D&D 5E 4/18/2013 D&D Next Q&A

[Li Shenron]

I'm pretty sure that every magic weapon in Next has at least a +1 bonus. I'm not sure if that's a requirement or just happens to be something all of the example weapons have.

It's probably just bad design habits.

My point anyway is, that if 5e next doesn't make assumptions, and therefore support both DMs which use the example magic items and DMs which use no magic items at all, then implicitly it supports also DMs which make up their own magic items, including the case of using the example magic items but without the +s.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Y'know, the posts about DM advice make a lot of sense. I guess D&D has never really been able to put that education in place before the stuff hits the fan before, but if 5e can do that, that would be the BEST solution!

 

[Blue]

Two weapon fighting is something that I'm a little ambivalent about; I'm not a 'process-sim' type of person, but I've never seen the need to elevate this particular and rare fighting style to the level of sword & board and two-hander styles.

Two weapon fighting may be more common then you think. Just looking at things like rapier and main-gauche (or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrying_dagger) shows late Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Classic swashbuckler imagery. Gladiatorial fighting in early centuries BC also had some two weapon combinations, though not all were meant to be used "during the same round" (such as trident and net).

Consider other weapon combinations over time and it seems like two weapon fighting is common enough in the real world, where the penalties for using a "bad form" were very real, that including in in the game becomes natural. And that not even referencing all of the literature/movies and such that formed a foundation for D&D, such as Farhad and the Grey Mouser, both whom use two weapons at times.

 

[delericho]

Instead, if the DM accidentally picks a monster that has resistance to all nonmagic weapon damage, it is definitely more difficult to notice if this is wrong...

IIRC, the policy in early 3e was to balance monsters on the assumption that PCs could not bypass damage reduction or other resistances. IMO, that's the right policy for 5e as well - and that should eliminate this case entirely.

(Later in the lifespan of 3e, I'm pretty sure that policy was reversed, as part of the overall power creep that that edition suffered as it went on. IMO, a bad move on all fronts, though I seem to be in a minority on that one.)

... the DM may just think the monster is fine and only realize after a few rounds that the PCs are not going to make it. Then it will be clearly much less nice to remove the immunity or handwave some discount in the middle of the fight.

I actually wrote a snarky first draft of this reply, because of that single line.

In all honesty, in the case like this, my impulse is to argue that it is the responsibility of the players to realise they are overmatched and to retreat. And that applies even if the DM accidentally throws a too-tough encounter at them. Regardless of resistances, or immunities, or the lack of magic weapons, the overpowering encounter is a valid scenario that PCs really should take into account during play.

So, yeah, your suggestion that it was for the DM to realise the problem and to fix it so that PCs don't die got me a little riled. Then I realised I was being unreasonable.

 

[Li Shenron]

And that applies even if the DM accidentally throws a too-tough encounter at them. Regardless of resistances, or immunities, or the lack of magic weapons, the overpowering encounter is a valid scenario that PCs really should take into account during play.

Oh absolutely...

My only possible disagreement with the above is that I'd remove the term "accidentally".

Anyway resistances are good, I didn't want to even remotely suggest that they shouldn't be in the game, I was just thinking out loud some considerations on various valid gamestyles, with "PCs cannot die unless their users want so" being one of them.

 

[jadrax]

If you want to have golems that are common, that means you're not using the golem from the Monster Manual.

Not sure that will work, as many older scenarios are quite Golem heavy.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm strongly in favor of having immunities and resistances used sparingly, but where appropriate.

Some monsters ought to be impervious to normal attacks. Look at an iron golem. It's a twelve-foot colossus made of solid iron. If you whack that thing with an ordinary sword, it should not even notice. Or take a wraith; it's an incorporeal spirit! It can pass through solid objects, why does it care if you shoot arrows through it?

But immunity should be granted only in cases where the fiction strongly supports it, and it should be made clear why each creature is immune. Suppose some clever player devises a way to lure the monster into the kill zone of a trebuchet and hit it with a 300-pound boulder. If the monster is a wraith, it couldn't care less. Its weapon immunity is a result of being an incorporeal being, and no amount of physical matter can affect it. But an iron golem's weapon immunity derives from being made of materials too durable for swords and arrows to harm. Getting slammed by 300 pounds of stone at high velocity is a whole other matter, and the golem should be severely damaged if not destroyed.

I would go so far as to get rid of the "Immunities" section, and replace it with a custom-tailored special ability for each immune monster. Except for a few special cases (undead immunity to poison, for instance), total immunity to anything should be so rare that this presents no issue.

Historically, I think D&D has been overly generous with resistances and immunities. For instance, there's no call for a red dragon to be immune to fire--resistant, sure, but immune? Just because it uses fire doesn't mean it's impervious to it, any more than a human boxer is impervious to being punched in the face. Extraplanar creatures often seem to have a slew of immunities and resistances for no apparent reason.

 

[drothgery]

Given 'flat math' on attack bonuses, +X weapons that give the classic bonus to hit are pretty fundamentally broken, as is the classic 3e/4e set up for bonuses from ability scores.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Immunities on high level monsters are just one more fantastical special ability that makes a high-level monster a high-level monster in the first place. And I am pretty much against removing special abilities from the game (especially on high-level monsters) just to "save DMs form themselves" because they didn't bother to check out the rules in the first place.

Now, can the DMG call out the "Immunity" special ability and give explanations about some of the problems that might occur with using a monster that has it, and what the DM should expect or plan for if they select such a monster? Absolutely. That's just good DMG writing.

But to summarily remove Immunity from the game entirely just because some DM somewhere might decide to throw the party into a room with 8 Iron Golems and expect them to fight them... that's where I say "wait a second". It's not the game's job to prevent that DM from making that potentially horrible mistake. The game can certainly advise him against it... but DMs are going to make horrible encounters all the time and that's really the only way they are going to learn. Once you start stripping the game of all its unique elements just to make sure DMs who aren't paying attention don't screw up... you pretty much have stripped the game of everything.

 

[SkidAce]

The golem described in the Monster Manual is rare and is immune to magic. If you want to have golems that are common, that means you're not using the golem from the Monster Manual. Which is fine. The other part of monster design is making it easy for DMs to create their own monsters.

In other words: Golems, and all monsters like this, are designed as "sometimes" monsters. If you want to use them as "all the time" monsters, you'll have to redesign them. Which the game lets you do easily.

This should be made clear in the DM advice.

"must spread around etc .etc."

+1 to this.