Fiddling around with Fifth Ed

[Salthorae]

Obvious question: What kind of game gives you a choice to be more powerful, and then expects you to not take that choice? That seems like a critical design flaw, right off the bat.

This game gives DM's a choice to decide to allow the PC's to be more powerful, but is designed more simply, around new players coming D&D who know nothing about legacy concepts like Feats. 5e is designed to allow them to read just the basics, play a single class and have fun. Then when they have some experience they can play around with variant options (Feats).

If a DM allows players to take feats and/or multiclassing and assumes that the base designed game around encounters is doing to stay balanced with PC's that are now more powerful, then they are missing part of the equation. It's basic math to me. The base game is x+y=Z, add in feats/multiclassing/variant humans and now you have 1.5x+y<>z

 

[The Crimson Binome]

How is it a critical design flaw that when you make a choice that will make you better at something it does?

If you choose the Actor feat to become better at acting in game you do, if you take Great Weapon Master to be better at wielding heavy weapons it makes you better at that.

That's not what you said, though. You were talking power level, not trade-offs.

The game assumes a certain power level, as baseline. Monster challenge ratings, and the experience guidelines, are designed around that assumption. There's advice in the book, to help you reach that baseline - things like a Fighter should put their highest score in Strength or Dexterity, and then Constitution. The designers have some idea for what a balanced character is supposed to look like.

If you're good at math, and optimizing systems of equations, then you can create a character which is better than that. You can outperform the assumed-default character in routine situations, while only falling behind in situations which are rare or unimportant; or maybe you're just better, and you never fall behind.

Why is that option available? Why would the designers include decision points which allow one character to exceed the performance of another character on a routine basis? Why not just include options which don't affect balance to such a degree?

 

[Gwarok]

I think one of the main issues with monsters not being able to hit PC's properly, especially lots of lower CR ones, is the fact that their Prof bonus is based on CR rating. They have HP that are far higher than their Prof bonus would suggest. Gladiators have 15HD but only a +3 Prof bonus instead of the +5 that that number of HD and HP would suggest. That +2 makes a big difference. That and also they never have magic weapons to help out like PC's, which usually will have a +1 or +2 even by a fairly decent level. Even a Marilith, CR 16, just has a +9 to hit. Granted she'll have plenty of attacks so I'm not saying they are a joke, but it isn't unreasonable for PC's to have 20+ AC at that point and that's going to mitigate them a lot. Demons also don't have anywhere near the magical powers you'd think they'd have either, they're just DPS machines with a lot of HP. Add to that a Protection vs. Evil gives disadvantage to just about anything magical out there and frankly my PC's don't have a lot to fear from a straight up fight with Celestials/Fiends/Undead/Elementals/Fey, even without insane magic gear on them or resorting to blatant munchkinism. They basically didn't do much to scale things from low to high level on the monster side of things, whereas PC's develop all sorts of useful synergies that act as major force multipliers for them.

You want to make fights for higher level campaigns that aren't just about how fast the PC's can mow through monster hit points you'll want to take a look at some of those techniques used by players and incorporate them into how the monsters fight. The simplest way is to just add PC levels to monsters which gives them the same thing. But that can be overdone as well as step on the PC's toes a bit. But you'll absolutely have to tweek standard monster layouts. Start including things like AOE auras of damage to monsters like the Spirit Guardian spell.

But yea, high level play isn't done that much. I think it has to do with the fact that after about 13th or so, the PC's become so powerful it's hard to really relate to the average person, they're essentially super heroes, and it's hard to have a beer with someone or interact normally when you know they could level the entire city block and kill everyone in sight without breaking a sweat. Standard fantasy tropes begin to break down and DM's and players have little to fill the gap. Me, I just ripped a page from the many fantasy MMO's out there. Made a higher level "zone" for them to play in. Made Azzagrat an actual city the PC's can chill in, an interplanar hang out. Grazzt's approach to seducing mortals being more about providing them a place to come play, it's Mardi Gras every day there, and you can buy/sell/trade awesome magic items. And Grazzt himself is at the head of the parade throwing out beads and buying everyone drinks. You're characters will be gods, and gods need somewhere to play.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think one of the main issues with monsters not being able to hit PC's properly, especially lots of lower CR ones, is the fact that their Prof bonus is based on CR rating. They have HP that are far higher than their Prof bonus would suggest. Gladiators have 15HD but only a +3 Prof bonus instead of the +5 that that number of HD and HP would suggest.

The idea is that a monster presents a challenge to a party of it's CR (maybe not much of one, but they shouldn't be able to just erase it before it blinks), that generally requires more hps than a PC of the same level as that CR would have.

That and also they never have magic weapons to help out like PC's, which usually will have a +1 or +2 even by a fairly decent level.

The game very pointedly does not 'assume' that.

But yea, high level play isn't done that much. I think it has to do with the fact that after about 13th or so, the PC's become so powerful it's hard to really relate to the average person, they're essentially super heroes, and it's hard to have a beer with someone or interact normally when you know they could level the entire city block and kill everyone in sight without breaking a sweat. Standard fantasy tropes begin to break down and DM's and players have little to fill the gap

To be fair, a 13th level Rogue or fighter probably couldn't level a city block, at least, not in a reasonable length of time - and I'd think a 13th level barbarian would break a sweat doing doing so. As for the 13th level dwarf, you had darn well better provide him with some beer...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

[MENTION=12249]Gwarok[/MENTION]: I have seen it as a problem for quite a while, but if you play without magic items, that proficiency bonus derived from CR seems ok. Odds are a little bit stacked towards PCs. If you have much defensive magic, you might just increase the to hit by a point or two (depending on HD) Be careful though: monsters have more hit dice than they deserve sometimes. I think it is a weakness of 5e. They should have worked a little more with AC and to hit instead of hitpoints to increase CR of a monster.
I´d also think the way pathfinder 2 does it with hitpoints for race would have been a good idea in 5e too. Monsters usually have at least 2 hit dice if they are expected to do fighting... but I am derailing the thread...

 

[Oofta]

That's not what you said, though. You were talking power level, not trade-offs.

The game assumes a certain power level, as baseline. Monster challenge ratings, and the experience guidelines, are designed around that assumption. There's advice in the book, to help you reach that baseline - things like a Fighter should put their highest score in Strength or Dexterity, and then Constitution. The designers have some idea for what a balanced character is supposed to look like.

If you're good at math, and optimizing systems of equations, then you can create a character which is better than that. You can outperform the assumed-default character in routine situations, while only falling behind in situations which are rare or unimportant; or maybe you're just better, and you never fall behind.

Why is that option available? Why would the designers include decision points which allow one character to exceed the performance of another character on a routine basis? Why not just include options which don't affect balance to such a degree?

It depends on your definition of "exceed the performance of...". No two games are alike and what will be a great choice for one game may be a sub-optimal choice for another. GWM is great until you're playing in a game where your opponents have high AC, you're at disadvantage for one reason or another, it's mainly a stealth/RP game with heavy emphasis on social skills and you're not allowed to carry a claymore into the baron's ball, etc.

For some people optimizing for combat is part of the fun. As long as a DM compensates for it, I don't see it as a bug. It's a feature. It's only a bug if the group has a problem with the players. It's also as easy to fix as the DM saying "I don't allow GWM or SS feats since all feats are optional" or whatever issue you have heartburn with. You don't need to rewrite the entire game.

As far as newbies, if the entire group is new I'd recommend not allowing optional rules for a while. No feats, no multi-classing. Get a feel for the game first. If I have a new person in the group I'll talk to the person about their concept and help them achieve their goals. I don't dictate mechanics but I will ask them what their vision of the character is and help them realize that vision.

 

[CapnZapp]

The truth is WotC is getting away with not supporting challenging play for advanced players that like to play with every crunch options enabled.

The high-level challenge has not been this weak since before d20 :-(

 

[Tony Vargas]

The truth is WotC is getting away with not supporting challenging play for advanced players that like to play with every crunch options enabled.

The high-level challenge has not been this weak since before d20 :-(

They're getting away with not 'supporting' (ie publishing a book a month for) a lot of stuff. Instead, the DM is Empowered to do whichever of those unsupported things WotC isn't doing for everyone, for himself.

All complainning aside, you /do/ challenge your personal herd of powergaming cats. You reach beyond the published game to do so, but that's how the game is meant/expected to be used.

We're all doing that, just in different directions for different reasons, for different cat herds.

 

[Oofta]

The truth is WotC is getting away with not supporting challenging play for advanced players that like to play with every crunch options enabled.

The high-level challenge has not been this weak since before d20 :-(

Sometimes I think we've been playing different games. I've always modified and tweaked the game to suit my needs and to fit the group in every edition. I've played or DMed a couple of campaigns to 20th now. There were rough spots and a lot of monsters were tweaked using the rules in the DMG but the game was still playable. I can't say that about previous editions.

The thought that 3.5 or older editions were better at supporting high level play is simply laughable. The living campaign for 3.5 didn't even bother with mods above level 15 because it fell apart at those levels. In some ways 4E came closest to 5E for supporting high level play, but even then in order to challenge high level groups you had to be "creative" in your approach and put up with rounds that could last an hour or more.

I will agree that some previous versions had more complexity. I disagree that more complexity is necessarily better.

But yes. Obviously D&D it's failing by being one of the most successful versions ever released. Sad.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It depends on your definition of "exceed the performance of...". No two games are alike and what will be a great choice for one game may be a sub-optimal choice for another. GWM is great until you're playing in a game where your opponents have high AC, you're at disadvantage for one reason or another, it's mainly a stealth/RP game with heavy emphasis on social skills and you're not allowed to carry a claymore into the baron's ball, etc.

If you're playing a game that emphasizes one aspect over another, then that changes some of the optimization math, but it doesn't change that some options will be better than others. Maybe you apply a weighting function of 0.4 to combat feats, and 1.7 to social feats, or whatever. Your game no longer looks like what the designers had in mind, but that doesn't change the inherent imbalance; nor does it excuse imbalance in the game that they did have in mind.

For some people optimizing for combat is part of the fun. As long as a DM compensates for it, I don't see it as a bug. It's a feature.

If the DM compensates for every choice that you make, then there is no point in playing a game at all, let alone trying to optimize anything. There's a reason why meta-gaming is explicitly against the rules in this edition.