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

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But that also is rare.

Grapples are inferior attacks for monsters.

Few monsters have mind blasts. It's really just a few far realm stuff.


But like I said. If you go back to Fort/Ref/Will you go back to PCs and monsters being weak in 33% or 66% of saves. And that's with like you said, people still getting murked on their good save.

The outcome of a save is binary, but a saving throw "ability" more than bad or good. That's just 5E's approach because it only has proficient or not proficient by default. You could easily have 3 steps, bad, moderate and strong.
And if your game had conceptual design space for monsters that serve as "bosses", maybe you can even hand out more than 1 or 2 good saves to them!

And because everyone can flunk a save, even if it's good - effects should be balanced that the effect of a single failed save isn't devestating.

A Desintegrate spell turns you to ashes, but does it have to be on turn 1, for example?
Does Stun really negate all your actions, or maybe just lower your action options?
Does Dominate really mean you only do exactly what the enemy caster says for a minute ,or can you do something else?
Can a Fear spell effect you more than once per minute?

 

[Bae'zel]

I quite like the idea of going back to 4e's Fortitude, Reflex and Will. Pairs up "popular" saves with "rarer" ones.

Fortitude: Constitution (used more frequently) with Strength (not used often)
Reflex: Dexterity (highly used) with Intelligence (not used much)
Will: Wis (big one) with Cha (like, hardly ever used).

Thematically they can make a lot of sense too.

As for the criticism that using 3 saves makes PCs and monsters have 33% or 66% "weak" saves... that's already how it is now? Pretty much everything is proficient in just 2 out of 6 saving throws, (or more, in certain cases) isn't that pretty much the same math? Or worse?

Sorely tempted to make this a 5e house rule...

 

[Minigiant]

No he's right. 3 saves with base good iffy awful before gear and possible feats was a far better dynamic, especially when paired with the limitations and opportunity costs of vancian casting.

It was ok that most monsters were weak against something. Special monsters also had SR & SR itself provided positive incentive for players to choose the less save or lose focused spells that tended to rely more on reciprocity across the party to really shine

3 saves with good mid bad might work.

But you'd have to go back to 4e with STR/CON FORT, DEX/INT REF & WIS/CHA WILL for it to work..

But that both raises the floor of save bonuses and adds optimal combos.

D&D has too many primary STR/CON and WIS/CHA monsters for it to work.

That's why I like 6 saves and making having good saves really high bonus

 

[Minigiant]

The outcome of a save is binary, but a saving throw "ability" more than bad or good. That's just 5E's approach because it only has proficient or not proficient by default. You could easily have 3 steps, bad, moderate and strong.
And if your game had conceptual design space for monsters that serve as "bosses", maybe you can even hand out more than 1 or 2 good saves to them!

And because everyone can flunk a save, even if it's good - effects should be balanced that the effect of a single failed save isn't devestating.

A Desintegrate spell turns you to ashes, but does it have to be on turn 1, for example?
Does Stun really negate all your actions, or maybe just lower your action options?
Does Dominate really mean you only do exactly what the enemy caster says for a minute ,or can you do something else?
Can a Fear spell effect you more than once per minute?

You're missing the issue.
The fan base want you to have some of those effects. It might be high level.

It's the #1 criticism of people who don't like Pathfinder casters. You have to roll super high and use tons of resources to get "full effects".

Good Luck convincing D&D fans to have a stun spell that doesn't stun.

The issue is that for control spells, the caster is ALWAYS using their primary score and USUALLY has some sort of level bonus. But the target might be rolling secondary or tertiary ability with no level bonus.

 

[tetrasodium]

3 saves with good mid bad might work.

That's largely how it was in 3.5 with an occasional 4th weakness of many good saves but horrible ac and vice versa.

But you'd have to go back to 4e with STR/CON FORT, DEX/INT REF & WIS/CHA WILL for it to work..

But that both raises the floor of save bonuses and adds optimal combos.

D&D has too many primary STR/CON and WIS/CHA monsters for it to work.

That's why I like 6 saves and making having good saves really high bonus

There's literally no reason to involve 4e

SRD:Saving Throw - D&D Wiki

www.dandwiki.com

 

[DEFCON 1]

There's no reason why the rules of a RPG - what you call "the board game" - can't be written so that, in play, they produce an experience that has a certain dramatic/narrative rhythm. There are lots of examples out there. Even without looking beyond D&D, there is the example of 4e D&D, where the framework for encounter building together with the combat resolution rules pretty reliably provides a "heroic rally" narrative - the basic underlying mechanical design that supports this is that monsters/NPCs have more-or-less all of their "oomph" built into their hit points and attacks; whereas PCs have a lot of their oomph built into abilities that they need to "unlock" (eg healing surges; party synergies; etc).

You're right... there's no reason why "some" RPG couldn't be designed like that. But that RPG is not 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, which of course is the edition everyone is talking about in this thread about boss monsters and control spells ending fights against those boss monsters early. Which means even your example of 4th edition D&D supposedly being one of those RPGs doesn't actually apply to the conversation.

What it appears your reply is suggesting is that if a table wants a boss monster fight to build up to a climax and not be cut short by game rules that end it way before said climax, that they should be playing a different RPG... one where the game rules are written to allow this to occur. Which, you know, I agree with! If climactic, narratively-interesting boss fights are important to have... play a different RPG that can assure it. But if one wants to play 5E in either form so that this kind of thing can happen consistently (rather than just getting lucky that one time where it just happened to work out based on how the characters and monsters were played and how the dice rolls fell)... then the DM is going to have to adjust everything themselves so that the "awesome boss fight" has an actual chance to most likely occur. Which was my point.

 

[Remathilis]

But that also is rare.

Grapples are inferior attacks for monsters.

Few monsters have mind blasts. It's really just a few far realm stuff.

FOR EXAMPLE.

I'm saying if you want to take a full audit of how often the game calls for a particular saving throw, you better open the Monster Manual alongside the spell chapter.

 

[Minigiant]

That's largely how it was in 3.5 with an occasional 4th weakness of many good saves but horrible ac and vice versa.

3e only had Good saves and Bad saves. Then only involved 3 ability scores in bonuses.

That's bad design unless you warp all effects around that.

 

[Zardnaar]

Or you could be good at all saves. Just a thought.

 

[mamba]

You're missing the issue.
The fan base want you to have some of those effects. It might be high level.

It's the #1 criticism of people who don't like Pathfinder casters. You have to roll super high and use tons of resources to get "full effects".

against bosses or in general? I am perfectly fine with that against bosses

Good Luck convincing D&D fans to have a stun spell that doesn't stun.

I am already convinced, also don’t legendary resistances already kinda paved the way for a more detailed approach than ‘one size fits all’?