David Noonan on D&D Complexity

[delericho]

Each negative level decreases effective caster level (relevant for psionics) and checks off one highest slot or prepared spell (not relevant for psionics). That's it.

I'm surprised that there's no reduction in the available Power Points.

Psionics falls in the same category as Spell-like abilities, as in -- no lost slots or uses but a lowered effective level.

Do you have a reference for this? I had a look in the XPH, and couldn't find any mention of how negative levels impact psionic characters. What you've said makes sense, except as I noted for the Power Points, but I was wondering if there was confirmation on that one point?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Like I said, then you might want to start looking at another game with less prep time.

For most of its history, D&D did not require an hour of prep time to run one monster. This is not intrinsic to this game, this is an unintended effect of too many options being applicable to a creature that was designed to be too complex to start off with.

Dragons need to be taken back to the drawing board and the objectives of using them needs to be articulated and goals for what the designers want have to be considered.

I'd say the following are necessary components of D&D dragons and should be a core part of the design:

1) Dragons are iconic and are a core element of the game. As such, every DM should have the capability of using them in a campaign at least once. At the basic level, they should be simple enough to have every DM be willing to use them and use them effectively.

2) Dragons should DESERVE their iconic status. There should be no 2 hit dice dragons. Dragons should be impressive when characters first encounter them and a victory over one (or more) should always be something worth bragging about. A newborn dragon should probably start around 10 hit dice.

3) Dragons need to keep pace with characters as they level up. As characters become more robust, dragons need to be able to keep up with a lot of the new abilities player characters will manifest. This doesn't have to be spells and prestige classes and such (although those can be added by DMs who don't mind the extra complexity), but the basic CR 20 dragon should be a significant challenge for a group of the appropriate level. Dragons should probably have an innate resistance to divinations and such, to make scrying on them, teleporting to them and even using legend lore and commune less reliable. Dragons should likely also be aware of anyone attempting powerful magic against them, probably a 10 percent chance per spell level +10 or something.

 

[satori01]

I'm curious if everyone hates grapple, (and I think we all do), why doesnt WOTC, redo the grapple rules. Likewise with the flying rules, if the rules are too complex, simplify them. Do we need poor, average, good, and perfect fly ratings? I'm playing D&D not Aerotech.

I personaly like Dragon Spell casting, someone already mentioned a magical arms race, well in 1e D&D Dragons were pathetic, there is a reason why Dragonlance had none Dragon, Dragon Highlords, After 3 breath weapons good bye Dragon.

2E we saw anyculture incapable of casting spells die out. The great series by Ed Greenwood about specific Dragons in Faerun always had the more powerful ones being spell casters, which was an alteration to the rules and a special case.

 

[hexgrid]

Like I said, then you might want to start looking at another game with less prep time.

Does David Noonan need to find a new game?

I find that one of things that slows down combat is players not knowing what thier own abilities and spells do.

Oops, sounds like your players might not be cut out for this D&D stuff, either.

 

[Henry]

Like I said, then you might want to start looking at another game with less prep time.

The question is: Why should a game require that much "processor load?" Or prep time, for that matter?

What Noonan is talking about here is NOT prep-time, but just the sheer amount of info that a DM needs to have on hand without looking at sheets in order to have a smooth game experience. I could have a fully-statted out 1-page sheet of a dragon in front of me, and STILL forget in mid-play that he has an unholy aura that should have been strength-damaging the fighters, because it's buried in with the 9 other abilities that he's got going on that might or might not be up because the Sorcerer dropped a greater Dispel on him.

And almost as importantly, why should my favorite game be turned into something that it doesn't have to be without my input? D&D has fit my needs for almost 30 years, and only recently has a push for more and more addenda in mid-play caused me any grief over it. Unlike my computer, I can't "upgrade my processor," so if I see my game undergoing programming I can't handle, or in my opinion, "spaghetti-code", I speak up about it.

 

[Asmor]

One other thing that adds a lot of complexity is durations measured in rounds, and generally a small number of rounds. Where only one or two such events apply at a time, this isn't so much of a problem, but once you get to high level, it's not uncommon for a character to have half a dozen buffs, effects or conditions in effect. And, since these were probably applied one per round by a spell-caster, and since each probably has a duration of one round per level, this means that they'll each wear off at a different time.

I wonder if perhaps it would be better to state the durations as 'one encounter' for most such effects, or 'one encounter or until discharged' for spells like Invisibility. You could also put a statement in the magic chapter of the PHB to the effect that "spells with a duration of one encounter, if cast outsider of the initiative sequence, last for five minutes".

That way, the DM can have his enemy spellcaster buff up before the fight, without having to work out exactly the order in which the spells are cast for maximum effect.

My suggestion to the x/round effects problem is... playmats!

The first thing I do before we start gaming is tear out a sheet of paper and draw a big box, label it "HP" and stick a few 10-siders in there to keep track of my HP. If I have limited use resources, like action points, I'll draw a few checkboxes to mark off as I use them. If I get some temporary HP, I'll make a temp HP box and a duration box, fill those up with 10 siders as appropriate. If I've got three different buff spells, I just make 3 different duration boxes, labelled appropriately, and decrement them at the beginning of each of my rounds.

Granted, it's really more useful for players than the DM, but when has the DM's job ever been easy?

 

[ST]

I'm pretty impressed with what Noonan did, especially for the PC character sheets (I hadn't seen that article before). It's stil 100% D&D, but with the mindset that with so many options out there, one should choose the ones that are easiest to prep and play effectively.

Now, there's always going to be the idea that character optimization is a player skill, but I love the idea of saying "Okay, let's build very powerful and easy to run vs. extremely powerful and a pain to run". This is *especially* true for NPCs and monsters, since in the heat of play it's all too easy for a powerful but complex NPC to play out as waaay below his maximum power level simply because the DM has too much to keep track of.

 

[delericho]

Like I said, then you might want to start looking at another game with less prep time.

Doing the prep work doesn't bother me. In fact, I really like the fact that d20 definately does reward DM preparation.

But what I hate with a passion is wasted effort. And spending an hour generating stats for four rounds of combat is a whole lot of wasted effort. Once that's the sort of time that's required, something has gone badly wrong.

 

[jodyjohnson]

I'm surprised that there's no reduction in the available Power Points.

Do you have a reference for this? I had a look in the XPH, and couldn't find any mention of how negative levels impact psionic characters. What you've said makes sense, except as I noted for the Power Points, but I was wondering if there was confirmation on that one point?

Just the RAW. Seems like the reduction in effective Manifester level is bad enough.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Does David Noonan need to find a new game?



Oops, sounds like your players might not be cut out for this D&D stuff, either.

Whoa there fella. Slow down with the snark.
You comin' at me like that makes it seem like youre taking this a bit more personally than you need to.

Take a page from the other posters here who have come back with something relevant and contructive to say.