D&D 5E L&L December 16th Can you feel it?

[ExploderWizard]

The problem is that if you don't remove backstab immunity for undead an undead themed adventure can easily become boring and frustrating for a rogue's player. Things like flavor or immersion are utterly pointless and even worse destructive to the game as a whole when they make the game boring or frustrating.

The thief was originally a third tier combat class behind the fighter and cleric. Every edition, the class has climbed higher up the combat heirarchy until it reached ninja status in 4E. Roles became so reversed that the fighter became the distraction, the pile of meat for things to pound on, while the ninja rogue cut it to pieces. Why does it make sense that a person who sneaks and steals as a specialty knows better where and how to strike than a dedicated warrior? Might as well just make the rogue a warrior class because as it stands, the fighter is just a grunt soldier and the rogue is a special ops expert.

Things that are traditionally immune to backstab tend to make for poor roleplaying encounters.

Does.....not.....compute. How does a creature's vulnerability, or lack thereof, to backstab matter with regard to interacting with it in a roleplaying capacity? " Sorry Count Bloodsucker I just can't negotiate with you. Your immunity to backstab is souring this whole conversation."

Is disappointment acceptable, though? I think it depends on the person you ask. Heroes in movies and books almost never find a situation where they aren't badass. They might find an enemy that is immune to one of their attacks, but they simply switch to another one and continue to be badass. They are heroes and they always find a way around any immunity the enemy has.

As the article says, sometimes being TOO realistic or immersive becomes a problem for fun, so you need to find a balance between the two. By defining things too narrowly, you are creating a situation that requires a player to be disappointed when if you had defined the ability slightly more broadly you wouldn't have to make the player disappointed.

If you begin with the assumption that all D&D adventurers are heroes (or want to be heroes) in the first place, then you are bound to run into problems. When playing a game you win some you lose some. The concept of playing a game in which there can be no loss (or dissappointment) is baffling. Just say "You are the heroes, you win" and call it a day.

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[dmgorgon]

Sneak attack is a rogue's only effective direct attack. Being immune to sneak attack isn't equivalent to being immune to magic missile--it's the equivalent of being immune to spells. There are things a wizard can do when confronted with a spell-immune foe; you can move yourself and your allies around the battlefield, or use magic to manipulate the environment, or fall back on skills, or pull out your trusty crossbow. But you're still pretty massively screwed.

Now, D&D does contain a handful of monsters that are immune to magic or effectively so, and that's fine. Likewise, it's fine to have a handful of monsters that are immune to sneak attack. Giving such immunity to entire classes of monsters is a whole other matter--especially when one of those classes is "undead," a major category which often serves as the dominant monster type for entire adventures. Try to imagine playing through "Red Hand of Doom" as a wizard if all goblinoids had total spell immunity.

Actually the Grey Ooze in 2e was immune to all spells, that's why I used it as an example. Undead are also immune to charm and hold spells, so enchanters will also have a problem with the Red Hand of Doom module. Does that mean we should remove that immunity as well for the enchanters?

IMO, the sneak attack shouldn't be the rogues only effective direct attack, if that's the case then it speaks to another issue.

I still don't see how a creature being immune to a sneak attack breaks immersion as Mearls claims. It might break the players sense of entitlement, but that's about it. If anything, allowing a rogue to sneak attack a skeleton might seem immersion breaking to some players, but not the other way around.

IMO, the game should be free to present challenges to the party and individual characters by way of immunity.

 

[dmgorgon]

Is disappointment acceptable, though? I think it depends on the person you ask. Heroes in movies and books almost never find a situation where they aren't badass. They might find an enemy that is immune to one of their attacks, but they simply switch to another one and continue to be badass. They are heroes and they always find a way around any immunity the enemy has.

As the article says, sometimes being TOO realistic or immersive becomes a problem for fun, so you need to find a balance between the two. By defining things too narrowly, you are creating a situation that requires a player to be disappointed when if you had defined the ability slightly more broadly you wouldn't have to make the player disappointed.

Disappointment is totally acceptable and it's to be expected especially in a game like D&D.

I'm certainly not a fan to "you're awesome" game play, 4e tried that and it really didn't succeed.

Being a badass all the time isn't D&D for my group. D&D is not a slave to the likes of Hollywood, JKR, Tolkien, etc.

 

[TwoSix]

Does.....not.....compute. How does a creature's vulnerability, or lack thereof, to backstab matter with regard to interacting with it in a roleplaying capacity? " Sorry Count Bloodsucker I just can't negotiate with you. Your immunity to backstab is souring this whole conversation."
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Being immune to sneak attack/backstab typically correlates to undead, constructs, and oozes. 95% of those encounters are NOT dialogue heavy.

 

[TwoSix]

Actually the Grey Ooze in 2e was immune to all spells, that's why I used it as an example. Undead are also immune to charm and hold spells, so enchanters will also have a problem with the Red Hand of Doom module. Does that mean we should remove that immunity as well for the enchanters?

If I'm running an adventure that's undead heavy, I give rogues and enchanters a heads-up that they'll have problems, so they can roll something else.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Yes, but there are way more things immune to sneak attack than there are immune to weapons. And most Fighters have more than one option, although the precise combination would depend on just how the character is built.

Which is kind of my point. You said the problem wasn't the number of things immune to sneak attack, it was the classes reliance on Sneak Attack as a mechanic.

My point is that other classes are just as reliant on a single mechanic(weapons, spells) but the number of things that are entirely immune to their mechanic is much smaller making it acceptable. So, the issue IS the number of things immune to sneak attack.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Being immune to sneak attack/backstab typically correlates to undead, constructs, and oozes. 95% of those encounters are NOT dialogue heavy.

Assuming a violent encounter the rogue might have to get by with a (possible) bonus to hit and regular weapon damage. ( THE HORROR!!)

Alternatively he can sit there and cry like a baby until the mean DM gives him fireball damage on every hit like he is entitled to.

 

[delericho]

Might as well just make the rogue a warrior class because as it stands, the fighter is just a grunt soldier and the rogue is a special ops expert.

Actually, I'm inclined to think that 3e would indeed be better if the Fighter, Monk, Rogue, Paladin, Ranger, and Barbarian were all rolled up into a single class (Hero?) that could then be customised in a whole bunch of ways.

Being immune to sneak attack/backstab typically correlates to undead, constructs, and oozes. 95% of those encounters are NOT dialogue heavy.

Indeed, and that's another weakness with recent adventure design - encounters are mostly designed to be fought through and admit few alternatives. IMO, designers should at the very least consider four different ways a party might try to deal with any encounter: fighting, sneaking, diplomacy, or trickery.

Of course, not every encounter will allow for all four, but even if you rule out fighting and diplomacy, that still leaves at least one way for the Rogue to shine...

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Disappointment is totally acceptable and it's to be expected especially in a game like D&D.

I'm certainly not a fan to "you're awesome" game play, 4e tried that and it really didn't succeed.

Being a badass all the time isn't D&D for my group. D&D is not a slave to the likes of Hollywood, JKR, Tolkien, etc.

Once again, it depends on who you ask. I assumed you would say that, as would many other people. For me, it isn't.

When I have a player who came to my house who finds their damage reduced from 11d6+4 points of damage to 1d6+4 points of damage against monsters who have 150 hp for the entire session and gets so frustrated that he's not actually contributing anything useful to the group and literally falls asleep and asks everyone to wake him when they get into a fight that isn't immune to sneak attacks, I'd say 3e failed at what it did as well.

To me, fun for the players trumps all other concerns.

 

[Ratskinner]

Disappointment is totally acceptable and it's to be expected especially in a game like D&D.

I'm certainly not a fan to "you're awesome" game play, 4e tried that and it really didn't succeed.

Being a badass all the time isn't D&D for my group. D&D is not a slave to the likes of Hollywood, JKR, Tolkien, etc.

I think there are definitely different flavors of disappointment or frustration relevant to D&D, some of which are acceptable and part of a challenging adventure, and others which are unacceptable and drain the fun from play. In this case, creating a character by the rules and expecting it to work a certain way...and then discovering it doesn't...I find unacceptable.

I think many folks agree on that in principle, but the devil is in the details. While person A expects his rogue to be backstabbing everything around, person B expects it to happen rarely and be a spectacular thing, and person C expects some kind of rule to reflect what they consider "realistic". There does not appear to be agreement on which of those a person should expect to find in the core rules. Finding a singular rule to satisfy all of them is difficult indeed.