A Rekindled Glimmer of Hope

[pemerton]

4e mostly gets rid of flight or charm spells or save-or-die effects or whatever: it "skips encounters." Mearls is saying, "In 5e, it's OK to skip an encounter, or to deal with it without much fanfare."

It's saying: "If an entire encounter is solved with a single spell, that doesn't mean the spell is overpowered."

The 4e DMG2 makes it fairly clear, I think, that there is nothing per se objectionable, in the 4e design, about "skipping encounters". The issue is one of pacing, not of authority over plot.

The issue for me is whether the mechanical design of the classes hands this sort of authority systematically more to one PC type (eg the wizard) rather than another (eg the fighter).

If you can resolve most combat encounters in 10 or 15 minutes and then move on with the game, then it matters a lot less whether the wizard or rogue is able to "do something interesting" every turn. Contributions outside of combat encounters are limited primarily by the players' imagination and creativity.

If your last sentence is true, then the idea of balancing classes around the "three pillars" seems misguided - because the player of any PC can be imaginative and creative, whether that PC has strong or weak mechanical capabilities in combat.

It is true that D&D has traditionally leaned fairly heavily on freeform for the non-combat pillars. Personally, I think that that tradition makes the whole three pillars idea potentially fraught.

Shining does not necessarily mean being successful in a combat encounter.

It also encompasses the rogue sneaking past the guards, or the bard singing to the king, or the ranger finding shelter....

The question is - are these going to be as signficant, in terms of both story heft and play at the table, as combat?

Historically, when I look through D&D modules, examples of play in the rulebooks, etc, the answer to that question is No.

Will D&Dnext depart from this tradition?

 

[Sadras]

What's embarrasing is that every single example requires a magic item, which the fighter's player has no say about the character getting or not getting. The wizard, on the other hand, might be able to make it for the little tyke - bless 'im.

a) You do know that if I took away your precious spellbook your wizard is just a glorified sage with a lot of hit points. (we were referring to the older editions btw)
b) You also know that a wizard's player has limited say about spell's the character will be getting.
c) Its safe to say, that more often than not, that by the time a Wizard in the group is able to cast Fireball, Time Stop, Disintegrate...etc the fighter would be carrying at least one magical weapon if not more.
d) In the person's example I was replying to he set no parameters that excluded Fighters using magical weapons/items. In fact he said that they "NEVER really shined" period.
e) Lastly a Wizard uses Spells, a Fighter uses Weapons, more often than not they were enchanted. Why you may ask? Well because in the older editions the +x weapon was important, because some monsters could only be hit with +x weapons. So yeah, my example included only magical weapons, but the game at higher levels (dependant on what you were fighthing) kind of required that the fighter be equiped. (And we were talking about higher levels given his examples on the whole)

BTW I'm not embarrased

And just to stay on topic...balancing over an adventure rather than by encounter is music to my ears. I have to admit I was starting lose faith. I mean theres maybe a few hundred of us on this forum (5E), and we cant even get all to agree on compromising a few things - WoTC really have their work cut out for them.

 

[Bluenose]

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.

Oh dear. At some point the wizard is going to have a second Sleep spell. At which point they own another encounter. And more spells, and more powerful spells. Which probably means more encounters being owned by the wizard.

Let us hope there are lots of doorways that need to be blocked against a horde of weak attackers in D&DN.

 

[Doug McCrae]

[MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] why not give the fighter some of those magic weapon powers as class abilities? Otherwise we seem to be in the position of saying that magic items are assumed. They are necessary for balance. They are expected, not a reward, and that the fighter player can rightfully complain if he doesn't receive his fair share.

 

[Sadras]

@Sadras why not give the fighter some of those magic weapon powers as class abilities? Otherwise we seem to be in the position of saying that magic items are assumed. They are necessary for balance. They are expected, not a reward, and that the fighter player can rightfully complain if he doesn't receive his fair share.

Well I believe 3.xE and 4E did a lot of that with the use of feats and powers. I was not arguing for any edition specifically just defending against a view point that Fighters never really shined in combat in older editions.
However 5E's goal is to cater for both styles of play not cater for one style exclusively so we are on the same page I think.

 

[Doug McCrae]

However 5E's goal is to cater for both styles of play not cater for one style exclusively so we are on the same page I think.

I have no problem with magic items being built in to the game's balance. I have no problem with them not being built in. I just want the game text to be honest about it.

 

[GM Dave]

Owning encounters, I often find is more of a problem of set, established adventures.

When I do home adventures, I'm aware of the strengths and weaknesses of players and I balance the types of encounters to give various people opportunities to look 'good'.

I have one player (we're currently playing PF) that is playing a Summoner with the Synthesist option which basically means that he has a magical 'shell' of a monster that he becomes.

He's chosen a couple of good defenses (which are pretty cheap in evolution points in my opinion) like DR 5 and Protection from Fire 5.

He doesn't have much in the way of offensive spells and he tends to be the tank of the group (our Monk uses a bow, our Gunfighter favours the Musket, we have Clerics and Alchemists but no fighter/barbarian/cavalier).

Last Saturday, one of the traps/puzzles was a section of corridor filled with poison tipped thorns. He had DR and zipped through the area without needing to check while the others struggled through that area.

He got stuck at one point in his Eidolon form and changed back to human to get himself unstuck (a creative use of his magic to skip the escape artist check that he had messed up).

Pillars over a pit of stakes leading to a platform, he confidently used his Climb speed to move ahead of everyone to investigate the platform. He thus ran into the eight shadows all by himself. Touch attacks with strength drain and he was quickly running for the hills behind the rest of the group.

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It is the same that I don't worry if a Wizard carries a large amount of sleep spells with them. I know of dozens of things to do that will allow it to shine in one encounter and in the next have it fail miserably.

I also believe that players choose to play DnD and Archtypes to get a mental 'kick' out of doing incredible things and being a 'star' from time to time. I've got a player that all they want to do is use a bow to shoot arrows at things. Give her a bow that shoots a bigger arrow and she is a happy person.

 

[Doug McCrae]

With my current style, I think I need to be able to make a minority of encounters resistant to being easily pwned by a single character. My scenarios, and campaigns, are run in a narrow-wide-narrow style where most of the game can be whatever, PCs can go anywhere and pwn whoever, but I have a few big dramatic encounters with BBEGs and other significant NPCs that I don't want to go down easily or else it will be anti-climatic. I want these 'drama' encounters to last a reasonable length of time and ideally I would like all of the PCs to make a fair-sized contribution (not just holding the horses, or looking out for reinforcements) to the enemy's defeat.

I'm not sure if this style is at all compatible with Kamikaze Midget's adventure-based design.

That said, I am open to changing my style based on the system I'm running. The above isn't really a D&D style, with its many Save-or-Dies and Save-or-Loses. Maybe there are no planned BBEGs in D&D, only guys like Obmi.

 

[NewJeffCT]

So, the fighter wipes an encounter because s/he rolls three 20s in a row, while the wizard does the same by casting a spell? Righty ho.

What's embarrasing is that every single example requires a magic item, which the fighter's player has no say about the character getting or not getting. The wizard, on the other hand, might be able to make it for the little tyke - bless 'im.

Yes, I see where you are coming from, here, but the problem doesn't go away, it just becomes more subtle. Taking the three examples of fighter triple-critting a full attack, assassin making a death attack and wizard/MU casting sleep:

- the fighter gets to one-shot an encounter through luck, at a time chosen by the dice

- the assassin gets to one shot an encounter that consists of exactly one of a creature whose type is susceptible to their death attack, in other words, an encounter designed such that it precisely suits them

- the wizard gets to one-shot an encounter of his or her choice by casting a spell. At very low level this will likely be limited, due to the narrow spell selection s/he can load, but at by 5th level it ought to become "any one of the encounters the party is likely to meet" and by level 12 it will probably be "more than one encounter that the party is likely to meet".

Either the wizard/MU should be relying on luck/circumstance to enable their uber-power, or (better, IMO) the muggle-types should get much better control over when their "trump card" can be played.

As I stated above, if your group has one or two classes that consistently outshine the other classes, then the DM is not building his or her encounters to properly challenge the group.

When D&D gets to higher levels, most of those "save or die" or "save or suck" spells almost always end up as "save" for both the PCs and the bad guys. The spells requiring Touch Attacks or Ranged Touch attacks are often tough rolls for a wizard and/or require the wizard to suck up attacks of opportunity.

So, while the wizard is tossing spells to often no effect at the bad guy, the fighting is mowing down bad guys left & right.

My problem was sometimes just the opposite - the bad guys had so many defenses that the wizard and cleric would be useless in combat until those defenses were dispelled. I had to build encounters with my 3E equivalent of minions just to give the wizard & cleric the satisfaction of defeating at least some of the bad guys.

 

[Neonchameleon]

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.

It is a good philosophy. I don't get why anyone thinks it's alien to 4th.

Off the top of my head I've seen the following encounters utterly owned by one PC:

A wizard defending a narrow mountain pass with a sheer drop on one side against an entire company of elite (non-flying) troops.

Same wizard fighting in cramped conditions, setting up storm pillars to let the enemy in a couple at a time.

Different wizard noticing that the BBEG was lurking in an alcove and setting up storm pillar and flaming sphere side by side.

Revenant Paladin vs nasty sleep trap that only worked on living creatures, just walking up to it and pounding it apart with his axe while everyone else stayed back. (This happened Monday night).

Invoker realising that if she moved there then the lich and skeleton archers on the overhead walkway could be pushed off by Rebuke Undead.

Invoker of Wrath (different Invoker) walking into the middle of the enemy and dropping a close burst 3, to clean up about 20 minions and bloody the leaders. (This happened a few times).

Infernal Warlock with a feat that meant cursed enemies explode when they die setting up chain reactions. And then facing a company of bad guys.

Darkpact Warlock actually getting Contagion to work against a minion-heavy horde.

Wire-fu Monk taking a look at a fortified gatehouse and simply running (technically flying) onto the top of the tower to take the defenders out and open it from the inside. (Also certain challenges to get across chasms or rivers become much easier when the monk can simply take one end of the ropes and leap across).

Bard using rituals to raise earth to block all except the worst possible way out for the enemy.

Bard using Timeless Treck to Mithraindain to take the elite enemy spellcaster out of the fight long enough for the party to hack the magical defences and runes.

Executioner Assassin using poisons out of combat. I forget if the bad guy was permanently dazed or immobilised.
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The above list is deliberately ignoring impromptu crits, and the many, many creative uses of intimidate my PCs have come up with - and I've missed a lot out. And in every single case, this was the player and the class shining - not the situation being set up for them to shine. (I know - I was DM for a lot of them).

What's very hard to dominate in 4e is an encounter involving a room with an orc with a pie. Fortunately most DMs I've had keep things more interesting.