D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

[EzekielRaiden]

What's your opinion on control spells and legendary resistance?

He's correct about the end result (Legendary Resistance is a cheap trick shoved in to deal with design faults), and the initial impetus which produced this (slavish adherence to tradition >>>>>>>>>>>>> anything else), but his reasoning for why that is the problem is flawed, which negatively affects his final conclusion (though, much to my surprise, his final conclusion remains more right than wrong).

The actual underlying problem is that the system isn't actually designed to account for control effects. Control effects are simply...not budgeted into the system. Like at all. This applies in both directions. The designers straight-up just pretended that control effects were roughly-more-or-less equivalent to a certain amount of extra damage dealt, and then....proceeded on their merry way.

Mearls even gets dangerously close to identifying the real problem. He opens with discussions of the math, which are most likely arithmetically correct, but fundamentally missing the point. He then notes that "chump" monsters are perfectly fine, it's "boss" monsters where it's a problem--and a serious one at that, because it results in gameplay that is simply not interesting nor entertaining for anybody, GM or player alike. But, instead of diving just the tiniest bit deeper, he stops there, and says, "okay, now we know LegRes is bad, so let's replace it with....Unreliable LegRes With More Steps!"

The real, actual problem here IS the gameplay. As @I'm A Banana noted, there is--and has been for a very long time--an essential tension between attrition combat and set-piece combat. The designers have been trying to square this circle for a long time. 2e-and-before did it with the extremely un-fun "your spells just probably fail most of the time, so don't bother". 3e just....didn't bother and made saving throws ridiculously overpowered (the well-known issues of "Save-or-Suck"/"Save-or-Die"). 4e chose the tack that attrition combat was something folks could figure out on their own (without properly communicating that), and thus sunk resources into, y'know, actually making really GOOD set-piece combat rules, which made all the control effects a baked-in, functional, expected part of the game, actually encoded into the balance rather than constantly tearing the balance apart.

5e tried to have 3e without having 3e, and ended up being the worst of both worlds between 3e and 2e--all the un-fun of "your spell just failed", without actually fixing the problem of control effects being ridiculously powerful. Mearls' reference to the fact that control spells come up almost every turn is simply reflecting the environment created by having: (a) potent control effects, (b) bosses with a finite amount of absolute no-sale fiat points, and (c) stuffing EVERYTHING with magic rather than making more distinct, bespoke class features (which wouldn't benefit from the centralization of spells!!)

In order to fix this problem, D&D has to decide to do one of three things. All of them necessitate a break from "tradition".

1. Significantly reduce (=fewer) or weaken (=less powerful) the control effects available to PCs.
2. Create separate rules for set-piece combat vs attrition combat.
3. Redesign the system, from the ground up, so that "boss" monsters getting CC'd for a round (or two!) doesn't debilitate them.

None of these paths are palatable to the people who designed 5e, because all of them are un-traditional in some way, and the traditionalists are the only voice the designers listen to anymore, because they won the edition war. #1 is unpalatable because it will be seen as "not D&D anymore", and will very specifically piss off the Wizard fankids, who are the loudest and angriest of the traditionalist factions. #2 is unpalatable because it would be seen as "artificial" or "gamist" or "unrealistic" or (etc., etc., etc.) And #3 is unpalatable because, well, it requires a ground-up actually effortful redesign, with testing and retooling and all the stuff they really don't want to have to do, and would almost certainly ping at least a little bit of the "not D&D anymore" thing too.

Mearls' proposed solutions are simply more flowery kludges. Kludges that know they need to dress up in order to blend in better. Like going out and getting paint that matches the color your car currently is, not the color it was when it was brand-new, because it's been dulled by the passage of years and if you JUST painted over the scratch marks, the "fix" would be as noticeable as the unfixed mess. You're still patching a paint job rather than actually getting the car properly painted--it's just a patch that won't be noticeable for a while, until the paints weather to different colors again.

 

[Horwath]

You have to do it across the board.

The bad save concept =75%-95 failure rate needs to go.

You could also remove them like 4E did.

Pick your poison.

Or keep doing what we're doing since 3E.

AD&D make your saves at higher level 75-95% of the time base numbers.

any rate of failure is bad.

casters feel bad when their precious spell slots do absolutely nothing after target makes their save
targets feel bad when their character is absolutely useless if they fail their save.

on damage spells, who cares, it's a race between starting HPs, damage and healing. it's somewhat good system that works.

CCs are another thing.
maybe PF2 is on to something.
maybe all CC spells should have 6 levels of effect.

succeed: partial effect
beat DC by 5: minor effect
beat DC by 10: no effect
fail save: default effect
fail by 5: increased effect
fail by 10: you are probably out of this fight.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I played 2E this year and yeah.

Main thing I've been tweaking over the years is high saves and a simple MR system similar to 2E (specifically 3.5 minis game).

Bring back 3 saves and add elements of 4E (eg ref saves are dex or int) off you go.

And switch to defenses which spells attack, rather than saving throws that targets must roll. Not only is it simpler and easier to teach, it makes creating support effects for others' abilities significantly easier, AND makes spell design easier to balance.

We already have the notion of Death Saves, so it's not like Saves would go away. They'd just move to--as was noted earlier in the thread--the condition track space. Succumbing to death (or other nasty things like petrification), shaking off a poison or disease, etc. Saves still determine when something bad does or doesn't happen--it's just something that's on you or in you or about to befall you, not something that might potentially happen. (Though that does require the dreaded "Damage On A Miss" which got folks all riled up for no reason back in the day.)

I think there should be four saves: Fortitude, Reflex, Will, ... and Perception. These four kinda handle everything.

Personally, I think Initiative and Perception should both be forked out into their own thing. Not directly influenced by stats at all--unless a class feature specifically enables it. Then, bonuses to these things become rare and precious things, something you really value finding, rather than absolute must-have, stack these as high as humanly possible type things.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The full take is a lot more nuanced. Specifically:

The problem isn't that control spells ruin 5e, it's that they specifically ruin difficult encounters against one hard threat. And that Legendary Resistance is a bit of a kludge to make that not true.

And I'm fond of his more specific reactions, though I think they're maybe a little narrow. Like I've pointed out in other threads, D&D 5e has limited distinctions for encounters that are basically "resource attrition" and encounters that are meant to be more tactical showcases against powerful and deadly opponents.

Basically, "boss encounters" vs. "the dungeon itself is the boss, and this encounter is one of its attacks."

In the former, control spells are a problem that we need something like Legendary Resistance or these moves Mearls thought of here to solve for, since we WANT a multi-round conflict where most every hit or miss or resource expenditure matters. In the latter, control spells are just another way to mitigate damage and take out what the dungeon can throw at you.

D&D's got a lot of the former, though it grew up in the latter, and this is one of the friction points.

Just wanted to specifically call out that this actually gets to the heart of the matter that Mearls, unfortunately, doesn't actually reach with his analysis. He stops short, and stays focused on band-aids, rather than trying to address the problem itself. You are quite right that this is a friction point. It's one D&D's designers have only once recognized, and unfortunately even then they balked at solving it and instead just hoped folks would be happier with a system that stuck to one lane and did it well.

 

[Zardnaar]

And switch to defenses which spells attack, rather than saving throws that targets must roll. Not only is it simpler and easier to teach, it makes creating support effects for others' abilities significantly easier, AND makes spell design easier to balance.

We already have the notion of Death Saves, so it's not like Saves would go away. They'd just move to--as was noted earlier in the thread--the condition track space. Succumbing to death (or other nasty things like petrification), shaking off a poison or disease, etc. Saves still determine when something bad does or doesn't happen--it's just something that's on you or in you or about to befall you, not something that might potentially happen. (Though that does require the dreaded "Damage On A Miss" which got folks all riled up for no reason back in the day.)


Personally, I think Initiative and Perception should both be forked out into their own thing. Not directly influenced by stats at all--unless a class feature specifically enables it. Then, bonuses to these things become rare and precious things, something you really value finding, rather than absolute must-have, stack these as high as humanly possible type things.

I think players make save is better.

1. Players like rolling dice.
2. DM rolls well or poorly they all fail or save. Each player making it gives mixed results. Players get sense of agency.
3. Mixed results us better for tension.

Save or sucks that are brutal effects need to be very unreliable. Debuff required or pray to rng.

They can still buff, summon, avoid etc using soelks. Hell they could buff blasting. Spellcasters AoE, martials single/few targets.

Lots of little effects isnt fun either in 4E.

5E also gas tge odd side effect of players eating getting hit by fireball and they start figuring outbits bad for them to use most of the time.

 

[Horwath]

And switch to defenses which spells attack, rather than saving throws that targets must roll. Not only is it simpler and easier to teach, it makes creating support effects for others' abilities significantly easier, AND makes spell design easier to balance.

This,
one of the good ideas of 4E.
EVERYTHING is attack.

and for defenses to be good:
AC: 10+dex+armor(or other ability)
fort: 10+str+con
reflex: 10+dex+int
will: 10+wis+cha

 

[Zardnaar]

This,
one of the good ideas of 4E.
EVERYTHING is attack.

and for defenses to be good:
AC: 10+dex+armor(or other ability)
fort: 10+str+con
reflex: 10+dex+int
will: 10+wis+cha

Im leaning towards 3 saves myself. Blend of 3E and 4E not NADs though as outlined above.

 

[Horwath]

Im leaning towards 3 saves myself. Blend of 3E and 4E not NADs though as outlined above.

why saves?
one thing that I found very fun in 4E was, I ATTACK you with fireball, not waiting for DM to roll 11 saves.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think players mak save is better.

Then why do monsters do some things as attacks and other things as saves?

Why this hybrid? If players like rolling, make them roll always. And if players want simple easy-to-learn systems, then do that. What's the point of this half-on, half-off, half-who-knows-where approach?

1. Players like rolling dice.
2. DM rolls well or poorly they all fail or save. Each player making it gives mixed results. Players get sense of agency.
3. Mixed results us better for tension.

I just...what? How does that give any sense of agency? For real? Your saving throws are not in any way under your control during the fight. Your AC is more under your control than that!

And who says you can't get mixed results from attack rolls? You...literally can do that. That's what multiple-attack actions already do.

Save or sucks that are brutal effects need to be very unreliable. Debuff required or pray to rng.

No. They need to be balanced so that they're worth doing, without ending fights all by themselves. That's literally the problem here. People keep trying to find the perfect way to balance the needle on its tip, and it just isn't going to happen.

Lots of little effects isnt fun either in 4E.

I never said that that's what it should be...? You're the one injecting the "lots" here.

5E also gas tge odd side effect of players eating getting hit by fireball and they start figuring outbits bad for them to use most of the time.

I'm sorry, your typos make it a bit hard to understand what you're saying here, but all I can say on that front is: That's one of the only things that makes Sorcerers actually cool in 5e. Because they can avoid that--I play one right now. I've dropped fireball + Careful Spell on the party at least three times now, and every time it's been really quite effective. Not as effective as a tailored spell, such as shatter on constructs (something which happened in the same fight as some of those aforementioned Careful fireballs), but quite effective nonetheless.

 

[Zardnaar]

why saves?
one thing that I found very fun in 4E was, I ATTACK you with fireball, not waiting for DM to roll 11 saves.

1. Players like rolling dice
2. DM rolls high with AoE vs players they all take full damage. Removes player agency.
3. To much inertia WotC wont change it anyway