D&D 5E D&D Next Design Goals (Article)

[SkidAce]

I should think they've learned the lesson that the game's legacy and core tropes need not be offered up as sacrificial sacred cows upon the altar of the cult of balance. A certain amount of balance is good for the game, but when it becomes an overriding design focus to the harm of others elements, something's gone terribly wrong IMO.

I agree that it appears they have learned this lesson, but am unable to XP you at this time (must spread etc.)

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[SkidAce]

99% of the time, I think you're right.

But goals inevitably come into conflict at some point. Say, you're looking at illusion spells -- something like minor image.

To keep it true to the play experience that people expect out of D&D, you need to have a flexible, general kind of spell rule for that. It needs to be able to create an illusion of whatever the user desires. Part of the fun of playing a D&D illusionist has always been that creativity, that capacity to use the situation in a unique way limited mostly by your imagination, and what senses your spell can affect.

Of course, this makes it nearly impossible to balance. Sometimes that little low-level spell will negate an encounter. Sometimes it will have nearly no effect. There's little way of knowing which is which before the spell is cast.

If we were to "balance" illusion, it might look like 4e illusion: combat magic with specific, predetermined effects.

However, that's not true to the experience of playing an illusionist in D&D. It fails at being fun in the way many people want an illusionist to be fun.

So this is a situation where the potential ability to negate an entire encounter needs to be preserved. It's not exactly like you can balance damage-per-round against that. It's effectively infinite damage sometimes, no damage other times, up to DM interpretation almost always. You're not going to be able to make that balanced in a way that is going to be very satisfying for anyone who wants to play a classic D&D style illusionist and create images of whatever strikes their fancy.

I guess I should read the thread and determine which post of yours I want to XP before I XP any....sigh.


+1 for the "illusion" of balance...hehe.

 

[P1NBACK]

I tdoesn't have to unite us all. It just has to unite those getting together around a single table. You and your group will determine together what works for you and what doesn't.

Our group is already united around a game. We don't need 5E for that.

If someone has fighter encounter and daily exploits as a deal breaker, then his group has the choice of including them and having their buddy leave. Or iif they decide he's a great friend and a good player, they can decide those parts of the game aren't worth losing him from the group. The options should be there for all of us, leaving each group to decide how their game will play.

I think you're simplifying things a bit. Daily and encounter exploits themselves are a very shallow measure of a game. There's a fruitful void that the rules fill. That's where the true measure of a game will be. And, it's hard to gauge that without looking at a game as a whole.

 

[billd91]

Full plate and shield is AC 0. If both are +5 and you wear a +5 ring of protection and have an 18 Dex, you get -18. And I think my PC in an admittedly horribly Monty Haul game still had a lower AC than that somehow.

I think you're mixing 3e in with what you're remembering there. Aside from the astonishing rarity of +5 anything in D&D (particularly expensive armor), rings of protection explicitly didn't improve your AC when used in conjunction with magic armors. They'd still help your saves when wearing magic armor, but not your AC.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Our group is already united around a game. We don't need 5E for that.

I didn't need 1E, 2E, 3E or 4E to achieve that goal either.

I think you're simplifying things a bit. Daily and encounter exploits themselves are a very shallow measure of a game.

And yet some people consider them to be important enough to them to write-off wholesale any game that contains them.

I used that as an in-thread example. A group always has to find a game that they will enjoy. And I usually don't find the people in sit across the table from on Friday nights to be as divisive as people on the internet. There may be aspects of the game that don't make sense to them or that they don't like. But they still play because we are friends and they enjoy the games I run.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I think you're mixing 3e in with what you're remembering there. Aside from the astonishing rarity of +5 anything in D&D (particularly expensive armor), rings of protection explicitly didn't improve your AC when used in conjunction with magic armors. They'd still help your saves when wearing magic armor, but not your AC.

Looks like I am. I thought there was an item that worked with magical armor. The rarity isn't an issue since the claim was that -10 was the lowest aloowed in the game. Looking at OSRIC, 18 DEx is -4 to AC, so +5 full plate, +5 shield, and 18 Dex = -14 AC.

 

[P1NBACK]

I didn't need 1E, 2E, 3E or 4E to achieve that goal either.

I agree. That's my point. Our group is our group. And, what game we play depends on the group. The group isn't beholden to what game we play.

If we all agree to play Game X and that game doesn't have Encounter Powerz, I'm expecting that we already discussed that with Bob and he pitched Game Y with Encounter Powerz but the rest of us didn't want to play it.

Now granted, I'm pretty open to playing any game, so maybe next time we play Game Y.

And yet some people consider them to be important enough to them to write-off wholesale any game that contains them.

Yeah, that's pretty silly.

I used that as an in-thread example. A group always has to find a game that they will enjoy. And I usually don't find the people in sit across the table from on Friday nights to be as divisive as people on the internet. There may be aspects of the game that don't make sense to them or that they don't like. But they still play because we are friends and they enjoy the games I run.

Right.

So, my point is, there are groups out there right now playing 1E, 2E, 3E, 4E, Pathfinder, Indie Games, etc.

And, WotC is like, "Hey, we got this game 5E that you can all play, just switch out the options!"

Those people aren't just going to switch just to switch. The game needs to be based on the same principles and do what their current game does, but better.

Now, not only does 5E have to do 1E better, but it has to do 4E better.

And, that has more to do with the overall feel than whether the game has a Tome of Battle splatbook for the 4E fans and Vancian casting for the 1E fans. The whole core of the game, it's design and presentation and ideology has to be right. You're talking about 30+ years of varying playstyles.

Hell, just yesterday there was someone trying to tell me that the Dungeon Master Guide for 5E shouldn't have guidelines for building dungeons. Wtf? What that person wants out of D&D is vastly different than what I want out of D&D.

I'm not saying it can't work. I have high hopes it will. I'm just curious to see how they do it.

 

[billd91]

Looks like I am. I thought there was an item that worked with magical armor. The rarity isn't an issue since the claim was that -10 was the lowest aloowed in the game. Looking at OSRIC, 18 DEx is -4 to AC, so +5 full plate, +5 shield, and 18 Dex = -14 AC.

I'm not sure if 1e ever had an explicit limit, but 2e has this on page 89 of the PH:

Armor Class is measured on a scale from 10, the worst (no armor), to -10, the best (very powerful magical armors). The lower the number, the more effective the armor. Shields can also improve the AC of a character (see page 75).

There are a handful of monsters that violate this. Mainly great wyrm dragons at the high end of the scale (red, gold for example).

 

[pemerton]

A third effect (or maybe a variation of what you call 'lottery') was the depletion of resources.

<snip>

I rarely saw "standard operating procedure" as you describe it in actual play of AD&D for two reasons. First, it often bored the players to do so, and as long as you weren't known for constantly using death traps it wasn't worth the boredom. Second, in game it cost more time to explore, which meant your group was more likely to be set upon by roaming monsters. The risk of spending all that in-game time to avoid a possible trap didn't measure up to the added chances of unnecessary combat. Combat was often the deadlier option.

I think it's fair to call resource depletion a third effect, and it is one that fits in with you "not constantly using death traps" approach.

But 4e can also do this - traps will suck surges, after all, and surges are a resource.

Full plate and shield is AC 0. If both are +5 and you wear a +5 ring of protection and have an 18 Dex, you get -18.

But the ring doesn't stack with the armour. An full plate only goes up to +4, not +5. (In both cases I'm talking 1st ed AD&D. 2nd ed may have changed things). That's why, in 1st ed at least, you have to go some other route (DEX, as you note, or other slightly more esoteric items).

EDIT: Oops, sorry for the dogpile with respect to the item stacking rules.

Also, as far as this is concerned:

I'm not sure if 1e ever had an explicit limit

I've read and reread my 1st ed AD&D books many times. I'm pretty sure there's no statement of any limit. I've only ever come across the idea on the internet. (I've never read the 2nd ed rulebooks that do state such a rule.)

 

[DMKastmaria]

Looks like I am. I thought there was an item that worked with magical armor. The rarity isn't an issue since the claim was that -10 was the lowest aloowed in the game. Looking at OSRIC, 18 DEx is -4 to AC, so +5 full plate, +5 shield, and 18 Dex = -14 AC.

For the record, I myself never claimed -10 was the "lowest allowed." Just that my games never saw anything below -6 and that it would feel silly to take it any further. AFAIK GG's DMG is silent on the matter.

Obviously, you can give out as many +5 items as you want and create an ultra-low AC.

You're not going to see very many fighters with an 18 dex. Whether or not you'll get +5 full Plate & a +5 shield is between you and your dm.