D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

[mamba]

NGL, given how precious little actually differs between 5.0 and 5.5e, this reads to me like the way Brennan Lee Mulligan (claims that) his old philosophy professor described how beliefs work: "Humans have feelings and then construct philosophical frameworks to support them and justify them."

It's "this isn't the same, so there has to be some reason, some external flaw, which makes me dislike it" leading to creating a rationale long after the dislike was already formed.

so he liked 5e a lot, I assume he is therefore predisposed to also like 5.5, but somehow does not. Doesn’t that take something in 5.5 that they do not like to create that feeling then? And if that is how they feel, why could they not be correct about what made them not like 5.5…

I would tend to believe them when they say ‘this is what changed and I don’t like it’. They are not the first one to point out that change that ended up not liking it. Their post might word it strongly when in reality it is not all that big a shift to me, but at least as far as I am concerned that shift is true.

 

[Xenolith234]

Absolutely this.

Take the berserker. You got a powerful boon (a third attack) at a tremendous cost (exhaustion). There was a risk/reward element to much of the barbarian kit, but none so much than that. But the vast majority of players did not jive with that and wanted more consistent and reliable, but no less powerful. No risk, all reward. That played out time and time again during the playtest. Wizards didn't want to give up their monopoly on good spells. Paladins on multi-smite novas. Druids on abusable wild shape options.

Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game

 

[HatWearingFool]

so he liked 5e a lot, I assume he is therefore predisposed to also like 5.5, but somehow does not.

That’s not how humans work. The more we like something the more likely we are to not like a change to that thing no matter how small.

The biggest fans are the ones that are most likely to turn into haters for any change. It happens for a couple of reasons, they are the ones that have there identities most wrapped up in the thing, they are the ones that had the most mastery/knowledge with said thing and that’s at risk or might be an outright liability.

It’s especially bad if a group that liked a thing saw themselves as outsiders and the thing changed for mass appeal (arguably making it “better” to more people).

People are weird, but you see it time and again from Witcher lore (books vs games vs shows), comic books (so many examples of changes to pick from here), bands when when they change their sound, to users of specific editions of software, the various editions of D&D (lets pour one out for the all the nerds that died on the hill of every edition).

Doesn’t that take something in 5.5 that they do not like to create that feeling then? And if that is how they feel, why could they not be correct about what made them not like 5.5…

If a person ties their livelihood to a product that they have no control over I’m sure it’s jarring when the capricious owners make changes that make it tougher for said person to keep making money off it.

That person would be predisposed to not like any change that runs counter to the way they interpret the product. They have a lot invested in their rationalizations and interpretations.

 

[HatWearingFool]

Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game

Interesting interpretation of, people want more of what they like. Too much of a good thing is possible though, but it’s tough to know where the line is until we try it.

Generally people want more of what they like and vote that way.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

so he liked 5e a lot, I assume he is therefore predisposed to also like 5.5, but somehow does not. Doesn’t that take something in 5.5 that they do not like to create that feeling then? And if that is how they feel, why could they not be correct about what made them not like 5.5…

Not at all.

All you need is "it isn't the same". That's all folks need to dislike a thing. I've seen it happen time and time again.

Literally nothing substantive could change, and you'd still have people inventing explanations for why their feelings are objectively correct responses, something driven by an inherent flaw, rather than simply..."I looked it up and it didn't please me."

Because, as said, it really isn't anywhere near so different as he claims!

@HatWearingFool covered it quite well.

I would tend to believe them when they say ‘this is what changed and I don’t like it’. They are not the first one to point out that change that ended up not liking it. Their post might word it strongly when in reality it is not all that big a shift to me, but at least as far as I am concerned that shift is true.

Except he didn't really list what changed. He stated a vibe he gets from the text, and thus focused on the root of that vibe, rather than on his feelings. The root of that vibe is an allegation about how 5.5e was designed, something he has no knowledge of. Having found something (allegedly) concrete, it's not just a feeling anymore--it's an inherent, unavoidable, baked-in flaw of the text.

It's not that it's a new thing and he didn't like it because it's new. It's that it was a badly-designed product, arising from bad priorities, which inherently pushed the game away from quality and toward inherently bad design.

That's why I dispute your characterization. It is not simply, "I saw X and didn't like it." It is starting from a position of nebulous dislike, proverbially refining that nebulous cloud of dislike into a pseudo-objective argument about some (alleged) characteristic, and then inverting the logical chain to claim that that (alleged) characteristic caused the dislike in the first place--when it was actually something discovered because the arguer felt dislike and needed an explanation to assuage their cognitive dissonance.

 

[TiQuinn]

The biggest fans are the ones that are most likely to turn into haters for any change.

Stares in Star Wars

 

[Minigiant]

GoT was very much a low-level D&D type of setting, to me. (Although I think D&D would be a poor system for GoT.)

Barristan Selmy at his peak might have been something equivalent to level 10; I'd put Jaime Lannister somewhere around level 6 or 7.

And that's CR 10.

 

[GobHag]

Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game

The Tyrant of Fun turns out to also not like 4e, but nonetheless I am a proud thug equipped with the Jackboot of Joy.

 

[Marc17]

But scaling is different from internal risk. 1e didn't even believe a risk formula existed so GMs just had to wing it. 3e introduced the concept of the CR but it was unbounded so it would absolutely kill a PC who was the wrong kind of asymmetrical with an NPC.

I don't think that is true. Monsters in 1E AD&D were divided up into ten levels ranging from trivial to boss monsters, roughly based on dungeon level for the platonic ideal dungeon. Considering how well CR works, or the amount of complaining about it anyway, a more general categorization like that seems like a better approach.

 

[Minigiant]

You'd think that! It's pretty clear they don't build monsters this way. Looking at most other NPC statblocks will tell you this. CR6 mages have 18 HD. HD are no longer connected to class level in any way. CR is no longer connected to class levels in any way. Monsters are not connected to class levels.

HD never matched CR.

A single HD is not enough a bump of HP to make the offense of 4 bad underpowered PCs.


You need 15-20 HP per CR.

There is not d30 HD.