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

[Justice and Rule]

That's just physics, though. You can see folks with flashlights or headlamps coming long before they can see you.

I would like to see dark vision removed from player character races entirely. It is detrimental to the tone of exploration and creates logistical issues in a mixed party.

I like it, though this is where having gradations like "Low-Light Vision" are useful.

It also works much better in VTTs, where you can more easily restrict someone's vision without overburdening the GM with things like extra descriptions exclusive to those characters.

Most people forget that in 5e, players with darkvision have -5 to passive perception checks in the dark.

Indeed, I know I had missed it. But I also figure that most creatures that have both regular and dark vision prefer to have at least low-lights when possible. Going completely dark in a dungeon is not an everyday occurrence, but a defensive tactic.

 

[SirMoogle]

I certainly forgot that. But why does that rule exist?

I think it mechanically prevents them from being too OP. I think Darkvision is also described as being able to see in shades of grey?

 

[Justice and Rule]

I think it mechanically prevents them from being too OP. I think Darkvision is also described as being able to see in shades of grey?

Yes, it's essentially greyscale. It's why I always figured that most races would not want to be forced to use it as a daily thing: being able to perceive colors is rather nice and useful in regular life.

 

[Lanefan]

Depends on how your milestones are defined. If they're dependent on certain events taking place in a chronology, then there's no getting to F before A, B, C - by necessity, it comes later. They can also be defined as relative proportion of some overall adventure complete - say, 1/3 of the Caves of Chaos explored and dealt with. Then, again, there's no assumption about the adventure unfolding in a certain way.

You could, but doing it that way doesn't really speak well to the relative risk of each section. A party should get more xp for taking out the Gnolls in KotB than for the Kobolds, regardless of the sequence in which these events occur.

And even if the milestones are based on some kind of expectation of how an adventure unfolds, then you just level them up for the F milestone when they accomplish it even if they skipped the segments that would have gotten them milestones expected at C and E. It's not that big a deal.

Er...um...they get levels they haven't earned, its that what you're saying?

Let's for simplicity's sake say each milestone letter represents a level; thus milestone F would in theory mean reaching 7th level. So if they miss C and E are you saying that hitting F should still get them to 7th? If yes, doesn't this overly encourage the players to skip as much potentially interesting stuff as they can and just get straight to the boss fight (or equivalent) as soon as they think they can handle it? Bleah!

Or are you saying that because they hit A, B and D, that F being the fourth gets them to 4th level (in other words, the lettering sequence is irrelevant)? This also doesn't work for me in that I'm assuming that attaining each letter in the sequence carries a greater degree of risk, i.e. plowing through 3rd level to get to C carries much less risk than plowing through F to get to 7th; thus here they'd be under-rewarded for hitting F and then over-rewarded were they to go back and hit C.

 

[Lanefan]

Curse of Strahd is a Sandbox that doesn’t require a set number of areas to be completed, neither does it require them in any time frame or any order.

It rewards exploration and solving of problems in a variety of sites of the players choosing and the collection of items identified by procedurally generated clues.

It has a short introduction section in Barovia (village) though it doesn’t specify any required actions - just gives ideas. After that the world is open to explore. It suggests the party tackle Castle Ravenloft at around a particular level but only by suggesting hooks that might motivate players to travel there. It also acknowledges that players may travel there at any point.

Can you explain in what way this prevents players getting in over their heads, or being over-leveled?

I don't know Curse of Strahd but if it's designed as the sandbox you say it is, it doesn't seem to suit milestone levelling at all...at least, not if one wants xp earned to reflect the risk taken in earning them unless each of the nodes in the sandbox carries a close-to-equal amount of risk.

 

[TheSword]

How does it employ milestone leveling?

It doesn’t track XP ... particularly inappropriate in a Ravenloft campaign.

Instead you level up on the completion of major events, areas or discovering artifacts as I said.

 

[TheSword]

I don't know Curse of Strahd but if it's designed as the sandbox you say it is, it doesn't seem to suit milestone levelling at all...at least, not if one wants xp earned to reflect the risk taken in earning them unless each of the nodes in the sandbox carries a close-to-equal amount of risk.

Yes but as been said people will take different approaches and therefore different levels of risk.

If you care so much for precisely correlated XP rewards with monster abilities then milestones aren’t for you.

If you don’t care about granular tracking or the defeat of every individual monsters in the game then it might be of more interest.

 

[Reynard]

It doesn’t track XP ... particularly inappropriate in a Ravenloft campaign.

Instead you level up on the completion of major events, areas or discovering artifacts as I said.

It sounds like it's in that semi-open world space that tries to hide its linear nature. I do not own CoS so I can't say for sure, but from your description it sounds like the PCs enter a zone and there's a bunch of stuff they can do, some of it required for "advancement" of the story. Tjose elements serve as milestones and since the next section of the adventure is designed for level X, the PCs have to complete all the story beats, which level them up, before the gate opens to the next part. Is that a fair assessment?

There's nothing wrong with tht style of game. It allows for a consistent narrative and a theme park approach to side quests. I just don't think it is really an open world and I generally like story to emerge from play rather than force play to conform to a story. But given how much success WotC has seen with their approach to adventures I am in the minority there.

 

[TheSword]

It sounds like it's in that semi-open world space that tries to hide its linear nature. I do not own CoS so I can't say for sure, but from your description it sounds like the PCs enter a zone and there's a bunch of stuff they can do, some of it required for "advancement" of the story. Tjose elements serve as milestones and since the next section of the adventure is designed for level X, the PCs have to complete all the story beats, which level them up, before the gate opens to the next part. Is that a fair assessment?

There's nothing wrong with tht style of game. It allows for a consistent narrative and a theme park approach to side quests. I just don't think it is really an open world and I generally like story to emerge from play rather than force play to conform to a story. But given how much success WotC has seen with their approach to adventures I am in the minority there.

No. It’s not at all linear. Your assumptions are wildly off target. The party can tackle any area (outside the initial village) in any order. Including challenging the main villain. Areas aren’t restricted, they don’t open up as time goes on. They are available from day one.

No advancement of the Story is needed beyond what the PCs chose to advance. The background is already written and events occur triggered by proximity to the PCs but specific outcomes aren’t required. The Valley is an open world - albeit with a boundary like any place. Everything that’s in it is tainted by its relationship with Strahd and the party are free to explore those relationships and act as they see fit.

As I said, the milestones aren’t tied to ‘advancing a story’ they are linked to artifacts, overcoming (in a variety of ways) key antagonists and dealing with larger events. These don’t follow a linear story.

In fact a typical Ravenloft adventure often doesn’t follow that normal progression you describe. The villain is often one of the first encounters even though clearly overmatched.

 

[Reynard]

As I said, the milestones aren’t tied to ‘advancing a story’ they are linked to artifacts, overcoming (in a variety of ways) key antagonists and dealing with larger events. These don’t follow a linear story.

So, no matter how much adventuring the PCs do in the open world, they do not advance in level until they reach one of those milestones?