D&D 5E How is 5E like 4E?

[Garthanos]

I actually never said the difference is

The latter part was my own statement sorry for being confusing and having a poor memory // you very much made a comparison with your language // here is the quote I was responding about where you are claiming 4e is having the dm use levelled challenges for a trivial activity.

Oviinomancer: "Meanwhile in 4e, the GM is expected to set the DC according to your level, ...."

sure sounds you were making an inaccurate comparison

that 4e does not encourage using low level npcs over a wide range of levels so that mayor is both less likely to be encountered and if he was in 4e the numbers support the fluff.

No that is my statement. You do not see value in the numbers supporting the fluff. Because you are happy relying on the DMs little red car except when you arent (see stunts comment)

So, no, I didn't explicitly say this. I don't disagree that 5e lets monsters be more effective across a wider band of levels, but that's not germane to any of the points I've made.

What I said was that a mayor needing to be intimidated by a high level character is equally unlikely and pointless as a challenge in both systems. Just let it be done and go to where there's something important happening.

We agree that it is pointless. But that seems inconsistent with the challenge of this npc being viable monster at a broad range of levels. To me 5es does not seem to be saying discard that npc as a challenge "except in opposites land", especially when a dm can see there is a huge chance of PC failure based on the npc and pc stats regardless of level.

 

[Garthanos]

The 5e game system seems to be saying to the DM go ahead and taunt the Knight of the Round table with being bested by the Mayor (you cannot intimidate him) who has higher charisma than you and more allies probably ... if he is a fine challenge for a big range of higher level characters why would that be different for skills? (because hit points allow advancement and multi-attacks and that is nowhere in sight with skill uses you get this 20 percentiles of advancement hurray). DM fixit is unreliable.

 

[pemerton]

NPCs cannot intimidate PCs in 5e, so it's rather moot point. I don't actually recall if this was possible in 4e.

It's not really very clear. My own view is that intimidation in combat is an action like anything else, perhaps dealing psychic damage and/or an effect like being pushed (ie recoiling in fear) - the best version of this I recall is not based around the intimidation skill at all but rather is an attack power (Horrific Visage) on the Deathlock Wight. Whereas the power vs skill distinction is important for PCs (because of how it feeds into action resolution) it doesn't matter very much for NPCs/monsters (for the same sort of reason as PbtA games don't need monster stats comparable to players' playbooks).

Out of combat, intimidation by a NPC (again somewhat as you might think of it in a PbtA context) is a GM move in the fiction, whether soft (typically as part of framing) or hard (narrating a consequence in a skill challenge). Because the rules are vague and the traditions are strong, I think it's an area where most GMs will benefit by treading lightly - I can't think of an intimidation example straight away, but I do remember that in a skill challenge where the PCs were negotiating with a Pact Hag (who has many verbal manipultion-oriented abilities) at one point I narrated the fighter PC taking a step to where the Hag wanted him, so she could pull the cord that opened the trap door. The player did not have an issue with this in play; but when I posted about it on ENworld it did cause some outrage!

This actually shows what I'm saying. The 4e character that doesn't spend any effort on a skill is at the same chance to succeed at an easy take at 1st and at 30th. They have nearly no chance to succeed at any other tasks at 30th, but can at 1st. Meanwhile, the 4e character that specializes in a skill succeeds at a hard task roughly at 50/50 at 1st, and, given your best bonus above, about 50/50 at a hard task at 30th.

<snip>

And while I know you weren't making any points about 5e, the reality is that the above holds true for the unskilled player -- you're about 50/50 at 1st for an easy task and about 50/50 at 20th for an easy task. DCs in 5e are mostly set by approach and the challenge according to the rules of the game (published adventures ignore this, which I find maddening). So it holds up. Meanwhile a proficient character goes from a +2 to a +6, but the DC range never changes, so they actually see improvement against relevant challenges.

that 4e character faces a constant treadmill of increasing DCs, so their actual chance of success is the same as the 5e character, who doesn't just add numbers to their sheet to keep up with the rising DCs. A 4e character, your wizard, at 1st level, with a 0 stat and no proficiency in athletics, faces a DC 8 for an easy athletics challenge. That's a 65% chance of success! The same 5e wizard faces a DC 10, for a 55% chance of success. Now zoom to 20th. No build resources are put into either. The 4e wizard has picked up +10 for half level, the 5e character has not improved. They both now face an easy task. The 4e character's DC is 18, meaning they have a 65% chance of success. The 5e character's DC is 10, which has a 55% chance of success. Wait, neither actually improved!

But, let's look at a medium DC. At 1st, the 4e character faces a DC 12, for a 45% chance of success, and the 5e character faces a 15, for a 30% chance of success. At 20th, the 4e character faces a DC 25, and has a 30% chance of success. The 5e character faces a DC 15, for the same 30% chance of success. Huh. 4e lost a step.

Now, hard. DC 19 vs 20 at 1st, so a 5% difference with advantage to 4e. At 20th, the 5e character still only has a 5% chance of success, but the 4e character cannot succeed at all with a +10 vs a DC of 34.

This is the straight skill system. It's not like 4e characters actually improve at the things that they are actually doing.

I'm not sure I fully follow your comparisons, because you seem to be equating Easy/Medium/Hard in 4e to Easy/Medium/Hard in 5e, but I don't think that can be right.

In 4e those difficulty judgements are (in some slightly obscure fashion) level relative - the way I personally tend to resolve that obscurity is by treating Medium as the level-appropriate default (be that astral teflon slime or whatever other setting element is generating the DC) and then treat Easy or Hard as reflecting situational adjustments that aren't tied to the particular setting element. But that's my own approach and I can't say I've always followed it utterly consistently. (The Essentials-era skill challenge rules mostly solve the problem by putting the difficulties into the skill challenge structure, which brings it even closer to HeroWars/Quest or Cortex+ Heroic Doom Pool-style resolution.)

Whereas in 5e, I would have thought those difficulty judgements are largely "objective", similar to obstacles in BW or the throws needed for success in Classic Traveller or all the prescribed DCs found in 3E D&D.

But putting that to one side, don't your numbers show that for 4e PCs, the higher the level the harder for the less-focused PC to do well compared to the more-focused, as we move from Easy to Hard; and likewise for 5e PCs, the higher the level the harder for the less-focused PC to do well compared to the more-focused, as we move from Easy to Hard. In 4e this is because Medium and Hard DCs grow at more than the level-bonus rate; in 5e this is because only a focused PC has a growing bonus on the check. So (subject to my comments above about what the difficulties mean in the different systems) I'm not sure I'm seeing the difference that you do.

ignoring the one character above that has check values in the 40s for a set of skills, which is apparently due to some massive outside the PC bonus, I'm guessing, it looks like non-outside pumped scores top at around 30

Kinda.

Stat bonuses tend to max out around +8 to +10 (ie 26 to 30 - people will tell you that a PC with a 16 in his/her prime stat is hosed but that's not true: but Derrik is a fighter with 16 starting STR and so 26 at 28th (the last boost) and is extremely effective - of course a careless build with a lower stat might suck, but part of the point of 4e is avoiding careless builds!). With +20 for proficiency and level that's +28 to + 30. With an epic-tier item granting +6, that's +34 to +36. Another +2 from race or theme or feat is not atypical. So those top bonuses tend to be high 20s to mid 30s, depending on all the elements in the mix. If you look at my chart you'll see the physically-focused Derrik (fighter); the socially-focused Jett and Tillen (sorcerer and paladin; Jett also has reasonable Acro and Stealth as he is a secondary DEX sorcerer and until he lost the ability was a Cloud of Darkness-using Drow); and the archer ranger Ravian (with the typical skills you'd expect - Nature, Perception, Acro - no Steath because he's a hybrid cleric/ranger and so gets only 3 skills by default - from memory the training in Religion, which sits on the lowest possible base, is the result of a paladin multi-class feat).

The most interesting is the "skill monkey" Malstaph, and invoker/wizard who is about as close as you can get in 4e to a non-combat character (which is not to say he sucks in combat - he's not bad given 1x/enc AoE blind and AoE domination). The 40s are the result of his epic destiny, Sage of Ages, which gives +6 in the five knowledge skills (Arcana, History, Religion, Dungeoneering, Nature). Most epic destinies gives +2 to one or two stats, but the Sage of Ages doesn't, granting this big skill bonus instead. It's an interesting design attempt but I think in the end it doesn't work - it's a good fit for certain particular abilities (a feature of the destiny itself, and certain rituals that look for degree of success on an appropriate check), but puts a bit too much pressure on the skill challenge maths. Probably +2 to one of INT or WIS and advantage on those checks would be better, with the destiny feature being appropriately scaled down and the rituals just falling where they lie as a result.

 

[Hussar]

I get hyperbole, but that's a bit much.

A fireball only deals 8d6 damage, which averages 28 on a failed save or 14 on a successful save. Its 20-foot radius covers up to 44 squares, which is a lot, but the chances of those all being filled are basically zero. Considering 5E's default is one monster against a four-person party of adventurers, AoE spells are really only useful when the DM intentionally sets up encounters to make them useful.

Wait, what? Where is that? The default is one monster vs 4 PC's? I know that was the baseline in 3e, but, I wasn't aware that that was the baseline in 5e. And it certainly a baseline that is pretty much completely rejected by published modules.

But sure, let's set up a very generous what if. You get a DM who's all about the AoE and hands you an encounter with 22 enemies...enough to fill half the AoE of a fireball...and hands you all of them perfectly lined up in your AoE. Assuming half fail their save and half succeed, you're talking about (28 x 11) + (14 x 11) = 462 average damage. Which is a lot. But a more reasonable encounter would be 4-10 monsters at most. And unless the DM gives you those on a silver platter, they're not going to bunch up for a fireball. So between 2-6 get hit at most, really, for a total of 126 damage. A 5th-level wizard gets to do that once per day.

Again, please don't cherry pick. Sure, a 5th level wizard does that once a day. A 10th level wizard does that a heck of a lot more.

A 5th-level fighter gets two attacks per round, assuming half hit and half miss, and assuming a decent weapon choice, say 1d10 or better, for an average of 10.5 damage, it's only...44 rounds of fighter attacks. Rounds are only 6 seconds long, so in 4.4 minutes the fighter has matched the wizard's damage from that one fireball enconter perfectly served up by the DM. For the more realistic encounter with only 4-10 monsters and 126 damage from a fireball, the fighter only has to attack for a little more than 12 rounds to match that...and has the rest of the day to beat it.

How many 44 round adventuring days do you have? I've yet to see one in 5e. Mind you, even at 12 rounds, that's 3-4 encounters. And, frankly, that's an adventuring day for a lot of the time.

So, really, the fighter's not that far behind.

If you really want the fighter to cry, just tell them how all the casters' cantrips scale better than the fighter's attacks. LOL. Poor fighters. WotC must really...really hate fighters.

I'll totally admit to the hyperbole of that specific example. Of course, the fact that you ignored the larger point - any class with access to spells totally leaves the fighter in the dust. Which, apparently you agree with.

And, for those who want to claim that the casters are not totally out damaging the non-casters, actually track it for a couple of sessions. Really. Take your next two or three sessions, and track the damage totals. Everyone sees the fighter doing hits, dealing damage, doing all this stuff and thinks, oh, well, sure they're on par. They aren't. They really are scraping the bottom of the barrel, which, frankly is pretty sad for a class whose entire raison d'etre is dealing damage.

 

[Garthanos]

And, for those who want to claim that the casters are not totally out damaging the non-casters, actually track it for a couple of sessions. Really. Take your next two or three sessions, and track the damage totals. Everyone sees the fighter doing hits, dealing damage, doing all this stuff and thinks, oh, well, sure they're on par. They aren't. They really are scraping the bottom of the barrel, which, frankly is pretty sad for a class whose entire raison d'etre is dealing damage.

Did you use your best optimization tricks and get that fighter GWF and whatever...

 

[Neonchameleon]

There's an assumption at play here that it's the number beside the skill that makes the difference. Most of the examples given (mine included) just look like no check needed to me. When we look at things that actually have stakes in the games, the maths plays out the same as far as chance of success goes. Both cases are going to be pitching a campsite in a dangerous place, because that's the backdrop for high level stuff! So, making camp in hell, 20th level, not a lot of pressure but it's a dangerous place. Easy task. Both my 5e character and your 4e character have the same chance of success as they did at 1st pitching camp in Placid Clearing.

I think what the assumption actually is is that there is such a thing as a fixed skill DC or saving throw.

Which there is - it's written in numerous monster statblocks such as the Gelatinous Cube (CR2 DC12 Strength to escape) or the Glabrezu (CR9 escape from grapple DC 15) or the Froghemoth (CR 10 escape from grapple DC 16).

I didn't realise the switch from skills (most of which don't level up for most people) to saves (most of which don't level up for most people) when both get harder on the same schedule would be seen as some sort of goalpost shifting. It wasn't intended as such, just the first examples that come to mind. And when we use only the area of the goal that you think is appropriate the answer is still the same - there are actual hard coded DCs in 5e (just as in any other edition) and if the PCs don't level up they fall further and further behind and get less and less able to be competent against equivalent threats.

So, your argument is that 20th level characters in 4e are doing 1st level adventures, or... what?

Where did this come from?

My argument is threefold:

1. Skill DCs have meanings that are hard-coded into the game. This applies in 4e and in 5e - as demonstrated by grapple checks.
2. Related to this if it's a DC 15 check to leap between rooftops in one adventure the players will be surprised when you make it DC 10 to leap between the same two rooftops in a later one. Consistency helps
3. Characters generally in my experience like to have a base of operations rather than bouncing from adventure to adventure with no home. So you may well reuse environments.

Over the course of a 4e adventure, you'll level, what, once maybe twice. So your check goes up by at most 1 during that adventure. I'm not following this argument. The idea in both 4e and 5e is that you go up against tougher and tougher guys, not that you're often circling back to the low level guys for some easy kicks.

But being able to reuse the low level bad guys in large numbers is part of the point of Bounded Accuracy. Levelling up from fighting for your lives against a few orc scouts to taking on a small orc army lead by a dark paladin with warlock support is a perfectly decent adventure chain. In 4e you're eventually going to turn the orcs into minions of course.

Why are walls with lightning rods harder to climb? I mean, total aside, not the point, but... huh?

Easier. +2 for something to grab on to.

And this goes directly to my earlier point. That 4e character has no practice avoiding being swallowed, but they get better at avoiding it.

No necessary practice avoiding being swallowed - but plenty of physical activity. Are you genuinely and sincerely telling me that a pasty bookworm who's barely been out of the library is going to be every bit as good as wrestling and wriggling out of things as a hardened adventurer used to rough sleeping, who's been in physical fights, and forced by their party to take exercise?

5e, though, takes a different approach. Monsters are dangerous based on the monster, not your level.

Yes, of course a gelatinous cube is just as dangerous to a level 1 wizard as a level 20 archmage in 5e. Riiiiight.

A purple worm is very dangerous -- it's hard to avoid being swallowed by one because it's huge and swallows things all the time.

A purple worm has static DCs in both 4e and 5e.

The difference is that in 5e if you aren't explicitly competent at something you're incompetent at it. In 4e it's assumed that as you adventure you get better at things like knowing what signs to spot, you get fitter physically, and more knowledgeable about the world in general because you've been more places, seen more, done more, and pushed yourself harder.

In 5e the wizard taking excercise doesn't make them any fitter. The fighter picks up nothing from the campfire arguments between the wizard and the cleric. You are assumed to effectively be in a bubble as you only level up what you specialise in, being blind and incurious as to everything else.

It's practiced at swallowing thing. So, you have a hard task to avoid it. This isn't tied to level, it's tied to the worm -- the worm is hard no matter when you encounter it.

Nope. The worm is not "hard" whenever you encounter it. It's DC 19. In 4e it's DC 21. In neither case do they use the Easy/Medium/Hard scaling - in both cases it's a static property of the worm. The only difference is that in 4e characters are expected to get more physically competent as they level up, do more, and see more. In 5e the pasty faced nerd of a wizard never gets a tan or any muscle tone and the barbarian never learns anything from watching the wizard work.

So, a character that puts build choices into improving that save still faces a hard task to avoid being swallowed -- it's still hard! -- but they're skilled enough to deal with it.

And a character that doesn't put build choices into improving that save might as well never have left the library for all they've learned. This is the problem. Now there's a strong argument that the scaling in 4e is too strong and should be a point every four levels rather than every two. But if you've been grappled by zombies, had to run out of a collapsing castle, hiked dozens of miles a day, and other things then escaping from a purple worm is going to be more like things you've done than if you're a scribe who never leaves the library.

 

[Garthanos]

Proficiency Adventuring... applies to most everything adventurers do (including saving throws etc) normally in your setting does not apply to underwater basket weaving in any setting combines with expertise and focused expertise. Expertise is what trained specialists train for and focused expertise is the rogue benefit. Can also be gained via a feat.

 

[Hussar]

Did you use your best optimization tricks and get that fighter GWF and whatever...

Heh. That is kinda the point. If you have to give the fighter every advantage to equal the out of the box caster, there’s a problem.

But I really think a lot of people don’t see it because it gets buried in theory crafting and ignored in play.

 

[Garthanos]

But if you've been grappled by zombies, had to run out of a collapsing castle, hiked dozens of miles a day, and other things then escaping from a purple worm is going to be more like things you've done than if you're a scribe who never leaves the library.

Its almost like these heroes do not learn by experience at all....

 

[Jacob Lewis]

After playing 4e for years, I came to the realization that the DCs weren't intended to reflect the infinite sliding scale of endless difficulties possible in an epic world of super-powered heroics. It was simply the game was designed... the way the game has, in fact, always been designed... to maintain balance while providing players with the illusion of advancing in power. In most cases where everyone followed the expected paths for optimizing their characters, I decided that everyone usually succeeded when they rolled a 12 (on d20) or higher for any skill or attack they were proficient with. It just wasn't worth the effort of calculating all the variables, modifiers, or target numbers to maintain this invisibe, perfect illusion of game balance.

And in this regard, 5e got it right. The locks don't just keep getting more complicated for heroes as they get stronger. Just like diplomacy with an NPC doesn't get more challenging because characters have been training to be better at negotiations. It just gets gradually easier with experience, which is how it should be. Realistically speaking.