Hello and Welcome to Towards 5E

[Herremann the Wise]

Hello Everyone,

Here's me thinking that I'm going to have to send out a whole stack of invites in the hope of getting a couple of members to join so I can at least start a forum (it wouldn't let me last night) and what happens? I log on 12 hours later and there are already 14 of you guys lining up! What can I say but thank you very much!

About 3 months ago I started pondering a variety of ideas of where I thought D&D should go - 4E looked OK and it certainly played "fun", but it took D&D even further away from where I really wanted it to be. I've got over a hundred pages of notes in over a dozen different documents, each looking at a particular aspect of the game and what I thought could be done with it. Some of these were nothing more than scattered thoughts but some I've managed to solidify into something I'm willing to share for general discussion. I figure I'll start a thread for each one and see where it goes. Please feel free to add any thoughts or threads of your own - this is an open forum and while it looks like I've been given moderator privileges, I'm obviously going to keep things very loose trusting that everyone here has respect for one another.

Anyway, since it's most likely going to disappear, I'll repeat the Ethos and Charter of Towards 5E here. I'll most likely add to it as people suggest things - consider it a living document for the moment.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

Ethos and Charter for Towards 5E

The Campaign I envisage is where:

- Magic is mysterious and dark once more; rather than the safe hum-drum technology of the fantasy world
- The days of character’s being defined by their suite of magical items instead of their skills and heroics are gone
- Rules and flavour should be in symbiosis with one another, rather than in competition or strained accord
- Streamline for elegance, not to bash complexity into vague simplicity
- Adventuring is inherently not safe; combat encounters should present danger to the characters – the safety net must go
- The assumption of miniatures and a battlemap should not be implicit in the ruleset; the rules must also be able to support those groups who prefer the landscape of the mind
- Whilst no specific world is given, the rules should allow for one that sits between Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Vance’s Lyonesse series, Howard’s Conan Stories, Martin’s Game of Thrones series, Williams’ Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, Erikson’s Malazan series and Fritz Leiber’s Stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser; and be able to stretch to any of these fabulous fantasy pillars.
- Verisimilitude is not a dirty word; a certain logic to the fantasy world should be upheld
- Character creations must be flexible; the ability to meld many different but viable character ideas should be encouraged, rather than feeling pressured to focus on a couple of optimised builds
- Players should feel that they can develop a character that is both effective in combat and interesting out of combat – rather than either/or
- The game economy must make sense and feel real; rather than being a calculated spoon-fed wealth lacking in true achievement
- The game cannot afford for some classes to dominate at the expense of others at more powerful levels; and nor should the answer be compressing the classes into homogenized lumps of roughly equal measure
- The game also cannot afford for rules to unmanageably bloat at higher levels with the time taken to resolve this vast array bloating as well
- And most of all and above all else, the game must be fun!

 

[RangerWickett]

I agree in theory, but to play Devil's advocate:

Ethos and Charter for Towards 5E

The Campaign I envisage is where:

- Magic is mysterious and dark once more; rather than the safe hum-drum technology of the fantasy world

Will this apply just to the world, or to the PCs too? Because psychological studies point out that people playing games generally get frustrated if the failure ratio is greater than 30% for any given attempt. I think whatever you do in this regard, you need to make sure you don't make spells randomly fail or anything like that.

Give magic a cost. Tempt with just a bit of power if you commit evil acts. Definitely have some method of creating your own spells -- not just choosing from a 'powers list' -- so that the players can be caught off guard by their foe's magic, but have the chance to gain it for themselves.

- The days of character’s being defined by their suite of magical items instead of their skills and heroics are gone

Brother, I feel the same way, but my players sure as hell like magic items. They were like kids on a Toys R Us shopping spree when the Magic Item Compendium came out. For some gamers, an immersive, compelling narrative can work, but most just want a treadmill with carrots every quarter mile.

Now, if you're trying to market the game to a mass audience, I completely understand WotC's approach. But if you're going for something more for your own group, sure, nix the huge swaths of magic items.

Of course, 4e does do a fair job of making magic items just be tricks to use, rather than reliable bonuses. I mean, hell, the ring of invisibility is, what, one round a day? High level 4e characters are like Batman with his utility belt; they use whatever they need for a momentary benefit.

I would like to get rid of +x weapons and armor, though. Especially in a game where the math is as precise as 4e, I cannot see any reason other than "sacred cow" to have kept magic item pluses.

- Rules and flavour should be in symbiosis with one another, rather than in competition or strained accord

Also known as "No, your first level rogue can't stab a guy and shove him 25 ft." This issue is one where I think 4e often suffers; they put in cool powers that have fun effects mechanically, but just don't fit a 'realist' fantasy.

- Streamline for elegance, not to bash complexity into vague simplicity[/quote

Fine line to walk.

- Adventuring is inherently not safe; combat encounters should present danger to the characters – the safety net must go

I'd say encourage fewer combat encounters in general, but make them against foes who are honestly dangerous. But provide enough of a death's door safety net so that PCs can lose without automatically dying. If the PCs are all knocked unconscious, the bad guys can kill them or capture them, depending on the game's style.

- The assumption of miniatures and a battlemap should not be implicit in the ruleset; the rules must also be able to support those groups who prefer the landscape of the mind

Again, this works fine for a home game, but is a bad business model.

- Whilst no specific world is given, the rules should allow for one that sits between Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Vance’s Lyonesse series, Howard’s Conan Stories, Martin’s Game of Thrones series, Williams’ Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, Erikson’s Malazan series and Fritz Leiber’s Stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser; and be able to stretch to any of these fabulous fantasy pillars.

Good idea. But 'whilst'?

- Verisimilitude is not a dirty word; a certain logic to the fantasy world should be upheld
- Character creations must be flexible; the ability to meld many different but viable character ideas should be encouraged, rather than feeling pressured to focus on a couple of optimised builds

The counter argument is that you don't want characters who spread out a lot ending up with more power. The balance should be depth vs. breadth. Multiclassing should be an option, and that's it: neither encouraged nor discouraged.

- Players should feel that they can develop a character that is both effective in combat and interesting out of combat – rather than either/or

Some suggest that rules for 'out of combat' actions discourage roleplaying. I disagree, though.

Personally, I'd encourage some level of "personality building" rules, where the player runs through a generalized list of homelands, family situations, past traumas, personal issues, reasons for adventuring, and long-term goals. Each of these could give a small benefit in a non-combat sense.

- The game economy must make sense and feel real; rather than being a calculated spoon-fed wealth lacking in true achievement

Honestly, the economics of adventuring is unsustainable. It is only a valid business venture in some rare niche cases, which require complex historical factors to generate caches of undiscovered treasure that is held in perilous enough locations that only specialists can retrieve it. Even then, discovery of such treasures will invariably result in a "adventuring rush" which will rapidly deplete the ready supplies of such ancient loot.

I'm fine with heroic characters in D&D, folks who go out and do dramatic deeds because they have a specific motivation or goal. But the idea of a 'dungeon economy' is ridiculous.

- The game cannot afford for some classes to dominate at the expense of others at more powerful levels; and nor should the answer be compressing the classes into homogenized lumps of roughly equal measure
- The game also cannot afford for rules to unmanageably bloat at higher levels with the time taken to resolve this vast array bloating as well
- And most of all and above all else, the game must be fun!

I think those last issues fit together into one thing.

One approach to aid balance and make game design easier (since you don't have a huge staff, and you're not planning to release tons and tons of products in order to make money) would be to reduce the number of levels, or at least narrow the power gap between levels.

Sure, a 10th level character is very capable and can generally kick the butt of a 1st level character, but there's no reason to design rules where the "1st level" part of the game becomes obsolete when the characters are 10th level. If you don't have wildly scaling AC and hit points, then even if high level characters are pulling off deific stunts, you can still throw a bunch of goblins at them and not make the encounter pointless.

Even Gandalf was afraid of the goblins of Moria.

 

[Blue]

The lien between world and rules

I think there is a fuzzy line between world and campaign, and it may be useful to break down your Charter points between the two. I think you recognize this, with your strong point:

- Whilst no specific world is given, the rules should allow for one that sits between Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Vance’s Lyonesse series, Howard’s Conan Stories, Martin’s Game of Thrones series, Williams’ Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, Erikson’s Malazan series and Fritz Leiber’s Stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser; and be able to stretch to any of these fabulous fantasy pillars.

I'll take this a step further. I want rules that allow me to run/play in a campaign that fits my group's style. Someone wanting to do low-magic-item high fantasy and someone who wants to do a neutral merchant-based campaign and someone else wants to do epic sword and horse can at worst not be hindered by the rules, and at best find that the rules are not only flexible enough to handle this, but the meta-rules, the "whys" of design, are spelled out. So that if, for example, you take out a type of class (for that no-divinity game), or all heavy armor (for the swashbuckling pirate game) or reduce/increase magic-items, or greatly increase ability scores (for the scions of the gods game), you understand the effects (and second order effects) on the rules and how to offset them to keep things balanced and fun.

- Adventuring is inherently not safe; combat encounters should present danger to the characters – the safety net must go

I feel this is close but slightly off. When DMing, I want to be able to scare players, to give them legitimate options to run or not, and if they make poor choices, penalize them. I want death to be a real possibility. That said, the players and DM have a lot invested in the characters, and I don't mind a safety net vs. meaningless death.

If I was wiser, perhaps I'd see a way to balance that.

One thing to kick around is that there seems to a boolean alive/no-alive, with no grey areas between. If the DM had other lasting chastisements of lesser magnitude than death, that did not make the character less fun to play, that might be something.

- The game economy must make sense and feel real; rather than being a calculated spoon-fed wealth lacking in true achievement

I'm not even sure if I think rules should put forth an economy. I think that "expected" levels of treasure where the mathematics of the game system break down if you don't have (and I'm looking at both 3.x and 4ed) are tight fetters to make a group fit into. I'd rather that the economy was part of the decision for setting.

Cheers,
=Blue(23)

 

[mrswing]

With regards to the deadliness/survivability split:

Changing the focus of gaining XPs from monsters overcome/killed to adventures finished might help here. This would stop PCs having to slaughter more opponents in one adventure than are killed in all fantasy novels published during a year (with the exception of R.A. Salvatore's, of course ). Fewer dead monsters needed means less opponents, the opponents which do occur are more formidable or fit in better with the story/environment...
(For people who prefer dungeoncrawls, more extensive dungeons could be built up out of specific areas, the clearing/overcoming of which could serve as the equivalent of an adventure with regards to leveling. So, for instance, if you are in the Mines of Moria, overcoming the orc horde with their troll heavy infantry would count as an adventure, and facing down and surviving the power of the Balrog would be another).

Another option is to skew combat to rendering opponents unconscious/temporarily disabled. So that PCs will run more risk being knocked out (and captured, or left for dead), than that every single encounter is a life-or-death confrontation with hardly anything in between.

Designing adventures would then be less of a stocking a dungeon to the rafters with as many different creatures as possible, but more along the lines of creating a number of encounters, each one of which would propel the story forward when resolved. It would also be easier for the DM to select which of these encounters are 'deadly' in intent, and which ones are purely social/roleplay, puzzle/trap-oriented, and occassional bursts of adrenaline which inject some action into the game without having the threat of a TPK around every corner.

 

[Blue]

Loose coupling

Changing the focus of gaining XPs from monsters overcome/killed to adventures finished might help here. This would stop PCs having to slaughter more opponents in one adventure than are killed in all fantasy novels published during a year (with the exception of R.A. Salvatore's, of course ). Fewer dead monsters needed means less opponents, the opponents which do occur are more formidable or fit in better with the story/environment...

I'm going to speak on a tangent that comes back to this. I'm speaking about specific systems, please don't take it as bashing of any of them.

When 4e first came out, one thing I had a problem with was the treasure packets and the magic item economy. I've had players who have wanted to be a merchant prince, and ... well, let's just say I didn't like it.

Then I looked into how I could play with it. Things like selling magic items for more than 20% became a skill challenge - multiple roles (finding/enticing the right buyer, etc) by multiple characters. Potential downsides for failure (taxmen, inviting robbers, nobles who want to seize it for "the good of the city", etc.), and suddenly it's a whole encounter, one I can give out not just a treasure packet, but also XP.

But then I realized that I could go one step further. One detraction to be made of many D&D games is that a big part is "kill things and take their stuff". With treasure more loosely coupled, you don't need to kill things to get it. Maybe if you kill the bandits, you find gold and items. But if you drive them off, maybe you'll get a reward from the local sheriff, or some other way for that XP to get to you.

So while I disliked the system for economy, it did make me think outside the box for how to award treasure.

Now to circle back to your point. If XP is, as you mention, more of a factor of adventures and plots, then this cycle of "need to kill things to advance" can be stepped away from. Breaking the tight coupling of XP with killing or even single encounters could open a lot a flexibility in how people play.

Cheers,
=Blue(23)

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I agree in theory, but to play Devil's advocate:

Firstly, thanks Ryan for having a look at this! I have no idea where this is going to go but let's see.
I'd like to turn these points into threads of their own but for the moment, I'll just give an abbreviated response.

Magic is mysterious and dark once more; rather than the safe hum-drum technology of the fantasy world

Will this apply just to the world, or to the PCs too? Because psychological studies point out that people playing games generally get frustrated if the failure ratio is greater than 30% for any given attempt. I think whatever you do in this regard, you need to make sure you don't make spells randomly fail or anything like that.

At the moment (in 3.x/4E), spells fail if the target makes their save/you can't beat their defences. I'm not too sure whether you mean: don't give the casting of magic a chance to fail? I was contemplating a skill check of sorts (with a variable DC determined by the spell) for certain spells to be cast by a wizard (but certainly not all spells).

Give magic a cost. Tempt with just a bit of power if you commit evil acts. Definitely have some method of creating your own spells -- not just choosing from a 'powers list' -- so that the players can be caught off guard by their foe's magic, but have the chance to gain it for themselves.

I have a very rough system of magic thought out which I'll detail in a further thread.

Effectively, it splits casters into three primary groups (with the possiblity for secondary groups):
- Wizards (For the imaginative-style player who wants flexibility and utility and a reduced focus on resource management)
- Sorcerers (For the power-player who enjoys the careful management of mana and the optimizing of the power gained from it)
- Warlocks (For the player who wants a darker different sort of magic, like a summoner but completely different in terms of mechanics - cost is the word here)

- It does away with the Vancian system: If you know how to perform a spell, you can cast it. There are restrictions to casting certain spells and to casting in general but most spells (particularly utility style) can simply be cast.

- It does away with spell levels: If you are willing to pay the cost, or are willing to risk casting a spell, you can do it - success is variable and can depend on a couple of factors.

Anyway, I'll detail it on another thread for discussion.

The days of character’s being defined by their suite of magical items instead of their skills and heroics are gone

Brother, I feel the same way, but my players sure as hell like magic items. They were like kids on a Toys R Us shopping spree when the Magic Item Compendium came out. For some gamers, an immersive, compelling narrative can work, but most just want a treadmill with carrots every quarter mile.

Now, if you're trying to market the game to a mass audience, I completely understand WotC's approach. But if you're going for something more for your own group, sure, nix the huge swaths of magic items.

Of course, 4e does do a fair job of making magic items just be tricks to use, rather than reliable bonuses. I mean, hell, the ring of invisibility is, what, one round a day? High level 4e characters are like Batman with his utility belt; they use whatever they need for a momentary benefit.

I would like to get rid of +x weapons and armor, though. Especially in a game where the math is as precise as 4e, I cannot see any reason other than "sacred cow" to have kept magic item pluses.

How many magical bonuses and effects (particularly plus-based) can be transferred into non-magical skills/feats/abilities learnt? Rather than getting a +1 ring of protection or a +2 cloak of resistance, or a +2 sword, why not have characters earn such bonuses through skill instead? The carrots of magic instead turn into the carrots of levelling/advancing a character's skill set. Leave magic to be special and different.

A magical sword should be "special" because it's magical (be it obviously so or not). How many times have you seen a +2 sword in a group getting handed down to some character who barely has proficiency with it, all because the main fighters in the group have better swords with more plusses. Or they sell it for some coin (several thousand gp doesn't go that far once you hit that level either). Let the mundane quality (be it poor, standard, superior, masterwork or exquisite) handle the plus/bonus side of things. Leave magic to be... magical.

Streamline for elegance, not to bash complexity into vague simplicity

Fine line to walk.

And so it is. Gets back to the flavor/mechanic symbiosis thing. Not always easy to do but at least you should look like you're trying.

Adventuring is inherently not safe; combat encounters should present danger to the characters – the safety net must go

I'd say encourage fewer combat encounters in general, but make them against foes who are honestly dangerous. But provide enough of a death's door safety net so that PCs can lose without automatically dying. If the PCs are all knocked unconscious, the bad guys can kill them or capture them, depending on the game's style.

You've hit upon a very important thing here. In D&D, there is very little variation in terms of losing. You either lose a character or two or have a TPK or you are forced to teleport out if you can - but generally don't if it means leaving a character behind. The idea of conventional escape is almost nonexistent because all the damn monsters are quicker than the PCs. Caltrops are fine but the DM can quickly tire of this trick. Stalemates are non-existent and the thought of mutual withdrawal is simply not there. Conventional escape however is the one I'm thinking of though that needs to be supported by the rules moreso than what it currently is.

Just a quick clarification in terms of getting rid of the safety net that I was talking about. What I mean here is the expectation from the players that the DM is not going to throw something "bad" at them but that encounters will be fair (if sometimes challenging). Is there anything wrong with an encounter thats success is based upon the PCs working out it's too tough and tactically withdrawing? If all combat encounters can be won by charging and bashing effectively, what does this encourage in the players?

What this encourages is almost an autopilot response from the players of "let's roll initiative; let's dust these guys up; let's throw everything at them until they're dead". Players don't look for tactical advantage because generally it's simply not necessary. Optimized builds and powerful powers/abilties/spells will generally win the day, like a blunt stick no matter how clumsily wielded. Having mobility on the skirmishing field of battle is fine, but not if the players aren't going to be thinking in the process. In my opinion 4E > 3E in this respect, even if the tactics are spoonfed through powers - and a little boardgame-like to boot.

I suppose I'd like players to think when it comes to an encounter, rather than assume that bursting into melee will be good enough because it always is.

The assumption of miniatures and a battlemap should not be implicit in the ruleset; the rules must also be able to support those groups who prefer the landscape of the mind

Again, this works fine for a home game, but is a bad business model.

Now that miniatures have reached a certain saturation, I wonder? Is the expectation of battlemap/miniatures now a hurdle to getting new and young blood into the game. If you could do it with just pen and paper and have it supported by the rules, might this actually get more players involved and then have these players looking at miniatures when they're ready for the investment? I have no idea?

Good idea. But 'whilst'?

Hey, I'm Australian...

The counter argument is that you don't want characters who spread out a lot ending up with more power. The balance should be depth vs. breadth. Multiclassing should be an option, and that's it: neither encouraged nor discouraged.

True.

Some suggest that rules for 'out of combat' actions discourage roleplaying. I disagree, though.

Personally, I'd encourage some level of "personality building" rules, where the player runs through a generalized list of homelands, family situations, past traumas, personal issues, reasons for adventuring, and long-term goals. Each of these could give a small benefit in a non-combat sense.

As well as giving the DM some good direction.

Honestly, the economics of adventuring is unsustainable. It is only a valid business venture in some rare niche cases, which require complex historical factors to generate caches of undiscovered treasure that is held in perilous enough locations that only specialists can retrieve it. Even then, discovery of such treasures will invariably result in a "adventuring rush" which will rapidly deplete the ready supplies of such ancient loot.

I'm fine with heroic characters in D&D, folks who go out and do dramatic deeds because they have a specific motivation or goal. But the idea of a 'dungeon economy' is ridiculous.

Agreed!

I think those last issues fit together into one thing.

One approach to aid balance and make game design easier (since you don't have a huge staff, and you're not planning to release tons and tons of products in order to make money) would be to reduce the number of levels, or at least narrow the power gap between levels.

Sure, a 10th level character is very capable and can generally kick the butt of a 1st level character, but there's no reason to design rules where the "1st level" part of the game becomes obsolete when the characters are 10th level. If you don't have wildly scaling AC and hit points, then even if high level characters are pulling off deific stunts, you can still throw a bunch of goblins at them and not make the encounter pointless.

Even Gandalf was afraid of the goblins of Moria.

I agree, and I also think I have a possible answer to making the game play like this. It all relates to the core mechanic, the range of DCs possible and the fact that we roll a d20 (which only has 20 levels of variation). Perhaps this deserves a thread of it's own but in short:

- Imagine that a complete novice has a +0 modifier to perform a skilled action
- What they can achieve ranges from a DC of 1 or lower (always successful) to a DC of 20 (the very limit of their capability) to a DC of 21 or above (impossible).
From this, a lot depends on scale but let's follow this through:
- A master (the highest level of ordinary achievement and capability in something) is defined as someone who can consistently do what a novice finds impossible (that would be a bonus of +20 or higher).
- What is the ceiling of achievement, even for a master? If you try to keep things as compressed as possible (having a master at +20), then your ceiling is a DC of 40. Anything over and above this becomes meaningless (at least in terms of what is mortally possible within the game structure).
- Using your 70/30 psychological success preference (rather than the 50/50 I had scribbled down), a master will expect to be successful up to a DC of 27, after that things start becoming difficult/frustrating even for a master.
- Now lets think of all the DCs involved in the game in terms of this scale: armor class, knowledge check DCs, skill check DCs, saving throw DCs and imagine this being standardized across the range.
- Also imagine having modifiers somewhere between +0 and +20 for everything.
I think if you do this, you have a system that can cope with it's own scale, and the fact that a d20 is your random factor (and not a d30 or 3d6 and so on). The d20 naturally restricts your range.
Anyway, as I said, maybe something for another thread.

Anyway Mr RangerWickett, thank you very much for your advocacy of the devil - very much appreciated. Your responses have spawned many ideas in my head.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[LotusBlossom]

- Imagine that a complete novice has a +0 modifier to perform a skilled action
- What they can achieve ranges from a DC of 1 or lower (always successful) to a DC of 20 (the very limit of their capability) to a DC of 21 or above (impossible).
From this, a lot depends on scale but let's follow this through:
- A master (the highest level of ordinary achievement and capability in something) is defined as someone who can consistently do what a novice finds impossible (that would be a bonus of +20 or higher).
- What is the ceiling of achievement, even for a master? If you try to keep things as compressed as possible (having a master at +20), then your ceiling is a DC of 40. Anything over and above this becomes meaningless (at least in terms of what is mortally possible within the game structure).
- Using your 70/30 psychological success preference (rather than the 50/50 I had scribbled down), a master will expect to be successful up to a DC of 27, after that things start becoming difficult/frustrating even for a master.
- Now lets think of all the DCs involved in the game in terms of this scale: armor class, knowledge check DCs, skill check DCs, saving throw DCs and imagine this being standardized across the range.
- Also imagine having modifiers somewhere between +0 and +20 for everything.
I think if you do this, you have a system that can cope with it's own scale, and the fact that a d20 is your random factor (and not a d30 or 3d6 and so on). The d20 naturally restricts your range.

I think your on to something here. Define what a master can accomplish, what his bonus would be, and you have a top most cap for the system. If +20 is master level, then that could effectively give us 20+ levels for PCs (if using +1/2 per level + other bonuses & items, or lower levels if using more bonuses.) Of course, one could make post-master levels as well, for truly high level (epic) play, but I think we should shoot for a reasonable top-cap for normal play. NOTE: I'm not against some monsters being above master level (and certainly not gods) -- there are some things mere mortals just should not mess with, and in that part of the adventure, the PCs should strive for avoidance at all costs.


EDIT: Been thinking about the DC thing again. DC 1 is a given for everyone. DC 10 is easy if you have the time to take 10, else 50% chance if you have to roll. Joe farmer has a 5% chance to make DC 20, but Master Fred (+20 bonus) can always make it. Master Fred has a 5% for producing his master class sword with a DC 40 (maybe less if he puts in lots of time and using top grade materials for a bonus). I can image a DC 60 for better weapons being hit by a master if using mages for magical enchants, the best materials, only forged during periods of a full moon, etc.. This seems like a reasonable scale for DC type actions.

If a person gets a +5 for being skilled (using 4e as an example), then they would have a 75% chance to make DC 10 and 50% for DC 15, 25% for DC 20. Seems reasonable. And if the skill were tied to their level progression (and no other bonuses and using +1/2 per level), they would hit master class (+20) at level 30. Hmmm, seems a bit much to hit master class with no other bonuses. Maybe, if they really wanted it bad enough, they would also have purchased additional bonuses in the skill along the way. On second thought, maybe this isn't so bad; master class truly would be pinicle. Needs more thought.

 

[Walknot]

I'm going to speak on a tangent that comes back to this. I'm speaking about specific systems, please don't take it as bashing of any of them.

When 4e first came out, one thing I had a problem with was the treasure packets and the magic item economy. I've had players who have wanted to be a merchant prince, and ... well, let's just say I didn't like it.

Then I looked into how I could play with it. Things like selling magic items for more than 20% became a skill challenge - multiple roles (finding/enticing the right buyer, etc) by multiple characters. Potential downsides for failure (taxmen, inviting robbers, nobles who want to seize it for "the good of the city", etc.), and suddenly it's a whole encounter, one I can give out not just a treasure packet, but also XP.

That rings true with me, too. It is a neat idea that discovering a treasure trove could just be the start of challenges and complications. You could allow fans of "hack 'n sack" style play to grab the loot and scoot, but at the same time offer a variety of incentives for players who want more skill challenges and role play.

As you mention Blue, this is outside of any one game system.

On the other hand, for 5e, are there cetain game rules that could enhance these possibilities?

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I think your on to something here. Define what a master can accomplish, what his bonus would be, and you have a top most cap for the system. If +20 is master level, then that could effectively give us 20+ levels for PCs (if using +1/2 per level + other bonuses & items, or lower levels if using more bonuses.) Of course, one could make post-master levels as well, for truly high level (epic) play, but I think we should shoot for a reasonable top-cap for normal play. NOTE: I'm not against some monsters being above master level (and certainly not gods) -- there are some things mere mortals just should not mess with, and in that part of the adventure, the PCs should strive for avoidance at all costs.

Just a quick note before I get to the crux of my point:
- I think the 1/2 level thing in 4E is mechanically sound, almost like a floating level that keeps everything synchronised as the party goes up levels. In terms of flavour though, I see a big disconnect. My niminy-piminy wizard who has never physically struck out at anything in his entire life gets a few levels and suddenly becomes a better fighter than the 1st level "hero" fighter, and better at avoiding blows (from this half class bonus to everything). This mechanic in fact was exactly the one I was thinking of when I said, "streamline for elegance, not to bash complexity into vague simplicity". In short, I think there are better (but slightly more complex) ways of dealing with this.

For the moment, the thing I see of benefit is standardizing DCs to a common scale - like the DCs on page 31 of the 3.5 DMG (and in fact, this seems to support the numbers of my exercise above). The weird thing is, 3.5 supplements seemed to get away from this standardizing - and I don't think it was ever made standard across all manner of DCs.

Addendum to the Core Mechanic DC Discussion
My question is, where do attribute scores fit in with this? Are they just the sacred cow upon its throne on the top left of the character sheet, or do they mean something once more. I'm talking scores here not modifiers by the way - modifiers seem to have overtaken the scores somewhat as the editions have progressed.

I think it would be interesting to link the score and modifier in to the standardized DC system. For example if you had a dexterity score of 15 [a high dexterity], would this make it interesting to say that raw dex checks of DC 15 or less, you can automatically succeed? What does this say about a DC of 15? Does it fit in better with the DC scale above than the take 10/modifier option of a DC of 12 [10 plus +2 dex modifier]?

I suppose one of the funny things for me is something like the Strength check to break down a door (and a DC of 15). Our strong dwarf (STR 15) compared to our weak wizard (STR 8). The Dwarf has a 40% chance of knocking the door down. Our wizard has a 25% chance. This is just out of whack. It seems that if you used the scores as an auto success for an equivalent or lower DC, then this would fall into line. The question becomes, how would the Dwarf attempt to achieve a door with a DC of 20?

Much to ponder.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Blue]

That rings true with me, too. It is a neat idea that discovering a treasure trove could just be the start of challenges and complications. You could allow fans of "hack 'n sack" style play to grab the loot and scoot, but at the same time offer a variety of incentives for players who want more skill challenges and role play.

As you mention Blue, this is outside of any one game system.

On the other hand, for 5e, are there cetain game rules that could enhance these possibilities?

Absolutely. I think you need to divorce XP and gold/items from specific encounters and consciously put it in the hands of the DM. If the players get XP because the DM says so (completed a plot arc, cool and meaningful fight, great intra-party RP, introducing plot complications, etc.) instead of the deterministic "we completed a combat/trap/social/skill encounter, we get a reward" then you allow each DM to guide the game to the fun of the players and differing styles. And if other rewards like gold are specifically braced around character advancement (by XP, level, what have you), then the rules will support however you want to play.

There is no one right way, even in a single group. Separating advancement and reward from a mechanical encounter system into a unique-for-your-game driven system allows this.

Cheers,
Blue

P.S. Though to loop to another 5e post, rules should also support if you want to change the rewards, so that DMs will understand how to keep things balanced if they only give a fraction,or a large multiple, of expected treasure or other rewards.