D&D 5E Another Critical Hits 5E Report

[gloomhound]

Are you asking my personal preference, my opinion of what Dnd in general should be, my opinion of what 4e currently is, or what?

Like I said, your game can be whatever you want. But the game as presented in the books, modules, and the Dnd encounters does in my opinion engender the entitlement mindset. As in, 'I'm entitled to a balanced encounter with no thought required beyond character creation and in combat tactics because that's the game as it is presented by the creators.' keep in mind, I'm not saying this 'entitlement' is a bad thing. In my mind, entitlement just means strong expectation, and those strong expectations are formed from the social contract between players and dm, and that contract is informed by the rules and the game as presented.

While I thank you for your time there is no need to answer.

My question was directed more toward what would be my opinion of a fun game and not toward entitlement in said game. Further discussion would only lead us further down the rabbit hole of off topics and into the realm of arguing opinion. A task that I loathe to take up.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I've said it before every time this point comes up.

If I don't like how the base rules work, then it doesn't matter what kind of goodies I layer on top of a rotten foundation. If the fundamental mechanics are bleh to me, I'm not buying.

So far I really, really dislike the Ability Scores as Saves, and Opposed Rolls. Even if you tear those out, you're still tearing it out. Adding is easeier than subtracting.

Point taken. I was mostly talking about fast combat vs Detailed intricate combat.

 

[DMKastmaria]

In 4e, an ogre would be a level 8 threat. Against a single 1st level PC, he'd stomp a hole in them.

And in 1e, an Ogre would be a very tough opponent for a 1st level party. It could easily play out the same way. A 1e MU's Sleep spell would have a 50% of effecting an Ogre.

 

[Gundark]

Because it wasn't really the subject, it was an ignorant cheap shot at 4E players with the comments section turned off.

The author has written tons of stuff for 4e and has different 4e games on the go. I think your comments are not fair.

 

[Gundark]

a climatic combat should last a strong portion of the session. 30 to 45 minutes. i'd be diappointed with a boss battle that was 5 minutes. One time i wrapped up a dragon fight in 5 minutes, that failed miserably.

I agree a dragon fight should feel epic. And 5 minutes is most likely too short depends on how many rounds that is. However as had been pointed this could have been a bugbear or something.

Also we are assuming the players won. Maybe the boss took 5 minutes to cream the party.

 

[Piratecat]

They were adventuring in the Caves of Chaos, so the boss monster was probably a humanoid of some sort - most likely a slightly tougher goblinoid, maybe the ogre or minotaur.

 

[Thalionalfirin]

They were adventuring in the Caves of Chaos, so the boss monster was probably a humanoid of some sort - most likely a slightly tougher goblinoid, maybe the ogre or minotaur.

If I recall correctly, the minotaur was in the cave with the stirges.

I also vaguely recall that there were more than one ogre in the area. May have been two.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Apparently your idea of a "boss fight" differs from mine and many (most?) others. The BBEG is supposed to be climactic and tough, not just some gobbo to "mop up". If you back him in to a corner, he's dangerous.

I don't care if every other fight lasted only a few minutes, this is the big scene in the story. If there were extenuating circumstances it should have been written.

Well, in a roleplaying game, a boss fight is a fight in which the PCs do battle with a main bad guy or boss.

Thats it. It lasts as long as it lasts.

Doing anything to artificially stretch it out is turning from an rpg battle to a bad pro wrestling match.

Did you ever get to see any really awful wrestling matches from the 60's or 70's? I picture an artificially climactic boss fight looking like a pair of fat sweaty guys in tights sitting on the mat. One of them has the other in a headlock. They both sit there while the one guy keeps grinding that headlock.

Thats what inflated piles of hitpoints that exist for no other reason other than to make sure some chump stays in the fight X number of rounds until the PCs can get him to tap out by grinding that headlock. There are no effects that can mercifully end the torturous grind through the hit point pile except the DM calling it because his sanity was what was put in the headlock.

 

[trancejeremy]

Looking at my copy of B2, there are the following "bosses":

Minotaur - AC4, 36 hp

3rd level evil priest - AC: -1, 14 hit points

Gnoll Chief - AC3, 17 hp plus his two sons, AC 4, 10 hp each

Hobgoblin Chief - AC2, 22 hp, plus 4 females AC, 6 hp each

Ogre AC 4, 25 hp

Owl Bear (probably best avoided) AC5, hp 30

So I don't think 5 minutes is out of line. This was a beginner module, after all.

 

[Scribble]

Interesting - I've been running a 4E game for just about 2 years now, after finishing up a 2 1/2 year long 3.5E game in January of 2010.

I would agree with the first half of both of your sentences (4E quick to stat up, 3E took a long time), but 3.5E combats took way longer in play than 4E combats from what I've seen. 4E combats are still longer than 1E/2E, but I've found them much quicker than 3.5E. In the late stages of our 3.5E game, the combats would often take two entire sessions to finish.

I will qualify that by saying that my 3.5E group was huge - 8 players, plus a few key NPC allies/followers. They had so many options for attack and for defense, that it was impossible to challenge them with a "solo" monster or bad guy - I had to throw masses of bad guys at them.

I think I should re-state.

3e monsters took forever to stat up but got killed really quickly, not that the actual at table combat didn't take forver. I DID just for different reasons.

4e monsters are quick to stat up but can grind on way too long.

What I want is 4e monster birthing quickness that are able to stick around for a little bit but not long past their real usefulness.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Looking at my copy of B2, there are the following "bosses":

Minotaur - AC4, 36 hp

3rd level evil priest - AC: -1, 14 hit points

Gnoll Chief - AC3, 17 hp plus his two sons, AC 4, 10 hp each

Hobgoblin Chief - AC2, 22 hp, plus 4 females AC, 6 hp each

Hobgoblin torturer- 3rd level fighter

Ogre AC 4, 25 hp

Owl Bear (probably best avoided) AC5, hp 30

So I don't think 5 minutes is out of line. This was a beginner module, after all.

Don't forget:

Bugbear chief-he fights as an ogre

Kobold chief- he is so powerful that he fights with a battle axe!!

Goblin leader (HD 3) and three guards

Cave B Orc leader-fights as a 4 HD monster and has 15 hit points.


I love B2

 

[Alphastream]

A 5-minute climactic battle? That's really anti-climactic.

It depends though, right? We've all seen hour long boss battles that were anti-climactic.

Not being able to share my own experiences, I'll guess that Mike had fun with that battle. If it had not been a positive he likely wouldn't have written it the way he did (which suggested this was a strong benefit).

3.5E combats took way longer in play than 4E combats from what I've seen.

It depends. I recall many 3E Living Greyhawk high level combats that seemed to be awesome/deadly and then PC spellcasters won initiative and it was over. Preventing that took a lot of work (and could be lots of fun when done right). While 4E combat is generally longer, it varies a fair bit. Most Living Forgotten organized play adventures have 3 combats and several other encounters and the whole adventure runs in 4 hours. That's actually the same structure and duration as most 3E Living Greyhawk adventures.

 

[Alphastream]

how can anyone who was there know enough to comment how this aspect of the new rules will work, or state with confidence that the changes successfully meet those design goals for greater balance across levels?

A person can only make a best guess given what they see. Me? I believe every edition ends up with broken cheese if you add enough rules. But that doesn't mean the core of a game can't give you great feelings about balance. I like many things about Shadowrun (any edition) but I wouldn't say that the forte is balance nor that any edition has achieved great balance. When spirits can't be hurt by normal weapons... Similarly, Legend of the Five Rings 3rd edition had serious flaws in balance in the basic book. If I look at 4E, balance was one of its really strong aspects... though later releases (notably Adventure Vault) would change that. Again, we can make predictions based on what we see. They may not be right, but they can be informed.

When looking at Mike's comments on balance, keep in mind that very few people see Epic play in any edition. He has really good experience with 4E high level play. He wrote a book about running Epic what, more than a year ago? He has a pretty good feel for the balance issues that took place and his perspective is probably one of looking to see whether the edition points to future balance. While some people think Epic runs fine, many see issues and are unsure of how to preserve the balance. Mike regularly hears from people asking for his advice for dealing with this. His suggestions that D&D Next has positives in this regards... I am very sure he's speaking to that rather than insulting anyone for having a powerful PC. Is Mike right? I doubt the designers of any RPG truly know if their game will be balanced at the highest levels of play. But that's his first take and not an attempt to slam the game he loves to play or to slam 4E players. I've met Mike - he's a very nice person.

As for 5 minutes, I've seen level 1 4E PCs take down a 180 HP elite in a surprise round and before the foe acted. I think Mike is speaking less to alpha striking, though, and more to a cinematic combat at low level. What was taking place? You will have to playtest to see. The only thing I can say as a playtester is A) be a part of the process and B) that everyone at my playtest tables has had a lot of fun.

I playtested 5E at DDXP and really enjoyed it. I didn't read my NDA terribly closely, so hopefully I won't get in trouble for sharing this.

An NDA is an agreement not to disclose, meaning not to share what isn't known. If something is publicly known to be true, then you can state that you also saw this. Technically you can't actually even say you playtested unless that is public knowledge. Example: In the seminars they discussed a flatter progression and featuring attributes. Greg Bilsland shared pictures of Mike Shea playing. This allows Mike to say he playtested and liked how attributes and flatter progression worked. I think Mike took great care not to exceed the NDA. I'm guessing he actually looked at the disclosed information carefully and then spoke to that.

 

[DDogwood]

Unless that 15 Str grants you a +3 bonus (unlikely), then it makes exactly zero math sense for you to be able to auto-succeed at a DC 13 Strength check with it.

You know what makes exactly zero math sense to me? Assuming that 5e DCs have anything to do with pre-5e DCs. I can think of dozens of ways you could set DCs or determine attribute modifiers, but we don't know (yet) how they work in this game.

Looking through the thread, I'm pretty sure that there are many people who have decided that they are not going to like 5e no matter what. We know almost nothing beyond some basic design goals and principles, all of which are subject to change, but already people are pointing out how flawed the game is going to be.

Maybe the game will be terrible. Maybe it will be brilliant. Probably it will be somewhere in between. But can we PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF PELOR judge it on its own merits instead of seeing if we can make this Edition War even more divisive than the previous ones?

 

[Sammael]

You know what makes exactly zero math sense to me? Assuming that 5e DCs have anything to do with pre-5e DCs. I can think of dozens of ways you could set DCs or determine attribute modifiers, but we don't know (yet) how they work in this game.

Looking through the thread, I'm pretty sure that there are many people who have decided that they are not going to like 5e no matter what. We know almost nothing beyond some basic design goals and principles, all of which are subject to change, but already people are pointing out how flawed the game is going to be.

First of all, if you only judge my opinion of 5E through the prism of this thread alone, you are missing the fact that I was very positive about it until the last seminar transcript and the playtest reports started appearing.

Second, it has been confirmed by WotC that the current mechanic is d20 + modifiers vs DC. Now, how the DC is set is not relevant to my complaint. DCs can be completely arbitrary.

We know from the example that Str 15 auto-succeeds on a DC 13 Str check. This can mean three things:

(1) If your ability is higher or equal to the DC, you automatically succeed and the d20 + mods math be damned

(2) You ability modifier for Str 15 is at least +3, and possibly +5. When you take 10, your result is obviously higher or equal to the DC, so you succeed.

(3) You ability modifier for Str 15 is lower, but you no longer take 10 when making checks - you take 12, or 15, or whatever. This is the least likely option.

All three are completely and equally unacceptable to me.

 

[Banshee16]

“Mike, you have five minutes left.”
“No problem, I only have one boss battle to run.”

Colour me unimpressed.

But the dungeon master might have meant that he would just handwave the last fight, because of the constraints of the tournament. The players would have accepted that, because they understood the time limit.

I sincerely hope that was the case, because an actual combat of five minutes is nothing. I just took part in a ten minute combat last Sunday: my first level character slew the giant worm guarding the entrance in one normal blow. We all were completely deflated.

Maybe the boss battle was 5 minutes because it was going to be a TPK...

Banshee

 

[Cadfan]

My thoughts:

1. The skill thing could work. Just make a 15 strength a +15 to strength checks. Easy as pie. And it wouldn't cause any meaningful problems that I can think of. It probably should have been done a long time ago. In fact, ability scores probably SHOULD have been dropped down by 10 points, and THEN unified with ability score bonuses. Its ridiculous to have a stat that's really just a seed value for a different stat that does all the heavy lifting.

2. We've had it confirmed by a playtester that a fully healthy PC can be killed all the way dead in a single critical hit. So, bear that in mind as a reference when thinking about the ogre with the slit throat, or the dead paladin.

3. Critical hits that kill fully healthy PCs are probably deal breakers for me. If combat is supposed to be so dangerous that a single crit can kill my PC, then one of two things need to happen. Either the game needs to be non story based, and revolve around disposable characters so that I don't care when they die... or else the game has to be designed such that actual combat almost never happens because the PCs have the tools and inclination to avoid it. I don't for a minute believe that 5e will feature either of these- D&D has been about killing monsters in creative ways for far too long for it to completely reverse course now. More likely this is being included to satisfy those who feel that the potential for death-by-random-number-generation is crucial to their sense of danger in combat. My interests are diametrically opposed to these.

4. 10 foot poles aren't necessarily a deal breaker, but they're a warning sign. I'm not a fan of gotcha games. Hopefully the game will have some clear instructions for DMs on how to use these game elements well. If you put in just one random, unmarked door that HIDEOUSLY PUNISHES the PCs because they forgot to do a door-check routine, you're training your players that in your game they have to do this on every door, always. That gets old fast.

5. When 3e came out, I was able to very easily, very quickly recognize things that 3e would let me do that my previous D&D edition did not. This really excited me. The same was true of 4e. Even just by looking at the leaked 4e character sheets, I could see character concepts and ways of playing that didn't exist under previous editions, or which were supposed to exist... but didn't really exist as viable choices. In both cases this was the major selling point for me. The implicit, "Look at this edition! It lets you do NEW THINGS! Things you couldn't do before! Things that the rules promised but prevented you from doing! Things you always wanted to do! Things you didn't want to do because you never thought of, but now you can!"

I'm not getting that yet from the promotional material for 5e. At least from a marketing perspective, they seem to be aiming it much towards a message like, "Remember all that stuff you USED to do? You can do it again, now with a living, actively supported game!" That marketing strategy isn't going to work on me. In fact, its a bit counter productive. I don't LIKE the tropes of Dungeons and Dragons. The thing I'm most proud of as a DM is my ability to get past those and craft a coherent world and a coherent story. So shout-outs to these things just make me unhappy.

I expect new editions to have things like cleaned up math. So while I'm happy for a sensible skill system, and I'm happy for a flatter math progression, and I'm REALLY happy for the brutal, unmourned death of the +1 sword, I need to hear about what this edition will do for me that other editions won't.

 

[Kynn]

I playtested 5E at DDXP and really enjoyed it. I didn't read my NDA terribly closely, so hopefully I won't get in trouble for sharing this.

*Somewhat injured paladin charges the ogre and gets flattened (i.e. dead).

It seems that in 5e, the worst class to play, ever, is Paladin.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

All three are completely and equally unacceptable to me.

Why?

I mean, what does it matter what the numbers are if it turns out they work?

 

[Kynn]

From Mike Shea's article:

“What do you mean I don’t have a dagger? Why didn’t they give me a dagger?”
“If only you had just been to a blacksmith who could have sold one to you for that silver you’re carrying.”
“…F$&k you.”

... this annoys me, as does the statement "Both (groups) returned to the Keep bloodied, battered, and with a long shopping list of door-spikes, rope, poles, and crossbows."

It sounds less like 4e player entitlement, and more that WotC provided a pregen character sheet without basic equipment. (I mean, really, every adventurer should at least have rope. Door spikes, I've always thought, are pretty stupid.)