D&D General Hot Take: D&D Has Not Recovered From 2E to 3.0 Transition

[Bedrockgames]

I can't speak to 5E, as I don't play, but I will say this having recently run a 2E campaign again, while I know it won't go there again, I very much prefer how manageable a lot of the numbers were in the game, and particularly prefer things like the old system for Saving Throws to how those things were done in 3e and 4e. But I can't imagine them going back to something like THAC0 or attack matrices.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

While the white room theorizing about this is interesting, I can't remember a single time in the last 8 years where a PC has been taken out of a fight by a bad save.

in that case you have never seen a creature use Banishment on someone that dumped or even just passibled there Cha score.

twice in 1 campagain we had a cha 15 (far from dump) get banished round 1 for an entire fight... by the way it was our Barbarian (and main damage dealer). 1 of those two we were not on prime and as such it derailed the entire campaign as we had to go back home find him get him just to keep going with the adventure.

If the target is native to a different plane of existence than the one you’re on, the target is banished with a faint popping noise, returning to its home plane. If the spell ends before 1 minute has passed, the target reappears in the space it left or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied. Otherwise, the target doesn’t Return.

 

[Fanaelialae]

in that case you have never seen a creature use Banishment on someone that dumped or even just passibled there Cha score.

twice in 1 campagain we had a cha 15 (far from dump) get banished round 1 for an entire fight... by the way it was our Barbarian (and main damage dealer). 1 of those two we were not on prime and as such it derailed the entire campaign as we had to go back home find him get him just to keep going with the adventure.

It's far less common IME in 5e as well. Twice a campaign? I recall 3.x games where that sort of thing happened multiple times in the same session.

Banishment is a bit of an outlier. The devs are already targeting it in the revision, so I would say this is more a case of an individual spell being too good, rather than something reflective of a systemic issue.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

I've seen a Banishment TPK as well, you target the Barbarian and the Fighter with their +0 to Charisma save, then the rest of the group is screwed.

Fighters and Barbarians get Con and Str, former is great, latter is mostly useless. They're basically required to get Resilient Wisdom to not get easily mind controlled or paralyzed all the time, but it still leaves Charisma and Intelligence, both likely very low saves for them. Those aren't as prevalent, but it's pretty easy to load up on them, especially Int got some great choices lately.

I have a Wizard at high level as well, started with Wis and Int, two good to have, but he had to take Resilient Con for concentration and all the nasty con saves. Still leaves Dex, that he can deal with most of the time, and Charisma at -1, which will easily annihilate him if any enemy ever bothers to target that.

 

[glass]

Later in 4E's run, they got real quiet about sales figures.

For most of its run, 4e was making stupendous amounts of money from DDi even if it did not sell a single book.

For me 4ed is the eleven edition.
It took a roll of 11 to succeed something at level 1, 10, 20, and 30 despite the bonus you have.

This is (of course) not remotely true. But ironically it is pretty close to true that it is the eleventh edition (it is actually ninth or tenth, depending on whether you consider RC to be a separate edition - I don't FWIW, I consider it repackaging/revised core of BECM).

Hmmm, Doesn't look all that different to me.

You appear to be assuming "stat" is a constant across the whole table, and it really really isn't.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It's far less common IME in 5e as well. Twice a campaign? I recall 3.x games where that sort of thing happened multiple times in the same session.

the campaign was pitched as 13 death knights being the big bads (but of course we found out they had a boss) and as such from jump we were facing things with banishment... it came out a lot starting around level 7... the issue was most of us (a warlock, a rogue and a monk that had awesome in all saves) could make a cha save, and if one failed it the barbarian would hit the death knight for about a billion damage and stop them from concentrating... BUT the two times it hit the barbarian we could not reliably deal enough damage to knock concentration out.

Spoiler: 1st issue

now this would NOT have been as big of a deal if we didn't have the worlds worst rogue...one that got sneak attack about 7 times over 11 levels. so her d4+3 damage from what might as well have been a rusty spork was never a help...
I will say since 1 of those sneak attacks was a crit against a vulnerable death knight and was a surprise bajillion damage so I have to say the few she got DID matter.

to saveBanishment is a bit of an outlier. The devs are already targeting it in the revision, so I would say this is more a case of an individual spell being too good, rather than something reflective of a systemic issue.

maybe, but even adding a 'save every turn' the death knight save DC is 18... if you have a -1 you have a 10% chance of saving, and if you are not prof and have even a +2 (again not a bad stat) you need a 16 so 1 in 4

 

[Clint_L]

While the white room theorizing about this is interesting, I can't remember a single time in the last 8 years where a PC has been taken out of a fight by a bad save. A round or 2, sure, but nothing encounter ending. Playing pre 3.0 games it happened regularly. Sure, that is anecdotal, but I can't be the only one seeing this.

This made me try to remember the last time a multi-round effect like petrifaction actually succeeded against a PC in one of my games. And I can't.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

it still leaves Charisma and Intelligence, both likely very low saves for them. Those aren't as prevalent, but it's pretty easy to load up on them, especially Int got some great choices lately.

Int saves are always the worst in my groups. If we don't have a wizard and/or artificer the best Int we normally see is 13, and often see more then 1 8 (we use array). It is too underused. HOWEVER some of the saves are debilitating.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This made me try to remember the last time a multi-round effect like petrifaction actually succeeded against a PC in one of my games. And I can't.

I can. three different times we had no way to reversed 1 time the death chicken thing and twice a medusa. but that was across years and 3 different campaigns.
I don't understand how your group has great saves across the board.
I have 3 player characters right now and only my artificer/bladesinger has great saves and that is only because the DM let us roll stats and i got what I can only call god stats.

I just while getting this post together went back to my last 3 roll20 campaigns I ran and in all 3 every PC had a -1 save and a 0 save... of those 12 Characters 9 of them had one of those as int saves, and 3 had them as cha saves but not 1 of them had less then a +3 con save... now the levels of those campagins were 'highish' with 5 characters being 7th, 4 characters being 9th and 3 characters being 12th.
but then I went into the ravenloft/curse of strahd TPK that got me to stop running a few months ago, and the 3 PCs although the lowest level (5th) we had all 3 had -1 int saves and +0str saves... so in theory any creature that targeted intelligence or str was going to be deadly.

 

[Fanaelialae]

the campaign was pitched as 13 death knights being the big bads (but of course we found out they had a boss) and as such from jump we were facing things with banishment... it came out a lot starting around level 7... the issue was most of us (a warlock, a rogue and a monk that had awesome in all saves) could make a cha save, and if one failed it the barbarian would hit the death knight for about a billion damage and stop them from concentrating... BUT the two times it hit the barbarian we could not reliably deal enough damage to knock concentration out.

Spoiler: 1st issue

now this would NOT have been as big of a deal if we didn't have the worlds worst rogue...one that got sneak attack about 7 times over 11 levels. so her d4+3 damage from what might as well have been a rusty spork was never a help...
I will say since 1 of those sneak attacks was a crit against a vulnerable death knight and was a surprise bajillion damage so I have to say the few she got DID matter.

maybe, but even adding a 'save every turn' the death knight save DC is 18... if you have a -1 you have a 10% chance of saving, and if you are not prof and have even a +2 (again not a bad stat) you need a 16 so 1 in 4

That's 10% (or 25%) each round. I assume that at least one of these encounters went a minimum of 10 rounds since the character was perma-banished. Meaning that, with a save every round the 10% guy has a 65% chance of making a successful save before the effect becomes permanent. And that's not counting the possibility of their allies disrupting concentration.

For the guy with a 25% chance, it's actually a 94% chance of eventually making the save.

So, yeah, it's a pretty big difference compared to a single 10 or 25% pass/fail save.