A Rekindled Glimmer of Hope

[innerdude]

From the chat on May 16:

Mearls: The biggest thing is making it OK for one character to own a particular encounter. If the wizard casts sleep and KOs a group of six kobolds, that's OK. In the next encounter, the rogue might sneak up on the kobold shaman and gank him, or the fighter blocks a doorway and takes down a wave of attackers. Same goes for characters with good social abilities, and so on.

It also means for a much faster game - characters contribute in each encounter, but we can let someone shine without feeling that everyone must have at least 4 or 5 turns to do their thing.


Mr. Mearls, you just keep right on applying this philosophy to D&D 5e, and you'll have an excited customer on your hands in Mr. Innerdude.

Excellent.

 

[Ahnehnois]

They're saying a lot of the right things, but we'll see if they're for real or not soon enough.

 

[Janaxstrus]

From the chat on May 16:

Mearls: The biggest thing is making it OK for one character to own a particular encounter. If the wizard casts sleep and KOs a group of six kobolds, that's OK. In the next encounter, the rogue might sneak up on the kobold shaman and gank him, or the fighter blocks a doorway and takes down a wave of attackers. Same goes for characters with good social abilities, and so on.

It also means for a much faster game - characters contribute in each encounter, but we can let someone shine without feeling that everyone must have at least 4 or 5 turns to do their thing.


Mr. Mearls, you just keep right on applying this philosophy to D&D 5e, and you'll have an excited customer on your hands in Mr. Innerdude.

Excellent.

That was one of the few highlights from the chat. I've been saying that since day 1, so it's nice to see them stating it as well.
Not everyone needs to be perfectly equal every single encounter because they are all special little snowflakes. It's ok for the Wizard to shine here, the rogue to shine there and the cleric to be the star next.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Here's the whole response:

Kamikaze Midget: Can you tell us about anything you guys have discovered in focusing the game on the entire adventure, rather than on the individual encounter?

Mearls: The biggest thing is making it OK for one character to own a particularly encounter. If the wizard casts sleep and KOs a group of six kobolds, that's OK. In the next encounter, the rogue might sneak up on the kobold shaman and gank him, or the fighter blocks a doorway and takes down a wave of attackers. Same goes for characters with good social abilities, and so on.

It also means for a much faster game - characters contribute in each encounter, but we can let someone shine without feeling that everyone must have at least 4 or 5 turns to do their thing.

Jeremy Crawford: There is a tremendous amount of world texture that we can include when there isn't pressure to make everything count in every single combat encounter. We can include character options that speak to social situations, exploration, traveling on the high seas, hopping into other planes of existence, and so on, without segregating those options into little buckets.

Mearls: It also means that "unbalanced" options are more viable. For instance, in one adventure the characters fought a gang of hobgoblins. One of the hobgobs was a beast master who used a whip and a prod to drive a pair of giant scorpions forward. The rogue sniped the beast master, so the scorpions turned around and had their revenge on the tribe.

It ended the fight pretty quickly, but it made for a fun adventure. The characters ended up luring the scorpions into a room with a window, locking them in there while the rogue climbed out.

So they've been paying attention.

 

[DMKastmaria]

That was one of the few highlights from the chat. I've been saying that since day 1, so it's nice to see them stating it as well.
Not everyone needs to be perfectly equal every single encounter because they are all special little snowflakes. It's ok for the Wizard to shine here, the rogue to shine there and the cleric to be the star next.

Heh. Can't xp you again yet, either. But yeah. Comments like this from Mr. Mearls, are what's keeping me interested enough to check out the playtest. I still think it's possible we'll end up with something I'd enjoy running on occasion. Like Stormbringer or DCC. Not my favorite game, but a good "take a break from my favorite game," game.

 

[GreyICE]

I don't think anyone argues this. Heck, even 4E has this - there are many encounters where a Wizard shines, from cleaning out hordes of minions to disabling large groups. In another encounter a Ranger might step up to the plate and take out half a Solo's HP with dailies over 3 rounds while the rest of the party does the other half.

The difference in philosophy is that pre-4E physical damage classes never "shined." They just did what they did, consistently. As people got more and more clever with spell usage, Wizards, Druids, and Clerics had more and more ways to shine, while physical classes got to ride in the back of the bus.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I don't think anyone argues this. Heck, even 4E has this - there are many encounters where a Wizard shines, from cleaning out hordes of minions to disabling large groups. In another encounter a Ranger might step up to the plate and take out half a Solo's HP with dailies over 3 rounds while the rest of the party does the other half.

The difference in philosophy is that pre-4E physical damage classes never "shined." They just did what they did, consistently. As people got more and more clever with spell usage, Wizards, Druids, and Clerics had more and more ways to shine, while physical classes got to ride in the back of the bus.

I never ran into that problem in 3E/3.5E, but it did happen sometimes in older editions with the unbalanced XP progression (My human ranger 6 had the same total XP as the Elf Fighter 5/Wizard 4)

 

[thecasualoblivion]

From the chat on May 16:

Mearls: The biggest thing is making it OK for one character to own a particular encounter. If the wizard casts sleep and KOs a group of six kobolds, that's OK. In the next encounter, the rogue might sneak up on the kobold shaman and gank him, or the fighter blocks a doorway and takes down a wave of attackers. Same goes for characters with good social abilities, and so on.

It also means for a much faster game - characters contribute in each encounter, but we can let someone shine without feeling that everyone must have at least 4 or 5 turns to do their thing.


Mr. Mearls, you just keep right on applying this philosophy to D&D 5e, and you'll have an excited customer on your hands in Mr. Innerdude.

Excellent.

Until I see concrete evidence of them giving this sort of thing to all characters, as opposed to just spellcasters, I'm skeptical. If this sort of thing returns, but only or primarily for spellcasters, 5E takes one step closer to the refuse bin.

 

[NewJeffCT]

From the chat on May 16:

Mearls: The biggest thing is making it OK for one character to own a particular encounter. If the wizard casts sleep and KOs a group of six kobolds, that's OK. In the next encounter, the rogue might sneak up on the kobold shaman and gank him, or the fighter blocks a doorway and takes down a wave of attackers. Same goes for characters with good social abilities, and so on.

It also means for a much faster game - characters contribute in each encounter, but we can let someone shine without feeling that everyone must have at least 4 or 5 turns to do their thing.


Mr. Mearls, you just keep right on applying this philosophy to D&D 5e, and you'll have an excited customer on your hands in Mr. Innerdude.

Excellent.

This was how my 3E and 4E games typically have run - I guess I was doing it wrong since so many others never had my problem. One encounter, the cleric shines, the next one was the psion, while the next one was the barbarian or the fighter or whatever.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The difference in philosophy is that pre-4E physical damage classes never "shined." They just did what they did, consistently.

Yeah, it was kind of weird that. I can't imagine many players wanting their character's unique selling point to be, 'never shines'. I can understand some people wanting a simple class, but I don't think that necessarily has to be the same thing as never shining.