D&D 5E 15 Petty Reasons I Won't Buy 5e

[Halivar]

And incidentally, I dispute that it's a 5% increase in accuracy. An increase from hitting 50% of the time to hitting 55% of the time mean you hit 10% more often - 50 to 55 - and as the target number increases each point on your bonus becomes more valuable. When you need a 20 to hit, that +1 weapon makes it 19 and you hit twice as often - 100% more - than you would without it.

That's all just presentation. "100% percent more" makes it sound like a lot, but it's still just a mere 20th of your rolls. Not a big deal.

 

[Pickles JG]

It's because magic items don't GIVE math. They give a +1 to hit and also the ability to breath underwater. Or a +1 to hit and the ability to sense oranges in a 30 foot radius. When all magic weapons are adding +1 and something else, the focus then shifts to the something else. Thus, being about the story and not the math.

& yet 3 of the 5 magic items in the 5e teaser provide straight numerical bonuses.

And thus..... not a big deal....

As noted it's really 5% on probably a 60% hit rate & +1 to 8 ? Damage compounding to about 21%.This is 46% with +2 weapons. The least it will be with maxed STR & a 2 handed swords would be about 16% or 33% for +2 dice.

You may not notice this in any given fight but given that it's twice the margin casinos work off you will certainly notice it over a couple of levels.

If you are not noticing it could be because the game is so random the variance swamps the difference in a couple of dice rolls. This is not a very satisfactory effect. I have heard skill class players complain that they can too easily fluff a single roll in a skill use situation - while better fighters will be noticeably better over several rounds of combat.

The fact that the designers go on about it not being factored in makes me wonder it they are being disingenuous or just dim - saying it does not make it so; maths does.


BTW I can live with the +1 difference but would be nervous if some characters got weapons +2 better than others

 

[Pickles JG]

That's all just presentation. "100% percent more" makes it sound like a lot, but it's still just a mere 20th of your rolls. Not a big deal.

This statement is mind boggling.

Accepting it's never going to happen with bounded accuracy limiting "target numbers" to probably 3 to 15 or so, it stilldoubles your offensive output; Would you like to do twice as much damage? Why yes I think I would.

 

[Halivar]

BTW I can live with the +1 difference but would be nervous if some characters got weapons +2 better than others

Of all your d20 rolls, 1 in 10 will be a success that would have been a failure without the item. I fail to see the embarrassing imbalance here.

The fact that the designers go on about it not being factored in makes me wonder it they are being disingenuous or just dim - saying it does not make it so; maths does.

 

[Halivar]

This statement is mind boggling.

Accepting it's never going to happen with bounded accuracy limiting "target numbers" to probably 3 to 15 or so, it stilldoubles your offensive output; Would you like to do twice as much damage? Why yes I think I would.

You're still playing games with ratios. Yes, 1/10 is double the output of 1/20. It's still 1/10.

 

[Pickles JG]

Of all your d20 rolls, 1 in 10 will be a success that would have been a failure without the item. I fail to see the embarrassing imbalance here.

According to the CDC approximately 1% of the population of the US was involved in a road accident in 2009. Wearing a seatbelt reduces the incidence of injury or death by about 50% so say 1% of seatblet wearers & 2% of others (most people wear seatbelts).

Presumably these people go on several journeys a year say, very conservatively, 100.
So one in 10000 journeys someone is injured in an RTA or one in 5000 if they do not wear a seatbelt. That's only .05% difference so why bother wearing a seatbelt? It only matters for one in 5000 journeys people take noone would ever notice that?

Oh yeah because you are 100% more likely to die if you don't wear one.

I dunno what the wiggly smiley is for, though. My use of "dim" is a bit harsh - "mathematically naive" would be fairer

 

[Halivar]

According to the CDC approximately 1% of the population of the US was involved in a road accident in 2009. Wearing a seatbelt reduces the incidence of injury or death by about 50% so say 1% of seatblet wearers & 2% of others (most people wear seatbelts).

Presumably these people go on several journeys a year say, very conservatively, 100.
So one in 10000 journeys someone is injured in an RTA or one in 5000 if they do not wear a seatbelt. That's only .05% difference so why bother wearing a seatbelt? It only matters for one in 5000 journeys people take noone would ever notice that?

Oh yeah because you are 100% more likely to die if you don't wear one.

But now you're talking about a scale that's thousands of magnitudes greater than the odds on a d20, and why I think using percentages obscures the smallishness of the potatoes here.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

& yet 3 of the 5 magic items in the 5e teaser provide straight numerical bonuses.

But they don't add +6 to hit and damage. They don't add 6 points to your Strength(Except maybe Gauntlets of Ogre Power and they are only useful for people who already put a high number in their strength). They give a small bonus that is nice to have.

The point the designers were making when they said it wasn't about math is that in 3.5e or 4e, a monster at level, let's say 20 would require X to hit. X would be so high that without a +5 weapon, you now needed a 16 to hit instead of a 11 that you required against level 1 monsters when you were level 1. This was a significant disadvantage for the players who didn't have magic items. So acquiring them was simply about math. You needed one to continue to keep the math equal. To continue having that about 50% chance to hit. If you didn't keep it equal, you were likely to die.

Instead of it being a matter of "keeping up with the math", magic items in 5e instead give you a pure advantage. It isn't about math, instead it's about being better at combat. Which, I'm sure you'll say is the exact same thing, however, I believe there's a difference when the bonus from the weapon is not factored into the enemy's ACs.

"The math" they are talking about isn't math in general, but the equations they use to calculate the percent chance of hitting between PCs and monsters from level 1 to the max level.

You may not notice this in any given fight but given that it's twice the margin casinos work off you will certainly notice it over a couple of levels.

And well you should. The point is to give you a benefit. But one you only notice over a couple of levels.

BTW I can live with the +1 difference but would be nervous if some characters got weapons +2 better than others

+3 I think would be my limit. I would expect it to be a really powerful weapon at that. +2 is significantly better, but not better enough that I'm going to panic over it. Though, I think I might just prefer that all weapons were +1. The playtest said that any bonus over +1 was extremely rare. We'll see how this works out in the final version.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

"The math" they are talking about isn't math in general, but the equations they use to calculate the percent chance of hitting between PCs and monsters from level 1 to the max level.

I think you've made an error in quoting. I'm pretty sure that I agree with you in this thread.

 

[billd91]

This statement is mind boggling.

Accepting it's never going to happen with bounded accuracy limiting "target numbers" to probably 3 to 15 or so, it stilldoubles your offensive output; Would you like to do twice as much damage? Why yes I think I would.

It doubles your damage output in a limited number of cases: the ones in which you need exactly 20 to hit without the +1. Against opponents you only miss on a 1, the increased damage output is much smaller. So, on the whole, you're looking at more like a 10% increase in a regular sense.