D&D 5E AC 25+

[pemerton]

It strikes me that 5e has a much tighter design than might be seen at first glance. Just about every rules-exploit I've seen relies on a dubious and overly literal reading of the rules.

I'm not querying your judgement about tight design. But I'm not sure about "overly literal readings". For the AC exploits in this thread, it is the literal reading of the rules - as formula substitutions rather than flaggin additional bonuses that can be factored into a default formula - that is being used to shut down the exploits.

 

[Iosue]

I'm not querying your judgement about tight design. But I'm not sure about "overly literal readings". For the AC exploits in this thread, it is the literal reading of the rules - as formula substitutions rather than flaggin additional bonuses that can be factored into a default formula - that is being used to shut down the exploits.

In terms of overly literal readings, I'm referring to things like chaining short rests for second wind and overchanneling cantrips. In both cases, the intent of the rules is quite clear, and it is only by ignoring this intent and focusing on literal interpretations of phrasings in the rules that the exploit is arrived at.

To be clear, though, this is not at all meant as a criticism of, say, 4e-style keywords or preference for tight design. I think 4e design is tighter than 5e, less amenable to exploits, and I can understand how people may prefer that level of tightness, and thus find 5e lacking. I simply think that 5e is tighter than it initially appears.

 

[pemerton]

To be clear, though, this is not at all meant as a criticism of, say, 4e-style keywords or preference for tight design.

I didn't think it was! After all, your favourite edition (Moldvay Basic - if I can impute my interpretatin of your past posts back onto you) is tightly designed!

You're probably not surprised that I'm one of those who is a little worried that some of 5e's tight design is (from my perspective) needlessly buried in a preference for wordy, natural-language presentation. I think this is borne out by the fact that sometimes literalness is the right way to go (eg on AC) but sometimes not (the other examples you give).

Presumsably FAQs will clarify some of this, but wooly wording plus FAQs seems like a suboptimal way for WotC to present it's hard work.

 

[Iosue]

I didn't think it was! After all, your favourite edition (Moldvay Basic - if I can impute my interpretatin of your past posts back onto you) is tightly designed!

I didn't think you'd take issue with my post, but a lot of times in these discussions a positive expression regarding something can be seen as a negative expression regarding something else!

As far as Moldvay goes, I agree that it's tightly designed, but it's a different kind of tightness. It's tightness is a result of rules parsimony -- here are a select number of rules for a fairly specific thing. OTOH, the spells are certainly not designed with the same tightness as in 5e, let alone 4e.

 

[pemerton]

As far as Moldvay goes, I agree that it's tightly designed, but it's a different kind of tightness. It's tightness is a result of rules parsimony -- here are a select number of rules for a fairly specific thing. OTOH, the spells are certainly not designed with the same tightness as in 5e, let alone 4e.

Agreed on the mode of tightness. I'll think more about the spells and how tight/relaxed they are - not that I think you're wrong, but I want to think more.

Just to give an idea of what is making me hesitate on how to think about Moldvay's spells: the spell description for Fireball is much closer to the concise 4e version than the extremely wordy AD&D version. I'm going to have a look over some of the other spell descriptions with your post in mind. I'm also going to look at some DungeonWorld spell descriptions, given that I've just started playing in a DW PbP (and my paladin has access to clerical spells).