D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Minigiant]

There have been several studies that have shown that people are better at adding than subtracting. Same with negative numbers. They aren't "real" in the same sense that positive numbers are so they're more difficult conceptually for most people.

So it doesn't really matter if some people claim they had no difficulties, for the majority of people it is more difficult even before the extra steps and the extra complexity of knowing when "+" really means "-".

Which is the issue.

It's not that descending AC is bad

It's that if you do descending AC, you can't use modifiers because they'd have to be negative but beneficial. And D&D fans like modifiers.

 

[The Firebird]

I agree with @Swarmkeeper. I don’t think you can divorce « arguments have been made » from the weight of those arguments. Elsewise, you end up with journalists reporting « some people believe the Earth is flat. »

As for the rest, you are quoting yourself making the claim. That isn’t really evidence of the underlying claim.

Precision matters. It would not be appropriate for me to say "Frozen North never replied to my argument" when you made a post here doing so. Likewise, it is inappropriate to say "no other examples have been offered" when multiple other examples have been offered.

To get the context again.

When pressed for examples of WotC treating grognards poorly (an extraordinary claim as the 5e designers are grognards themselves), only two examples were given:

• THAC0 the clown in Witchlight;
• the gnome in 4e introduction videos.

"Only two examples were given" is a factually incorrect statement. There is no way around that.

And the idea that you didn't include the other examples because they weren't convincing to you doesn't make sense because...you included Thaco as an example, and you don't find it convincing.

 

[dave2008]

Sorry, I've been drifting in and out of this thread, what is this goblin video you are referring to?

I believe they mean the gnome video

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Precision matters. It would not be appropriate for me to say "Frozen North never replied to my argument" when you made a post here doing so. Likewise, it is inappropriate to say "no other examples have been offered" when multiple other examples have been offered.

To get the context again.

"Only two examples were given" is a factually incorrect statement. There is no way around that.

And the idea that you didn't include the other examples because they weren't convincing to you doesn't make sense because...you included Thaco as an example, and you don't find it convincing.

Also worth mentioning that, in response to
my questions, you didn’t actually provide any citations other than referring back to posters, including yourself, in this thread. You gave no outside sources to back up your claims.

 

[The Firebird]

Also worth mentioning that, in response to
my questions, you didn’t actually provide any citations other than referring back to posters, including yourself, in this thread. You gave no outside sources to back up your claims.

Yes, I know. The point I was making was that other arguments existed in the thread. I thought this was relevant because multiple other posters said they had not seen other arguments.

You can think those arguments were poor. That's ok. It's irrelevant to my claim that other arguments were made.

 

[Staffan]

There have been several studies that have shown that people are better at adding than subtracting. Same with negative numbers. They aren't "real" in the same sense that positive numbers are so they're more difficult conceptually for most people.

So it doesn't really matter if some people claim they had no difficulties, for the majority of people it is more difficult even before the extra steps and the extra complexity of knowing when "+" really means "-".

Right, that's why I said that descending AC was still a little bad. But it becomes much worse when you also have modifiers where sometimes a minus means it gets better (lower) and sometimes a plus does.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Sorry, I've been drifting in and out of this thread, what is this goblin video you are referring to?

Typo. I meant the 4e gnome video.

 

[Reynard]

TFW you post a half-inebriated rant and it turns into a 1000 post thread...

 

[Minigiant]

TFW you post a half-inebriated rant and it turns into a 1000 post thread...

I've done worse half-inebriated

 

[Faolyn]

First off, while plenty of GMs will tell you if you have a penalty to a roll by no means will all those GMs tell you that penalty's specific numbers. "That wall looks slick, climbing it's going to be tougher than usual" is all they'll get, and not just from me.

I've had GMs who will say the number. I've had GMs who won't. I've had GMs who do both.

And, the wall being wet and slick might not necessarily give the same penalty every time, depending on other conditions e.g. a smooth rain-slick wall may well have a bigger penalty than a rough rain-slick wall.

There was a whole tangent on another thread exactly about this, whether or not a GM should have consistent numbers for this sort of thing. In this case, if the GM says "this is a rain slick wall" on one occasion and "this is a very smooth, rain slick wall," then different modifiers are fully acceptable. If the GM doesn't describe it that way (or at least has that in their notes, but forgot to mention it) but has different penalties, it can be acceptable to call shenanigans, or at least be miffed due to lack of consistency.

But yes, I agree that those two things would probably have different modifiers.

But anyway, much of the rest of this doesn't really have much to do with why some people don't like roll-under systems; it's all about game design.

Sometimes characters just don't work out like you want them to. One of my main ones has the same problem - he can tank it up all day but his damage output is (by the party's standards) pathetic. He's a Cleric, which means his odds to hit aren't great, and his strength is a mighty 9. However, his AC is among the best in the party. So, when in melee he just sees it as his job to glue one or two opponents up by letting them try to beat him up until someone can come and bail him out.

OK, I don't quite think you get it here. I'm going to assume worst-case scenario here: you had your heart set on playing a cleric who could dish out large amounts of melee damage, but due to the way your game's chargen worked, you were stuck with a Strength of 9, and had to readjust, and are cool with the readjustment.

Here's the thing: not everyone thinks like you. For a lot of people, getting stuck with a character they don't want is terrible. Especially if they made up a background ahead of time, which a lot of gamers do. Not everyone is into characters whose story emerges through play.

And that's why many people don't like roll-under systems, particularly when combined with games that are actively designed to produce low numbers to roll under.