D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?

[Baron Opal II]

The national debt?
Scenes that run too long?
Off, the pub patron who's had one too many?
One's losses?

Yeah, that's one badass sword!

Not what I meant, but you're getting there.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think it might be a shifting baseline thing. Back in the day a +1 modifier to a stat was a big deal because it was rare. Now a character is considered incompetent if they have anything less than a +4 modifier to a stat, and the proper bonus is +5 in the stat, trained for the prof bonus, plus expertise.

That's certainly one shift in D&D over the years. Players have gone from a "sure, let's see what happens" mentality, to a "don't even try unless your bonuses are maxed out" mentality. You see this a lot when people complain about a non-socially optimized character even trying to talk to an NPC.

weirdly it's not like the 3.x level based DC's are a thing, average is still pretty trivial thanks to bounded accuracy making sure a level 1 can do a level 20's thing too

edit: My players would be shocked if they knew how often the only reason I ask for a skill check is to decide how to describe the results of the inevitable success.

 

[overgeeked]

weirdly it's not like the 3.x level based DC's are a thing, average is still pretty trivial thanks to bounded accuracy making sure a level 1 can do a level 20's thing too

edit: My players would be shocked if they knew how often the only reason I ask for a skill check is to decide how to describe the results of the inevitable success.

Right. Or ask for a roll to see how long something takes rather than success or failure.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And yet a single +1 bonus from an ASI apparently made a lot of folks on here avoid playing some race/class combinations.

Well, this is going to be different if you're of the mindset that chases every single bonus at all cost (and I don't mean that as necessarily an insult, just that its hardly everyone).

It would be interesting to (get paid to) analyze actual play and follow up with interviews to see what parts of the game mechanics and what situations make a +1 really important and which ones make it a whole lot of nothing. (Somewhat akin to studying how folks rate risky activities on a bunch of things other than the actual risk).

There's also some middle ground; again, speaking of PF2e, because of how crits work, a +1 is more impactful than it traditionally has been, because it, effectively, pushes up your benefit twice.

That said, though, its more of an intellectual understanding, because in play, the long and the short of it is most people don't pay that close an attention to when they just hit or just miss a number.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Hey, if I'm a Fighter whose job is to hit things and hurt things and there's a +X weapon that'll make me better at what I do?

Gimme.

I never said everyone wouldn't. But I mostly play fighters, and my attitude tends more toward "Eh, why not." Because again, in play, I'm just not likely to notice.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So, really bad dice luck? Because the odds are very much in your favor in 5e right from the beginning.

Big linear dice are really prone to giving people exaggerated senses of their own failure and success.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Ah, don't limit yourself. You have a sword that has such a high bonus it can cut anything.

Except in practice, that's not how it looks. Its not like it ignores armor. Its not like you can use it to go through stone walls. It just increases your success rate some.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Except in practice, that's not how it looks. Its not like it ignores armor. Its not like you can use it to go through stone walls. It just increases your success rate some.

See, that's the thing. I look at a +5 sword and figure out what it might look like and what it could mean to have a sword that can harm any material creature.

Maybe not a stone wall that's as thick as the blade, but a brick wall? Absolutely you could hack your way through. Chasing a foe through a thicket or bamboo forest? You'll clear the way. It's not likely to get stuck in anything either. A little wiggle and you can cut it free. And if a higher level fighter comes up against an opponent with mundane armor, why couldn't it cut through and destroy the armor?

And, "increases your success rate some"? That's +25% in one shot, one tool. That's equivalent to 5 levels of fighter, or martial training, in earlier editions. It practically does double damage.

My point is that the simple +X item could have special capabilities extrapolated from just a bonus to a die roll. Yes, that may mean it is not "just a +X item" anymore. I think it is useful to look at "boring" items and think how they impact the world. You might find that they are not as boring as you might otherwise expect.

 

[jasper]

... Again, your experience is not universal and we're back to dueling anecdotes.

And once Marketing has the IT create a chart, the anecdotes become data points. See any survey WOTC has done since 2016.

 

[Cadence]

Well, this is going to be different if you're of the mindset that chases every single bonus at all cost (and I don't mean that as necessarily an insult, just that its hardly everyone).



There's also some middle ground; again, speaking of PF2e, because of how crits work, a +1 is more impactful than it traditionally has been, because it, effectively, pushes up your benefit twice.

That said, though, its more of an intellectual understanding, because in play, the long and the short of it is most people don't pay that close an attention to when they just hit or just miss a number.

That's where I'm at - I make a character that feels like what I'm aiming at and might leave some bonuses out by putting a few points in here or there.

In the ASI threads a lot of folks on here either care a lot or have a lot of players who do. I was really surprised the first time in I read one.