D&D 5E 5th Edition and The Rules

[pemerton]

Uhm, do you mean you would have liked it or not?

I mean that not only do I like it, I have it, because the 4e system for cover is precisely none, partial or superior.

 

[Li Shenron]

I mean that not only do I like it, I have it, because the 4e system for cover is precisely none, partial or superior.

Does "superior" mean full cover in 4e?

 

[pemerton]

Does "superior" mean full cover in 4e?

4e's "superior cover" is roughly equivalent to 5e's 3/4 cover as far as defensive bonuses go, and is roughly equivalent to 5e's "total cover" as far as stealth rules are concerned.

The fictional definition of "total cover" within 5e - that is, a character completely occluded behind some other massive body - is not part of the cover rules at all in 4e. 4e does have a "line of effect" rule, which is analogous to the "clear path" rule in the spellcasting rules for 5e.

In 4e, if character A tries to stab character B through a keyhole, then unless it is a very big keyhole the attack will auto-fail not because of the cover rules but because of the prior fictional positioning (ie a sword can't fit through a keyhole). If character A tries to lightning bolt character B through the same keyhole, then there is LoE ("a clear path", to use 5e's language) but the target has superior cover (-5 to hit, analogous to the +5 to save in 5e).

I'm not sure how 5e handles that, because a keyhole clearly provides more than 3/4 cover, but it seems that a caster peeking through it should be able to fire an energy ray through it too.

 

[Li Shenron]

The fictional definition of "total cover" within 5e - that is, a character completely occluded behind some other massive body - is not part of the cover rules at all in 4e.

Ok, but that sounds like you still have 4 cases, with 2 intermediate between nothing and complete cover...

 

[pemerton]

Ok, but that sounds like you still have 4 cases, with 2 intermediate between nothing and complete cover...

I think in practice, though, based on my experience as a 4e GM, it plays the way you are suggesting (ie 3 cases, not 4).

Because superior cover is enough to hide, you don't need to worry about the superior/blocking-LoE issue when adjudicating hiding.

And because the LoE issue is dealt with simply via the logic of the fiction, you don't actually need rules to handle that at all: that was part of what I was getting at with my keyhole example.

The problem cases that come up in 5e - eg is the cover enough to hide behind, given that it still makes sense that someone could shoot or even stab a thin knife through it? - don't come up in 4e.

Another way to put it: 4e uses "fiction first" to adjudicate the "clear path" aspect of spellcasting and archery, whereas it uses "gamist" rules to adjudicate stealth. 5e tries to use the same "gamist" rules to adjudicate both stealth and "clear path", and hence its "total cover" gets sucked into the vortex of rules adjudication in a way that 4e's "terrain that blocks LoE" does not.

 

[Imaro]

@pemerton Perhaps I am misunderstanding your meaning here... but 5e doesn't use the same rules to adjudicate stealth and "clear path". There are rules for cover ("clear path") and there are rules for stealth (which unless I'm recalling incorrectly is also how 4e does it)... under Vision and Light, as well as the stealth skill. A character can be in one of 3 types of obscure areas... none, lightly obscured or heavily obscured (which is actually one less than 4e uses for concealment), which in turn determine the conditions for stealth. All 3 of these are pretty much fiction based rules with the DM being the final determiner. Cover doesn't determine the conditions of stealth in and of itself, vision and light do...

 

[Imaro]

4e's "superior cover" is roughly equivalent to 5e's 3/4 cover as far as defensive bonuses go, and is roughly equivalent to 5e's "total cover" as far as stealth rules are concerned.

4e's cover rules don't determine stealth... the concealment rules do. Also 4e's "superior cover" has the same fictional description as 5e's 3/4's cover

The fictional definition of "total cover" within 5e - that is, a character completely occluded behind some other massive body - is not part of the cover rules at all in 4e. 4e does have a "line of effect" rule, which is analogous to the "clear path" rule in the spellcasting rules for 5e.

Because 4e doesn't have full cover... For some reason there is no state where a character can be (by the rules) totally blocked from an attack... of course common sense kind of dictates this and 5e just makes it an explicit state.

In 4e, if character A tries to stab character B through a keyhole, then unless it is a very big keyhole the attack will auto-fail not because of the cover rules but because of the prior fictional positioning (ie a sword can't fit through a keyhole). If character A tries to lightning bolt character B through the same keyhole, then there is LoE ("a clear path", to use 5e's language) but the target has superior cover (-5 to hit, analogous to the +5 to save in 5e).

You're loosing me here... a sword wouldn't fit through a keyhole in either edition... and thus the attack would auto-fail in both editions, unless you're saying there is a fictional positioning rule in 4e somewhere that I missed as opposed to in 5e... then this is just DM fiat by common sense in both editions.

I'm not sure how 5e handles that, because a keyhole clearly provides more than 3/4 cover, but it seems that a caster peeking through it should be able to fire an energy ray through it too.

3/4 cover does not literally mean 3/4's cover, that's pretty clear from the fictional examples given for it in the PHB, which are some of the same one's given in 4e's superior cover... arrow slit, portcullis, tree trunk...

 

[pemerton]

4e's cover rules don't determine stealth... the concealment rules do.

Superior cover is sufficient for attempting to hide.

In 5e, you need total cover (ie out of sight).

 

[Imaro]

Superior cover is sufficient for attempting to hide.

In 5e, you need total cover (ie out of sight).

Where is this stated??

wouldn't something clear but hard give you superior cover... but not concealment? Say like a wall of force, glass or something similar?

 

[jasin]

I think you've actually glossed over the problem with 3.5 that 5e is designed to fix (i.e., what makes 5e more like 1e or 2e, rather than 3e+). The issue is not the number of rules (heck 1e had more rules than 2e), but introduction of skills and feats to leverage the rules.

In this context, skills and, especially, feats, are just the 3E label for a very general concept: an activity with a variable success rate, and a exceptional special ability, respectively.

What is, specifically, the issue you see with skills and feats? Are you suggesting the very fundamental concepts of differing bonuses leading to differing success rates of various activities (skills), and special abilities which grant you exceptions from how the rules usually work (feats) are somehow problematic?

Think about it. Even in 2e, when faced with a situation without RAW, your table came up with a rule for it. So, while there were fewer RAW in 2e than 3e, the number of rules were exactly the same at the table. The difference is that 3e, having introduced rules for various corner cases, also retasked 2e's "secondary proficiencies" to give some kind of bonus for various builds of characters.

In 2e, if you decided that you were going to dive off the cliff and attempt to grab the falling MacGuffin, your table negotiated what rolls you needed to make. Assuming you had a DM that followed the "rule of cool," often times you would have a decent chance of pulling off something creative and dramatic, based off of negotiated rules. Post 3e, however, there are not only rules for most things, but skills and feats that give bonuses to these things (do you have "fly"? Well then, you can't move in the air over to the object and grab it. You don't know how...).

My experience is my own, but in my experience, this sounds more like 2E. "Does your fighter have Climb Walls? No, only the thief does. Well then..." "Your wizard can't use swords. I don't know or care what happens if he tries, he just can't." Even when it got to negotiating rules, the chance was often far from decent, as the DMs almost always felt a need to not give it up easily: an example comes to mind where someone wanted to grab on to carriage rushing past, and had to make a Dex check to grab a railing, then a Str check to hold on, then a material saving throw for the wood to hold his weigh... I think that's the one he failed, to the DM's relief.

In 3E, the the majority of activities can at least be attempted without training. The success rate will be low or risk will be increased, but this is information largely available to the players before they commit to the action, unlike in my example above.