D&D 5E My Hope for D&D 5/N

[pickin_grinnin]

True, but 3.x/PF don't enable a playstyle I very much love and intend to return to with 5e: everyone starts at 1st level.

I have always run it that way, in every game, and every edition. Everyone starts at first level.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

Don't get me wrong, I genuinely like Pathfinder. However, I've been trying to run it "by the book". I try to keep combats within the challenge area, treasure within the guidelines, and using the tools to create unique challenges (a sea elf vampire barbarian who is really a malenti? bloody sahuagin skeletons? Yes please!) But these things take a lot of time. And there is a lot of math. And sometimes its really limiting to keep things within the CR numbers (especially how you must individually weak creatures to create large parties of them).

My approach has always been to leave out parts of the game that either don't make sense to me or don't enhance play. I started way, way back when D&D first came out, though, and that was officially encouraged by Gygax. I have noticed that a lot of people these days feel the need to stick closely to the book, which always puzzles me a bit. There's no right or wrong way to do things - it's just a different mindset than I'm used to.

 

[Halivar]

I have always run it that way, in every game, and every edition. Everyone starts at first level.

You may, but the game discourages it by introducing wide disparity in capability by level. At level 1, there are a good many monsters in the MM that you simply can't hurt. In an adventure tooled to 5th level or higher, your input is negligible and you're basically waiting around until you put in the requisite dead time to be partially effective again.

By contrast, in 1st edition I had players rerolling dead fighters, and their level 1 replacements were still pretty good compared to their level 5-7 counterparts.

As a fan of Everyone-Starts-At-First-Level, I find 3.x/PF/4E to be very opposite to this playstyle.

 

[Desdichado]

In my experience running Pathfinder/3e:

1) It's perfectly fine to eyeball encounters
2) NPCs don't need to be fully statted out (I routinely use characters that are a short list of modifiers, HP, and attacks)
3) If the PCs are a little more powerful, because you gave them "too much treasure" you can throw a few more bad guys at them and it will balance out
4) Similarly, if you find the PCs are having too easy or too hard of a time, you can adjust the numbers from encounter to encounter

While it's true that the MODIFIERS are larger in Pathfinder/3e than they appear they'll be in 5e, I haven't found any of the fundamentals have changed.

To add a little to that; I routinely use characters that are merely an attack and damage rating, often one that I come up with on the fly. HP? Character goes down when the fight starts to get a little boring.

Whatever happened to the mantra of "tools, not rules?" It seems like the majority of complaints I hear about 3.x family games is based on the complainer having forgotten that and treated everything as a rule rather than a tool.

 

[Desdichado]

why is it every time someone says anything is even slightly wrong with any edition someone comes in to say "No it's not..." is it your opinion then am181d that there is no room to improve the perfect system that is pathfinder?

Maybe... it's because this is supposed to be a discussion forum, and it would fail at that task if there were no discussion?

Plus, don't go overboard. Because someone said that this specific problem with 3.x family games can be easily overlooked and is mostly a problem of perception than reality doesn't mean that the 3.x family of games are perfect and have no room for improvement. It just means that that specific complaint is based on a playstyle (or GM-style, if you will) decision that was made, not on anything intrinsic to the system itself.

 

[Sir Hawk]

What ever happened to fighting half-a-dozen sahuagin and finding a +1 trident and not worrying about all that stuff? Seeding plots by idea, not CR appropriate monster?

That's how I've always played D&D. I never understood this concept of perfect balance in a game. When people try to play that way it feels like they're missing the whole point of the game, which is to have fun. I mean, I guess if they actually have fun making everything mathematically perfect, that's perfectly fine, but most people don't care about that stuff.

 

[Grazzt]

Thus, I sincerely hope that D&D 5e bring me back to an era where I don't need spreadsheets, a dozen charts, and a character generator to realize an idea. Sure, their still be some math in making an adventure, but if D&D can ease it back to the days when I opened up the MM and rolled # Appearing, followed by a roll on the treasure table rather than constantly eyballing CRs, treasure budgets, and other elements like that, I will be happy.

Same here. And agree with it. Rolling randomly across the treasure tables was always a lot of fun.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

You may, but the game discourages it by introducing wide disparity in capability by level. At level 1, there are a good many monsters in the MM that you simply can't hurt. In an adventure tooled to 5th level or higher, your input is negligible and you're basically waiting around until you put in the requisite dead time to be partially effective again.

By contrast, in 1st edition I had players rerolling dead fighters, and their level 1 replacements were still pretty good compared to their level 5-7 counterparts.

As a fan of Everyone-Starts-At-First-Level, I find 3.x/PF/4E to be very opposite to this playstyle.

You are right - the game does discourage that. I just tweak it so that it is less of an issue, though. My campaigns have significant non-combat encounters, as well, and players can easily gain XP in them with a minimum of fighting, so that helps.

Many of the monsters I use are not in the books, and I rarely roll random encounters, so that helps, as well.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

That's how I've always played D&D. I never understood this concept of perfect balance in a game. When people try to play that way it feels like they're missing the whole point of the game, which is to have fun. I mean, I guess if they actually have fun making everything mathematically perfect, that's perfectly fine, but most people don't care about that stuff.

I have never bought into that approach, either.

 

[Remathilis]

That's how I've always played D&D. I never understood this concept of perfect balance in a game. When people try to play that way it feels like they're missing the whole point of the game, which is to have fun. I mean, I guess if they actually have fun making everything mathematically perfect, that's perfectly fine, but most people don't care about that stuff.

Partially, its my ocd. But also, Pathfinder hands out so many goodies like candy, I feel I need to be extra vigilant to avoid overpowering them and not being able to challenge them. I hope the flatter math makes this easier to balance.