D&D 5E What are your biggest immersion breakers, rules wise?

[doctorbadwolf]

No, I was describing “can’t retry until circumstances change.” That’s what this part was referring to:

I misunderstood, then. That isn’t a garbage DM, just a different playstyle. And totally reasonable to be disconnected from the narrative by, for what it’s worth.

I also don’t agree with the other poster’s Take on it.

If I give a day to open the box, I probably will use multiple checks to represent trying throughout the day and to help determine how long it takes to get it, but once those rolls are done, that’s it for that day.

The idea that you can’t come back to it another day is...odd, to me as well. I might sometimes describe it as you discovering that a mechanism inside is lightly jammed, and needs to be oiled, or something, but generally I just say, “I’m not doing a roll per attempt, so we are doing a few rolls for the whole day/week/hour, because I prefer the bell curve that gives over a single roll. You can try again when you have another chance to.”

 

[CleverNickName]

Re: infinite retries? I always assume that the character is doing their very best each time they attempt an action. So if they try to do the same thing the way they just did it, in the same way, they will get the same result they just got (no reroll needed; we use the same number).

But if they do it again but differently somehow--perhaps with a different set of tools, or with guidance or the help of someone else, or with a different skill--I don't see why they couldn't keep trying until they run out of ideas. So I guess I'm kinda in the "no retries until circumstances change" camp; I'm just really loose on what those circumstances need to be.

 

[ccs]

Hit points are not meat. It's not fair criticising them as immersion breaking when that's not what they represent. If they did represent 'meat' then yeah, sure. The issue here is a lack of imagination in narration of what they represent in game.

Yeah yeah yeah. I've known what HP represent since Christmas vacation 1980 (Dec. 27/28 to be precise). My Basic book was quiet clear & I don't disagree.

That doesn't make me like the ultra-fast healing here in 5e any better though.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Honestly I figure most hits do kinda hit. They just aren’t doin much.

But dodging blows is work. It’s tiring.

I figure most combatants end a fight battered and bruised, even bleeding a bit. They don’t lose the bruises and cuts after sleeping, they just aren’t impacted enough to mechanically represent it.

 

[Campbell]

Honestly I figure most hits do kinda hit. They just aren’t doin much.

But dodging blows is work. It’s tiring.

I figure most combatants end a fight battered and bruised, even bleeding a bit. They don’t lose the bruises and cuts after sleeping, they just aren’t impacted enough to mechanically represent it.

I agree. This is definitely not true to life, but I can mostly deal with it. Honestly in my experience with martial arts you do not real dodge most blows from a skilled combatant - you just redirect them away from where they will really hurt. Even after sparring I am pretty affected for a couple days. Even power lifting will leave you less able to perform for 2-3 days. That's not heroic fiction though.

I use to fight with myself over hit points and how inconsistent the abstraction is. These days I mostly embrace it. I am not a huge fan of short and long rests, but I can mostly deal. When I do not want to deal with hit points I just play other games. For me they are part of the charm of Dungeons and Dragons. Just like Vancian casting and dungeon crawling are. I have other games for when I do not want that stuff.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I agree. This is definitely not true to life, but I can mostly deal with it. Honestly in my experience with martial arts you do not real dodge most blows from a skilled combatant - you just redirect them away from where they will really hurt. Even after sparring I am pretty affected for a couple days. Even power lifting will leave you less able to perform for 2-3 days. That's not heroic fiction though.

I use to fight with myself over hit points and how inconsistent the abstraction is. These days I mostly embrace it. I am not a huge fan of short and long rests, but I can mostly deal. When I do not want to deal with hit points I just play other games. For me they are part of the charm of Dungeons and Dragons. Just like Vancian casting and dungeon crawling are. I have other games for when I do not want that stuff.

Yep to all of that. HP work for me from my experiences fighting, but resting is definitely a simplification and abstraction that serves gameplay, and I am glad for it.

I do consider extended rests, though, and rules to require their use after adventuring in order to get back to 100%.

 

[Lanefan]

Because take-20 is a player-facing option. It tells the player “you can spend 20 times as long to do a thing, and then the DM has to let you succeed unless the DC is higher than 20 + your modifier. Framing it this way also conflates actions with checks. Teaching the DM to evaluate whether or not actions have costs or consequences, and only call for checks to resolve actions that do doesn’t have that problem.

Different framing, perhaps, but the same result: it comes down to a hard-coded binary non-variable pass-fail based on your skill vs the DC of whatever you're trying to do. In most situations I don't want it to be anywhere near that cut-and-dried.

That, and I often call for checks or rolls whether I need to or not (and sometimes don't even say why or what for), in order to somewhat disguise the ones that really matter.

I would argue that it isn’t guaranteed, so long as the action has a cost or consequence for failure. And if the action doesn’t have a cost or consequence for failure, then a check shouldn’t be called for.

Except there's always at least one cost for failure, assuming you're doing whatever you're doing for a potentially useful reason; and that cost is simply that you didn't succeed.

Failure: can't open the lock. Cost: have to change course, change approach, or abandon whatever's behind the lock.
Failure: can't climb the wall. Cost: possibly some falling damage, certainly have to change course or approach or else abandon whatever's behind/above the wall..
Failure: can't find an item in a room. Cost: you have to look elsewhere, or try a different approach, or abandon your search.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

It is very easy to finetune the speed of level advancement.

Count the number of encounters, rather than the number of creatures.
(((snip)))

Believe it or not, I think one of the best "D&D'ish" XP awarding system is...and I can't believe I'm saying this...the Palladium Fantasy RPG system. It's ONE thing they got right, imnsho, that I think works so well I adapted it to my own self-created fantasy RPG (based on Darkurthe Legends). Anyway, the Palladium XP system gives xp based on various actions in game by both PC's and the Players. It was based on how difficult a battle actually was...not what it was intended (at least that's how I interpreted it). So if a group of 4 PC's, three 2nd level PC's and one 18th level PC fought a giant, if the level 18 guy got really unlucky and got KO'ed on round 1 before he could do anything...and the PC's won by the skin of their teeth, that might be a Major battle/foe and XP for them would be high. But if the 18th level guy zapped the giant in round 1 and the 2nd level guys killed it in round 2 without taking a hit...then that would be a more or less Minor battle...and they'd get a lot less XP.

I found the XP system to be very rewarding for the Players, because they never felt like they deserved more xp or less xp based on lucky rolls or whatnot. It also tended to have the Players make interesting characters rather than min/max'ed ones; the point being if you have min/maxed power houses...you will get less xp a lot of the time because you'd be walking all over things that should be at least average danger. So they'd have to specifically seek out more dangerous foes and situations to get more XP...thus putting their carefully crafted PC's in the very real situation of being killed. So 'why bother' with min/maxing? As I said...a sort of self-correcting "power gamer" XP system.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[DammitVictor]

If it is physically possible for your skills and your tools to disable the lock, then unless the consequences of failure actually change the conditions-- unless they make it impossible-- then there's absolutely no reason you cannot just keep working the lock until you succeed. You will succeed, eventually, unless your failure either makes the situation impossible or you give up.

The idea that if someone can't pop open a lock within the first six seconds of trying, they're physically incapable of doing it in any amount of time... that's baffling to me. What kind of "realism" is that?

 

[Tony Vargas]

... that's baffling to me. What kind of "realism" is that?

Traditional D&D realism.