D&D 5E D&D Next info from PAX Prime + answering questions

[howandwhy99]

Is there any reason attack (and the new magic) base bonus begin at +2?

I understand bounded accuracy in terms of AD&D. It was about having characters in the same scope throughout the game, while still allowing for advancement. A 20-sided die could begin at 50% chance of success and then 9 more levels could each add +1 for the fastest progression rate (like a Fighters Thac0).

For example, At 10th level the fighter has a 95% base chance against a level 1 standard AC. But a 10th level foe would still be balanced accordingly. The key is, never is a 1st or a 10th level challenge an absolute success or absolute failure regardless of class level. Even if ACs below zero still weren't hit with a natural 20 (if you had a Thac0 of 20), you would still get a second roll to see if you hit the fraction of 5% the magical modifiers were giving to the target. (Of course this assumed a bell curve probability assigned atop the die roll's linear results)

Bounded accuracy is a real nice thing to design under, I'm sure. It simplifies everything onto a playable metric. I'm just wondering if they are sticking with the bonuses fitting on a single die, a curvilinear relationship, a linear one, or just what? 30 max DC sounds like +10 bonus linear scaling with 30 as the max for a d20 roll, but I'm not sure.

 

[Scipio202]

Monster accuracy - a lot of people have said that it feels like monster attack bonuses are roughly +2 too low. I know that monsters are in general a work in progress. Are they in general happy with the accuracy and damage of monsters, or do they want to push them in a particular direction?

 

[gyor]

Thanks cybit!

 

[Ellington]

Is there any reason attack (and the new magic) base bonus begin at +2?

I can imagine it narrows the gap that ability scores make. The higher the base attack bonus, the less players need to rely on their primary attribute to be effective and will feel less obligated to throw everything they have into their main attribute. Sure, a higher primary attribute helps, but it isn't as important as it was in some previous editions.

 

[tuxgeo]

Finally, for something more likely to be in the first than second year of playtesting - did they seem happy with humans overall, or was there a desire to change their racial benefit to something else? (D&D humans, of course!

Nothing was said about human racial abilities, but it'd be worth asking / commenting in on the survey.

Giving feedback about this would be a very good idea. The current playtest seems quite one-sided to me: most of the benefit humans get is in really strong ability score bonuses -- but humans don't get much else from their race.

Perhaps humans could get a choice of effects. This happened in 4E Essentials with the "Human Power Selection" innovation, where the original PHB's human racial feature of getting one "extra At-Will attack power at Level 1" was supplemented by an option to replace that racial feature with a per-Encounter +4 racial bonus to either an attack or a save.

Perhaps humans could give up a smidgen of their current +2 bonus to one ability score and +1 to each of the others, sort of like this:
"Two To One And One To Two:" One starting ability increases by +2 and two others increase by +1.

By removing those 3 other points of ability score bonuses, WotC could have design space to give human characters different optional benefits such as 4E's extra trained skill at Level 1, or 4E's extra feat at Level 1, or the above per-Encounter +4 racial bonus to an attack or a save. (Of course, Wizards would have to make sure that at least one such option, and ideally more than one, remained available to the Old-Schoolers who don't use skills or feats. . . .)

 

[gweinel]

You said that they plan to make guides about making your own backgrounds and specialties. That's really great. Did the mentioned anything about making a custom race and class? For instance if you don't like the racial ability of one class (lets say the humans) will be easy to change the rules? Or how easy will be to play with the classes as DM in order to make yours version of sorceror/warlock or whatever (or even a guide to make your own class)?

 

[Cybit]

Is there any reason attack (and the new magic) base bonus begin at +2?

I understand bounded accuracy in terms of AD&D. It was about having characters in the same scope throughout the game, while still allowing for advancement. A 20-sided die could begin at 50% chance of success and then 9 more levels could each add +1 for the fastest progression rate (like a Fighters Thac0).

For example, At 10th level the fighter has a 95% base chance against a level 1 standard AC. But a 10th level foe would still be balanced accordingly. The key is, never is a 1st or a 10th level challenge an absolute success or absolute failure regardless of class level. Even if ACs below zero still weren't hit with a natural 20 (if you had a Thac0 of 20), you would still get a second roll to see if you hit the fraction of 5% the magical modifiers were giving to the target. (Of course this assumed a bell curve probability assigned atop the die roll's linear results)

Bounded accuracy is a real nice thing to design under, I'm sure. It simplifies everything onto a playable metric. I'm just wondering if they are sticking with the bonuses fitting on a single die, a curvilinear relationship, a linear one, or just what? 30 max DC sounds like +10 bonus linear scaling with 30 as the max for a d20 roll, but I'm not sure.

I don't know how high the bonuses intend to get in the game, and I suspect the bonus "max" will be tied to the individual DM's usage of magic items. Based on what they talk about, and the attribute progression over 20 levels...maybe a +5 for non skills, and a +10 for skills (someone perfectly designed to do something, and is in an optimal situation for their skills).

 

[Cybit]

Monster accuracy - a lot of people have said that it feels like monster attack bonuses are roughly +2 too low. I know that monsters are in general a work in progress. Are they in general happy with the accuracy and damage of monsters, or do they want to push them in a particular direction?

They are happy with the narrative design of monsters, but they have openly stated the math needs a lot of work. I suspect the math behind the monsters will undergo some changes.

 

[Cybit]

You said that they plan to make guides about making your own backgrounds and specialties. That's really great. Did the mentioned anything about making a custom race and class? For instance if you don't like the racial ability of one class (lets say the humans) will be easy to change the rules? Or how easy will be to play with the classes as DM in order to make yours version of sorceror/warlock or whatever (or even a guide to make your own class)?

I would not be surprised if rules on creating classes and races eventually come out; but I would be very surprised if those come out in the core rules unless it is heavily petitioned for by testers.

Modifying the classes will be actually easy, and there will be lots of guidance in the DMG towards modifying existing classes to fit your needs and keep them balanced. The game will be very easy to customize to your needs; flat out creation might require a bit more nuance and time.

 

[Cybit]

I can imagine it narrows the gap that ability scores make. The higher the base attack bonus, the less players need to rely on their primary attribute to be effective and will feel less obligated to throw everything they have into their main attribute. Sure, a higher primary attribute helps, but it isn't as important as it was in some previous editions.

Bingo. As much as everyone is freaking out about having 20s at 1st level, in order to have an 18 base under the standard array point buy...you are going to have to sacrifice pretty much everything else.

Attributes are far more important under the bounded accuracy system, so this is one way of mitigating their impact without breaking bounded accuracy.