D&D 5E Cracking 5th Edition Article

[fireinthedust]

EDIT: Here is a better link to my personal website (yay!) that is not only less eye-bleeding, but also has my art and published books, etc. It's also a glorious work in progress, so keep checking back?

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I posted this blog entry yesterday: CRACKING 5E PART ONE: RACES , and it's part one of my series of articles where I've analyzed 5th Edition for patterns of how characters are made, and exactly what goes into the options we've got. Are the characters even or not? While picking classes and races build towards options (ie: fighter is better as a melee tank than rogue), are there options that have more to them than others? Are some feats more powerful or at least do some of the *get* more for your choice than others? Are Standard or Varient humans better, or are they equal but one is more strategic?

Anyway, I'm doing this as a resource for gamers: if you think it would be helpful while you're homebrewing a race, or building a character, to know how the options work inside, then you'll like this guide. Or if you're working on a race and want to know if you've added enough, too much, or if the rest should be racial feats you can pick up later (that sort of thing).

I'll be doing a CLASSES entry soon, but I'm giving time for the races to hit first (so it's not overload).

 

[fireinthedust]

Hope this helps!

 

[Mistwell]

Seems like you make some assumptions up front which are false or might be false, and then you run with them through all the races.

For example, you assume +1 to each ability score (humans) is equal to +6 total, divided however one would like to divide it. It's not. A +2 to one ability is more powerful in an edition where only even numbered ability scores grant a bonus, and only a couple of ability scores are important for your class. This is reflected in the point buy system as well. If you could take a +4 to one ability score and a +2 to another, instead of +1 spread between six ability scores, is there any doubt at all that the +4/+2 is significantly more powerful than +1/+1/+1/+1/+1/+1?

 

[fireinthedust]

Seems like you make some assumptions up front which are false or might be false, and then you run with them through all the races.

For example, you assume +1 to each ability score (humans) is equal to +6 total, divided however one would like to divide it. It's not. A +2 to one ability is more powerful in an edition where only even numbered ability scores grant a bonus, and only a couple of ability scores are important for your class. This is reflected in the point buy system as well. If you could take a +4 to one ability score and a +2 to another, instead of +1 spread between six ability scores, is there any doubt at all that the +4/+2 is significantly more powerful than +1/+1/+1/+1/+1/+1?

I hear this, and I think you're forgetting the difference between strategic value vs construction value. The packages presented are chosen for you: you either get +1 to six, or +1 to two and a feat. That it works out to three feats either way is a deduction, not a strategic prescription. We know half a feat is an ability score because of the Feats that have +1 to a score and some other bonus, and the alternative is the standard ability score increase.

Strategically, yes a +4 would be more powerful for one character. I'm not arguing that. I'm saying that any ability score boost is worth half a feat for +1. That's it.

It's a deduction, not a prescription. I'm taking apart what I see, not saying how it should be.

Look at Mutants & Masterminds: a +1 on its own is worth 1pp. It doesn't worry about the context, whether that +1 will be of use, only that it has that cost. It's not a good or bad choice, and isn't a "choice" at all: it's a cost.

You're also assuming the ability scores and feat from the variant human are put into the traditional place: somewhere useful. Why? What if a Bard chose the Sentinel feat? Or a Fighter chose the Ritual Spellcaster? If the Bard is otherwise designed with low hit points, low physical ability scores, and no armor? What if they don't chose any cantrips that are useful with the Sentinel feat?

The choice of where you DO with the variable ability scores and Feat selection, that's up to you. If you make a bad or good choice, that's your strategic problem.

Constrution, on the other hand, is without concern for the results. I'm just saying what the cost of the elements WITHIN the feats and races are, not whether it's a good idea.

 

[koga305]

Right, but when the designers offer a build-your-own system, they clearly take into account strategic value. If you point buy your ability scores, going from 14 to 15 costs more points than 10 to 11. That's because the designers know that having a single high ability score is worth more than multiple lower scores.

 

[fireinthedust]

Agreed, for point buy. I thought of whether or not that works on a by-feat basis, and it is NOT part of what I'm seeing. I think they couldn't do that because all groups use different methods: some roll ability scores, other use point buy, some go hardcore with 3d6 in order. My thinking is that the feat-cost is post-creation: anything you choose is going to have some effect for this. Once you get the scores, you could go for a class feature, or you could have the Ability Score Increase feat (which is what that feature basically is: a feat worth two ability score points).

 

[mflayermonk]

"with over $700 Million in sales within the first month and weeks on the bestseller lists of all the major online vendors."

That's incredible, I didn't know the sales were so high.


Agree on dwarves, they are excellent in every edition.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I read most of it, up until you started going on about Feats. IMHO, taking Feats into consideration as a "base line" is akin to saying "Looking at races, we need to consider players going into town to buy any specific magic item to give their character an edge". The concept of "buying magic items" is firmly in the hands of the DM and is not assumed...kinda like Feats. Obviously (or probably?) you aren't going to be looking at characters with Gloves of Thievery, Gauntlets of Ogre power, Ring of Flying, Cloak of Invisibility, etc.

So, IMHO, you shouldn't be considering Feats, Multiclassing or any other "optional" things as the baseline. Once you've looked at the game from the "true" baseline (pretty much the Basic Rules; so no Barbarians, Bards, Drow, etc) and have that down...then you can go into the non-Optional stuff in the PHB. And then you can go and add in the effects that using Feats may have, or allowing Multiclassing, or what effects certain 'powerful/versatile' magic items may have, etc.

Jumping straight into using Feats (and, I'm going to assume Multiclassing) destroys any sort of "objective balance theorizing" because you are starting with a tainted sample.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[ExploderWizard]

then[/I] you can go into the non-Optional stuff in the PHB.

There is non-optional stuff in the PHB?

 

[AriochQ]

So you are basically trying to quantify the races based on a point-buy system so you can then compare them, and presumably also make new races. I could compare apples and oranges based on a system rating sugar content, color, taste satisfaction, and shelf life, but I am still comparing apples and oranges.

You can make a relatively decent argument when talking about ability scores and feats (although as someone pointed out earlier, a +2 is better than two +1's), but the system becomes almost entirely arbitrary when assigning scores to abilities like "Racial Weapons - 6 mp" and "Stealth Help - 3 mp" etc.