D&D 5E Have the designers lost interest in short rests?

[Don Durito]

Early D&D is also balanced around the idea of opportunity (never was a game without some kind of balance as a goal). All PCs have the same chance of roll 3d6 and getting an 18. All have the same chance of rolling well enough to be a Ranger or Paladin.

The wizard is balanced somewhat along this axis vs the Fighter. There's greater risk (at low levels) vs greater reward (at high).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Early D&D is also balanced around the idea of opportunity (never was a game without some kind of balance as a goal). All PCs have the same chance of roll 3d6 and getting an 18. All have the same chance of rolling well enough to be a Ranger or Paladin.

The wizard is balanced somewhat along this axis vs the Fighter. There's greater risk (at low levels) vs greater reward (at high).

I think the real balance, at the early days, was in terms of your ability to build a 'country' within the 'Great Kingdom' campaign framework. MUs have spells, FM get automatic followers and an income from a castle, clerics also can get followers and income, AND have pretty good spells. It does probably work out pretty much, though MUs can still get some 'strategic options' that are a bit unique.

The game was simply played differently in MOST places because there was no wargame campaign structure behind it. It was a lot of work, really was more interesting if you had miniature armies, etc. Our club had 100's of members, sand tables, etc. You could actually fight out wars and make large campaigns where the idea of taking over and controlling territory and getting income and such things was a real goal. Most home games just lack that, and at most a few players would stock up on men-at-arms in the lower levels as a tactical thing (which works). Maybe once in a great while you'd see a player build a castle.

 

[pemerton]

But what was the goal?

Is the goal to get the magic staff, specifically? If it is, its easy. They only need to find a portal or two to get to the Plane of Fire. In fact, as long as they can get to any of the elemental chaos, they can then walk to the Plane of Fire even if they start in the Plane of Water. Doesn't this require DM dependence? Well, yes. Because the DM needs to make sure they always have an avenue to accomplish their goal in a mundane fashion. Because otherwise, they're forcing the players to have a specific build or not advance at all.

What you're describing here is basically anathema to how I want to play a RPG - whether as player or, far more often, as GM.

You're in effect describing a cooperative story-telling game: the players start the story by describing how their PCs look for a portal (or whatever), then the GM takes up the story by telling them how they find it.

In classic D&D, spellcasting is not a version of this sort of play but an alternative to it. The player is permitted to actually establish the requisite element of the fiction (eg if using a plane shift spell, s/he can simply make it true, in the fiction, that there is a way for the PC(s) to get to the plane of fire).

There are other mechanical systems besides spells that can produce the same sort of play. 4e skill challenges are one example. Other examples are found in non-D&D RPGs.

All adventures need to have the answer to all their problems without needing anything in particular from a character, especially if that character plainly doesn't exist in the campaign to begin with. It makes no sense to ask a group without planar travel to go into a different plane and refuse them a way to get there.

I don't know where the idea of "asking a group to go into a different plane" comes from. The particular example I gave happened a couple of decades ago, so I don't remember all the details, but it was the players who wanted their PCs to go to the plane of fire. They (and their PCs) weren't being asked.

I find it easy to believe that the DM had naturally had a fire-based magic staff that the party needs located in the Plane of Fire. I also find it easy to believe that a plane-shift-capable character could make this journey easier.

What I find difficult to believe is that the DM had knowingly placed something the party needs to advance in a location where he knows there's only a few player-based ways to reach it while also refusing to place a single portal, NPC, or magic item that could allow them to reach it.

And here you seem to be envisaging a GM-driven railroad: the players need their PCs to obtain the staff in order to "advance"; and the GM "places" a way to get it.

(There are versions of this that aren't railroads - ie puzzles, where the players want their PCs to obtain the powerful widget; and the GM establishes a puzzle of some sort that must be solved in order to get the widget. Gygaxian dungeons have quite a bit of this. But in those cases the word "need" isn't apposite.)

I'm assuming a game where the players decide what it is that their PCs want to do. And in some contexts this requires magic. Even in 4e - though as @EzekielRaiden has pointed out, accessing magic in 4e is easier. I don't see this as objectionable in a fantasy RPG. As I posted upthread, I just find it strange to assert that there is no problem or goal that needs spellcasting to solve or attain it.

 

[pemerton]

People are claiming that casters are the only one who can solve certain types of problems & complaining that comparing average at will/average nova damage between caster & fighter is unfair because it's the fighter's "perfect wet dream day."

The chart you linked to seemed to me to show caster nova damage (from clerics and wizards) quite a bit higher than fighter at-will or nova damage. Are you referring to some further analysis? Or have I misread it in some fashion?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What you're describing here is basically anathema to how I want to play a RPG - whether as player or, far more often, as GM.

You're in effect describing a cooperative story-telling game: the players start the story by describing how their PCs look for a portal (or whatever), then the GM takes up the story by telling them how they find it.

In classic D&D, spellcasting is not a version of this sort of play but an alternative to it. The player is permitted to actually establish the requisite element of the fiction (eg if using a plane shift spell, s/he can simply make it true, in the fiction, that there is a way for the PC(s) to get to the plane of fire).

There are other mechanical systems besides spells that can produce the same sort of play. 4e skill challenges are one example. Other examples are found in non-D&D RPGs.


I don't know where the idea of "asking a group to go into a different plane" comes from. The particular example I gave happened a couple of decades ago, so I don't remember all the details, but it was the players who wanted their PCs to go to the plane of fire. They (and their PCs) weren't being asked.

Well, and also relevantly, is that, at least in how I play, the players are describing goals, ambitions, maybe weaknesses or vulnerabilities, strengths, character traits, etc. and asking for development. The GM is framing scenes aimed at that. So they would not normally 'ask for a way to the Plane of Fire'. I mean, MAYBE it would come out close to that in terms of expressing more concrete steps to attaining some goal, but there wouldn't ever be a DEPENDENCY on going to a certain place or finding a certain thing.

So, maybe the PCs decide that the best way to help the wizard become awesomely powerful (which expresses some needs of various PCs, including the wizard) is to get him a Staff of Fire, and they determine such a thing is in the Elemental Chaos. So they create a sub-goal to get there, and depending on the details of the system (PF, 4e, 5e, Burning Wheel, whatever) they pursue that sub-goal. The GM should PROBABLY develop that, there's a scroll that can be used to open a portal, or there's a volcano that is rumored to be a rift to the EC, etc. Maybe they have a CHOICE of different methods of varying cost/danger/expediency.

Thus the game will have a trajectory that leads to a 'portal' (or something analogous) but the 'need for it to exist' isn't dictated by the structure of a fixed 'adventure path' who's criteria must be met. Indeed the game COULD veer off in some other direction whenever the players evince some other desires, perhaps as a consequence of things that happen while attempting to reach the EC. Probably the original theme/quest will arise again later, but maybe in a different form (IE the wizard goes after some OTHER artifact, whatever).

This goes back to what I said a while back about adventure writing in this type of game. Commercial adventures of the sort WotC and Paizo are wont to produce don't REALLY work in a scene framed sort of narrative game which is structured around agendas and character vs around maps and 'geographical' type goals. At best it is hard to write one, and often a lot of the material will remain unused due to changing goals and character evolution.

 

[tetrasodium]

The chart you linked to seemed to me to show caster nova damage (from clerics and wizards) quite a bit higher than fighter at-will or nova damage. Are you referring to some further analysis? Or have I misread it in some fashion?

The numbers are skewed by the use of spherical cows... The evoker & cleric nova are about 30 points higher than the champion nova at just above/below 90 & 65 respectively. The at will damage is just above 15 for cleric & about 25 for evoker while champion at will is about 25. of critical importance is that those numbers are using spherical cows by not using feats or magic items, both of which make a larger difference for champion due to lack of caster feats comperable to gwm & such and the fact that magic weapons add their effect to each attack so the results are pretty much going to invert with the champion taking the lead in both at will as well nova. Variables in the champion's favor:

• If there is any chance of an attack missing or getting saved against, the champion has multiple tries each round & only loses a fraction of possible damage that round while the caster who misses or gets saved loses a much greaterpercentage of that round's possible damage.
• The chart doesn't consider resistance in any form so now that the champion has a magic weapon he's legitimately not affected by the resist nonmagic b/p/s creatures he hasn't been noticing since like late tier1 early tier2ish when he got that first magic weapon but the casters are affected by energy resist/energy immune & magic resist.
• There are almost no creatures that are resistant to magic b/p/s
• DiA is a HC adventure oozing with melee centric awesome magic items including a shield with fireball truesight & more, a wand of secrets, & a +1 wand of the war mage but nearly every monster in it has sigificant energy resists/energy immunes and/or magic resist. giving an example of an already badly stacked playing field getting stacked to an almost unbelievable degree that makes "yea there are lots of monsters with those but not all of them" type arguments ring hollow.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The numbers are skewed by the use of spherical cows... The evoker & cleric nova are about 30 points higher than the champion nova at just above/below 90 & 65 respectively. The at will damage is just above 15 for cleric & about 25 for evoker while champion at will is about 25. of critical importance is that those numbers are using spherical cows by not using feats or magic items, both of which make a larger difference for champion due to lack of caster feats comperable to gwm & such and the fact that magic weapons add their effect to each attack so the results are pretty much going to invert with the champion taking the lead in both at will as well nova. Variables in the champion's favor:

• If there is any chance of an attack missing or getting saved against, the champion has multiple tries each round & only loses a fraction of possible damage that round while the caster who misses or gets saved loses a much greaterpercentage of that round's possible damage.
• The chart doesn't consider resistance in any form so now that the champion has a magic weapon he's legitimately not affected by the resist nonmagic b/p/s creatures he hasn't been noticing since like late tier1 early tier2ish when he got that first magic weapon but the casters are affected by energy resist/energy immune & magic resist.
• There are almost no creatures that are resistant to magic b/p/s
• DiA is a HC adventure oozing with melee centric awesome magic items including a shield with fireball truesight & more, a wand of secrets, & a +1 wand of the war mage but nearly every monster in it has sigificant energy resists/energy immunes and/or magic resist. giving an example of an already badly stacked playing field getting stacked to an almost unbelievable degree that makes "yea there are lots of monsters with those but not all of them" type arguments ring hollow.

Point 1 is irrelevant, accuracy is accuracy. Only the % chance of missing matters.
Point 2 is situational, you really cannot evaluate how this will play out in a given game. While it might be possible to state some trend, I really couldn't say what it is. We could be fighting nothing but giants, for example, which have little in the way of such immunities.
Point 3, but again, that doesn't mean you won't run into them. The degree to which they will show up is hard to say. It may always be unusual, but still..
Point 4 doesn't really matter. It just shows that there is an adventure where something specific is true.

And Point 0, fighters still come up short in every non-combat respect to full casters (maybe the Champion's athletic prowess could matter a bit, but a wizard can cast several spells which provide better versions of that).

 

[Garthanos]

There's greater risk (at low levels) vs greater reward (at high).

I played games as the wizard at levels 1-5 and a fighter at range 9 - 13. That is called perpetual imbalance not balance AND there is no reason to assume people were going to play all levels. Gygaxian assumptions made balance a joke.

 

[pemerton]

maybe the PCs decide that the best way to help the wizard become awesomely powerful (which expresses some needs of various PCs, including the wizard) is to get him a Staff of Fire, and they determine such a thing is in the Elemental Chaos. So they create a sub-goal to get there, and depending on the details of the system (PF, 4e, 5e, Burning Wheel, whatever) they pursue that sub-goal. The GM should PROBABLY develop that, there's a scroll that can be used to open a portal, or there's a volcano that is rumored to be a rift to the EC, etc. Maybe they have a CHOICE of different methods of varying cost/danger/expediency.

My preferred approach here - and I'm thinking Burning Wheel and also 4e informed by BW ideas - would be for the player to declare the appropriate checks (eg Fire Portal-wise in BW wheel) to learn where a portal can be found. In 4e the player can also just make it clear that s/he wants a relevant ritual scroll as a treasure parcel component.

If relevant checks fail then new challenges open up, in the standard "snowballing" fashion of this sort of play.

 

[Don Durito]

I played games as the wizard at levels 1-5 and a fighter at range 9 - 13. That is called perpetual imbalance not balance AND there is no reason to assume people were going to play all levels. Gygaxian assumptions made balance a joke.

The balance is not between characters. It's between players. And it assumes a lot of characters played over time and a changing roster of characters. I'm not defending it. I don't want to play that way. I'm not even going to claim it necessarily achieves its balance goals. But it was designed with a kind of balance in mind - just not the sort that modern gamers assume is the universal goal.