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

[EzekielRaiden]

Right. The problem is that this creates the contradiction that more skilled = less skilled as you will fumble much more often due to your much increased skill level. That's why my group came up with a house rule that made fumbles progressively less likely as you leveled until at the highest reaches you could not fumble any longer.

One possibility, if one wishes to pursue this, could be a "fumble confirmation" roll (just as 3e had a "critical confirmation" roll), but instead of being keyed off the target's AC, it's keyed off of the attacker's level in combat-focused classes: your Fumble Threshold is 20-level. So a level 1 Fighter has a 5% chance to save a fumble and turn it into just a hit. A level 20 Fighter has a 100% chance to avoid fumbles.

With this, you gradually mitigate, rather than it happening in sudden leaps and starts.

I strongly dislike fumble rules and so I would never use this myself. But it seems like a pretty nice, straightforward way to represent gradually growing skill, and a small way to reward folks who stubbornly stuck with Fighter (or Barbarian or whatever) all the way to level 20.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Or, failing that, make it a ten-level game instead of twenty and abandon the high-level super-hero end of it.

You could do that, but remember in so doing you throw away most of the Iconic High-level Villains and Monsters that feature heavily in modern Adventure modules: Orcus, Vecna, Tiamat, Lolth, Demogorgon Asmodeus etc.

Personally I wouldn't mind a segmented (Boxed?) approach which divided play by tier, but at the same time it makes sense to keep Player material and Monsters apart - even if it doesn't hurt the likes of Shadowdark.

You could even call it Dungeons and Dragons (levels 1-10) and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (levels 11-20), have the latter play into Castles and Kingdoms...who knows maybe they'll do an Advanced Shadowdark some day...?

 

[Minigiant]

Yes, but I'm not sure how to fix armour though unless you give monsters specific class features which boosts their AC.
Because monster AC is tied to dex mod and it's protective nature as compared to PC armour.
And then there is the to hit bonus....

You'd have to create something like a +1 bonus to AC and to hit for specific CR scores or for every X Hit Dice (similar to 4e's inherent bonus)

D&D has never really modelled arms and armor very well, which is a bit weird for a game that started as a rules variant for a medieval war game. Many ancient armies and barbarian hordes used lighter armors like padded armor, ring mail, or scale mail, but our AD&D groups never saw those except on bandits and goblinoids. Chain and plate mail should probably be more expensive and rare due to the labor and time involved

Personally I think one of the ways to fix armor is is to have more variables and make them matter.

If I redid armor here are my guidelines

1. Only 1 starting armor per heaviness category
2. Every armor after the starter armor has the same "power level" within heaviness categories
3. Heavy armor is best for base monsters
4. There are multiple categories
   1. Heaviness (light, medium, heavy)
   2. Armor Class
      1. Starter
      2. Good
      3. Better
      4. Best
   3. Dex Bonus to AC
      • No Dex Bonus
      • + Dex Bonus (Max 1)
      • + Dex Bonus (Max 2)
      • + Dex Bonus (Max 3)
   4. Stealth Disadvantage
   5. Strength Speed Factor
      1. No Strength requirement
      2. 13 Strength requirement
      3. 15 Strength requirement
   6. Toughness (negate a crit until repaired on long rest
5. This would allow for more armors of equal types.
6. Armors of masterwork or special non magical material would grant resistance to a damage type offering reasons to buy and swap armor.

So Ring Mail would be your basic starter 14 armor.

Banded, Chain Mail, Splint Armor, Plate would have various ACs, strength requirements and toughnesses.

Heavy Armor	AC	STR	Stealth	Property
Ring Mail	14		Disadvantage
Banded Mail	16		Disadvantage
Chain Mail	16	15	Disadvantage	Tough
Splint Armor	17	13	Disadvantage
Plate Armor	18	15	Disadvantage	Tough

But it would be tempted to make Plate 20 AC and test if the community would allow to give more space to design.

 

[mamba]

You could do that, but remember in so doing you throw away most of the Iconic High-level Villains and Monsters that feature heavily in modern Adventure modules: Orcus, Vecna, Tiamat, Lolth, Demogorgon Asmodeus etc.

given that most adventures end around level 12, that does not appear to be an issue

 

[EzekielRaiden]

given that most adventures end around level 12, that does not appear to be an issue

Though there is the everpresent chicken-and-the-egg issue there. Or, I guess, more farmer-and-field. A field doesn't grow if the farmer doesn't tend it, regardless of whether it is fertile. The farmer doesn't tend a field he doesn't think will grow in the first place. So...is it that the fields would never grow anyway, and the farmer is wisely ignoring them? Or is it that the fields are fine, and the land lays fallow because the farmer is insufficiently motivated to tend them?

 

[Maxperson]

One possibility, if one wishes to pursue this, could be a "fumble confirmation" roll (just as 3e had a "critical confirmation" roll), but instead of being keyed off the target's AC, it's keyed off of the attacker's level in combat-focused classes: your Fumble Threshold is 20-level. So a level 1 Fighter has a 5% chance to save a fumble and turn it into just a hit. A level 20 Fighter has a 100% chance to avoid fumbles.

With this, you gradually mitigate, rather than it happening in sudden leaps and starts.

I strongly dislike fumble rules and so I would never use this myself. But it seems like a pretty nice, straightforward way to represent gradually growing skill, and a small way to reward folks who stubbornly stuck with Fighter (or Barbarian or whatever) all the way to level 20.

What we did was from level 1 to 5 you got a DC 15 dex check to turn the fumble into a miss. From 6-10 it was a DC 10 dex check. From 11-15 it was a DC 5 dex check. From 16-19 it took two consecutive 1's. And at level 20 you could not fumble at all.

 

[SkidAce]

Right. The problem is that this creates the contradiction that more skilled = less skilled as you will fumble much more often due to your much increased skill level. That's why my group came up with a house rule that made fumbles progressively less likely as you leveled until at the highest reaches you could not fumble any longer.

Sounds like that article from Best of Dragon.

 

[Maxperson]

Sounds like that article from Best of Dragon.

Which one? This was something the group came up with, but I know that I had Best of the Dragon I & II at one point, so if it was there, it's possible I was subconsciously bringing it up.

 

[SkidAce]

Which one? This was something the group came up with, but I know that I had Best of the Dragon I & II at one point, so if it was there, it's possible I was subconsciously bringing it up.

Researching as we speak.

 

[SkidAce]

Vol 5.

BLUF: Difference between needed to hit and roll is % chance to crit/fumble.

I also remember another system where you only checked % if you rolled a 20 or a 1, i.e. a confirmation roll. we didn't like that system because it sucked to roll a nat 20 and then not confirm it.

So we used the system below for a while AND had nat 20s and 1s be crits/fumbles. "Oh the extravagances of our youth..."

lol.