D&D General Let's Talk About How to "Fix" D&D

[DND_Reborn]

I don't think BA was a bad idea, it's just too bounded. I have no desire to go back to the days of epic-tier monsters having +48 to hit or whatever. The AC range is just a little too compressed.

Yeah, I've been suggesting for a LONG time that a cap of 40 would be better than 30. SW d20 had a max DC of 40. I also think if you max bonuses at +20, then with the d20, 40 would be the max and make it only possible on a nat 20 with a +20.

 

[fearsomepirate]

But your points 2 & 3 conflict with each other. You've said that a mid-level rogue can't one-shot a low level ogre reliably, but you're also saying that NPC's die too quickly to be "viable."

If we reduce both the hit points and the damage proportionally, then everything remains exactly the same regardless. The numbers are just numbers.

You forgot about AC and to-hit. An ogre is designed to survive 2-3 rounds against a 2nd-level party. But his AC is so low that this requires an enormous pool of hit points. The basic problem is that, as we go up and up in level, to-hit bonuses go up, but monster ACs really don't. If you raise the ogre's AC and lower his HP appropriately, he'll still last 2-3 rounds against a 2nd-level party, and be within an assassin's chance to kill.

Basically, AC should be a larger factor in survivability so that those damage and HP curves can be brought down. Mearls stated he shot for a 50% chance to hit. In 4e, when you had 1 attack per round, the low chance to hit made the game extremely boring. In 5e, with a zillion ways to get advantage, lots of characters multiattacking, realistically, every player is hitting at least once on closer to 75% of rounds.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Yeah, I've been suggesting for a LONG time that a cap of 40 would be better than 30. SW d20 had a max DC of 40. I also think if you max bonuses at +20, then with the d20, 40 would be the max and make it only possible on a nat 20 with a +20.

A cap of 30 is fine. It's just that in the 5e MM, the cap is more like 19, with only exceptional monsters ever having 20 or greater. This means monsters have a crapton of hit points just to survive. I think there is also an issue with ability score mods + point-buy + ASI. The hit die range is pretty huge, as low as d6 for the wizard, and as high as d12+5 for the barbarian. And of course, multiattacking characters typically are adding a flat +5 to +9 damage per attack, which adds up.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I know. "Fix" implies there is something "wrong" and that's okay. We are allowed to not like the way a thing is done in D&D (or any other game). But it also suggests something positive: that by tweaking or changing a thing, we can make the game better for our own purposes.

So here are the rules: present a "problem" with D&D (any edition will do) and explain why you feel it is a problem (this part is really important) and the either suggest a fix, or ask for a fix from fellow community members.

For example, one thing in 5E that I really find to be a problem as a GM is how poorly the action economy is balanced for "solo" creatures. A PC party of 4 or 5 characters punches WAY above its weight class against solo monsters, even in Lairs and with legendary actions. A good part of this has to do with the 5E math -- solo monsters don't hit especially hard and so they aren't terrifying in that "stay away from it or you're dead!" feeling that helps keep the PCs at bay. On top of it, PCs can really pump out a lot of damage when they want to and solos, which are usually just big bags of hit points, don't last long. All that said, the fight against one massive foe is a fantasy staple and I want it to work -- and not just for epic boss battles. There's no reason a random encounter with a giant or whatever shouldn't be viable, too.

One thought I have had to fix this is to treat a big creature like a group of creatures that all stay close together. Like, if the dragon were it's head, it's tail and its torso/claw routine. So the head not only gets to act independently on its own initiative, it has its own list of abilities, its own reach and range, and its own hit point pool. The same for the other parts. But while I think it is a neat idea for a dragon, I don't know how it would translate well to a giant or other creature without lots of "interesting parts."

One thing I didn't like in 3e, and it reared its head again in 5e, are the gulf in saving throws. This is just my opinion, but you are too likely to fail your "bad" saving throws.

Another issue is "how many encounters per day", which might actually be a GMing problem, but if so, it's a common one. IME it's:
1. Hard to introduce so many encounters in one day. Since this is so common, I would hope WotC would come up with a smaller figure.
2. Low-level characters cannot withstand as many encounters as high-level characters per day, even assuming each encounter is "balanced" for their level, so simply saying 4, 6, or 8 encounters per day is not that useful.

On Solos:
IME, 4e characters always performed about the same against regular monsters of their level, but 1st-level characters were wiped by 1st-level solos, and 9th-level characters laughed at 13th-level solos. And this was the edition with good solo design (probably the first edition where this was specifically taken into account when designing monsters).

 

[jmartkdr2]

I don't think BA was a bad idea, it's just too bounded. I have no desire to go back to the days of epic-tier monsters having +48 to hit or whatever. The AC range is just a little too compressed.

If proficiency bonuses were part of AC calculations, the result would be really both really flat (you'd pretty much track 1-to-1 against on-level enemies) but the variance would be a little higher (goblins would stop being able to reliable hit you but level 13-ish).

That might be a direction to look into.

 

[jmartkdr2]

One thing I didn't like in 3e, and it reared its head again in 5e, are the gulf in saving throws. This is just my opinion, but you are too likely to fail your "bad" saving throws.

Another issue is "how many encounters per day", which might actually be a GMing problem, but if so, it's a common one. IME it's:
1. Hard to introduce so many encounters in one day. Since this is so common, I would hope WotC would come up with a smaller figure.
2. Low-level characters cannot withstand as many encounters as high-level characters per day, even assuming each encounter is "balanced" for their level, so simply saying 4, 6, or 8 encounters per day is not that useful.

On Solos:
IME, 4e characters always performed about the same against regular monsters of their level, but 1st-level characters were wiped by 1st-level solos, and 9th-level characters laughed at 13th-level solos. And this was the edition with good solo design (probably the first edition where this was specifically taken into account when designing monsters).

I agree on saving throws but haven't seen or thought of a good solution.

I have noticed that the actual minimum number of encounters needed to challenge the party varies by tier - I'd say 1 / long rest / tier of play is the minimum expected number of encounters. If you have a mix of long- and short-rest-based classes, though, you'll want to keep the average at at least 3, however.

Notes: challenge means risky but solvable through good play. You can make the game deadly or difficult by making it likely that the pcs will simply fail at rolls, but not a lot of people find that fun. If you want it to require smart play, you need at least a little attrition. "Minimum expected" means that it's okay to go under form time to time, but you need to have multiple encounters often enough that players feel the need to conserve resources.

This is pretty easy to do if you use dungeons. But it's really hard to do if you're not using dungeons, and a lot of people don't want to use dungeons because they'd rather focus on story.

 

[Asisreo]

You forgot about AC and to-hit. An ogre is designed to survive 2-3 rounds against a 2nd-level party. But his AC is so low that this requires an enormous pool of hit points. The basic problem is that, as we go up and up in level, to-hit bonuses go up, but monster ACs really don't. If you raise the ogre's AC and lower his HP appropriately, he'll still last 2-3 rounds against a 2nd-level party, and be within an assassin's chance to kill.

Basically, AC should be a larger factor in survivability so that those damage and HP curves can be brought down. Mearls stated he shot for a 50% chance to hit. In 4e, when you had 1 attack per round, the low chance to hit made the game extremely boring. In 5e, with a zillion ways to get advantage, lots of characters multiattacking, realistically, every player is hitting at least once on closer to 75% of rounds.

But why should they be brought down?

HP is a progress bar but AC v ToHit is a probability.

As the game goes on, everything relies less on the swing of the dice. I mean, more dice rolled in a round converge towards their average. You can be more sure that a level 20 fighter hits around 48 damage much more than you can be sure a level 1 fighter hits 10.

This is good game design. It lets you feel more reliable as you've leveled up.

And its not just AC that trends this way. Its actually the inverse for Saves. The save DC of a caster usually only deviates about 6 whole DC units, but monster's save proficiencies go up much higher. Sometimes from -1 up to +15.

 

[Aldarc]

I would not necessarily say that D&D needs "fixed," but I think that a modular version of D&D could benefit the hobby. I would actually look to games like 4e and Shadow of the Demon Lord about how to potentially approach this. 4e recognized tiers of play at work, and SotDL expanded on this in its adventure and class design. Then I would take a cue from video games with easy, standard, and hard modes.

The game could be broken up into Tiers of Play: Basic (levels 1-5); Expert (levels 6-10); Advanced (levels 11-15); and Epic (levels 16-20). The game could be played from 1-20 or you could pick the game up at a later tier. Each tier adds additional options and features.

Adventures and Modules would be written for a given Tier of play rather than for set levels of play (e.g., Expert adventure rather than rapidly shooting characters through levels 1-12).

Monsters would likewise be designed for tiers of play, with DM instructions for upgrading monsters to different tier levels or encounters. Here though I would also bring back more 4e-style monster design. But additional options could be added for morale, bloodied, and/or optionally minion rules.

Classes would also be designed with this modular Tier system in mind. Maybe you start out as one of four basic classes (i.e., Fighter, Priest, Rogue, Mage), but then when you reach Expert level you choose an Expert class (e.g., Bard, Cleric, Ranger, Paladin, Druid, Psion, Marshal, Warlock, Wizard, etc.) or even a second Basic class. Likewise you later choose an Advanced Class and an Epic Class once you reach those tiers of play. Maybe even make it so, if you want, you could go from Warrior -> Paladin, Priest -> Paladin, Rogue -> Paladin, or even Mage -> Paladin. Build that character you want.

Layered into this Tier system Beginner, Standard, and Veteran modes could be provided for the Game Master. For example, Beginner Mode may provide Class HD/level + Con Modifier/level to HP, while Average cuts off Con Mod/level after Basic/Expert tier, and Veteran mode removes +Con mod to HP per level entirely. But have these BSV rules labeled and organized as such.

I think that this would also work well for Organized Play, because you could set up various tables for adventures and say, "This is an Advanced level adventure set on Easy mode at this table, the same Advanced level adventure set on Standard mode at this other table, and a Basic level adventure but set on Veteran mode at this table,..."

 

[Dausuul]

Yeah, I've been suggesting for a LONG time that a cap of 40 would be better than 30. SW d20 had a max DC of 40. I also think if you max bonuses at +20, then with the d20, 40 would be the max and make it only possible on a nat 20 with a +20.

Oh hell no. If you've got a 20th-level fighter with a +3 sword, they still only have a 25% chance to hit AC 30. Any higher than that and you might as well just declare the monster immune to physical damage and not waste the players' time rolling. Unless you also start boosting attack bonuses, and I see no reason to do that. A 20th-level fighter already hits 4 times as often simply by virtue of having 4 attacks--they don't need a massive accuracy boost on top of that.

The one place I do think bounded accuracy falls down is with skills. Attacks have multiple factors (number of attacks, attack roll, damage roll) which all improve as you gain levels. Skills load everything onto that one d20 roll. Because of that, bounded accuracy dramatically limits a skilled character's ability to shine in their particular area. The uneducated barbarian has a decent chance to know stuff about Arcana that the wizard does not.

Even there, however, I don't think relaxing bounded accuracy limits is a great idea. I'd rather see additional elements introduced to the skill system to benefit the skilled PC. One possibility would be to bring back 3E's distinction between "trained" and "untrained" uses of a skill: Certain uses of the skill simply require proficiency, and can't be done at all if you aren't proficient.

 

[Asisreo]

The one place I do think bounded accuracy falls down is with skills. Attacks have multiple factors (number of attacks, attack roll, damage roll) which all improve as you gain levels. Skills load everything onto that one d20 roll. Because of that, bounded accuracy dramatically limits a skilled character's ability to shine in their particular area. The uneducated barbarian has a decent chance to know stuff about Arcana that the wizard does not.

I actually feel like that itself is more realistic depending on the DM's ability to justify the knowledge gap in a believable way.

For instance, if they're examining a magical crystal, perhaps the Wizard did not study the crystal in their life but the Barbarian remembers growing up near a cave where there existed such a crystal. Therefore, a barbarian would understand a crystal more.