D&D (2024) Bard Playtest discussion

[Mephista]

The knowledge you are using to decide that I am cheating is... metagame knowledge. You are literally metagaming when you are saying "I know that there are more types of creatures that aren't demons and don't share their resistances, so therefore my character wouldn't assume that these demons share resistances, because I know they are working from incomplete knowledge."

What. So we have to call someone on metagaming .... through IC actions? That's some uno reversal shinanigans right there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is basically my answer in a nutshell @Micah Sweet

I actually am playing a barbarian right now who was just in a combat. He had been dropped multiple times in the previous fight and we were moving into a new fight. He took the lead. Was I not taking the combat seriously?

No, I was. This combat was about rescuing a little girl who had been kidnapped. The two non-melee characters who were still up had much lower AC than me, but hit much harder than me. We knew there was only one, maybe two enemies up ahead, and my guy figured he could stay concious for at least one blow, and give the others the opening they needed. Could he have died in that fight? He didn't care. The point wasn't him trying to survive the fight, the point was the team winning the fight and rescuing a little girl. Dying was worth saving a child's life, that's just how he thinks.

Most melee front-liners I see are taking combat seriously. And to any degree they are incautious, it isn't because they are going YOLO, it is because they are prioritizing something else over their own survival. Generally the safety and survival of others.



Yeah, I know people give me a lot of strange looks when I say healing needs to be buffed, but frankly that would prevent yo-yo healing almost immediately. If you could heal and that healing at least cancel a single monster's attack, then you would see people healing mid-combat more. But very quickly they realize that taking their action to only partially undo an opponents action is a terrible plan, so all healing gets regulated to either after the fight or when someone drops and it is an emergency action.

I'm glad to hear you have your PCs perspective prioritized. A lot of players I've encountered approach combat from a mechanical perspective, however, and make decisions based on how the rules work, not how their PCs would react to the situation. They can't help it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Yeah, I know people give me a lot of strange looks when I say healing needs to be buffed, but frankly that would prevent yo-yo healing almost immediately. If you could heal and that healing at least cancel a single monster's attack, then you would see people healing mid-combat more. But very quickly they realize that taking their action to only partially undo an opponents action is a terrible plan, so all healing gets regulated to either after the fight or when someone drops and it is an emergency action.

A simple buff to healing is, not on its own, sufficient. The front-line fighters will always go down first as that it their job, to tank the fight (leaving aside considerations of damage dealing for now).
If healing in combat is simply buffed, then there is a very strong incentive for the DM to up the difficulty of the combat to maintain tension in the fight and the penalty falls on the front-line fighters.
You need healing to be effective in the combat rather than other actions the healer might do, and I think that the limitation on daily healing should be on the character being healed.
That was the nice thing about healing surges. The amount healed scaled with the initial hit points of the character not the spell that was cast. The number of surges frames the daily limit of the characters not the power/spell recharge limits of the casters.
You might need damage rider effects on healing magic to make the action economy work or bonus action healing might do it.

 

[Yaarel]

It is worthwhile to return to the 4e mechanic, where the class determines the amount of healing.

If a Fighter uses the d10 to determine hit points, then it rolls d10s when determining healing.

Tougher classes benefit more from healing.

So for example, the Cure Wounds spell heals "1 hit die" rather than "1d8".

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It is worthwhile to return to the 4e mechanic, where the class determines the amount of healing.

If a Fighter uses the d10 to determine hit points, then it rolls d10s when determining healing.

Tougher classes benefit more from healing.

So for example, the Cure Wounds spell heals "1 hit die" rather than "1d8".

1 Hit die would not be near enough. A healing surge in 4e was a quarter of your hit points (rounded down) translated to hit dice you would be nearer to one quarter of your hit dice rounded up.

 

[Maxperson]

So, using knowledge about demons to make educated guesses about demons is cheating. Yet again, we find the truth. This is never about "what does your character know", this is about "I am certain you are cheating, because you don't think like I think."

Because, here's a question. Why should my character know anything about Abyssal creatures that aren't demons if they've only ever fought demons? The knowledge you are using to decide that I am cheating is... metagame knowledge. You are literally metagaming when you are saying "I know that there are more types of creatures that aren't demons and don't share their resistances, so therefore my character wouldn't assume that these demons share resistances, because I know they are working from incomplete knowledge."

People work from incomplete knowledge to build paradigms all the time, it is how you can get people who make WILDLY wrong claims about things, but if you limit yourself to only their knowledge, their conclusion makes sense. The difference is, you know that they are lacking knowledge.

Except you have virtually nothing to go on. Hell, you don't even know that either or both of them are demons without PC knowledge. You're assuming that a horse is a shark, because you found them on the same plane.

Aboleths -> Whether or not they live in the Abyss is irrelevant, they are likely not being encountered there. In fact, I've never heard of any being encountered in the Abyss. So for my character to think about how Aboleths are different I would not only need to know Aboleths live there, but have encountered Aboleths.

Whether you have encountered them or not doesn't mean that a bunch don't live there.

Arcanoloth -> These are Yugoloths. They don't live in the Abyss. They go to the Abyss on contracts. They are from The Grey Wastes. Saying they live in the Abyss because you can find them there is like saying that Celestials live in the Abyss because you can find them there.

"Arcanaloths were rumored to have originated within the Abyss but had been driven out by the demon lords due to their deceptive nature."

It's a big place. Some almost surely still live there.

Abrian, Abyssal Ant, Abyssal Hulk, Abyssal Drake, Abyssal Ghoul -> You know what these things have in common? They aren't in 5e. So, how many of those 103 entries are monsters that haven't been brought to 5e, and therefore don't matter to the discussion?

All of them do. As I said, the Abyss is infinite and has an infinite variety of creatures on it. Just because the DM would have to make them for 5e, doesn't mean that they are not there.

Because your actual point is a vague "It matters!" without actually giving any concrete reasons for it. You've just made a vague assertion, with no supporting evidence, and expect me to just accept it as gospel fact. Sorry, no. If you want to convince me, you need to provide counter-evidence, not vague assertions. Especially since I have acknowledged there is a small subset times when it happens. I just find it to be the minority. Just like claiming all M&M's are red, if you want to prove it, you need to do more than just pull a single red M&M out of the bowl.

I've provided multiple tactics with dozens more obvious ones out there. I'm not going to provide more just because you refuse to see them.

Chain mail doesn't provide a dex bonus, also, if dex bonus mattered, then it would be mentioned in the knowledge the player learns. Magical Defenses? Those would also be mentioned in the knowledge they learned.

Chain mail isn't the only armor the ability affects. Dex would 1) be a part of AC for most creatures, and 2) would be a part of many creatures with ACs or hides as thick as chain.

 

[Yaarel]

1 Hit die would not be near enough. A healing surge in 4e was a quarter of your hit points (rounded down) translated to hit dice you would be nearer to one quarter of your hit dice rounded up.

For 5e. In the sense that 1d8 feels insufficient, I agree that 1 hit die feels insufficient.

Perhaps Word of Healing heals 1 hit die as a bonus action at range, while Cure Wounds heals 2 hit die as an action at touch.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It is worthwhile to return to the 4e mechanic, where the class determines the amount of healing.

If a Fighter uses the d10 to determine hit points, then it rolls d10s when determining healing.

Tougher classes benefit more from healing.

So for example, the Cure Wounds spell heals "1 hit die" rather than "1d8".

I like the concept. Scale healing to the max hp of the recipient. I've been experimenting with that in my homebrew.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

For 5e. In the sense that 1d8 feels insufficient, I agree that 1 hit die feels insufficient.

Perhaps Word of Healing heals 1 hit die as a bonus action at range, while Cure Wounds heals 2 hit die as an action at touch.

That could put a character out of HD in one combat. It is not straight forward not simple. All the moving parts lock together.

If we look at the expected days combat, then the fighter is expected to endure about 24 rounds of combat per long rest.
Ideally you want the fighter to run out of steam around the same combat (or one combat more) than a conservatively played caster)
So, of a fighter drops to a one more shot and down in a round you want to pop him up to about good for 2 rounds with healing. That is 2 rounds of normal damage not an alpha strike on a recharge.
So that cure wounds might need to do 2DH worth of healing but only spend 1 HD.
Or something like that. People better at math modelling and probability could give us better figures.

 

[Yaarel]

That could put a character out of HD in one combat. It is not straight forward not simple. All the moving parts lock together.

If we look at the expected days combat, then the fighter is expected to endure about 24 rounds of combat per long rest.
Ideally you want the fighter to run out of steam around the same combat (or one combat more) than a conservatively played caster)
So, of a fighter drops to a one more shot and down in a round you want to pop him up to about good for 2 rounds with healing. That is 2 rounds of normal damage not an alpha strike on a recharge.
So that cure wounds might need to do 2DH worth of healing but only spend 1 HD.
Or something like that. People better at math modelling and probability could give us better figures.

I didnt mean the healee needs to "spend" hit dice.

I mean that the spell itself heals an amount that the class determines.