D&D 5E Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

[Hussar]

So, if I am understanding correctly:

Ability scores cannot grow much, because that is too much math.
Also, class features and powers cannot grow too much, because we need to keep a short list of classes and feature creep is bad.
Defenses and accuracy cannot grow too much, because that leads to weak monsters ceasing to matter over time, and also too much math.
Now, HP (and thus damage) cannot grow too much, because that's boring.

What, exactly, is there left for character growth? HP doesn't go up, so damage can't either. Features can't go up because power creep. Defense/accuracy and base stats can't go up because too much math.

I don't think there is any lack of intelligence on your part. Even a genius cannot solve a contradiction. You're trying to remove the last form of vertical growth, and horizontal growth isn't going to be allowed to pick up the slack.

What else could grow as the character does? It sounds to me like what you want is characters who never really change.

Sorry, wasn't clear. Monster HP is what I was talking about. The fact that the only way to increase a monster's danger is to jack up it's HP so it lasts longer in a fight.

 

[Hussar]

Pardon, I meant guidance, not bless. It's a cantrip.

Also things like Bardic Inspiration factor in. 4-5 times per short rest.

Presuming your group has a bard - one of the least played classes in the game.

If an average +2 on a skill check is breaking your game... well, that's not the game's problem.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Presuming your group has a bard - one of the least played classes in the game.

If an average +2 on a skill check is breaking your game... well, that's not the game's problem.

Guidance: average +2, min +1.
BI: average +3 rising to +6, min +1.
Advantage: average +5, technically min +0.

Going from (say) +4 to +6 on a skill roll of DC 20, with advantage, means your roll target drops from 16 to 14, and your chance of success rises from only one in three (36%) to essentially even (49%). Getting the average benefit from these takes you from +4 to +9, giving you 70% odds of success.

Actually using the rolled values, rather than merely averages, increases things to 74%.

A fifth-level character with a total +4 bonus and but two sources of other bonus (doesn't have to be BI or guidance in specific, those are just easy examples) turns a so-called "nearly impossible" check into something trivial. Guidance is easy (all clerics and druids have it.) Getting even one other relatively minor random bonus isn't that hard either. An actual specialist (who, at level 5, may have a bonus as large as +11) would blow such a check out of the water.

Also, "least played"? Shoe me your data, or else your own dismissal applies just as much to you as it does to anyone: "your experience is not universal." I haven't seen anything to that effect, ever. If anything, the haters seethe at the fact that Bard is as popular as it is!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sorry, wasn't clear. Monster HP is what I was talking about. The fact that the only way to increase a monster's danger is to jack up it's HP so it lasts longer in a fight.

Monster HP not growing means PC damage cannot grow either. So I'm not seeing how this escapes the contradiction. You can't deal more damage, gain high stats, or sprawl out into more actions/traits. If all forms of upward growth are out, and lateral growth is nixed as power creep, what is left?

 

[Hussar]

Guidance: average +2, min +1.
BI: average +3 rising to +6, min +1.
Advantage: average +5, technically min +0.

Going from (say) +4 to +6 on a skill roll of DC 20, with advantage, means your roll target drops from 16 to 14, and your chance of success rises from only one in three (36%) to essentially even (49%). Getting the average benefit from these takes you from +4 to +9, giving you 70% odds of success.

Actually using the rolled values, rather than merely averages, increases things to 74%.

A fifth-level character with a total +4 bonus and but two sources of other bonus (doesn't have to be BI or guidance in specific, those are just easy examples) turns a so-called "nearly impossible" check into something trivial. Guidance is easy (all clerics and druids have it.) Getting even one other relatively minor random bonus isn't that hard either. An actual specialist (who, at level 5, may have a bonus as large as +11) would blow such a check out of the water.

Also, "least played"? Shoe me your data, or else your own dismissal applies just as much to you as it does to anyone: "your experience is not universal." I haven't seen anything to that effect, ever. If anything, the haters seethe at the fact that Bard is as popular as it is!

DC 20 is not "nearly impossible". A 75% chance of success is pretty much where you want it. Where's the problem? As far as data goes, bards according to the D&D Beyond stats were just above Druids as the least played class in the game. Tied with monks, sorcerers and rangers. 7% of characters. Which is about one bard in 4 (ish) tables. 75% of tables don't have a bard. (again, roughly before poeple start getting ultrapedantic about the math, which I can pretty much guarantee someone will.)

 

[Hussar]

Monster HP not growing means PC damage cannot grow either. So I'm not seeing how this escapes the contradiction. You can't deal more damage, gain high stats, or sprawl out into more actions/traits. If all forms of upward growth are out, and lateral growth is nixed as power creep, what is left?

Why not?

In earlier editions, when monster damage didn't grow, character damage increased considerably - which meant your fighter types were very strong classes and not being outshone by the casters. Worked quite well actually.

 

[MerricB]

Presuming your group has a bard - one of the least played classes in the game.

If an average +2 on a skill check is breaking your game... well, that's not the game's problem.

Err...

Guidance is on the spell lists of Cleric, Druid and Artificer.

Incredibly, not on the Bard spell list!

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Thomas Shey]

AC? As in that thing that was flat out limited to -10 for monsters and, with a couple of notable exceptions, was virtually never negative?

And? It still went up for quite a while. Try to find the monsters that weren't speed bumps at 10th level that had less than a 2 to -2. Constrast that with what they ACs were usually at 1st.

And, you simply bypassed monster saves by using spells that didn't have saving throws. That was easy. Plus the fact that the monsters had so few HP, things like fireball or whatnot often either killed or seriously hurt baddies, even if they saved. These were editions where your ogre only had 16 or 17 HP. The math in AD&D is REALLY flat.

Dude, I played OD&D multiple times weekly for three years. There weren't that many useful spells that had no saves, and even when you did hit them, it wasn't like you weren't starting to hit things like demons with magic resistance or that could do damage just as fast or more than you could (dragons, for example). The numbers weren't all that flat; they might not have gone up as fast as something like PF2e, but it wasn't like the attack values walked up exactly speedy either.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Heh. You are right of course. I wish I was smart enough to figure out how to get both lower HP and bounded AC.

There are a number of games that effectively do that. But they didn't start with a D&D set of assumptions (armor doesn't effect your to-hit usually, for example, it effects damage).

 

[Thomas Shey]

What else could grow as the character does? It sounds to me like what you want is characters who never really change.

I will point out there are other games that grow characters conservatively vertically but still have advancement. They do so horizontally, and that may not play well with a class system, but none the less its not an unsolvable problem.