D&D 5E Goodman Games What's coming down the Pike for 5e.

[Mezuka]

Challenge Rating is like training wheels. Eventually you gotta take them off and do what seems fun.

Back in the day we didn’t have Challenge Ratings.

Too many senseless random deaths back in the 80s, me and my group didn't like that. Many groups didn't like that either. It lead to many new players leaving the hobby after just a few games.

 

[teitan]

Too many senseless random deaths back in the 80s, me and my group didn't like that. Many groups didn't like that either. It lead to many new players leaving the hobby after just a few games.

You’d think that players would learn that it’s sometimes a better idea to run than fight then. But also DM error and not knowing the capabilities of his group and sticking to the rules to closely to the detriment of fun. Which is counter to the advice given in the rule books and Dragon Magazine. But that’s just Me I think. I also could have been cracking a joke.

 

[Parmandur]

What I appreciate about CR in 5E is how upfront the rules are about how fuzzy and swingy an indicator it is. 3.x pretended to exactirude it did not live up to, and 4E was...clinical. 5E hits that old school fuzzy goal without being as useless as AD&D tools.

 

[Nikosandros]

I think that the "balancing" tools in 3e were quite useless and so were those in AD&D (but the latter were basically non-existent). The CR in 5e is, IMVHO, a very vague indicator and I always "balance" empirically. The only really functioning tools (again, IMHO), are those in 4e.

 

[Parmandur]

I think that the "balancing" tools in 3e were quite useless and so were those in AD&D (but the latter were basically non-existent). The CR in 5e is, INMVHO, a very vague indicator and I always "balance" empirically. The only really functioning tools (again, IMHO), are those in 4e.

Yes, 4E achieved "balance"...but at what cost?

 

[Nikosandros]

Yes, 4E achieved "balance"...but at what cost?

Personally, I think that the cost is combats that are too long. That's the main reason I haven't ran 4e in while and why I'm not interested in running a campaign with it. However, I'm well aware that it is a very controversial edition and that many think that the cost was much higher...

 

[Parmandur]

Personally, I think that the cost is combats that are too long. That's the main reason I haven't ran 4e in while and why I'm not interested in running a campaign with it. However, I'm well aware that it is a very controversial edition and that many think that the cost was much higher...

Pretty fully agreed. I'm not even mad, but...the drive towards "balance" over and against a more old school combat design didn't work for me

 

[dave2008]

Yes, 4E achieved "balance"...but at what cost?

No cost that are important to me. My issues with 4e have nothing to do with its balance. I really liked 4e, but I think most people that disliked 4e had issues with other things that aren't balance related.

 

[Parmandur]

No cost that are important to me. My issues with 4e have nothing to do with its balance. I really liked 4e, but I think most people that disliked 4e had issues with other things that aren't balance related.

Well, I found the combat not-fun for me, and it dominated playtime, so my overall enjoyment was impacted. And I think the changes they made that made that balance possible led directly to thst experience.

 

[dave2008]

Personally, I think that the cost is combats that are too long. That's the main reason I haven't ran 4e in while and why I'm not interested in running a campaign with it. However, I'm well aware that it is a very controversial edition and that many think that the cost was much higher...

Did balance make combats long or was it other factors? I think most people see the long combat times related to decision paralysis from:

1. what power to chose, &...
2. how to maximize the action economy

While those two got tangled up with how they balanced things in 4e, the are mostly independent.

 

[dave2008]

Well, I found the combat not-fun for me, and it dominated playtime, so my overall enjoyment was impacted. And I think the changes they made that made that balance possible led directly to thst experience.

I guess I disagree, but a lot of people had that issue (long combats). With some work we got 4e combat down to about what we do in 5e now. 10-15 minutes.

Now, I think that is unrelated to balance, but intertwined with how balance was implemented.

 

[Parmandur]

Did balance make combats long or was it other factors? I think most people see the long combat times related to decision paralysis from:

1. what power to chose, &...
2. how to maximize the action economy

While those two got tangled up with how they balanced things in 4e, the are mostly independent.

I think 4E was a tightly designed, Holistic machine: all parts worked very closely in tandem, and were not very independent from any other part of the system. That was what made it an impressive design. Unfortunately, the gestalt did not float my boat.

 

[Parmandur]

I guess I disagree, but a lot of people had that issue (long combats). With some work we got 4e combat down to about what we do in 5e now. 10-15 minutes.

Now, I think that is unrelated to balance, but intertwined with how balance was implemented.

I think you can sum up the difference for me in that you had to put work to bring 4E combats down in real-time, whereas with 5E one can half-ass it while drinking whiskey and it works.

 

[dave2008]

I think 4E was a tightly designed, Holistic machine: all parts worked very closely in tandem, and were not very independent from any other part of the system. That was what made it an impressive design. Unfortunately, the gestalt did not float my boat.

I agree to an extant. But you could also change things and it could have little to no impact on the overall design.

No worries if it didn't float your boat (you have a lot of company in that ship), but I just don't think balance was the issue that most people had or that it was crucial to the parts they had issue with. Not say that is you though, just remembering the old arguments on the WotC forums.

 

[dave2008]

I think you can sum up the difference for me in that you had to put work to bring 4E combats down in real-time, whereas with 5E one can half-ass it while drinking whiskey and it works.

I guess that is true for most, but I will say the work we did in 4e, we still use in 5e to make our combats go quicker.

 

[Nikosandros]

Did balance make combats long or was it other factors? I think most people see the long combat times related to decision paralysis from:

1. what power to chose, &...
2. how to maximize the action economy

While those two got tangled up with how they balanced things in 4e, the are mostly independent.

In my experience 4e combats are long by design, not because players take too much time deciding what to do. Combat is far less swingy than in other editions and in general the results are more "statistically stable".

IMO, a well prepared combat is really fun, but it takes more than one hour to resolve.

 

[dave2008]

In my experience 4e combats are long by design, not because players take too much time deciding what to do. Combat is far less swingy than in other editions and in general the results are more "statistically stable".

IMO, a well prepared combat is really fun, but it takes more than one hour to resolve.

Hard to tell if we are talking about the same things, but that was not my experience. After we made some adjustments we got our typical encounter down to 10-20 min., larger combats about 30 min., and boss battles about 1 hr. Our primary adjustment (which we still use in 5e) was to reduce a players turn to 30 sec max. 30 sec to determine an action, roll the attack, and roll for damage. To me the primary thing this solved was decision issues. You take those out, the game ran pretty fast.

EDIT: Just to clarify, we don't run published adventures. I created all of our 4e adventures, though I sometimes took elements from published adventures.

EDIT 2: Most of the rest of our 4e adjustments were on the DM side, so I didn't take to long! I tried to keep my turn to 20 seconds per monster, but I didn't have a hard limit really.

 

[Nikosandros]

Well, 30 seconds is not a lot of time. I think that neither me nor my players would enjoy playing with such a clock. But I'm genuinely glad that it worked for your group. Look like you were really able to make 4e sing for you.

 

[Parmandur]

Hard to tell if we are talking about the same things, but that was not my experience. After we made some adjustments we got our typical encounter down to 10-20 min., larger combats about 30 min., and boss battles about 1 hr. Our primary adjustment (which we still use in 5e) was to reduce a players turn to 30 sec max. 30 sec to determine an action, roll the attack, and roll for damage. To me the primary thing this solved was decision issues. You take those out, the game ran pretty fast.

EDIT: Just to clarify, we don't run published adventures. I created all of our 4e adventures, though I sometimes took elements from published adventures.

EDIT 2: Most of the rest of our 4e adjustments were on the DM side, so I didn't take to long! I tried to keep my turn to 20 seconds per monster, but I didn't have a hard limit really.

I would never have thought to put time limits on turn taking: though honestly, in 5E as in 3E in my experience, turns organically take less than 30 seconds except for dire circumstances, anyways?

 

[dave2008]

Well, 30 seconds is not a lot of time. I think that neither me nor my players would enjoy playing with such a clock. But I'm genuinely glad that it worked for your group. Look like you were really able to make 4e sing for you.

It doesn't seem like much time, but it became 2nd nature pretty fast. What I really liked is that it made everyone much more engaged. My players know there turn is coming up soon so that have to pay attention and sometimes things happen that aren't ideal/expected and you just have to roll with it. It feels, to us, much more frantic and combat-like. It really helped immerse us into the chaos of combat. Not something we expected when we decided to try it, just a wonderful by-product for us.