D&D 5E Why the claim of combat and class balance between the classes is mainly a forum issue. (In my opinion)

[pemerton]

I've seen pplayers that straight out ask a DM what level was that encounter, when things didn't go their way.

Those GMs are obviously doing it wrong - they should be rubbing their players' noses in the encounter level, either to generate tension (if it's high) or to taunt them for having trouble (if it's low)!

At least, that's how I do it.

Admittedly I have the advantage that (i) my players are fairly easy-going, and (ii) I know them independently of gaming with them. If I was GMing strangers I might taunt them less, but I'd probably also at least begin by being less fast-and-loose in my encounter building, and at least starting things in a zone that's a reasonably comfortable default for the system.

 

[Imaro]

Those GMs are obviously doing it wrong - they should be rubbing their players' noses in the encounter level, either to generate tension (if it's high) or to taunt them for having trouble (if it's low)!

At least, that's how I do it.

Admittedly I have the advantage that (i) my players are fairly easy-going, and (ii) I know them independently of gaming with them. If I was GMing strangers I might taunt them less, but I'd probably also at least begin by being less fast-and-loose in my encounter building, and at least starting things in a zone that's a reasonably comfortable default for the system.

How do you know the DM did or didn't... there are some outliers among monsters that are, pretty powerful for the amount of XP they provide... then there's also the fact that the very first module put out for 4e (and billed as the quick start module to begin with), KotS, has an encounter (the Irontooth one) that is outside the guidelines...

 

[Hussar]

Encounter guidelines aren't rules... and players can still bitch about them... when the DM doesn't seem to be following them...



Ok, first inherent bonuses are optional and only came later in supplemental material, I responded to a post that said they never had the problem in 4e... which means even before those rules appeared. Second, why wouldn't whether one can purchase a horse or not be under the purview of the DM? A little confused about that one...

A horse? Really? You place PHB equipment lists under the purview of the DM? I can't think of a single instance where I even bothered asking the DM about buying a horse, let alone having a DM intervene when I did so. It's in the PHB for a reason. Unless you're playing in something like Darksun where there are no horses I suppose. But, then, that's a player being a jerk if he buys something that's obviously not for sale in that setting.

But I have to admit that I've never even considered PHB equipment lists to be under the DM's purview beyond establishing setting elements.

And I've found the reverse to be generally true in 4e, in other words while 4e may not cause a tpk when following the encounter guidelines, those guidelines also don't seem to offer much, if any, of a challenge once PC's are at paragon and above, when they are used as presented in the book.

The fact that you stopped following 4e in the early days would likely account for that. Once you have the math fixes from MM3 and further advice from later publications, that problem generally goes away. I'll totally agree that in 2008 4e, you're probably right. But, by now, that's not really true.

But the PC's can know this, especially if a DM isn't reskinning or leveling monsters (in the same way it would only be true in 3e if he isn't using class levels, templates or reskinning)... in that situation it works just like 3e. Beyond that PC's know what the encounter guidelines are for their PC's and after playing for a while get a feel for how difficult or not encounters should be. So no, I don't think it's that hard to judge and I've seen pplayers that straight out ask a DM what level was that encounter, when things didn't go their way.

Meh, it's pretty unlikely. There's just too much variation going on. Then again, I've seen that same sort of thing being asked in every edition. And, it's not a totally unfair question. If the PC's are only hitting on a, say, 15 or better for all their attacks, I'd probably be asking too. Or if the critter has far more HP than you would likely see at a given level. It's not an unfair question IMO. And one that's hardly "player entitlement".

 

[Hussar]

Really? It seems to me that the settings I'm aware of leverage the distinctive D&D mechanics very strongly. For example, FR was clearly built with the idea of magic dominance in mind (I assume you must play there, since I'm not aware of any other setting where this is true), whereas Dark Sun uses the classes very differently.

Of course, this whole line is a bit silly because pretty much every homebrew setting is built using those assumptions.

Maybe yours are, but mine certainly aren't. And never were. Ahnehnois, you have a very bad habit of extrapolating your experience and trying to make it universal. What evidence do you have, beyond anecdotal, that homebrew worlds are built using the mechanics as a world building tool?

Yes, all those pesky example NPCs built with the same mechanics are clearly not meant to be used. All those references to organizations based on PC classes are clearly referring to the other PCs that other groups are playing. Obviously.

ROTFLMAO. You realise that's a 3e thing right? What class is the Order of Solamnia? The idea that NPC's are built using PC rules is a 3e innovation ported into the game from Rolemaster. It certainly wasn't present in AD&D or BECMI. Which, I think, is where you'll find the genesis of virtually all D&D settings.

Ridiculous? Yes, a world with wizards and dragons and flumphs is ridiculous. I kind of take that as a given. I think it's abundantly clear that any fictional world, whether fantasy or not, does not work. We all have to suspend our disbelief to play D&D. We have to suspend disbelief to watch Law & Order, for goodness sake, and that takes place in the "real world". It's simply impossible to imagine a world that works the way reality does, because reality is so complex, because we understand our own world so little, and because of the sheer computational limits of the human brain.

Just because the human mind lacks the ability to create a completely functional alternate universe does not invalidate the idea of world building.

But if the rules aren't for world building, imperfect as they are, I don't know what benefit we gain by using them at all.

We gain the benefit of being able to fairly adjudicate player actions within the game. That's what the rules are for.

 

[Hussar]

Wha? Funny 'cause it seems to me that the planar structure of Planescape is fairly well based on the alignment rules. That seems a pretty vulgar "footprint" of the rules on that setting. Which isn't even to mention all the funky "subtle" ways that alignment splits the universe into 9 "teams". D&D has a lot of that kind of thing, actually. Many moons ago I tried to convert my homebrew 2e world into Fudge, and I was amazed at how many things I noticed were influenced by things like D&D's presentation of magic, etc. Nowadays when starting a Fate game...there's just no comparison. I have a great deal of difficulty looking at most D&D settings, professionally published or homebrew, without seeing the imprint of the base mechanics of the game on the world.



On the general point, however, I totally agree.

To be fair, I wasn't thinking about Planescape. That's a good point. The alignment rules are obviously a major element of the setting. So, that's two out of twenty.

 

[Bedrockgames]

To be fair, I wasn't thinking about Planescape. That's a good point. The alignment rules are obviously a major element of the setting. So, that's two out of twenty.

I just re-read the drizzt novels (the dark elf trilogy, not the later books or icewindale) and was not only struck by how much the game system factored into the flavor of the world and how the characters saw themselves, but it reminded me just how much all that stuff colored our sense of fantasy settings. Obviously lots of the stuff does get handwaved because it is a fantasy setting, and the focus isn't usually on drilling down into all the possible implications of every mechanic.

Eberon was mentioned, and I have to say, while i know the setting had fans, it never really inspired me the way Dark Sun, Ravenloft, or even Forgotten Realms did. So I am not sure i want i setting that takes all the mechanical underpinings of the game and contemplates their full effect on a fantasy world. Again, i didn't play Eberron much, so no sure how well it succeeds at that. But assuming it is a succesful example, i thini i would rather handwave some of these things as long as they are not glaring or painfully obvious to me (and i have to admit, many of the things people are pointing to regarding magic, really haven't occured to me much).

One thing to consider though if you are going to incorporate the magic system into the setting creation. How common spellcasters are, how common player charavter type figures are, etc is an importa t consideration. You could have serious earthshaking magic, but if only two people int he entire world have access to it, then its impact on the setting is far different than if twenty thousand or a million people have access to it.

 

[Imaro]

A horse? Really? You place PHB equipment lists under the purview of the DM? I can't think of a single instance where I even bothered asking the DM about buying a horse, let alone having a DM intervene when I did so. It's in the PHB for a reason. Unless you're playing in something like Darksun where there are no horses I suppose. But, then, that's a player being a jerk if he buys something that's obviously not for sale in that setting.

But I have to admit that I've never even considered PHB equipment lists to be under the DM's purview beyond establishing setting elements.

Hmm, really... so if your players are in a down-and-out, poor shanty town... they can easily buy enough warhorses to supply the entire party?

The fact that you stopped following 4e in the early days would likely account for that. Once you have the math fixes from MM3 and further advice from later publications, that problem generally goes away. I'll totally agree that in 2008 4e, you're probably right. But, by now, that's not really true.

That's interesting, past 2008 I have seen various posts where people are asking how to challenge paragon and epic level characters... in fact it's generally agreed upoin by 4e fans that epic support is woefully lacking. But if you say it's no longer a problem then I guess it's no longer a problem.

Meh, it's pretty unlikely. There's just too much variation going on. Then again, I've seen that same sort of thing being asked in every edition. And, it's not a totally unfair question. If the PC's are only hitting on a, say, 15 or better for all their attacks, I'd probably be asking too. Or if the critter has far more HP than you would likely see at a given level. It's not an unfair question IMO. And one that's hardly "player entitlement".

Wait a minute... so players can easily determine what a monsters CR in 3.x should be, but are unlikely to be able to do the same thing in 4e... why is that again?? Are you certain there isn't a littl edition bias going on here? Anyway... my point is nothing says players should only fight things they can hit on less than a 15... nothing says what they are fighting has to be beatable in a stand-up fight... how is it not entitlement since there are no rules for building encounters... only guidelines?

 

[Hussar]

But, that7s the thing. In D&D, access to earth shaking magic, by the rules, is pretty common. Never minding the classed casters, you've got all sorts of monsters and whatnot that also have world changing magic. The only way that you can use D&D as a world building system is to ignore vast swaths of the rules.

 

[Ahnehnois]

What evidence do you have, beyond anecdotal, that homebrew worlds are built using the mechanics as a world building tool?

What else is there to build from? Certainly, one can compose a setting using other sources, but making it a D&D setting requires one of two things. Either, you take the classes/races/rules of the game and ask how to they fit in to the setting, or you take the setting and write new rules based on it. If there's any connection between the setting and D&D, logically there has to be some flow of ideas between the setting and the rules. Given the prevalence of setting-specific houserules (and setting-specific published rules), this is clearly a two-way street.

We gain the benefit of being able to fairly adjudicate player actions within the game. That's what the rules are for.

The rules aren't exactly fair, nor are they tailored all that strongly to player actions. Surely, if you can criticize them as a worldbuilding tool, you can see that they're even more poorly suited to this end, and certainly not intended for it.

The only way that you can use D&D as a world building system is to ignore vast swaths of the rules.

Okay, fine? Were we ever expected to believe that any group uses all of the rules as written? Of course you have to ignore some of them. You do that when translating any generic rpg to a specific setting.

 

[Hussar]

What else is there to build from? Certainly, one can compose a setting using other sources, but making it a D&D setting requires one of two things. Either, you take the classes/races/rules of the game and ask how to they fit in to the setting, or you take the setting and write new rules based on it. If there's any connection between the setting and D&D, logically there has to be some flow of ideas between the setting and the rules. Given the prevalence of setting-specific houserules (and setting-specific published rules), this is clearly a two-way street.

I'd say that the setting is created and then mechanics are used to model certain aspects in the world that the players interact with. You don't start with, "Well, my world must conform to D&D concepts" typically. At least I don't. I start with, "Gee, I think I'll have a world invaded by demons" and then go from there.

The rules aren't exactly fair, nor are they tailored all that strongly to player actions. Surely, if you can criticize them as a worldbuilding tool, you can see that they're even more poorly suited to this end, and certainly not intended for it.

In what way are the rules not fair? Do they not apply equally to everyone at the table? Are they unknowable in some way? Do you change the rules based on whether you like the player or not?

If rules aren't fair, they are very, very bad rules.

And, AFAIC, rules are entirely tailored to player actions. The whole point of having those rules is to adjudicate player actions.

Okay, fine? Were we ever expected to believe that any group uses all of the rules as written? Of course you have to ignore some of them. You do that when translating any generic rpg to a specific setting.

Some? We're not talking about corner case mechanics that don't come up. We're talking basic, fundamental mechanics that apply to broad swaths of the game. The level system linked to the skill system makes for bizarre results. The wealth system is written specifically for PC's. On and on and on. Trying to tie the mechanics to world building doesn't work. Do you actually level up your NPC's from first level? What do you do if they die before they hit the level you want them to be? On and on.