D&D Blog - Just Bigger Numbers

[Minigiant]

Flight is fine if you're not on a grid but in 3e and earlier the distance of flight is often better than a double move of land speed.

It takes a big table to often do a flying battle and some good management skills.

4e was different in handling flight as it often did not increase your speed and did not have rules for turn radius. This is compared to previous editions with long straight lines of movement and rules regarding turn radius depending on flight ability.

Even with a big table, it is very easy to 'fly off the map' with flight and yet still be in 'missile range' (3e composite bow has a range of 110' x 10 for 1100' with flight speeds often around 90' or 220 squares (5') and 18 squares ~ or in 1" squares that is 18'+ table feet and 1.5' ).

We use a good 4'x6' table for game play but have to abstract any flying battles into the number of turns the person is away from the table board event.

Oh, and if you are asking if it is realistic for an archer to be shooting at high level play 1100' feet which is a -20 modifier? In 3e it is a first level spell to get a +20 modifier to neutralize this penalty (it is also possible through classes and feats to extend the bow range further).

Can I ask why this:



Implies a more complex gameplay?

At first level you can move 20 feet. At 20 you teleport 40 feet. Big deal, unless you consider that counting 8 squares is fundamentally more complex than counting 4.

Also, it seems they think that a supernatural feat of strength when attacking implies a complex weave of temporary bonuses and active abilities that interlock to build an amazing result, or that to model extraordinary feats of might or magic you need a complex ruleset.

Instead, IMO punting a 15 ton dragon 60 feet away is pretty much the scientific definition of awesome, and doesn't imply much more mechanical complexity that you can do at 1st level in 4e.

Flight doesn't have to be super speed flight.
Invisibility doesn't have o be perfect cloaking.

Magic spell don't need to be unrestricted and boundless. High level should be about availability instead of power.

The numbers don't change much. The Fighter is hitting at +7 3d6+9 at level 11 instead of +3 2d6+4 at level 1. The difference is he is now flying, is phasing, and magic armor that adds a -10 penalty to attacks and halve damage. But a level 11 enemy has the abilities to deal with range, concealment, and fortification to cancel this.

 

[FireLance]

This is why the Eladrin racial ability was considered such a big event. How do you imprison someone who can teleport through barriers at will or escape their chains?

It's harder, but not impossible. One of the requirements for short-range teleportation in 4e is line of sight to the destination. So, a blindfold, a bag over the head, or (for extra security) a locked iron mask that obscures sight would prevent teleportation.

 

[El Mahdi]

And if enough people still go against the idea even if they were supposedly 'nudged' in the other direction... then that tells WotC something too.

A bad idea is a bad idea and will usually be voted on accordingly.

True.

It's also true that a badly worded or structured poll is a bad poll...even if the data they glean from it winds up being useful.

 

[Someone]

Teleport of 40' seems like nothing until you think of all the fight problems you can avoid.

I'm afraid we're talking about different things. I agree that teleporting is better than walking, but my point is that all that implies is moving your character a distance. It's mechanical complexity is equal or even lesser than walking (because in tactical play walking may trigger things like attacks of opportunity) but feels more appropiate for higher level play.

The blog author's opinion seems to be that flavorful high level stuff implies more complex rules, else it's like low level play but with bigger numbers. I don't agree.

 

[Nikosandros]

Not exactly. The more dice you roll, the more likely you are to get an average result.

This is actually incorrect. The more dice you roll, the less likely you are to get an average result. For N dice, fluctuations around the average tend to increase as the square root of N. However, if you divide the total by N, the result will indeed tend to converge to the average for a single die.

 

[billd91]

This is actually incorrect. The more dice you roll, the less likely you are to get an average result. For N dice, fluctuations around the average tend to increase as the square root of N. However, if you divide the total by N, the result will indeed tend to converge to the average for a single die.

I think you're got a mistake in nuance going here. The point was that adding 10d6 shouldn't be perceived as being particularly swingy. And it's not, in fact, it's a lot less swingy between extreme values because the more dice you roll, the more the result is going to be within a certain distance of the mean and the less likely you are to achieve extremely high or low results. There's still a lot of variation, but the central tendency overall gets stronger.

 

[Nikosandros]

I think you're got a mistake in nuance going here. The point was that adding 10d6 shouldn't be perceived as being particularly swingy. And it's not, in fact, it's a lot less swingy between extreme values because the more dice you roll, the more the result is going to be within a certain distance of the mean and the less likely you are to achieve extremely high or low results. There's still a lot of variation, but the central tendency overall gets stronger.

Yes, this is correct. It it absolutely true that 10d6 are way less swingy than 1d6x10. The latter is linear while the former is more or less "normal" shaped. However, I wanted to clarify the point about averages and fluctuations, since it it a very common misconception.

 

[avin]

These posts about RPG's math always reminds me all of of us could be a character on The Big Band Theory

 

[Plane Sailing]

What, is that the well known comedy about trumpeters, trombonists and that wacky French horn player?

 

[SensoryThought]

I have held my tongue with respect to the poorly written poll questions, but I have to agree they seem designed to get a specific answer rather than insight into play preferences. Often it seems like they are trying to push for the answer of 'I want the option to do anything' support for modularity. Unfortunately a game needs to have 'defaults' and asking for real opinions and preferences should be vital for determining those defaults.

Returning to the actual forum topic, I like high level play to be fundamentally different in scope and not just big numbers. I actually want higher complexity; as players level they gain new abilities gradually so that decision paralysis should not ever be a problem. My current 4e players have 2-3 times more abilities now than they did at level 1 but combat actually goes faster as they have a better idea of what they can do. I hope 5e doesn't attempt to rob players of satisfaction of running a complex high level pc by making it as simple as a level 1.