[D&D Design Discussion] Preserving the "Sweet Spot"

[Dorloran]

These truly wash when they increase equally. Do they? I don't believe they do.

The thing about save bonuses, even if they increase, the danger doesn't wash when it is a save or die effect even when the DC stays even with the save bonus increase rate.

Actually, taken as an aggragate, I would argue they do increase equally. The wizard might lag the fighter in BAB, but the difference is always the same, regardless of level. The rogue is going to have better Reflex saves than the fighter, but that's always true, regardless of level. And regardless of level, these differences remain about the same. So that's what I mean by wash.

Also, I think we're actually agreeing. The danger doesn't wash if the DC stays even with save bonus increase. My question would be then, why have DCs and bonuses that keep increasing when they cancel each other out?

The increasing numbers in AC, skills, HP, Saves vs. the increasing numbers in BAB, DC, damage, and DC again make the increasing numbers unnecessary, except as a way to reward players for leveling up. The increasing numbers leads to the "arms race" that several posters (like Wulf, I think??) find distasteful and cumbersome.

So, if the world should largely remain static (not increase in difficulty just to keep up with the PCs), shouldn't the PCs remain largely static in how they influence the world?

I'm thinking level-up rewards like Action Points, that keep the heroes challenged by the world, but allow them to perform finite, measurable feats of heroics.

 

[DaveMage]

Err, one of us has been playing the wrong way. We've always made ranged touch attacks with BAB + Dex.

My bad - I was confusing the Bigby Spells & Mordenkainen's Sword (where your grapple/attack is caster level + wiz/sor ability) with the range touches.

 

[Hussar]

The increasing numbers in AC, skills, HP, Saves vs. the increasing numbers in BAB, DC, damage, and DC again make the increasing numbers unnecessary, except as a way to reward players for leveling up. The increasing numbers leads to the "arms race" that several posters (like Wulf, I think??) find distasteful and cumbersome.

But, the increases are never all as equal as you make them sound. The attack bonus difference between a mage and a fighter doesn't stay the same, it increases. Armor class in no way increases as fast as a fighter's BAB. Saves do not increase uniformly as well. While the wizard is giggling at will saves, the fighter is now a gibbering idiot, or worse, is not whacking the wizard.

The idea that it's all a wash because it scales uniformly is simply not accurate. Within any given level or any given CR, there is a huge variation on all elements - AC, Saves, hit bonus, damage etc.

And, to address an earlier point, no, the same trap doesn't suddenly increase in DC simply because you have a higher level dungeon. You have a DIFFERENT trap with a higher DC. In other words, in a higher level adventure, you have better quality traps.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Actually, taken as an aggragate, I would argue they do increase equally. The wizard might lag the fighter in BAB, but the difference is always the same, regardless of level. The rogue is going to have better Reflex saves than the fighter, but that's always true, regardless of level. And regardless of level, these differences remain about the same. So that's what I mean by wash.

I don't think there is a wash here because while there is a Base Attack Bonus, the BAB is not the end all with regards to attack rolls. You still have weapon quality (enhancement bonuses or masterwork), size bonus or penalty, Weapon Focus, charging, relevant ability score enhancements (and there are a whole bunch of problems here), bardsong, flanking, morale bonuses (bless, heroism, greater heroism, hero's feast, righteous wrath), luck bonuses (divine favor, prayer, recitation), haste bonus (haste). It is everything that comes after the base attack bonus that causees higher levels to get cumbersome...

In lower levels the fighting classes are not far from the poor BAB classes in ability to hit, at higher levels it is folly for anyone but the best BAB classes to get into melee... unless they have spent precious rounds prepping. And soon the DM feels (probably rightly) that he or she needs to present challenges equal to the best character's maximum ability. At high levels, the attack bonus aggregate for all characters can vary wildly. Characters who can't muster an attack bonus equal to the best character's attack bonus might as well be a number of character levels lower equal to the difference. At high levels this difference can be large.

With saves, at lower levels the poor saves aren't so far apart from the good saves, but the difference between the poor and good saves spreads out significantly at high levels. Significant resources are needed to keep the poor save from falling further and further behind. The poor saves are no longer just a weakness but an Achilles heal at high levels.

 

[jmucchiello]

Hey Joe,

I can see both sides of this. I completely agree with the way you are describing the game and high level play. I have and will play that way.

But I also like to play in games where there isn't a lich lair around every corner. I don't understand why there is a need to debate whether or not this alternate approach is acceptable. If you think we are stupid to play this way then you must be right. Good enough?

Dude, how many times did I say there's nothing wrong with low-magic style of play? Don't put words in my mouth, especially that I'm calling anyone stupid. I'm not.

The thread is supposed to be about stretching the amount of time you can play out those old plots without being low-level magic. I say this is impossible. You can't keep high level magic and keep playing the same types of stories as you had at first level. I'm also saying that the natural progression is to change to a different type of story: one where teleports and commune live in harmony with your plot. If you can't do this, you can't play at high level.

High level characters will never fear a town guard with a crossbow. They will find the path to hidden shrine/treasure vault/whatever. They will rest and recouperate in a magnificent mansion. They cast heroes' feast every day just so they are immune to fear and poison and to make sure no one is diseased, the extra hit points and +1 AB and Will save is just icing on the cake. They collect diamonds for raise dead religously. They have a lair with hallow, private sanctum, and guards and ward already cast on it. They treat with demons and devils for breakfast. They travel the planes. They carry a fortune inconceivable to the common man in the belt pouch. They do favors for the gods. They are like gods among man.

And because of these things they do not check out the goblin village in the hills to see if they are massing for an assault on the village. They do not rid the village graveyard of its recent ghoulish arrival. They do not guard a caravan travelling on foot between to large towns. They do not break into the councilman's manor house to find out if he is skimming money off the tax dole. These kinds of characters do not face the same sorts of conflicts as the 1st level parties do. And this is why I say mundane skill rolls for high level characters are not dramatic.

If, in your view, that is not how high level play should be, you are playing the wrong game. That, I believe, is what high level D&D is. The only way to take high level characters back down to street level is to nerf magic bigtime because default D&D magic is what makes it possible to do all the things I said above. And by nerfing magic, you are reducing magic's influence on the game, i.e. low-magic gaming. In case I'm not clear, there's nothing wrong with low-magic gaming. It just isn't compatible with high level play using the RAW. Now, if Wulf wants to revise his OP and say low-magic solutions are now valid solutions, so be it. But I would love to see a non-low magic solution to the problem of high level play. I'm the devil's advocate. I say Wulf has set up an impossible situation. Nothing I have seen has changed my opinion.

Just because I rally for the high level game as is, doesn't mean I wouldn't mind seeing a more street level game without the power inflation. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with this thread. But I haven't seen any solutions that weren't low-magic solutions. For example:

Someone said something about feats that duplicated magic abilities. I wrote a PDF about doing that 3 years ago.

Another concept would cut down spells available to the wizard. This just makes the wizard less able to be a utility man. The sorcerer just doesn't work if you cut down his spells per day.

Another idea I've kicked around is no advancement by level. Isn't really D&Dish though. It works though in my unreleased Simplified OGL Fantasy game that I will finish someday. It's a game system perhaps even grittier than Grim Tales.

Arbitrarily capping skill points only makes the spell replacements more valuable.

I'm out of breath. (Figuratively of course) Oh, and I rolled a 15 on the die for my will save, what is the DC of this thread!!!

 

[Dorloran]

I don't think there is a wash here because while there is a Base Attack Bonus, the BAB is not the end all with regards to attack rolls. You still have weapon quality (enhancement bonuses or masterwork), size bonus or penalty, Weapon Focus, charging, relevant ability score enhancements (and there are a whole bunch of problems here), bardsong, flanking, morale bonuses (bless, heroism, greater heroism, hero's feast, righteous wrath), luck bonuses (divine favor, prayer, recitation), haste bonus (haste). It is everything that comes after the base attack bonus that causees higher levels to get cumbersome...

In lower levels the fighting classes are not far from the poor BAB classes in ability to hit, at higher levels it is folly for anyone but the best BAB classes to get into melee... unless they have spent precious rounds prepping. And soon the DM feels (probably rightly) that he or she needs to present challenges equal to the best character's maximum ability. At high levels, the attack bonus aggregate for all characters can vary wildly. Characters who can't muster an attack bonus equal to the best character's attack bonus might as well be a number of character levels lower equal to the difference. At high levels this difference can be large.

With saves, at lower levels the poor saves aren't so far apart from the good saves, but the difference between the poor and good saves spreads out significantly at high levels. Significant resources are needed to keep the poor save from falling further and further behind. The poor saves are no longer just a weakness but an Achilles heal at high levels.

I think the trees might be in the way of the forest.

What I'm trying to say (poorly, I guess) is not about BAB or HP or skill points in particular. What I'm trying to point out is the numbers race, the "forest" part of my posts that everyone seems to have ignored in order to point out the "trees" of whether BAB and HP scale evenly.

The thread is supposed to address, I thought, the sweet spot and how to preserve it. I'm just trying to suggest that if we were perhaps to acknowledge that as characters get better, the world gets tougher, there might be a way to scale back the advancement of both. As Wulf has pointed out, it doesn't make sense that the game mechanics world gets tougher because the PCs get better. To preserve the sweet spot and acknowledge that the world is the world, one place to start might be recognizing, then, that the world is static. If, then, PCs were to remain relatively static--in the sense that as they advance, their ability to have profound influences on their world and the way they function in it and that they would remain challenged by it--then maybe we'd have some insight into how to prolong the desired sweet spot.

Thanks for the replies, and Cheers.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

The thread is supposed to be about stretching the amount of time you can play out those old plots without being low-level magic. I say this is impossible.

It may indeed be impossible without major reworking of everything, especially certain spells. It may be a Gordian knot or a problem, but I think it can be worked through.

IMO, I wish the "feel" of the high level play "sweet spot" was at some other level. The inflection from Wulf's sweet spot to jmucchiello's sweet spot; say, at 20th level rather than 10th level.

I don't want that high level play to disappear, I just want it moved down the dial.

 

[Cheiromancer]

I think we need rules that encourage players to develop a broader range of competencies rather than to intensify a few competencies. This would bring about fewer automatic successes (since PCs wouldnt max particular competencies into the stratosphere, or at least not so quickly) but PCs would still get gamist cookies (new competencies) at regular intervals. The d20 would be more relevant for a longer period of the campaign.

Some degree of automatic success would begin to become apparent as the PCs get to higher levels. After all, they are improving their skills, and that means some challenges will become very easy; the narrow advancement is not stopped, merely slowed. And the PCs would start to adventure in areas where the DCs are higher, so it might appear as if the challenges are automatically scaling. But both trends would be much less dramatic if PCs took a broader approach to advancement.

That's my primary suggestion for preserving the sweet spot: Find ways of encouraging broad advancement and slowing narrow advancement.

The other issue hinges on the role of magic in higher level campaigns. The discussion here can get easily diverted into a high-magic/low-magic kind of question, which I don't think is what I want to do. What I think one has to do is make sure that a spellcaster's highest level spells are high magic, but his lower level spells are low-magic. I.e. more spells need to have their effectiveness capped based on what nonmagical approaches to the same problem are capable of doing. I am thinking here mostly of spells that encroach on the core competencies that involve skills.

Since high level spell slots have a high opportunity cost, the "encroaching" spells can be better than other classes when they are first available, but should drop in relative effectiveness thereafter. A 3rd level wizard should be able to do more with a knock than a 3rd level rogue, but an 18th level rogue could open things that an 18th level wizard's knock won't touch. This would ensure that a character's skills remain relevant over time, but magic is still available when the d20 roll turns up badly. If the 18th level rogue can't open the door, the wizard might have to disjoin it, say. 9th level spells have a high opportunity cost, so our rule of thumb says that it can outperform the rogue in the rogue's area of special competency.

The same principle applies to magic items. When the item's gp value si such that it requires a substantial fraction of the PC's wealth, then it should give a pretty dramatic advantage; even allowing the owner to overshadow another character in a particular core competency. But this advantage should diminish as the relative value of the item does. Clever ways of capping items should be found.

That's my second suggestion to preserve the sweet spot. Magic should only encroach on the core competencies of nonspellcasters when there is a high opportunity cost involved in its use.

A corollary to this suggestion is that magic that encourages the use of the core competencies of other classes need not have a high opportunity cost. One reason teleport is bad is that the competencies that are used in cross-country travel (Survival to forage for food, Spot and Listen during the night watch, the ability to sleep in armor, etc.) become irrelevant. But if shadow walk allowed these same skills to be used (at least to some degree) then it would be good. (Journeys in shadow being hazardous journeys, requiring sharp eyes and ready blades.) A little judicious fiddling (e.g. time in shadow seems to take days, but you get to your destination instantaneously) and you can probably something that has all the good features of teleport without much adverse affect at all on the game.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Well, dealing with magic replacing skills is not that much of an issue...the right spell might be more effective than a skill check now and then, but how many times can that wizard/sorcerer cast Knock in the first place? Even if they use all their available slots for that, and maybe a few of the higher ones, too, a rogue can go and open locks all day long, until he's caught or dies from a trap. The equalizer to potent magic is the fact that it is limited by some system (spell slots, spell points, fatigue, what have you), and while the wizard is quite flexible in using his spells for the most diverse situations, he only has so many. That was, and still is, part and parcel of the niche protection of D&D classes. The spells were the same throughout the editions, after all, but the wizard was always busy trying to fry monsters, shield himself from arrows, enchanting the fighter's sword, etc., to be a real negating factor towards skill checks.

Magical items now, they have the potential to make skill checks obsolete, if overused. This is a part where the DM can exercise some control, and actually should, even if it's just by obeying the DM's Guide in placing spellcasters by community size, and enforcing the standards of monetary values. Also, not every spellcaster will be able to create every kind of magical item, especially if it's something a bit off of standard items, as they also depend on the spell list of that caster.

 

[BryonD]

Dude, how many times did I say there's nothing wrong with low-magic style of play? Don't put words in my mouth, especially that I'm calling anyone stupid. I'm not.

Over-react much?
I wan't putting words in your mouth.

Your points are completely valid for D&D but meaningless to the specific topic of this thread.