rogue was hiding before the encounter began, but for the most part its use was highly situational. In that edition, a backstab was a kill shot. You had to make an effort to put yourself into a situation in which it could be used. Rogues generally didn't engage in direct combat all that much either. Of course, the idea of the rogue being the "out of combat" character became a thing of the past when MMORPG's started to see the rogue as a DPS character.

I actually found that backstab wasn't really a kill shot in 2e either. A lot of people played it wrong, but the rule itself said to apply the multiplier to only the die roll itself, not any modifiers. So, when using a 1d4 dagger a x5 multiplier made a roll of a 2 into 10 damage. If it was a +5 dagger with a 10 strength, you'd do a total of 15 damage. A fighter with an 18/00 strength with a +5 longsword who rolled a 2 on damage was doing 13 damage.

If you were fighting a significant threat, 15 damage was not killing them outright. If you multiplied strength mods and magic weapon bonus by the backstab multiplier, it often did kill in one hit. But just as often the Wizard was doing more damage with a fireball.

There's a reason MMORPGs(and 3e and 4e D&D) made rogues into a DPS character, they realized that the rogue's shtick was so small as to be insignificant in most games. When you walk down a hallway filled with 10 doors and there is a combat encounter behind all 10 of them, the rogue spends about 30 seconds each checking them for traps and disarming. The rest of the party spends 20 minutes fighting each combat encounter.

It's not very fun being the guy who plays the game for 30 seconds every 20 minutes.

Also, one shot kills aren't very much fun for anyone. So that's not the best option either.