D&D 5E What a DM has to do in 5E

[Rhenny]

DM may have to adjucate tricky illusions with some of the spells in D&D Next. Right now only Phantasmal Force seems like it may require adjucation, but i expect more powerful illusion spells to be published by the time it release.

A (series of) Strenght contest could do it, with each success/failure either increasing or reducing the distance between the two creatures in pursuit.

I agree. Illusions have always been tough in D&D. I find that there is not much difference between minor image and major image, so it is hard to know what can be added to the illusion other than making it larger. Creative players will always attempt to do crazy things with illusion. In some ways I like the openness and in some ways I don't.

So far, DMing Next has been really easy for me. Part of that might be that the game isn't completely finished yet, but part of it is based on fixed values and BA, and the idea that monster math is not necessarily dependent on PC rules.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Heh. I think anyone worried about teleport in 5e needs to read the spell again

It *looks* almost exactly like the 3e version.
Just like in 3e, there's a table with percentile results based on how well you know the destination.
Like in 3e, there's the possibility for a mishap if you aren't very familiar with the target.
Like in 3e, if you get a mishap you take 1d10 Force damage and then roll on the percentile table again, except this time you roll 1d20+80 instead of 1d100 (so a mishap may recur)
*un*like 3e, for any location you haven't studied carefully, the mishap percentage is 67% or lower up in every case. Which means that if you try to teleport somewhere that you've don't know extremely well you have a roughly one in three chance of being unavoidably killed by being repeatedly slammed into the barriers between planes until you're a fine paste.

Now that is a disincentive

(In the specific case of attempting to teleport to a location you've cried, that would be the "viewed once" row of the table. For that row, there's a 26% chance you'll hit the target, a 20% chance you're off target (but near enough), a 20% chance that you end up in a similar area... and a 34% chance of experiencing infinite blunt force trauma until you die)

Yeah, but that's clearly unintentional............right?

 

[pemerton]

for any location you haven't studied carefully, the mishap percentage is 67% or lower up in every case. Which means that if you try to teleport somewhere that you've don't know extremely well you have a roughly one in three chance of being unavoidably killed by being repeatedly slammed into the barriers between planes until you're a fine paste.

Now that is a disincentive

If you mishap during a teleport to any false destination or location you've seen casually, viewed once or got only a description of, you're dead.

The teleport mishap rules are obviously a bug.

I hope so. Leave it in. Take it out (as 4e effectively did, at least as far as traditional teleport is concerned). But don't leave it in and then turn it into a crazy crapshoot.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm with KidSnide, it's an obvious bug. If they wanted you to die on a failed roll, the table would say "Death" instead of "Mishap."

Personally, I would like to see teleportation mishaps get more interesting. Instead of taking damage, you might get diverted to a prison plane or something of the sort. Bad rolls should be punished with new obstacles; death is too easy when you can simply roll up a new character.

 

[Wulfgar76]

I know off the top of my head the DM will have to deal with the 5 minute work day, save or die spells, short rests (fighters now get stuff too), several very powerful spells like wish.

These are all baseless assumptions on problems you think DMs will have to deal with in next.

5 Minute Workday: see hit dice, short rests, arcane recovery
Save or Die spells: they don't exist until very high level, and even then use HP thresholds
Short Rests: a welcome addition, what's the problem?
Powerful Spells: not really, spells don't scale, buffs are neutered via concentration, and 'save or die' is quite weaker than in other editions.

 

[DMZ2112]

How would the current version of the playtest rules resolve chasing a goblin down?

Pathfinder Chase Cards are kind of awesome. I wouldn't call them system agnostic but the conversion wouldn't be hard.

How about 5e? And what about other "skill challenge" scenarios like this? Are they just up to DM fiat?

Dungeon master fiat would still be better than any iteration of the skill challenge rules that was ever published. But personally I'm a big fan of the simple and satisfying "opposed Dex check."

 

[ExploderWizard]

I hope so. Leave it in. Take it out (as 4e effectively did, at least as far as traditional teleport is concerned). But don't leave it in and then turn it into a crazy crapshoot.

I dunno. Its only a crapshoot for less familiar places. Using it to quickly travel to known destinations is just fine.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I'd make opposed Str or Dex (Athletics) checks for chases. Because...well, Athletics. For endurance chases I'd change it to Con.

 

[pemerton]

Dungeon master fiat would still be better than any iteration of the skill challenge rules that was ever published.

That's not really selling D&Dnext to those of us who are actually running functional skill challenges.

 

[Manbearcat]

That's not really selling D&Dnext to those of us who are actually running functional skill challenges.

To say the least. "The dramatic chase" is one of the most fundamental tropes of fantasy/action adventure. Stagnant evasion and pursuit rules that are tantamount to "opposed Athletics rolls...ok you're caught/you escape" doesn't pass muster. If it doesn't follow some form of Freytag's Dramatic Structure (Rising Action > Climax > Falling Action > Denouement) with mechanically introduced and GM-framed dramatic complications and adversity (a la Indiana Jones), then the "dramatic" portion of "the dramatic chase" is lost...rendering the whole practice pointless. If its not exciting and doesn't feature the same rises, falls, setbacks and rallies of combat then either the mechanics or the GM is insufficient to the task (possibly both).

Needless to say, I won't ever run another system, that is supposed to make the action/adventure genre manifest, which doesn't incorporate legitimate resolution mechanics and GMing principles that let me run a dramatic chase. The easiest (and best in my estimation) way to attain this is via conflict resolution, but we've yet to see any indication of unified conflict resolution mechanics for 5e.