How odds make you feel

[pauljathome]

Why do so few people seem to realize that 4e did not have "flat odds"? The tables for difficulty by level weren't meant to show that the same door would be harder to break at level 20 than it was at level 10. It was meant to show that a door meant to stop 20th level characters was harder to break down than a door meant to stop 10th level characters. .

That was the theory but it never felt that way to me.

Part of the problem was that WOTC really screwed up descriptions. I remember in the early days there was an example trap intended for high level characters. From the description and picture it was obvious to any player with the slightest intelligence that this thing was potentially very dangerous and should be approached with extreme care. But a perception check with some absurd difficulty number was required for the characters to get that.

The other problem (or feature, opinions vary) with 4th edition automatic skill raises was that the difference between characters remained constant. If your 1st level wizard knew a little more about dragons than my 1st level cleric then your 30th level wizard would almost certainly know only a little more than my 30th level cleric. Worse, my 30th level wizard who has never swam in his life can now swim better than a 10th level olympic swimmer.

 

[the Jester]

So wait, in effect you propose that a 1st level fighter attempting smack an iron golem behind a crenelated wall with an old, half-broken wooden club should have the same chance to hit as a 20th level fighter attempting to thrust his +5 vorpal sword into the guts of a drunken peasant?

 

[Frostmarrow]

I have no issues with nonstandard character types. However, they should not be the default.

You, yourself, admit that most people aren't likely to want to play a coin toss class. If the cleric is a coin toss class, then players are potentially burdened with undesired mechanics either for the sake of story (they want to play a priest archetype) or for the sake of other mechanics (the party wants a healer). That's just going back to the "no one wants to play the cleric but every group needs one" issue that was fairly prevalent for the first three editions.

Now, if you want to design a non-standard class around non-standard mechanics, such as a Gambler class, I'm all for it. Even a non-standard variant of a standard class, such as a Priest of the god of gambling, is fine. Or having optional abilities that leverage a greater amount of luck (such as a more powerful spell you can memorize that only works 50% of the time) might be okay, though there's a risk that it will lead to a rocket tag style of play that I dislike.

I just don't think it's a great idea for the default kernel. Some variation is to be admittedly desired. There's an argument to be made to the effect that 4e made classes too alike. However, that doesn't mean that one needs to leap over the other side of the boat and design a primary class whose core abilities only have a 30% chance of success.

I concede that the coin-toss cleric is a bad idea. At least on paper not having playtested this. However maybe Minotaur (or any ECL-monster) can take that spot. I agree that the rocket tag style should be avoided so I don't think it's a good idea to balance a low rate of success with a high rate of effect.

–No, the balancing should be made with exclusive class features instead. That is if you want to be able to find traps, or rage, you need to be a rogue or barbarian. A class is a complete package that offers a unique play experience. I know we have been taught not to balance a crunch bonus with a fluff bonus but having seen the result of the perfectly - crunchwise - balanced D&D I'm not so sure anymore.

About the cleric though ...and watch me grasp at straws. Clerics have lots of class features that are unavailable to the other (four core) classes. Clerics can heal, cast spells, fight in melee, turn undead, know religion, use domain powers, and so on. The breadth of exclusive abilities might be worth a middling chance of success. There is even room to give them 60% which is about norm nowadays anyway.

 

[Fanaelialae]

So wait, in effect you propose that a 1st level fighter attempting smack an iron golem behind a crenelated wall with an old, half-broken wooden club should have the same chance to hit as a 20th level fighter attempting to thrust his +5 vorpal sword into the guts of a drunken peasant?

I don't think anyone's proposing that.

 

[Frostmarrow]

So wait, in effect you propose that a 1st level fighter attempting smack an iron golem behind a crenelated wall with an old, half-broken wooden club should have the same chance to hit as a 20th level fighter attempting to thrust his +5 vorpal sword into the guts of a drunken peasant?

Not exactly. But I do slice the cake in a new way.

I'm proposing that climbing and fighting are weighted to balance around 70%, healing and turning are balanced around 50%, identifying and fireballing balanced around 95%. -Instead of all tasks being balanced around 55%.

As you point our there are a lot of circumstances that should be taken into account.

Also, this is a design idea. A lot of development work is needed.

 

[the Jester]

I much prefer a system where the odds depend on the challenge, and the challenge is chosen by the pcs. So the first level guys can go after a lair of kobolds with a good chance of success, a cave of goblins with a fair chance of success, a stronghold of hobgoblins with a poor chance of success or an orgrish village with a very poor chance of success, but the harder the challenge, the greater the rewards.

 

[DogBackward]

Part of the problem was that WOTC really screwed up descriptions. I remember in the early days there was an example trap intended for high level characters. From the description and picture it was obvious to any player with the slightest intelligence that this thing was potentially very dangerous and should be approached with extreme care. But a perception check with some absurd difficulty number was required for the characters to get that.

Well, the "early days" part should be a clue... though I do agree that WotC did put out a lot of half-baked stuff. That said, are you sure the Perception check wasn't to locate the specific triggers? There's a big difference between seeing the big swinging blades as opposed to seeing the tiny tripwire or pressure plate that actually sets them off.

The other problem (or feature, opinions vary) with 4th edition automatic skill raises was that the difference between characters remained constant. If your 1st level wizard knew a little more about dragons than my 1st level cleric then your 30th level wizard would almost certainly know only a little more than my 30th level cleric. Worse, my 30th level wizard who has never swam in his life can now swim better than a 10th level olympic swimmer.

Well... yeah. Unless you choose to specialize (skill focus, paragon path/epic destiny, etc...), then having basic training in a skill won't actually put you much farther ahead that someone without basic training in that skill. You don't become an expert by taking one class, you have to spend the time and resources to go that much farther.

As for the auto-increase over levels... you're playing heroic adventurers, not random schmucks. If you've survived 30 levels of hair-raising, murder-your-soul adventuring, you're going to pick up a few tricks whether you like it or not. Your 30th level Cleric will absorb tidbits and details about dragons just by doing what he's doing, by living through these adventures and by actually fighting dragons. Your 30th level Wizard will have had to take a swim a time or two. At the very least, walking across the kingdom hundreds of times will have made your frail little Wizard much more physically fit, and thus better able to handle a quick dip even if he hasn't trained as a swimmer. Keeping in mind that someone who has trained as a swimmer will still blow you out of the water.

You simply cannot survive 30 levels of adventuring without getting better at adventuring. Increasing your bonus by half your level doesn't represent training, it represents real-world experience. Training is represented by choosing specific options, such as feats, backgrounds and other features.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I concede that the coin-toss cleric is a bad idea. At least on paper not having playtested this. However maybe Minotaur (or any ECL-monster) can take that spot. I agree that the rocket tag style should be avoided so I don't think it's a good idea to balance a low rate of success with a high rate of effect.

Yeah, there's definitely room for non-standard classes. I'm not saying that folks shouldn't be allowed to play "Imperial Guard" if they want to, just that it should be obviously called out as a choice that is off the beaten path, and that may not be for everyone.

–No, the balancing should be made with exclusive class features instead. That is if you want to be able to find traps, or rage, you need to be a rogue or barbarian. A class is a complete package that offers a unique play experience. I know we have been taught not to balance a crunch bonus with a fluff bonus but having seen the result of the perfectly - crunchwise - balanced D&D I'm not so sure anymore.

Eh, I'm not so sure about this. I have no issues with rage being a barbarian ability, but I think anyone (with the appropriate skill) should be able to find traps. Rage is not a fundamental element of the game, whereas finding traps is.

I still recall the aggravation it caused me (in earlier editions), when no one chose to play a rogue. On the one hand, I didn't want to punish the players for playing what they wanted to play. On the other hand, traps became far more punishing without a rogue, and I had to use them much more sparingly as a result (because I felt that to do otherwise would be unfair). I hated that, and would not like to see a return to it.

I have no issues with a particular class making certain types of challenges easier. However, in my opinion, class abilities that trivialize encounters (Turn Undead), or where the lack thereof makes certain types of encounters unapproachable (Find/Remove Traps), should not exist.

Note that certain play styles circumvented such limitations by role playing through trap encounters. However, I played with some DMs who wouldn't give hints about the location of a trap. It can be nigh impossible to role play your way around a trap that you have no idea exists. As such, if non-rogue parties are expected to role-play their way, that should be explicitly stated in the rules.

About the cleric though ...and watch me grasp at straws. Clerics have lots of class features that are unavailable to the other (four core) classes. Clerics can heal, cast spells, fight in melee, turn undead, know religion, use domain powers, and so on. The breadth of exclusive abilities might be worth a middling chance of success. There is even room to give them 60% which is about norm nowadays anyway.

Yeah, there's room for variation. I just think it should fall within 55-75% success for class abilities. If your 3 charisma Fighter wants to train in the Diplomacy, and still only has a 30% chance to succeed, well... he's got a 3 charisma! However, a fighter shouldn't have a 30% chance to successfully hit with his sword (unless perhaps he's suffering some terrible circumstances, such as in the example above.

Obviously, even if you follow that rule, you can make exceptions. I just think that those exceptions should be made for good reasons (such as designing a Gambler class whose entire shtick is built upon the principle of swinginess) and not simply for the sake of superficial differences between classes.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I much prefer a system where the odds depend on the challenge, and the challenge is chosen by the pcs. So the first level guys can go after a lair of kobolds with a good chance of success, a cave of goblins with a fair chance of success, a stronghold of hobgoblins with a poor chance of success or an orgrish village with a very poor chance of success, but the harder the challenge, the greater the rewards.

I think this is apples and oranges.

From what I gather, [MENTION=1122]Frostmarrow[/MENTION] is discussing the standard difficulty of something.

For example, in 4e you typically have around a 65% chance to hit a monster of your level. That doesn't mean you can't fight an monster 10 levels above you, with only a 15% chance to hit. Depending on the style of campaign, it's completely within the realm of possibility (much like how in 3e you might face a creature 10 CRs above your level). That's not to say that you could realistically win such an encounter without some out-of-the-box strategy, but there's nothing in the game that strictly prohibits such (though both games warn that such mismatched encounters are likely to end in a TPK).

As I understand it, Frostmarrow isn't saying that an apprentice wizard should have a 95% chance to affect a god with his magic, but rather that he should be able to expect about a 95% success rate against an opponent comparable to himself.

Assuming that the DM makes such options available, there's nothing preventing a level 2 party from going into a level 1 dungeon if they want an easier time, or a level 3 dungeon if they want a harder time. It's simply that if they go into a level 2 dungeon, they can expect a certain success rate against most of the encounters.

 

[Frostmarrow]

From the reports it seems we will have flatter math in Next, so it isn't even my fault that a low level dude can hit a high level one.