D&D 5E 5th Edition is Right About Lower Bonuses

[ren1999]

Now that I do the math, I am convinced that a maximum bonus of about +10 which is half that of a 1d20 would be better for the game.

Regardless, I will be buying the 5th edition material if only to get these good ideas into my own house rules.

I asked the party to explain to me how lower bonuses would work.

It all comes down to something called RNG. That's short for Random Number Generator. It means that a fun game where equally empowered opponents fight, will consist of 50% pure chance and 50% pure bonus experience/skill/powers and feats.

So thank you for convincing me of the goodness of lower bonuses.

I am really hoping that what I see in the 'build a character' play-test is that there will be some kind of ability score increase with levels. I personally would like to allow each player to improve one ability score by +1 each level-up. That could translate to higher toHits and damages. I'm willing to accept that these "natural" bonuses from ability hikes and feat hikes should not exceed a natural score of 20. I'm also hoping that we'll be able to test magical items. I'm hoping for at least a +1 to +5 bonus increase from magical items.

 

[B.T.]

It all comes down to something called RNG. That's short for Random Number Generator. It means that a fun game will consist of 50% pure chance and 50% pure bonus experience/skill/powers and feats.

Not to sperg out on you, but this is not what the "RNG" means. The RNG is the randon number generator, which is what is used to determine success or failure. In D&D, the RNG is the d20. In Dark Heresy, it's a d100. In various White Wolf games, you use a dice pool of d10s. When gambling, you use a roulette wheel or playing cards.

Now when talking about game design, you are either "on" the RNG or "off" the RNG. What this means is that you have a reasonable chance of success or failure at a given level. In 3e, characters will frequently end up with bonuses so high (or so low) that they will automatically succeed (or fail) at a given task. This was problematic with saving throws in particular, as the rules were such that characters would either be unable to fail unless they rolled a natural one or unable to succeed unless they rolled a natural twenty. In game terms, this translated to the most hardy warriors having a 5% chance of insta-losing to a low-level wizard while John Q. Commoner had a 5% chance of ignoring the most powerful spells in the game.

Now, to be on the RNG does not mean "that a fun game will consist of 50% pure chance and 50% pure bonus experience/skill/powers and feats." That would translate to a 50% chance of success/failure on every skill check, which is something that I'm not really interested in. (A wizard and a fighter with an equal chance of hitting? Don't make no sense.) What being "on" the RNG means is that you have a reasonable chance of success and failure for level-appropriate challenges.

You could theoretically have a character with a +100 attack bonus who is still "on" the RNG--as long as the opponents he is facing have 110 AC. Now, the purpose of reducing the bonuses and penalties to saving throws and attack rolls ("flattening the math") is to keep lower-level threats on the RNG for longer. Whether this is good or bad is up to the individual person.

 

[LordBill]

Tightly controlled bonuses are a huge plus.

I hate how 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder have bonus after bonus after bonus to ruin the game.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

What I find interesting with the flatter math and lower bonuses are all the mechanics that make something easier by adjusting die rolls without bonuses.

This means bonuses don't go sky high... but it also means that someone with those mechanics cannot do any better at the high scale than those without the bonus - a max roll either way is the same. And I like that for story/immersion reasons.

So far we have seen:
Advantage/Disadvantage
The take 10 thing
Crits are only max damage.

I suspect we will see a lot similar things. No flat bonus to rull, but ways to improve odds to get a better result with playing with dice amount/minimum to roll and other such things.

 

[Li Shenron]

In 3e, characters will frequently end up with bonuses so high (or so low) that they will automatically succeed (or fail) at a given task. This was problematic with saving throws in particular, as the rules were such that characters would either be unable to fail unless they rolled a natural one or unable to succeed unless they rolled a natural twenty. In game terms, this translated to the most hardy warriors having a 5% chance of insta-losing to a low-level wizard while John Q. Commoner had a 5% chance of ignoring the most powerful spells in the game.

I don't understand your opinion... You're first saying that there is a problem in automatic successes/failures, then you say that the problem is in still having a minimum 5% chance. Which one do you think should be the "right" case for the game to make more sense?

I wouldn't have a problem with a 5% minimum to represent an inherent limitation to the reliability of magic, although we did not have the 5% rule on ST in our games (the RAW had it only for attacks, it was more the gamers base who still wanted to have it for ST too). But I would have a problem with skills and several types of checks, if this rules allowed the most incompetent person to achieve something with a skyrocketed DC, or the most competent person to fail when doing something trivial.

What being "on" the RNG means is that you have a reasonable chance of success and failure for level-appropriate challenges.

The problem is IMHO that it is quite hard to define what is a reasonable chance. It all boils down to how often you succeed/fail (indeed a basic meaning of probability after all).

But there are some things for which "reasonable" can mean 50% or even lower, for example opening a lock, at least because the penalty for failure is not deadly and you can find alternative ways to do it, and when the probability is not too high then succeeding is rewarding.

OTOH there are other things such as jumping over a chasm where failure often equals death of the character, and you definitely do not want that to happen often! Even 20% failure chance can be too much.

And then there are other things which are more complicated because each roll is only part of something bigger, e.g. attack rolls. The actual success rate of your attacks is not so important, what is important is your success rate at the whole encounter, but even that is complicated by the fact that there is a huge difference between a 90% chance of winning a certain combat with no PC losses and same probability but with possible PC losses. Secondarily, the success rate of your attacks determine (but not exclusively) the average length of a combat.

Now, the purpose of reducing the bonuses and penalties to saving throws and attack rolls ("flattening the math") is to keep lower-level threats on the RNG for longer. Whether this is good or bad is up to the individual person.

This is true. Also I think that in 5e they not only want to flatten the numbers but also reduce the number of stacking bonuses, to keep things simpler.

 

[B.T.]

I don't understand your opinion... You're first saying that there is a problem in automatic successes/failures, then you say that the problem is in still having a minimum 5% chance. Which one do you think should be the "right" case for the game to make more sense?

There is a problem when your bonuses/penalties become so large that the only chance of sucess/failure is roll a 20/roll a 1. I don't much like that, personally. Some people do.

The problem is IMHO that it is quite hard to define what is a reasonable chance. It all boils down to how often you succeed/fail (indeed a basic meaning of probability after all).

But there are some things for which "reasonable" can mean 50% or even lower, for example opening a lock, at least because the penalty for failure is not deadly and you can find alternative ways to do it, and when the probability is not too high then succeeding is rewarding.

OTOH there are other things such as jumping over a chasm where failure often equals death of the character, and you definitely do not want that to happen often! Even 20% failure chance can be too much.

And then there are other things which are more complicated because each roll is only part of something bigger, e.g. attack rolls. The actual success rate of your attacks is not so important, what is important is your success rate at the whole encounter, but even that is complicated by the fact that there is a huge difference between a 90% chance of winning a certain combat with no PC losses and same probability but with possible PC losses. Secondarily, the success rate of your attacks determine (but not exclusively) the average length of a combat.

I generally think in terms of attacks and saving throws. Skills are far less important to the RNG for me, simply because they rarely determine life or death in the way that a save vs. slay living does.

If my character is supposed to be good at something, I'd like to see about a 70% to 85% success range. If my character is supposed to be bad at something, I'd like to see a success range of 30% to 45%. But that's just my personal thoughts on the matter.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

The game does need to tackle bonus stacking. The playtest allowed everything to stack, but then again there wasn't much to stack.

I personally think the game will work best without bonus stacking, to keep the maximum bonus number low.

 

[Ranganathan]

I'm not convinced for a simple reason: I want my character's badassness to be more important that the random dice roll. With flatter math, the opposite is true, the dice becomes more important than anything directly related to my character. I get they're trying to compensate with the avoid the dice, ignore the dice, auto-success rules, etc. but it strikes me as a poor ways to do so. Especially when it comes down to DM fiat, which can be glorious or a return of the dick move DM, depending on the individual DM and their given mood at the moment.

 

[BobTheNob]

Wow, its refreshing to here that [MENTION=85179]ren1999[/MENTION]

So often people on forums have their way of looking at things and come hell or high water they will argue their position to their graves.

Im not going to tell people they have to agree with 5e's approachs, but its so refreshing to see someone at least willing to tackle understanding rather than defying it at face value. Even if you didnt come to the conclusion you did, you opened your mind.

Kudos sir, Kudos

(p.s. I think flatter probabilistic math is the single best announcement they have made for 5e. Very excited)

 

[ren1999]

Wow, its refreshing to here that @ren1999

So often people on forums have their way of looking at things and come hell or high water they will argue their position to their graves.

Im not going to tell people they have to agree with 5e's approachs, but its so refreshing to see someone at least willing to tackle understanding rather than defying it at face value. Even if you didnt come to the conclusion you did, you opened your mind.

Kudos sir, Kudos

(p.s. I think flatter probabilistic math is the single best announcement they have made for 5e. Very excited)

Thank you Bob,
I'm sort of a cross between a DoorMat DM and a DoucheBag DM. If you can really convince me that it is better, I'll probably allow it.

I still reject automatic hits and damage unless the target is helpless.
I will continue to work with this flat math idea. I can definitely make it work because I'll be adjusting monster stats to be challenging. It doesn't matter if their bonuses are limited to +10 because the characters will be limited in the exact same way. It's fair and it reduces needless math.