D&D 5E 02/08/13 New playtest packet to released today. [Udate: PACKAGE OUT!][

[JRRNeiklot]

Whaa... RGFD alumni! I haven't thought of the old newsgroup in ages. Ah, the refined debate... the innovative house rules... it's all coming back to me now. I have a sudden urge to mull some wine.
Yeah, it's likely we've likely had this conversation... a couple of times I'm sure.

Yeah, but did WOTC ever fix that problem with the printer?

 

[Li Shenron]

Indomitable (Level 13 Fighter Ability) - advantage on all saving throws.

Are you kidding me? The Fighter becomes nearly impervious to magic (and everything else) roughly midway through his career?
Anyone care to explain how this is anything but boring and broken?

It does feel too good, and I am sure contemporary gamers won't accept the concept of a Fighter as being tough against magic, because there is rather a common belief that Fighters should be good in battle and zeros in magic including defense against magic (unless saving against a very physical manifestation of the spells' effects).

On the other hand, a Fighter's superior resistant to magic resonates with early editions' presentation of the Fighter as indeed a superior adventurer when it comes to surviving dangers, including magic. In BECMI, the Fighter was explicitly mentioned as the only character that might survive going alone in a dungeon.

 

[Wulfgar76]

It does feel too good, and I am sure contemporary gamers won't accept the concept of a Fighter as being tough against magic, because there is rather a common belief that Fighters should be good in battle and zeros in magic including defense against magic (unless saving against a very physical manifestation of the spells' effects).

On the other hand, a Fighter's superior resistant to magic resonates with early editions' presentation of the Fighter as indeed a superior adventurer when it comes to surviving dangers, including magic. In BECMI, the Fighter was explicitly mentioned as the only character that might survive going alone in a dungeon.

Legacy justifications aside, it is just way too good, and seems a ham-fisted way of representing this idea.

Shrugging off certain effects like poison or mental compulsions is fine, but this is overkill.

Also, I always felt the monk was supposed the guy who was good at 'resisting everything'.

 

[the Jester]

Traditionally, psionic classes appear later, in one psionic book and not in the phb. And, I must be wrong, but I do not think they will put tieflings on phb (it was not there traditionally until 4e) and much less the dragonborn (a creation from 4e).

They've explicitly stated that one of their goals is to have everything from a PH1 in the game at release. Why would they slight the 4e crowd, especially as they want to keep them playing the current edition of D&D once it's 5e?

 

[the Jester]

Legacy justifications aside, it is just way too good, and seems a ham-fisted way of representing this idea.

Shrugging off certain effects like poison or mental compulsions is fine, but this is overkill.

Oh, I dunno. I'll wait until we've playtested some high level stuff before I make a judgment, but it looks awesome, but not broken to me. After all, the monsters you fight at 13th level are likely to have save DCs that are higher than at lower levels, so you gotta get better somehow.

Also, I always felt the monk was supposed the guy who was good at 'resisting everything'.

OTOH, I agree with you here- monks should have all kinds of mad "throw off everything/resist everything/survive everything" abilities (for instance, I'd like one where a monk could make a save to throw off a condition that normally requires an action without using an action).

 

[ppaladin123]

Indomitable (Level 13 Fighter Ability) - advantage on all saving throws.

Are you kidding me? The Fighter becomes nearly impervious to magic (and everything else) roughly midway through his career?
Anyone care to explain how this is anything but boring and broken?

Well imagine a level 20 wizard casting charm. He has 20 Int so +5 and a +3 class bonus for a save DC of 18.

A fighter, unlike a ranger or a cleric, probably won't invest much in wisdom. So here is a comparison:

Cleric with 20 Wis: +5 save bonus. Has to roll a 13 or higher to save against this charm spell. So she has a 45% chance of succeeding.

Fighter with 12 wisdom: +1 bonus: needs to roll a 17 or higher on one out of two rolls. Chance of failure is (4/5 * 4/5=16/25 ) 64%. So that is only a 36% chance of success. That isn't great.

So the fighter is generally only likely to kick butt on strength/con saves.

But imagine a fighter that decides for some reason to max out wisdom. With a +5 bonus to the save he'd have to get 13 or higher on at least one of two rolls. That is (1- (12/20*12/20) = 64% probability. Now we are getting into a decent chance of success but it has come at great expense in forgone feats or less focus on other stats.

(Aside: the lesson is to always be an elf since they are outright immune to charm and sleep, which are the two most dangerous conditions for the melee-tyoes).

 

[Stalker0]

Well imagine a level 20 wizard casting charm. He has 20 Int so +5 and a +3 class bonus for a save DC of 18.

A fighter, unlike a ranger or a cleric, probably won't invest much in wisdom. So here is a comparison:

Cleric with 20 Wis: +5 save bonus. Has to roll a 13 or higher to save against this charm spell. So she has a 45% chance of succeeding.

Fighter with 12 wisdom: +1 bonus: needs to roll a 17 or higher on one out of two rolls. Chance of failure is (4/5 * 4/5=16/25 ) 64%. So that is only a 36% chance of success. That isn't great.

So the fighter is generally only likely to kick butt on strength/con saves.

But imagine a fighter that decides for some reason to max out wisdom. With a +5 bonus to the save he'd have to get 13 or higher on at least one of two rolls. That is (1- (12/20*12/20) = 64% probability. Now we are getting into a decent chance of success but it has come at great expense in forgone feats or less focus on other stats.

(Aside: the lesson is to always be an elf since they are outright immune to charm and sleep, which are the two most dangerous conditions for the melee-tyoes).

A good analysis.

Another consideration is that the pure melee types have the fewest ways to rid themselves of bad magic. Clerics can heal themselves of magical damage, or dispel effects, etc. A fighters defense relies solely on that saving throw.

 

[Wulfgar76]

Well imagine a level 20 wizard casting charm. He has 20 Int so +5 and a +3 class bonus for a save DC of 18.

This just cherry-picks the most difficult save possible to justify the feature.

Rather than comparing the worst save against the best attack you can come up with, you'd be better off looking at all the monsters in the Bestiary a level 13+ Fighter might face. What are the implications of having advantage to all saving throws to resist their attacks? What are the implications of one class having advantage on all saves after level 13 within a party of other classes who lack such a power? Now that the Fighter has a hugely increased chance to resist everything (and everyone else doesn't), how does that affect the encounters and dangers you as a DM throw at your party?

There are good reasons for a high level fighter shrugging off many things. But everything?

 

[Warbringer]

I thought I'd missed something that got everyone so upset; yes its advantage, but that means it's "advantage".

By this I mean at average saves +3 (and a bit).. as saves get more difficult the benefit is "greater", meaning higher % chance of changing the underlying result; for lower % chance of failure, the benefit reduces as a diminshing return.

The second is we are assuming that there will not be other ways of gain advatage to saves; the more of these that exist, the less of a benefit this has as here is no stacking.

Stops autofail on magical attacks ... seems ok

 

[ppaladin123]

This just cherry-picks the most difficult save possible to justify the feature.

Rather than comparing the worst save against the best attack you can come up with, you'd be better off looking at all the monsters in the Bestiary a level 13+ Fighter might face. What are the implications of having advantage to all saving throws to resist their attacks? What are the implications of one class having advantage on all saves after level 13 within a party of other classes who lack such a power? Now that the Fighter has a hugely increased chance to resist everything (and everyone else doesn't), how does that affect the encounters and dangers you as a DM throw at your party?

There are good reasons for a high level fighter shrugging off many things. But everything?

Well, my point was that advantage doesn't really change things as much as the name implies. It is worth between 10-20 percentage points added to your success rate depending on how good your save bonus already is. It is roughly equivalent to a +2 mod to your crummy saves or +4 mod to your good saves.

I agree that this makes Str and likely Con saves rather easy for a fighter to make but, as an example, paladins get to add their charisma mod all their saves (including these) and that will likely be a +4 or +5 bonus, plus they are immune to disease and eventually fear. So I don't see this as out of line with other classes' defensive abilities.