D&D 5E Another Critical Hits 5E Report

[Sammael]

If ability modifier is (score - 10), having a character with Strength 15 auto-succeeding on a DC 13 check is taking 10.

If ability modifier is score - 10, I will most certainly skip 5E, because that places way, WAY, WAAAAAAY too much importance on the ability scores.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Unless you are making a metric crapton of checks every session, the speed up thing would be negligible.

I'm not opposed to auto-success, but the math doesn't add up. What's wrong with taking 10 anyway?

What I was saying is assuming this:

Every point of an ability score is a +1 modifier. 15 is +5, 18 is +8

Therefore you take 10 number is just your ability score - don't even have to add ten to modifier, it's already done.

If even a third of your checks are autosuccessed you don't even say "I take 10" "the DC is this" - instead - DM says DC14 climb check - thief says "I climb"

That is where it is mathematically identical.
They said ability score are more important - if more of the bonus is stats and much less on skill that is way you could do that.

 

[Hassassin]

If ability modifier is score - 10, I will most certainly skip 5E, because that places way, WAY, WAAAAAAY too much importance on the ability scores.

It's a big if, of course, and I wouldn't like it either.

 

[Tallifer]

“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.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

If ability modifier is (score - 10), having a character with Strength 15 auto-succeeding on a DC 13 check is taking 10.

you said it more succinctly and faster than I did.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I just hope they got the monster to combat length ratio correct...

3e Monsters took to damn long to stat up, and combats went really quickly.

4e Monsters were quick to stat up but fights took too damn long to use a lot of them.


We need monsters that are quick to stat up and quick to fight again.

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.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

It's a big if, of course, and I, too, wouldn't like it.

Yeah. I'm of two minds. I could learn to enjoy that, but it is a big shift.

With the saying that improvement in attack comes slower, that makes abilities really really important. And if a class gives you a +1 an ability that is actually a big deal too.

The idea hit me when I was trying to make the math work.


But if Next is that way, I called it.

 

[Herschel]

The only place we disagree on would be that I would find it very formulaic if absolutely every boss-fight had to follow that... formula. I totally think that there should be a climactic battle as you describe. But it doesn't have to come at the very end every time.

In general use I agree fully but in this (the first chance to show off your new edition/sytem) it's kind of dumb to not follow that formula. It's like when playing a rock concert. You don't end on a sappy ballad or run-of-the-mill song, you nail them with a big hit and adrenalin-pumping anthem for the finale so they last thing they remember (and often most vividly) is a climactic high point.

 

[fuzzlewump]

I agree with the 4e entitlement thing, and I love 4e and play it weekly. 4e seems to put a strong emphasis on having only conflicts the character can solve with no planning, and without having to run away. Read any official module, and as I recall, the DMG doesn't encourage having any planning, or having imbalanced encounters.

Can your game be different? Sure. Your game can be whatever you want it to be. But let's look at wotc modules, the Dnd encounters, and advice given in books before the authors words are brushed aside as being strictly inflammatory with no truth.

 

[erleni]

Yeah, that quip about "4E Player Empowerment" and forcing players to go back to a terrible "old school" playstyle is absolutely horrible. I can't imagine wanting to play a game like that...

I hope WotC does something to counteract this trend of making 5E look like a 1E throwback with nothing to offer late-3E/4E fans. I want to see a good new edition, but all of this is making me very, very worried.

Me too. There was a player in my 2ed group that was playing a very high level necromancer (he got up to level 35 of something like that using the High Level Campaign rules). He typically animated a small lizard and sent it in front of him for scouting (he could see through the eyrs of the creature). I saw him using this system for scouting into a goblin lair before teleporting in and obliterating half of the tribe with an enlarged Wail of the Banshee. That was total paranoia and fully fault of the system.