D&D 5E Legends & Lore 7/21/14

[FitzTheRuke]

One of the house rules I'm considering is taking a -2 in 1 stat or -1 in 2 stats during character creation in order to start with 1 feat. That is exactly the same cost as forgoing the stat increase to get a feat at 4th lvl, and should help make characters a bit more unique right from level 1.

That's a great idea.

I want to know what the Mounted Combat feat does.

 

[Li Shenron]

The "+1 to all ability scores" seems to represent that ability to be good at anything, that diversity that allows them to move to any extreme, the thing that makes them really good at what they don't choose to specialize in. To a lesser degree, the skill+feat also do this, in representing a breadth of abilities that humans may acquire, and how one won't fit as reliably into class archetypes.

You have to consider that there are 2 different ideas about humans being versatile and "good at anything" (compared to other races of course):

a- they can do everything at least decently (jack-of-all-trades)
b- they can do more things excellently (more specialties)

Bonus feats and skills tend to represent b, while a flat increase to all 6 scores tends to represent a. Another thing that could represent b would be granting humans the Rogue's expertise, while another representing a would be the Bard's jack of all trades.

They are different concepts, and personally I largely prefer b.

Mechanically, that's their identity: "we can do anything."

Compare this to an elf fighter. Elves can be fighters. They will not be as good at fighting as a human is. And if that human learns magic, she'll be pretty good at that, too. Maybe not as good as an elf, but better than a halfling. And she'll be better at thieving than a dwarf thief, too. "Jack of all trades" style.

Honestly "we can do anything" tells me nothing, because Elves PC can be anything, and so can Halflings and Dwarves. They have no restriction whatsoever. They might at worse have a relative -1 in the most important stat compared to default humans, but wait a few levels and they will reach the same 20 cap. You can say it's their identity in terms of fluff, but for players characters I don't think it matters at all.

Does anyone remember the complaint threads about humans getting a +1 to every stat, how that would be the first thing to get house-ruled because it was so overboard? Doesn't that seem like a long time ago?

I complained in feedback since day 1 of playtest, and for almost 2 years, but eventually we were a minority and we lost.

I think you put too much importance on trying to make the game about stats. You don't have to have a modifier or a mechanic to drive a description, behavior, or aspect of a race into game play.

I think we're just trying to put the right importance. Most of the time I pick a race just because I feel up to play that for narrative reasons. But since they decided to continue with the design choice of having races mechanically different, we naturally want them to be on par. So if they haven't changed the Half-Elf and Half-Orc since the playtest I'll be disappointed because even at first look those two felt clearly inferior to the standard races, and they deliver a feeling like "want to play this race? you deserve less than the other players". Sometimes that can even be appropriate (if want to play a crippled awaken slug, it doesn't sound like it has to be on par with elves and humans), but is it appropriate for a race that's been a fairly common PC race for 3 or more editions? I don't think so.

Anyway, notice that here I am not really concerned about Humans vs Elves vs Dwarves vs Halfling, because those are different enough to make the comparison difficult for me. Instead I am concerned about the different options for human characters.

Specifically I want to make sure that if I allow both human options and if I add even more options, no player will feel they're getting the shaft for choosing one over the other.

Humans can get a feat at 1st level. That's pretty huge, considering how major feats are. Nobody else, not even Fighters, can get a feat until 4th.

Absolutely agree, alone the fact that humans can get feats immediately is a significant benefit IMO.

My concern is that feats are optional. The human variant gives a reminder about that saying "use the variant if you allow feats". After bragging for 2 years that feats will be optional, I think WotC should have thought about including a human variant that doesn't get 6 +1 but also doesn't require anything optional.

With a little bit more design effort, they could have offered other bonus proficiencies (weapons, armors, tools, languages or even ST) on stuff that's mandatory, instead of a feat.

If you don't end up allowing feats I don't really know how you go about making humans worthwhile ...

Yeah that's what I am trying to figure out...

 

[Kobold Stew]

One of the house rules I'm considering is taking a -2 in 1 stat or -1 in 2 stats during character creation in order to start with 1 feat. That is exactly the same cost as forgoing the stat increase to get a feat at 4th lvl, and should help make characters a bit more unique right from level 1.

That would take away the one edge humans can get over other races... I'm not sure what would motivate this choice.

 

[MarkB]

You have to consider that there are 2 different ideas about humans being versatile and "good at anything" (compared to other races of course):

a- they can do everything at least decently (jack-of-all-trades)
b- they can do more things excellently (more specialties)

Bonus feats and skills tend to represent b, while a flat increase to all 6 scores tends to represent a. Another thing that could represent b would be granting humans the Rogue's expertise, while another representing a would be the Bard's jack of all trades.

They are different concepts, and personally I largely prefer b.

The way I picture it is that, if each of the major D&D races sent out an adventuring party consisting of each of the major classes and they all got together in a tournament to compare their strengths, the humans wouldn't have the best wizard in that tournament, or the best rogue, or the best cleric, or the best fighter - but they'd have the second-best wizard, and the second-best rogue, and the second-best cleric, and the second-best fighter, and while they wouldn't bring home any gold medals, they'd probably win the competition as a whole.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Yeah that's what I am trying to figure out...

I'm interested in what you're attempting to do. I think that trying to find a balance for +1 to the four least advantageous stats is going to be tough.

The alt-human in Basic suggests that (+1 to the four lowest) = (1 skill and 1 feat).

That's more than I was expecting (before we saw Basic, I had expected the alt-Human to offer +1 to any two stats and one feat (but not a skill) -- but it sets a benchmark.

If you are trying to find an equivalence for the feat part of the equation, I suspect we can look to the feats themselves. The play test "loremaster" and "athlete" feats gave proficiency in three skills and/or languages, and +1 Int or Str. That, IMO, was tremendously overpowered; but whatever the case, there's going to be feats that provide an alternative in precisely the terms you are looking for.

In the L&L list, there is a "skilled" feat and "linguist". I expect these will be the same way, and (one way or another), set a benchmark for what can serve as the balance of the human feat. In effect, it will be as if you as DM had selected the feat for the player.

So Humans could either be:

a. +1 to all stats, or
b. +1 to any 2 stats, +1 skill, and whatever is contained in the "skilled" feat.

To my mind b. is going to be preferable regardless of what is in "skilled": imagine if it's like the "lore master" feat: +1 to any 2 stats, another +1 to a stat, and +4 skills. Yeesh!

 

[Emerikol]

As for more skills, you're mad. Completely mad. What for? There's already a few too many. You're mad!

Some weeks I'm mad and mad.

I'm of the philosophy that you should either dispense with skills altogether like Castles & Crusades does and just use specialized attributes or you should dive in and have a more complete skill system. The fact that strength has one skill associated with it is kind of silly.

Now I like 5e a bit better than 4e on the skill list but I'd add more. I'm not afraid though to have a skill that has no adventuring applicability and apparently the devs are afraid. Without any hesitation I'd add tradecraft and search. Investigation to me is kind of like gather information though I do like the term investigation.

It's a flavor thing I'm sure. They've promised a different skill system in the DMG and I'm curious to see it.

 

[The Hitcher]

It's a flavor thing I'm sure. They've promised a different skill system in the DMG and I'm curious to see it.

One of the variations will undoubtedly be "you get your proficiency bonus added to any roll you can justify adding it to, based on your Background (and probably other character elements)", FATE-style. I can see myself switching to that system at some point, although I'll go with the default for now.

 

[Emerikol]

One of the variations will undoubtedly be "you get your proficiency bonus added to any roll you can justify adding it to, based on your Background (and probably other character elements)", FATE-style. I can see myself switching to that system at some point, although I'll go with the default for now.

This is an interesting way to play and I've considered it myself. Basically your class and background are used to decide if you get the proficiency bonus. Of course wizards get proficiency if they are asking something about magic?

C&C tried to do this via the seige engine.

If I'm going to use a skill system though, I want more meat on it's bones.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Let the wild speculation about what they actually do commence!

They all give one extra hit point per level. SURPRISE!

 

[The Hitcher]

This is an interesting way to play and I've considered it myself. Basically your class and background are used to decide if you get the proficiency bonus. Of course wizards get proficiency if they are asking something about magic?

The beauty of this kind of system is that you can actually have characters with much more nuanced skill sets. In the current rules, your character either has proficiency bonus on knowing about any matters related to magic (Arcana skill), or they don't. In the FATE-style system, your character might have lots of knowledge about a specific application of magic, and very little about another (of course still subject to a roll, in either case). It has the potential to give a whole lot more complexity to a character, while actually reducing the rules overhead.

Of course it's not a system much suited to power gamers, but I'm not much interested in playing with them anyway.