AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Yup! Exactly why it's the only type of dynamic modifier in HoML.Advantage/Disadvantage is a damn sledgehammer
Yup! Exactly why it's the only type of dynamic modifier in HoML.Advantage/Disadvantage is a damn sledgehammer
I have long said (as in, from basically the moment it was introduced to the D&D Next playtest) that Ad/Dis was a great idea on paper but a terrible one in practice, because WotC would horribly abuse it and thus be lrft with a weaker, more impoverished design space.One aspect I really miss from 4e is the universal attack system where everything you want to do to an enemy is an attack roll. This doesn’t seem like it should matter who rolls, but 4e makes it WAAAAAY easier to create a universally useful support class.
I basically gave up on my idea of a 5e Warlord because it was impossible to avoid having to treat the Super Special Casters different from the rest of the offensive actions due to Saving Throws.
The Advantage/Disadvantage system is rather nice when in play, as it’s fairly simple, but it drains so many subtleties and nuances out of the game, and coupled with those damn saving throws, makes support characters super boring in 5e. Advantage is also very ‘all of nothing’. I liked 4e Combat Advantage as a thing that not only gives you a straight +2 to attack, but it also served as a hook to hang a bunch of mechanics. Advantage feels too strong for that part.
I think the main issue here is avoiding overwhelming players. It could get a bit overwhelming just with the stuff they already had. Nearly doubling the amount of power options isn't going to help that. That doesn't mean it's a bad idea, but I would want to make damn sure that the price paid is as low as possible and the benefit gained as high as possible. Otherwise, it strikes me as putting a design aesthetic ("give all distinct things distinct niches") ahead of actual usability by players.I think Utility powers should be split into Defense Powers, Skill Powers, and Utility powers.
Defense Powers increase defenses, heal, grant movement, or grant THP.
Skill Powers increase skills, negate skill penalties, swap skills or associated ability scores to skills, or do something else with skills.
Utility Powers are everything else that is noncombat.
A/E/D/D/S/U?
I think the path is to slow the acquisition of powers.I think the main issue here is avoiding overwhelming players. It could get a bit overwhelming just with the stuff they already had. Nearly doubling the amount of power options isn't going to help that. That doesn't mean it's a bad idea, but I would want to make damn sure that the price paid is as low as possible and the benefit gained as high as possible. Otherwise, it strikes me as putting a design aesthetic ("give all distinct things distinct niches") ahead of actual usability by players.
Perhaps, as a compromise, having every Utility power give some combat benefit (offense, defense, or other), and also have a non-combat benefit (skill, ability, feature, etc.) that is unlocked or empowered by having a particular skill training or the like? Essentially, making every utility power a skill power.
Have you tried using the boon/bane or accuracy/difficulty method, as per Shadow of the Demon Lord/Lancer? That is, you add or subtract one d6 from the roll for each point, but only the highest of these d6 rolls is used.I have long said (as in, from basically the moment it was introduced to the D&D Next playtest) that Ad/Dis was a great idea on paper but a terrible one in practice, because WotC would horribly abuse it and thus be lrft with a weaker, more impoverished design space.
As you say, the problem is that Advantage is too powerful as it is; it is powerful enough that it should be an upgrade, or at least more like a weapon of last resort, especially since it doesn't stack and (originally) wasn't intended to have any stronger form.
But it isn't treated like that, is it? It is treated like the weapon of first resort. By the time you get to the late end of levels most games reach (upper single digits), it's quite possible to get Advantage on a lot of checks; by the early teens, it should be nearly everywhere. Yet it's also supposed to serve as the only real reward for cool stunt ideas or favorable circumstances and the mechanical hook on which multiple classes can depend AND completely non-stacking and (originally) non-improving, with no recognition for heightened benefit or extra special circumstances?
And then they went and broke even the main benefit of it being the last step in the line by having things like Elven Accuracy, where the player gets "super" advantage some of the time. So it isn't even the one-stop shop in absolute form, yet it remains the all-and-only of the buff world for most characters. It is incredibly frustrating; instead of having our cake and eating it too, we have sold our cake and then used the proceeds to get a chance to merely look at a cake we can't even eat!
I have not, but I have other issues with this approach. Same goes for Level Up's dice. I don't personally think it's actually that good of design to encourage rolling and tabulating fistfuls of dice. That's a me thing though, so I don't make a big stink of it.Have you tried using the boon/band or accuracy/difficulty method, as per Shadow of the Demon Lord/Lancer? That is, you add or subtract one d6 from the roll for each point, but only the highest of these d6 rolls is used.
I find it works really well in Lancer.
As I've said, in Heroes of Myth and Legend there are exactly 4 modifiers, Ability (which rarely changes, and each skill/implement/weapon is tied to one), Level (obviously doesn't change THAT often), Proficiency (+5), and 'Permanent Bonus', which covers all other sorts of "I have something that always gives me this bonus (which may be situational itself)." The first 3 have single possible sources, so there's no stacking possible. Permanent Bonus simply doesn't ever stack, by rule. You get all 4 of these, and that is it, nothing else, ever. This makes play FAST, you don't have to do any calculations unless whatever you are rolling isn't something you added the bonuses for before (or you have a bonus that has a condition on it so maybe it doesn't always apply). Everything else is Advantage/Disadvantage. Honestly, IME HoML plays MUCH faster, and you will not miss what you imagine you are losing from this. In any case powers can always describe special situations where they might work better or worse, or those kinds of rules can be tied to keywords in most cases.Here’s the types of bonus I would keep:
Permanent bonus: stuff you put on your character sheet. Anything you only need to calculate once per level to get a score and it all stacks.
Long Duration Bonus: That would be conditional bonuses (attack a bloodied foe) or based on powerful Powers. These powers granted bonuses would be the one I’d put on a duration track based on Saving Throws but in reverse (you want to roll high to KEEP the bonus). You would always only apply the highest bonus.
Short Duration Bonus: Anything ‘next roll’ or ‘until the end of the next turn’. You would only apply the highest bonus again. I’d keep those to +2 most of the time. Would only VERY rarely apply to attack rolls because of the following bonus type.
Combat Advantage: I like ‘grants combat advantage’ as a condition, it makes for a good tool to add to low level power and grant when taking advantage of the environment/your positioning. You either have it or you don’t.
Damage bonus: Only type to be on magical items (get rid of those +X and absorb them into the math or as short duration ability). Always expressed as an extra die so it’s easy to keep physical track of them.
My idea was to make them Encounter Reaction triggered when a creature succeeds at a saving throw.
Wizard: The target reroll the save (possibly with a penalty)
Druid: Creates difficult terrain in the Target’s square(s) and every adjacent square.
Invoker: Maybe the creature takes some Radiant damage?
Seeker: Gets a ranged basic attack against the target.
Psion: Creature can’t take reaction until the next turn
Stuff like that.
On the subject of the Seeker, if I were to keep them, I would make them THE sling class, and give them power themed around throwing magically infused seeds and rocks. Make them the best at creating hindrance on the battlefield. Imagine a guy throwing a see with his sling and then a large tree trunk magically appears in the middle of the battlefield! And his allies get stronger just by standing next to it! Or his attack makes carnivorous plants sprout that snap at you like beasts, or a small rock hits you and suddenly you feel like you weight twice as normal and your feet sink into the ground.
But is that an inherent flaw in the mechanic, or is it simply bad designer discipline? Because in HoML there is TOTALLY clean line. All things that are non-situational, that simply relate to the character itself, are bonuses (technically there are penalties, but they would almost never come into play). All things that are purely situational and don't relate to the character are Advantage/Disadvantage. Its a clean line. You CANNOT (without breaking the spirit of the game) invent a power which gives someone advantage, even situationally. I'd note that, of course, this does get a bit slippery in the sense that, say, you give a PC a power that practically guarantees they can flank, then it verges on "a power/feature of the character that grants advantage" but I think that this still works out OK. Like, OK, my rogue can flank pretty well. However, it still isn't a given! Goblins can shift when you flank attack them, so bummer it doesn't work so well on them. Flanking requires a buddy, and space to move in, etc. Plenty of terrain situations, enemy controllers, etc. can put paid to that.I have long said (as in, from basically the moment it was introduced to the D&D Next playtest) that Ad/Dis was a great idea on paper but a terrible one in practice, because WotC would horribly abuse it and thus be lrft with a weaker, more impoverished design space.
As you say, the problem is that Advantage is too powerful as it is; it is powerful enough that it should be an upgrade, or at least more like a weapon of last resort, especially since it doesn't stack and (originally) wasn't intended to have any stronger form.
But it isn't treated like that, is it? It is treated like the weapon of first resort. By the time you get to the late end of levels most games reach (upper single digits), it's quite possible to get Advantage on a lot of checks; by the early teens, it should be nearly everywhere. Yet it's also supposed to serve as the only real reward for cool stunt ideas or favorable circumstances and the mechanical hook on which multiple classes can depend AND completely non-stacking and (originally) non-improving, with no recognition for heightened benefit or extra special circumstances?
And then they went and broke even the main benefit of it being the last step in the line by having things like Elven Accuracy, where the player gets "super" advantage some of the time. So it isn't even the one-stop shop in absolute form, yet it remains the all-and-only of the buff world for most characters. It is incredibly frustrating; instead of having our cake and eating it too, we have sold our cake and then used the proceeds to get a chance to merely look at a cake we can't even eat!