Damage Equivalence

[Tilenas]

Btw, I'm surprised you gave up a long-running 4e campaign just over that. You would have had to have been at least 10th level to run into blinding+stunning effects in the same attack.

Level 13, in fact. But the status effects piled up after a round's worth of PC attacks on an elite monster. However, I didn't say that it was the only beef we had with the system, it just happened to be 4e's last straw.

Plus, there is no such thing as "3 rounds". It's always either (save ends) or until the end of the attacker's next turn.

I stand corrected, wasn't sure about that.

Frankly, I think the DM tricked you by playing fast and loose with the rules, and pushed you into a system that does have those kind of attacks, and away from one that doesn't.

Nooooo, you got it all wrong ;-) It was the DM who said "okay, I'm done with 4e". And we all kinda agreed.

 

[Tilenas]

My take on the Charm Person example is that WotC have a basic framework for Fighter damage (which we can assume scales very slowly) which they are using as the default (Fighter as 100% as is mentioned a few times).

I wonder how these 100% relate to what they said about the game's three pillars. Does it mean that all fighter abilities will be (at least partially) combat related?

As to the rest: Sorry, folks, but I can't help finding these damage-based calculations rather silly. I have never seen Charm Person as a spell that could even work in combat. Say UK is right with his assessment and the spell needs to stop one round of attacks (or two or whatever, the key word is "round" here) from a humanoid foe to be balanced, how could you ever use it outside of combat? Is it Jedi Mind Trick now?

 

[Upper_Krust]

I've been thinking a little more about the combat math. reading between the lines of the seminar, we can assume that Attack bonus (or its 5E equivalent) will scale slower than in 4E.

One aspect of this may be the removal of magic item bonuses as default.

The current math is 10 + 1/2 level + Ability Mod + Magic Item bonus + potenial feat bonuses. Overall I think you end up with a figure thats roughly +1/level (for min-maxing one ability score); although with starting ability scores you are probably looking at more like +4/+5 boost to start and then +5/6 levels.

If we remove the magic item bonus then that drops to about +4/6 levels.

However, 4E works on a rough framework wherein enemies are only really relevant +/-5 levels, with a +2.5 level swing (in the PCs favour) per tier - although that last bit is aggregate damage based rather than to hit based.

Lets assume WotC wanted to double the threat range relevance of monsters from +/-5 to +/-10. I think they would firstly need to reduce the attack bonus scaling to +1/3 levels.

4E attack bonus at Level 1 = +0, At Level 20 = +10 (+7/3 AS, +4 MI, +1 FE) = +22/+18
5E attack bonus at Level 1 = +0, At Level 20 = +6 (+7/3 AS, +0 MI, +1 FE) = +14/+10

Dropping to a +1/3 attack bonus model and removing Magic Item bonuses as default we can drop the progressive increase to 55%. Thats good enough to take us from a +/-5 Level spread up to a +/-9 Level spread. Meaning a Level 1 Goblin will still be (just about) relevant in terms of math against 10th-level PCs.

Taking this as default means we also have to apply the same factors to damage. Meaning that instead of damage doubling every 15 levels (for PCs and monsters) it would instead double every 25 levels (at +15.75% every 5 levels). Of course another option might be to keep damage progression roughly the same as 4E (since many 4E campaigns seem to think monsters have too many hit points in 4E and deal too little damage).

Anyway, just more waffling on my part.

Edit. Just read the new seminar and it seems that Ability Scores won't scale as quickly and (potentially) have a mortal cap (possibly 20 + racial modifier?).

So it Attack Bonus is +1/3 and ability scores only go up to 20 ish (I'm guessing) then we could definately have that +/-10 level spread for the math.

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey Tilenas!

I wonder how these 100% relate to what they said about the game's three pillars. Does it mean that all fighter abilities will be (at least partially) combat related?

As to the rest: Sorry, folks, but I can't help finding these damage-based calculations rather silly. I have never seen Charm Person as a spell that could even work in combat. Say UK is right with his assessment and the spell needs to stop one round of attacks (or two or whatever, the key word is "round" here) from a humanoid foe to be balanced, how could you ever use it outside of combat? Is it Jedi Mind Trick now?

Didn't WotC briefly mention that Encounter based powers were non-combat and thus probably correspond to the 'Social' component of the game?

This in mind you could 'Charm' the guard captain to guide you through the castle.

 

[howandwhy99]

It's possible, though perhaps unlikely, that Ability Scores will go back to a logarithmic scale with 10.5 being the middle of the bell curve. This suits generating A.S. randomly well, but Point Buy methods can work too. Point Buy in 3.x was already had an incremental valuation in it at 15 and 17. What it didn't include was values 8 or under in these terms.

If a bell curve is put back in 3-18, then we might get logarithmic scaling bonus and penalty ability modifiers. That would be interesting as then we have 3-18 being not a mortal span, but an adult human (medium-sized humanoid) span. And 25 may be the top end of mortals again.

The hard part is converting monsters from 3e and 4e which I believe were both based on linear progressions. So this is a rather unlikely scenario.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Charm person does 10.5 dps? Woohoo! I also heard prepositions were interchageable with Pi.

 

[arscott]

Charm person does 10.5 dps? Woohoo! I also heard prepositions were interchageable with Pi.

Don't forget, "plus" "minus" and "times" are prepositions!

 

[Hussar]

Charm person does 10.5 dps? Woohoo! I also heard prepositions were interchageable with Pi.

Gonna repeat my question here. What would you do to judge where a given spell should be ranked? If damage isn't a good metric, what metric would you prefer? Mark I eyeball? Considering the railing over the inclusion of errata, I would think that's a bad idea.

So, if not damage as a metric, then what?

 

[Sammael]

The metric I'd use is this:

Pick a handful of iconic spells of each level from past editions (not 4E). Magic missile, charm person, grease, invisibility, mirror image, fly, fireball, stoneskin, cloudkill, etc.

Write down a vague description of each spell that captures its "spirit."

Compare to the abilities that other classes get at those same levels. Take into account that Vancian spells are a limited resource.

Ask yourself: how can I change this spell so that it remains in its iconic level slot (+/- 1 level) without the other players throwing a fit that it makes their characters obsolete.

Case in point: knock. Don't make it unlock stuff automatically. Make it so that it grants the wizard a chance to make a roll to unlock a door or chest even though he doesn't have the appropriate Open Lock skill and the tools. Basically, with knock, the wizard conjures up magical lockpicks made of force and then tries to pick or break a lock. He may still fail, and if he does, he has expended a daily resource - unlike the rogue who can keep working on the lock again and again until he gets it unlocked.

If you want to tone it down further, make it into a ritual that requires an expensive component.

Playtest until you get it right.

There. We've kept the iconic spell, but it no longer makes the rogue class obsolete. Still, if the party doesn't have a rogue, they'll appreciate that their wizard can try to open locked doors and they won't have to bash each and every door in the game.

 

[Sirot]

Converting things into terms of equivalent damage is a useful metric. For example, let's say I have a third level spell to summon a giant laser spider to fight alongside me. I can look at the other third level spells and see that they roughly, on average do about 60 points of total damage (we can say fireball does on average 15, but in a usual encounter you will hit 4 enemies). Now that giant laser spider during its lifetime should roughly do 60 points of damage. Since it's a summon it will be able to attack one creature at a time consistently throughout the fight (compared to fireball, which hits multiple and does all the damage at the same time) and be able to tank a few hits for the party. However, you risk the giant laser spider being killed before it does its expected 60 points of damage.

So fireball and summon giant laser spider can be considered to be equivalent in strength even if they do wildly different things.