D&D 5E How is 5E like 4E?

AbdulAlhazred · Aug 7, 2021

pemerton said:
This applies to doors too. Which means that the "objective" lists in the DMG are no more than advisory, just like the monster stats in the MM. This is why I say that, ultimately, 4e is "subjective" DCs: if a player thinks that the DC doesn't match the fiction, the issue isn't that the GM has wrongly estimated the DC (as it would be in 5e, or Burning Wheel, or another "objective" difficulty game) - it's that the GM has failed to persuasively convey the aesthetics of the situation.

I think this is a big part of what makes 4e so robust in play.

Well... If you look at the doors, they are described as being composed of different, and progressively more rare and magical/tough, materials as the DCs increase. This is just like the terrain. Thus, IMHO, fiction is entirely driving these things. Were an adamantium door to appear in a location where level 1 PCs happened to go, it wouldn't magically be a DC15 door to break down. It would be DC40 (or whatever it is) and the level 1 party would just be SOL if they tried to break it. The fiction wouldn't present that as a necessary option, obviously. No more than it has to present traveling through meters of solid rock as an option to a level 1 PC. Some things ARE impossible.

Likewise a level 12 bugbear is the Bugbear Gung Fu Master of all bugbears, or somesuch. Clearly if you decide to mess with that bugbear, such will be telegraphed in some fashion such that a low-level PC won't ever mess with it, assuming for some reason they even appeared together in the same scene (possible).

I guess what I'm saying is, I don't take 4e's 'environments of a given level' shtick too far. The world isn't divided into zones of strictly different levels, or races of strictly different levels. There are trends, and there is fiction that can happen which presumably has room for the players to pit their PCs against the appropriate obstacles, while other elements serve some other story purpose, or perhaps just exist as wallpaper, maybe hinting at some opportunity or threat that could factor in later (ala DW Fronts).

overgeeked · Aug 7, 2021

AbdulAlhazred said:
Well... If you look at the doors, they are described as being composed of different, and progressively more rare and magical/tough, materials as the DCs increase. This is just like the terrain. Thus, IMHO, fiction is entirely driving these things. Were an adamantium door to appear in a location where level 1 PCs happened to go, it wouldn't magically be a DC15 door to break down. It would be DC40 (or whatever it is) and the level 1 party would just be SOL if they tried to break it. The fiction wouldn't present that as a necessary option, obviously. No more than it has to present traveling through meters of solid rock as an option to a level 1 PC. Some things ARE impossible.

Likewise a level 12 bugbear is the Bugbear Gung Fu Master of all bugbears, or somesuch. Clearly if you decide to mess with that bugbear, such will be telegraphed in some fashion such that a low-level PC won't ever mess with it, assuming for some reason they even appeared together in the same scene (possible).

I guess what I'm saying is, I don't take 4e's 'environments of a given level' shtick too far. The world isn't divided into zones of strictly different levels, or races of strictly different levels. There are trends, and there is fiction that can happen which presumably has room for the players to pit their PCs against the appropriate obstacles, while other elements serve some other story purpose, or perhaps just exist as wallpaper, maybe hinting at some opportunity or threat that could factor in later (ala DW Fronts).

I think you're putting the cart before the horse on that one. The DCs have to go up to be a challenge to higher level characters because of the math of the game. The designers then justified those higher DCs with in-game explanations. They didn't start with the story and set the math. They started with the math and set the story. The math / game system is driving these story considerations.

Garthanos · Aug 7, 2021

overgeeked said:
I think you're putting the cart before the horse on that one. The DCs have to go up to be a challenge to higher level characters because of the math of the game.

but not all elements in the experience need to be challenging just those significant to the story part. Note Story without conflict / challenge is not good anymore than game is good without challenge.

Garthanos · Aug 7, 2021

These factors all inter relate honestly... separate too much feels shallow.

AbdulAlhazred · Aug 7, 2021

overgeeked said:
I think you're putting the cart before the horse on that one. The DCs have to go up to be a challenge to higher level characters because of the math of the game. The designers then justified those higher DCs with in-game explanations. They didn't start with the story and set the math. They started with the math and set the story. The math / game system is driving these story considerations.

Again, I disagree. The logic is the other way around. PCs of high levels go to places where there are things with high DCs because what they would find in other areas isn't going to be interesting to them, or challenging to them. 15th level PCs don't go to Kobold Hall to loot a couple of GP from some level 1 monsters. I mean, maybe narratively they do, it would be a 5 minute narrative interlude "you track down those stupid kobolds who dared to mess with your cousin and clean them out. There was a baby dragon, you ganked it. You can sell the Dragon hide to the local wizard for 100GP." Whatever. This is not what players fill up their table time with.

And again, maybe a kobold or a wooden door is present in some high level delve or extra-planar location. Killing the kobold would not be the point, its wallpaper, or it has some information, or whatever. The wooden door isn't an OBSTACLE, though it might conceal something from view until you brush it aside.

So, yes, the GM is going to focus on framing action scenes in fiction which evokes high DCs for high level PCs. But the REASON for that is all driven by fiction. You've progressed to the level of being an Epic PC, a companion of the very right hands of the gods themselves. When they ask you to delve into the Abyss it is because you're the only ones tough enough to handle it! You bet the DCs are going to be high!

The increasing DCs are simply a mechanism to help convey that. This is my criticism of the 5e technique, it doesn't serve well to convey this change. 4e is geared for it, and handles high level quite well overall. Tiers give you a basic thematic structure, and increasing DCs illustrate advancing power and provide the mechanical framework for differentiating more fantastical material from less fantastical. You can do this in 5e, but the structure of the game doesn't help you, and it shows.

MwaO · Aug 7, 2021

overgeeked said:
I think you're putting the cart before the horse on that one. The DCs have to go up to be a challenge to higher level characters because of the math of the game. The designers then justified those higher DCs with in-game explanations. They didn't start with the story and set the math. They started with the math and set the story. The math / game system is driving these story considerations.

If you're in a skill challenge, then the DCs have to go up. If you're not, they don't.

The DM is deciding that they want something that challenges a party of level X that is not a combat, but a set of skill checks. If something isn't actually a threat, you can handwave it or let the story dictate — "The guard is easily convinced." "You easily climb the slippery scree." If you're not in a skill challenge, but a player tells you they want to do something, then there's often an objective DC just as if a player tells you they want to attack the giant dragon at 1st level or the 20th level party kills the lone goblin guard. Yeah, the combats that ensure from those might be ridiculously hard or easy, just as an objective DC can be such.

Personally, I love the idea of throwing heroic tier skill challenges against paragon tier PCs, where I assume auto-success is going to be the outcome and then challenge the players to think about what's going on(basically the first big non-combat encounter of the Living Forgotten Realms Adventure NETH4-1)

Garthanos · Aug 7, 2021

AbdulAlhazred said:
You can do this in 5e, but the structure of the game doesn't help you, and it shows.

The 5e dm is deciding difficulties thinking in terms of very mundane people and I feel is not nearly as much encouraged to have skill use be important. Skill challenges explicitly encouraged DMs to think in terms of skill use being very important as important as knowing/casting the right ritual.

Garthanos · Aug 7, 2021

MwaO said:
If you're in a skill challenge, then the DCs have to go up. If you're not, they don't.

And 5e doesn't have a structure like skill challenges

overgeeked · Aug 7, 2021

AbdulAlhazred said:
Again, I disagree. The logic is the other way around. PCs of high levels go to places where there are things with high DCs because what they would find in other areas isn't going to be interesting to them, or challenging to them. 15th level PCs don't go to Kobold Hall to loot a couple of GP from some level 1 monsters. I mean, maybe narratively they do, it would be a 5 minute narrative interlude "you track down those stupid kobolds who dared to mess with your cousin and clean them out. There was a baby dragon, you ganked it. You can sell the Dragon hide to the local wizard for 100GP." Whatever. This is not what players fill up their table time with.

And again, maybe a kobold or a wooden door is present in some high level delve or extra-planar location. Killing the kobold would not be the point, its wallpaper, or it has some information, or whatever. The wooden door isn't an OBSTACLE, though it might conceal something from view until you brush it aside.

So, yes, the GM is going to focus on framing action scenes in fiction which evokes high DCs for high level PCs. But the REASON for that is all driven by fiction. You've progressed to the level of being an Epic PC, a companion of the very right hands of the gods themselves. When they ask you to delve into the Abyss it is because you're the only ones tough enough to handle it! You bet the DCs are going to be high!

The increasing DCs are simply a mechanism to help convey that. This is my criticism of the 5e technique, it doesn't serve well to convey this change. 4e is geared for it, and handles high level quite well overall. Tiers give you a basic thematic structure, and increasing DCs illustrate advancing power and provide the mechanical framework for differentiating more fantastical material from less fantastical. You can do this in 5e, but the structure of the game doesn't help you, and it shows.

Which was designed first: the game system or the in-game fiction? The game system. The designers first came up with the game system. The designers then came up with justifications for the math working the way it does. They wanted the numbers to work the way they do. Then they made it make sense in the game world. If you're arguing that they designed how the game world worked first and fit the math to that...well.

Garthanos · Aug 7, 2021

overgeeked said:
Which was designed first: the game system or the in-game fiction? The game system.

The fiction existed before they began making the game...

D&D 5E How is 5E like 4E?

AbdulAlhazred

Legend

overgeeked

B/X Known World

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

AbdulAlhazred

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MwaO

Adventurer

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

overgeeked

B/X Known World

Garthanos

Arcadian Knight

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