D&D 5E 5th Edition and The Rules

[Eirikrautha]

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?


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.

Yeah, I am saying it is problematic. My assertion isn't even controversial; it's EXPLICITLY STATED right in the 2e PHB:

(2e PHB, page 54 - Nonweapon Proficiencies)
First, nonweapon proficiencies are rigid. Being so defined, they limit the options of both the player and the DM.

That's why non-weapon proficiencies were both optional and only one of three suggestions of how to handle these issues. For some DMs and players, the limits of the approach were outweighed by the concreteness of the limits. Skills and feats are just the logical extension of this idea... except no longer limited to non-combat activities.

Secondly, skills and feats add NOTHING to the rules that is not available without them. What you describe as your example could easily fit any action in 3e just like 2e, just with Abilities replaced by Skills or Feats. Name the skill or feat in 3e that directly addresses your carriage example (Jump, Balance, Ride?). A DM could easily decide to make you roll multiple skills for that in 3e as well. What you've described is a DM that doesn't follow the "rule of cool," which happens equally in every edition.

What isn't equal, however, is the deleterious effects of skill bonuses and feats. As soon as I create a skill or feat for some particular action, I now have to differentiate what is possible for someone with lots of ranks in the skill (or who has the feat) and those who don't. Otherwise, the feat or skill is useless. So now I have to make my challenges take into account those who might have maxed the skill, locking out all of those who haven't taken it. What my character without a skill might have been able to try is no longer possible for him, otherwise I have invalidated all of those folks who invested in high skill ranks.

The crime isn't skills or feats, it's the way skills and feat created a wide gap between the haves and have nots, which ultimately limits your character dramatically. 5e has taken a much better approach (with bounded accuracy and fewer feats... especially the ones that just give skill bonuses), which lessens (though not eliminates) the restricting quality of skills and feats.

I don't even think this is arguable... it's that obvious. Sit down for a game of Pathfinder (i.e. D&D 3.75...where your character "build" is the be-all and end-all of your capabilities... to the point where characters not optimized around grappling or tripping don't even bother to try because the effectiveness gap is so large) to see the result of that approach. Some people enjoy that kind of game. More power to them. But it's definitely NOT the flavor of the original D&D that many of us played (individual experiences may vary). Which makes 5e a BIG step in the right direction for us...

 

[pemerton]

Where is this stated?

RC p 152.

 

[Imaro]

RC p 152.

Wow you're right... so you can literally hide in plain sight with someone looking at you as long as you have superior cover in 4e... like behind thick glass or a a transparent wall. I definitely think the 5e approach... where actual sight and sound are used to determine whether you can hide or not... more to my liking.

 

[Luce]

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.

Actually there are plenty of things in 2e that can be attempted without training.
Too bad the rules were spread out all over the place.
DMG has hear noise rules for example. Fire starting proficiency mentions that it addressed extreme conditions- that is anyone can start a fire in reasonable conditions, but get to one going while camping outside in a middle of a thunderstorm one needs special training.
The following article is the most complete list I know of, that addresses the issue.

(From the Dragon Dex website)
Abilities: Shared by all characters "What Do You Know?"
by Lloyd Brown III in Dragon 268(pp36)

Things discussed include does include Climbing (base 40% adjusted for race,
conditions and equipment).( as found in PHB p 160-163) cooking, swimming, math, religion etc.

Wizards can use swords, it is not worth their time mostly since they do so with not proficient penalty of 5 (or 3 if already proficient with similar weapon) Dual or multi class wizard is most likely to bother with swords.

As much as I like to claim that I know this because I am some sort of 2e sage,
the truth is I was just reading some back issues during a bout of insomnia few days prior.

 

[pemerton]

Wow you're right... so you can literally hide in plain sight with someone looking at you as long as you have superior cover in 4e... like behind thick glass or a a transparent wall. I definitely think the 5e approach... where actual sight and sound are used to determine whether you can hide or not... more to my liking.

That depends on how you approach action declaration.

The 4e DMG (p 75) says

it’s particularly important to make sure these checks are grounded in actions that make sense in the adventure and the situation. If a player asks, “Can I use Diplomacy?” you should ask what exactly the character might be doing to help the party . . ."​

In the Rules Compendium (p 125) the same principle is less-clearly stated:

The Dungeon Master determines if a skill check is appropriate in a given situation . . .​

So if a player behind a transparent wall says "I am hiding" the GM might well ask "How?". That is, prior to applying the action resolution rules, we actually have to have an action declaration that satisfies basic credibility/genre/fictional requirements.

Once the action is declared, the action resolution mechanics tell us whether or not it succeeds: if the character has superior cover or total concealment, a check is permitted; otherwise the attempt to hide fails. If the initial attempt succeeds, then hidden status is maintained until the character loses cover/concealment. (Even this requirement is framed as "keep out of sight", and so a player who declares "I remain hidden as I sneak behind the low-rise wall of force" might expect to be asked "How do you remain hidden?")

How might a player make a permissible action declaration to use Stealth behind a transparent wall? Perhaps "I splash mud against the wall, and hide behind that", or "I lean a broken leafy branch up against the wall, and hide behind that" or "I hang a blanket from the top of the wall, and hide behind that". If the GM thinks the declared action is a bit of a stretch, s/he can always impose a -2 penalty.

The difference from 5e, at least as I see it (and this seems to be borne out by the Stealth threads) is that in 5e "not being seen" is framed as part of the action resolution mechanics rather than as part of the overall fiction within which action declaration takes place. Hence the relationship between total and 3/4 cover becomes part of the resolution mechanics for hiding. 4e, on the other hand, doesn't need a mechanical concept of "total cover" separate from a description of the fictional situation. Which was my original point to [MENTION=1465]Li Shenron[/MENTION].

 

[Li Shenron]

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.

You make me realize that we've always used "fiction first" even in 3e... Strict rules indeed can cause silly situations that are not worth enough to drag the game down into endless discussions. If 5e doesn't have at least suggestions to use some grain of salt, it should probably have, like apparently 4e RC had.

Superior cover is sufficient for attempting to hide.

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

Pretty much all my confusion about hiding is that the words are used differently by different people or in different context... You get players say "I move and hide behind the tree", when what they actually mean is they want cover, not concealment. Then you get the rules themselves talking about invisible creatures that are not "hidden", because their location can be pinpointed by noise, footprints or other dislocation of stuff around.

Actually cover has never been much of a problem, my problem was usually the difference between being hidden vs unseen/invisible.

(and by the way, my little suggestion about having only 3 degrees of cover instead of 4 is really unimportant, but with that I was only referring to the difference in cover, not concealment)

 

[pemerton]

You make me realize that we've always used "fiction first" even in 3e... Strict rules indeed can cause silly situations that are not worth enough to drag the game down into endless discussions. If 5e doesn't have at least suggestions to use some grain of salt, it should probably have, like apparently 4e RC had.

That's giving a bit too much credit to RC! It doesn't affirmatively encourage "fiction first" - it just words the "clear path" requirement without using any technical rules language - whereas 5e uses the technical rules language of "total cover".

Pretty much all my confusion about hiding is that the words are used differently by different people or in different context... You get players say "I move and hide behind the tree", when what they actually mean is they want cover, not concealment. Then you get the rules themselves talking about invisible creatures that are not "hidden", because their location can be pinpointed by noise, footprints or other dislocation of stuff around.

I haven't got a handle on 5e's hiding rules yet.

In 4e, hiding has three aspects (at least as I read it - the rules are scattered across general rules for skill checks, cited above in my post replying to Imaro, plus particular rules for adjudicating Stealth skill checks):

* The player must declare a Stealth check as an action for his/her PC, and this is subject to a "credibility test" based on ingame context/situation. At this point there are no technical/"gamist" rules involved.

* If the action declaration is permitted, we then move to adjudication. The rules for adjudication state that the check will autofail if the character doesn't have at least one of superior cover (in 5e that would be 3/4 cover) or total concealment (= heavily obscured, in 5e). If the check doesn't autofail, then the d20 is rolled and the result is adjudicated against passive Perception (so you can be hidden from some people but not others, depending how good their passive Perception is).

* Once the character is hidden, the third aspect is maintaining that status. If the character moves more than 2 sq (10'), a new Stealth check must be made, with a penalty - so moving is risky. A character automatically loses hidden status after attacking, after making noise louder than a whisper, or after becoming observable; but a character who loses hidden status retains combat advantage for any attack that is part of the same action that caused him/her to lose hidden status (this is how rogues attack from hiding - they use special actions that permit them to combine movement with an attack, included but not limited to charging). Finally, there are rules on observability: if you break cover completely then you become observable by anyone who is not distracted; but as long as you retain partial cover (= 5e 1/2 cover) or concealment (= 5e light obscurement) then you do not become observable.​

I think that 4e, by differentiating the degree of cover/concealment needed to avoid your initial Stealth check auto-failing, from the degree of cover/concealment needed to remain hidden after a successful Stealth check, introduces complexity that is absent in 5e. But the benefit of this complexity is that it is much easier to adjudicate a character "breaking cover" to try and sneak to a new position. For instance, a character behind a building (superior cover) can make a Stealth check and become hidden; then, s/he can sneak out below a low wall (partial cover) and if s/he moves further than 2 sq will have to make another check, but as long as that check is successful s/he remains hidden even though s/he now only has partial cover. And s/he can then snipe from behind that wall and get advantage (because hidden status isn't lost until after s/he attacks).

To regain hidden status, the 4e rules require making a new check as a separate action (which can include moving to sufficient cover/concealment to ensure the check is not an autofail).

Of course, there are special abilities - mostly for rogues - that alter the above rules eg that allow hidden status to be maintained even if the character moves through an area with no cover/concealment at all; or that allow hiding even if the character attacks, or loses cover and concealment, as long as the character doesn't move; etc.

As far as targeting is concerned, 4e assumes that you can target a character provided you can see or hear him/her (otherwise you have to guess). If you can't see there are penalties for non-AoE attacks. A character who has the hidden status is considered both invisible and silent, and so can't be targeted except via guesswork.

To get combat advantage on an attack it is enough to be invisible.

Therefore, a character who can get invisibility without become hidden - eg via a ring of invisibility, a darkness spell that others can't see through, etc - doesn't need to use the Stealth rules to get advantage. But using the Steath rules can give such a character the chance to move away silently as well as invisibly and thereby avoid being targeted other than by guesswork.

Conversely, a character who need to use Stealth to become invisible, and thereby gain combat advantage, also needs to remain silent, because if s/he makes a noise then s/he loses the hidden status and hence invisibility as well as inaudibility. This would apply, for example, to a character who made a Stealth check behind a building, and then snuck out as I described above, using a low wall for (partial) cover. If that character calls out to his/her friends, then s/he loses hidden status, and hence invisibility, and hence wouldn't get advantage on any subsequent attack.

To me it seems to work fairly well, but I haven't had players who have tried to put a lot of pressure on it, so I'm not sure where the break points might be if there are any.

 

[jasin]

Yeah, I am saying it is problematic. My assertion isn't even controversial; it's EXPLICITLY STATED right in the 2e PHB:

(2e PHB, page 54 - Nonweapon Proficiencies)
First, nonweapon proficiencies are rigid. Being so defined, they limit the options of both the player and the DM.

That's why non-weapon proficiencies were both optional and only one of three suggestions of how to handle these issues.

I have never met anyone who played 2E without non-weapon proficiencies. Have you? My impression was that they were as optional as feats and the grid in 5E, i.e. optional in name only.

Secondly, skills and feats add NOTHING to the rules that is not available without them.

Again, I think you need to explain what exactly you mean by "skills and feats".

If you mean those exact labels in 3E, I agree. You could as easily have a Climb Walls Thief Function instead of a Climb Skill. You could as easily have a Move-Attack-Move Class Ability instead of a Spring Attack Feat.

If you mean the general rules concepts, a scaling success rate for an activity (like 3E skills, or 2E thief abilities, or attack rolls in any edition), and a advantageous exception to the default rules (like 3E feats, or class abilities in any edition), then I think the claim they add nothing to the rules is preposterous.

What you describe as your example could easily fit any action in 3e just like 2e, just with Abilities replaced by Skills or Feats. Name the skill or feat in 3e that directly addresses your carriage example (Jump, Balance, Ride?).

I wasn't suggesting that the example would've been helped by the inclusion of skills or feats, just that in my experience 2E play wasn't the utopia of crazy freewheeling stunts you seemed to portray.

The crime isn't skills or feats, it's the way skills and feat created a wide gap between the haves and have nots, which ultimately limits your character dramatically.

This is a radically different claim than "the introduction of skills and feats is problematic". This is much closer to "crappy, not-thought-through maths is problematic".

I don't even think this is arguable... it's that obvious. Sit down for a game of Pathfinder (i.e. D&D 3.75...where your character "build" is the be-all and end-all of your capabilities... to the point where characters not optimized around grappling or tripping don't even bother to try because the effectiveness gap is so large)

Again, while I'll enthusiastically agree that these gaps in 3E/Pathfinder are large enough to detract from the fun, they're still smaller than the gap between the sword using ability of a 2E fighter (can do it) and a 2E wizard (can't do it), or the gap between bar bending effectiveness of a 2E fighter (some % of success) and a 2E thief (can't do it). If you want everyone to be able to contribute (and I think that's a desirable goal), I'm not sure how it's better to have binary can-can't abilities like in 2E than scaling ones like in 3E. The problem, to me, seems to be that the scaling is too fast, and the gap ends up being an effectively binary can-can't divide, but at least it starts off better than in 2E. I've seen low level clerics succeed at sneaking in 3E, I haven't seen 2E clerics even try.

to see the result of that approach. Some people enjoy that kind of game. More power to them. But it's definitely NOT the flavor of the original D&D that many of us played (individual experiences may vary). Which makes 5e a BIG step in the right direction for us...

You think 5E will end up being a significantly different experience in that respect? We'll see Archery fighters, fighting with sword and shield sometimes, forgoing their +2 to ranged attacks, or other characters going outside of their specializations?

Why is that? Do you think the bounded accuracy philosophy will close the gap between the specialized and the non-specialized enough that it will be worthwhile to attempt stuff outside of your specialization reasonably often? Or is there something more?

 

[Eirikrautha]

I play 5e without a grid (just like one group I was a part of that played 2e without NWPs). It's more fun for us that way.

Why is it a problem that the fighter can bend bars and the thief can't? This is a class feature... one of the reasons you take the class. Making it a skill or feat invalidates that class (see Pathfinder Rogue for more information). This would be the reason for multiclassing, not skills and feats. Either your class determines your character's features, or you make a classless game system where you can mix and match skills, feats, etc. Part of the issue is that 3e+ wanted both worlds, yet accomplished neither well.

Anytime you delineate a rule, class feature, skill, or feat, you have limited your character's choices. It's unavoidable. But you do so in order to make adjudication more concrete. Once you start to fiddle with skills, feats, or whatever that then give bonuses to such choices, you create a gap between the haves and have nots that limits character choice even further. I prefer a style with wide limits set by class and not delineated down to minutia through lots of skill and feat bonuses. That's why I'm moving away from Pathfinder/3.5+ and enthusiastic about 5e.

 

[jasin]

I play 5e without a grid (just like one group I was a part of that played 2e without NWPs). It's more fun for us that way.

Fair enough.

Why is it a problem that the fighter can bend bars and the thief can't?

I don't know, why is it a problem that a 3E/Pathfinder character specialized for tripping can trip opponents and other characters can't? I thought you disliked being a huge gap between the specialized and the non-specialized, and that gap is the largest when one side is "you can't even try".

Making it a skill or feat invalidates that class (see Pathfinder Rogue for more information). This would be the reason for multiclassing, not skills and feats.

Again, I think you really need to define what you mean by "skill" and "feat" to make this line of discussion worthwhile? These are just labels 3E used for game elements that appear in more or less similar form in almost any game and any edition of D&D. I'd like to understand what about the design bothers you, and you seem to be latching on to the labels. From this specific example it seems maybe it's the selecability? I.e. bend bars is an intrinsic part of the 2E fighter class and therefore OK, while 3E skills are something any given character might or might not have?

Anytime you delineate a rule, class feature, skill, or feat, you have limited your character's choices. It's unavoidable. But you do so in order to make adjudication more concrete.

I think I see what you mean, but I don't think that's necessarily true. Some rules expand the choices already limited by previous rules.

You seem to be saying that (for example) Spring Attack limits your choices by being the exception that proves the existence of the rule: if you have Spring Attack, you can move-attack-move, otherwise you can't; whereas without the existence of Spring Attack, anyone could move-attack-move. But that's not really true, is it? All other things equal, without Spring Attack, you still couldn't move-attack-move in 3E, because it's already explicitly disallowed by the general combat movement rules.

Weapon specialization rules in 2E introduce the option for fighters to specialize and gain bonuses and an increased number of attacks. It seems to me this strictly expands the space of available options; I don't think you'll argue that, without weapon specialization rules, all characters would be allowed to make an increased number of attacks.

Once you start to fiddle with skills, feats, or whatever

Again, you seem to be latching on to labels from the game you dislike, rather than explaining what actual mechanisms you dislike and why. It's not like in 2E or 5E you don't fiddle with "or whatever" that give you bonuses, those games just don't call those things skills and feats (assuming you opt not to use the "optional" 5E feats).

that then give bonuses to such choices, you create a gap between the haves and have nots that limits character choice even further. I prefer a style with wide limits set by class and not delineated down to minutia through lots of skill and feat bonuses. That's why I'm moving away from Pathfinder/3.5+ and enthusiastic about 5e.

Again, it seems to me that the issue is selectability/customization, perhaps? You want to choose between fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue, and know mostly what each of those can and can't do, rather than choosing from many many independent axes: fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue; skilled in Stealth, not skilled in Stealth; skilled in Diplomacy, not skilled in Diplomacy; has Spring Attack, doesn't have Spring Attack; &c. &c. Is this fair?