D&D 5E A 5th Edition: And It's About Time

[howandwhy99]

you could run a battle that was designed to be balanced with the party and they would win, every time (unless they did something dumb), or you could run a battle that was designed to be a level above the party and they would lose most of the time, or you could run a battle that was designed to be a level below the party and it would not even tax their resources in the slightest.

That is a very telling critique. It makes me happy that they are lowering the slope of advancement even further than what they did when moving from 3e to 4e.

Remember AD&D when the attack tables were only 1 every 2 (fighters), 1:3 clerics, 1:4 thieves, & 1:5 magic-users? Those are some low slopes. And the game changed after level 9, if you wanted to go higher.

 

[Dannager]

I apologize if it came off as a 4e rant to you. I did not mean it as such. I was actually expressing my relief that it finally seemed like WotC understood more of the fans (like me) and my optimism about the prospects of a new edition.

You certainly did that for the last two paragraphs, but the first six?

I guess what I'm getting at is that it would have been easy to say, "I'm relieved that WotC is being more understanding of fans like me." But, for whatever reason, you preceded that with six paragraphs of reasons you didn't like 4e. As someone who plays 4e, it can get a little wearing to see thread after thread adding nothing new to the discussion of 5e, while piling on rehashed reasons for hating 4e.

The announcement of 5e is not a sudden declaration of open season on 4e.

 

[airwalkrr]

That is a very telling critique. It makes me happy that they are lowering the slope of advancement even further than what they did when moving from 3e to 4e.

Remember AD&D when the attack tables were only 1 every 2 (fighters), 1:3 clerics, 1:4 thieves, & 1:5 magic-users? Those are some low slopes. And the game changed after level 9, if you wanted to go higher.

I agree with you here. 1e is still my favorite version of D&D (note my sig). And the lower slope of advancement is one of the key reasons.

 

[Dannager]

That is a very telling critique.

And a false one. Speaking as someone who has run a metric ton of 4e encounters, you should be able to throw level+3 encounters at your party and they'd still have a decent shot at survival. The idea that a level+1 encounter is a recipe for TPK is ridiculous.

 

[airwalkrr]

You certainly did that for the last two paragraphs, but the first six?

I guess what I'm getting at is that it would have been easy to say, "I'm relieved that WotC is being more understanding of fans like me." But, for whatever reason, you preceded that with six paragraphs of reasons you didn't like 4e. As someone who plays 4e, it can get a little wearing to see thread after thread adding nothing new to the discussion of 5e, while piling on rehashed reasons for hating 4e.

The announcement of 5e is not a sudden declaration of open season on 4e.

Again, I apologize if what I said bothered you. The first few paragraphs were background on my experience and why I never really got into 4e. Then I segued in the most important point, which was a positive one. No hard feelings, I hope.

 

[Dannager]

Again, I apologize if what I said bothered you. The first few paragraphs were background on my experience and why I never really got into 4e. Then I segued in the most important point, which was a positive one. No hard feelings, I hope.

Sure. You certainly seem like a decent guy, and I'm not looking to take you to task so much as I'm a little frustrated with how much discussions that are supposed to be about 5e are actually turning out to be about 4e. I'm sure a lot of this has to do with how little solid info we have at this point and how much of an itch we have as a community to speculate. 5e really does sound like it's going to be cool, and I'm probably just as excited as you are about the potential. As you say, you ended on a positive point, and that's something I'd like to see a lot more of.

 

[ferratus]

And a false one. Speaking as someone who has run a metric ton of D&D encounters, you should be able to throw level+3 encounters at your party and they'd still have a decent shot at survival. The idea that a level+1 encounter is a recipe for TPK is ridiculous.

I don't think the OP meant that literally, but there is definately a sense that you have to play within a small range of levels. That becomes very frustrating if you want an organic spread of monsters in a more open game, unless you are willing to do a lot of reskinning. Also, you have to get rid of random encounter tables.

Of course, he is wrong about 3e not having this same design goal, which it would have succeeded at if the CR system actually worked. But that's rose coloured glasses for you.

 

[airwalkrr]

And a false one. Speaking as someone who has run a metric ton of D&D encounters, you should be able to throw level+3 encounters at your party and they'd still have a decent shot at survival. The idea that a level+1 encounter is a recipe for TPK is ridiculous.

To be fair, I never said a level +1 encounter was a recipe for TPK. I used the vague term "lose," which can mean a number of things, such as PCs fleeing, a PC dying, or significant and overwhelming loss of resources (among others). It has been my experience that level +1 encounters in 4e generally overwhelms your typical party of five balanced characters that either forces them to expend all (or most) of their daily powers and single-use items or ends up with the death of a character, which does not seem fair to me. A group of clever players with good coordination, tactics, a well-devised strategy, and a bit of luck ought to be able to handle tougher encounters. But it just does not seem to be that way in 4e because the numbers are so set in stone, relatively speaking of course. My experience is far from universal, but it has not varied much among my various tries at 4th edition. Anyway, it appears to be a valid point to more than just one person. I do not intend to start an edition war here. But I believe there are many of us who were disenchanted with 4e and are really looking forward to the new philosophy WotC seems to be taking to the new edition, and that is what this thread is about.

Edit: poor wording on my part. I should have said "does not seem fair to me." Over-balancing the game is part of what I do not like about 4e.

 

[howandwhy99]

And a false one. Speaking as someone who has run a metric ton of 4e encounters, you should be able to throw level+3 encounters at your party and they'd still have a decent shot at survival. The idea that a level+1 encounter is a recipe for TPK is ridiculous.

Good to know

EDIT: But I'm still glad they are lowering the advancement rate and going wider, not higher.

 

[Dannager]

To be fair, I never said a level +1 encounter was a recipe for TPK. I used the vague term "lose," which can mean a number of things, such as PCs fleeing, a PC dying, or significant and overwhelming loss of resources (among others). It has been my experience that level +1 encounters in 4e generally overwhelms your typical party of five balanced characters that either forces them to expend all (or most) of their daily powers and single-use items or ends up with the death of a character, which does not seem balanced to me.

I have a feeling that may be an atypical experience that you've had, then. I think there's a general consensus that anything in the level-1 to level+3 range tends to produce encounters that are mildly to significantly challenging without becoming overwhelming. And, within this encounter level range, there is a much wider range of monsters than can be used (as wide as level-4 to level+4) which is wide enough that you should be able to get by at any stage of the PCs' career. Add to that the fact that it's silly easy to bump monsters up or down by a couple levels, and you have a system that gives you a "stable" of literally thousands of different monsters that you can throw at a party of any given level (that's not an exaggeration; the Compendium lists nearly 5000 monsters).

In my experience, the encounter level system allows for as wide or wider of a range than the CR system did. I think this is a good thing, and I'd love to see 5e allow a similarly wide range of useful challenges at any given level.