D&D General Hot Take: D&D Has Not Recovered From 2E to 3.0 Transition

[Pedantic]

That's not really a treadmill. Should equal tier challenges just get easier as you go up in level? It's not like the DC to climb a 20' wall increases. You're just more likely to be doing more epic things as you go up in level, that should have a higher DC. First level PC's climb slippery walls in the rain on an 11+. 15th level PC's climb walls made out of gelatinous cubes on an 11+ and automatically climb over 20' walls. DM's tend to handwave or not spend much time on non-challenges, but those old level 1 challenges like making a fire with damp wood are still there if you want to see your skill progress.

If that's a treadmill, then combat is a treadmill. You guys fight a lot of dire rats at 10th level? IMX, people fight appropriate combat challenges, with the occasional chump fight to show how you've grown.

The treadmill effect has to do with the play loop encouraged by having level scaled DCs, because it encourages DMs to break the relationship between player abilities and skill roll results. Characters don't actually get any better at doing things, the adjectives used to describe the challenges around them just change.

Your climb check is a great example. The player didn't get a higher climbing speed, or learn how to ignore slippery conditions, or how to climb at full speed on ceilings and so on. The player hasn't gained a capability they can leverage: they won't make any different decisions because they are now an expert climber and can easily cling to ceilings to drop on their foes. Instead, the DM was prompted to take the same challenge "make a climb check with a 60% chance of success to get over this wall" and use different language to describe it.

5e does this too, just with even less different language and slightly more scaling.

 

[payn]

If you want the math to not stay the same, have your high level party continue raiding the same type of goblin dens that they did at low levels. The math will be "different", though I'm not sure how satisfying an experience they'd find it.

Or I can just play 5E with its BA.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If you want the math to not stay the same, have your high level party continue raiding the same type of goblin dens that they did at low levels. The math will be "different", though I'm not sure how satisfying an experience they'd find it.

Which is the intended function of things like swarm rules, which are exactly the same concept as minions (different mechanical expressions based on context) applied in a different direction (an individual X is no threat, but a swarm of a hundred X is dangerous and difficult to fight.) 5e uses swarms and no one complains. Several individual wasps would use different rules compared to a swarm of wasps (or toads, or bats, etc.) because a swarm is a different context, despite being made up of the same physical beings.

 

[FallenRX]

THis is true, one of the reasons why the Martial Caster gap got so exacerbated since the 3e shift, is because they reworked the magic system to where it can actually be done in a simple action. Where as before it messed with the initiative of the caster, or outright took place at the end of the round, and if they were hit during that round, the spell was dropped.

This made Casters not only weaker, even at a higher level in combat because they really actually needed martials to protect them during a round otherwise their spells dropped, and made Martials role actually matter, and also is why higher level casters used summons a lot, when they could actively use summons to protect them while they casted, its why they had minions.

3E kept the spellcasting system, BUT completely adjusted it to where you can now cast spells in a action, on your term, this streamlining lead to wizards not needing protection anymore, and on top of that, now are uber versatile at a lot due to having more spell spots. They did this because casters "didnt feel good" having to be protected and such, and just wanted to make a more actiony diablo esque game where mages were just blasters,a nd as effective as martials in combat. This pretty much is ground zero of why this is a big problem now, when before it was only a problem at the highest levels of play, if the wizard had preptime.

TlDR: Casters before it took almost a whole round to cast a spell, and would drop if they got hit, they actually needed protection, and since the change in 3E to make it one action, it broke the game, and no one wants to fix it because casters would complain.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Or I can just play 5E with its BA.

At this point, no thanks. BA is just an excuse to tell the same damn stories over and over with the exact same challenges, just MOAR of the same crap. Oh joy, I fight MOAR wolves/goblins/rats all the way until the game craters at 10th level because its just more busywork tracking individual piddly sacks of hit points with an axe. It's why 5E combats are so damn dull with the basic monster manual (outside of spellcasters, go figure). You want to talk treadmill? Everything is basically a sack of HP with an axe and an AC of 9+1d6. The number of hits to kill the sack might go up, but that's still a treadmill.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

The treadmill effect has to do with the play loop encouraged by having level scaled DCs, because it encourages DMs to break the relationship between player abilities and skill roll results. Characters don't actually get any better at doing things, the adjectives used to describe the challenges around them just change.

Your climb check is a great example. The player didn't get a higher climbing speed, or learn how to ignore slippery conditions, or how to climb at full speed on ceilings and so on. The player hasn't gained a capability they can leverage: they won't make any different decisions because they are now an expert climber and can easily cling to ceilings to drop on their foes. Instead, the DM was prompted to take the same challenge "make a climb check with a 60% chance of success to get over this wall" and use different language to describe it.

5e does this too, just with even less different language and slightly more scaling.

Yeah, 5E's skill system is anemic. Binary pass/fail, no crit success, no fail forward, no success with consequence etc. Bounded accuracy/DC's, because god forbid anything be outside of a 1st level chump with an 8 in their stat's reach. Minimal conditions, or situational abilities because it needs to be potato simple.

If higher Athletics check let you climb/run more, or a DC X let you move as a free action, then it would escape the treadmill effect. More granularity would be nice and would help new DM's. We a hundreds pages for spells, but like 6 for skills, and people wonder why magic is the default answer to every issue.

 

[payn]

At this point, no thanks. BA is just an excuse to tell the same damn stories over and over with the exact same challenges, just MOAR of the same crap. Oh joy, I fight MOAR wolves/goblins/rats all the way until the game craters at 10th level because its just more busywork tracking individual piddly sacks of hit points with an axe. It's why 5E combats are so damn dull with the basic monster manual (outside of spellcasters, go figure). You want to talk treadmill? Everything is basically a sack of HP with an axe and an AC of 9+1d6.

Everything is the same and always has been. gobo/wolf/rat just becomes hobgobo/werewolf/ogre etc.. Its always just been AC9+1D6 they just removed the illusion that's its not.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Everything is the same and always has been. gobo/wolf/rat just becomes hobgobo/werewolf/ogre etc.. Its always just been AC9+1D6 they just removed the illusion that's its not.

Unless, of course, you actually ran it as intended (and explicitly instructed), where it wasn't an illusion.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Or I can just play 5E with its BA.

That's an odd claim. BA doesn't eliminate the treadmill.

In 5e, for example, DCs scale and so do proficient saves. At an equivalent rate, no less. That's a treadmill. All BA means is that, unlike 3e, your non-proficient saves will often have a better than 5% chance of success, because the gap between best and worst is narrower.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Everything is the same and always has been. gobo/wolf/rat just becomes hobgobo/werewolf/ogre etc.. Its always just been AC9+1D6 they just removed the illusion that's its not.

Fair point lol. Maybe removing the illusion was the mistake?

Because right now, the only abilities that actually progress significantly in scope are spells. Everything else is only marginally more of the same you did at first level. Bounded competency (for skills) means that a 10th level guy is only +2 or so over what they were doing at first level, jumping (maybe) over the same 10 foot wide gaps.