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

[Dausuul]

What you do have to keep the players engaged is an opportunity for them to directly interact with the environment. Wandering monster checks can force prioritization on where and when thorough searching will take place. The engagement is generated when results can be gained purely from player effort without needing to add a die roll just because.

The dice are not the problem. If you throw out the dice but don't limit the time available to search, players make a list of all the nouns in your description and announce they're poking, listening at, examining, and divining each one until they find the spot. Conversely, if you keep the dice but do limit the time available to search, players still have to make decisions and set priorities. The existence of a die roll ensures that players whose characters specialize in this kind of thing will be more likely to shine at it.

Failure at exploration doesn't need to bring anything to a halt unless the participants all agree that nothing in the rest of the world exists, just that secret door and what lies behind it.

That's all very well if sandbox play is your thing, but plotted adventures often rely on the PCs finding certain clues to guide them forward. If they fail to find any such clue and the DM has no backup plan, the adventure stalls.

Actually you just trade that issue for another one. If the rogue generally knows how to consistently hit everything where it hurts all the time doing far more damage than the dedicated fighter who has trained exclusively in combat, where does that leave the fighter?

Beating down a straw man, apparently. 5E fighters deal more damage than 5E rogues. They stay roughly on par for the first four levels. At level 5, the fighter starts attacking twice per round and leaves the rogue in the dust. Sneak attack allows rogues to contribute effectively to the fight, not to outshine fighters in their own domain.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Well, that's probably why I don't really like adventures. A classic sandbox or an indie game both just assume the game will continue without continuing the current storyline, which is why I like both of those ways of playing.

Even these things have "fail-stops". The "adventures" are just decided upon by the players and failure to achieve them causes them to come up with new "adventures".

Just because you keep playing doesn't make these "fail-stops" feel any more fulfilling. It still feels like the game was going somewhere interesting and you didn't get to see it to its conclusion.

 

[TwoSix]

You can lose in an adventure without a character death. You can fail to achieve your objectives, fail to find significant treasure, and make your situation in the game world generally worse than it was when you started. Your character can also die.

You can win by achieving your objectives, finding great treasures, gaining wealth & power, gaining both fame & prestige.

That is the game. Sometimes you get a little of both. Without the possibility of loss, gains don't feel satisfying.

That's every RPG I've ever played in. Without establishing win and loss conditions, using win and lose to describe a game is irrelevant.

 

[TwoSix]

Even these things have "fail-stops". The "adventures" are just decided upon by the players and failure to achieve them causes them to come up with new "adventures".

Just because you keep playing doesn't make these "fail-stops" feel any more fulfilling. It still feels like the game was going somewhere interesting and you didn't get to see it to its conclusion.

Oh, I agree they still suck. They just go from "eye-clawing frustration" to "disappointing". I can live with disappointing.

 

[Quartz]

Magic-users in D&D are a difficult class to play. They are almost fully strategic in terms of combat. They can stop a mass melee before it happens, but round by round? The higher level they are the less they should ever step into a melee to fight. Spells chosen daily matter and that decision process can be opened up to the group by the player. Maybe you need the Rope Trick and Silence spells for everyone to rest, and that Remove Curse cast first thing on Garibaldi in the morning, but do you really need Identify or Mending today? And do you go defensive or offensive? Wall of Ice and Feather Fall or Ice Storm and Sleep? And then how long do you hold onto them?

I liked the idea of rituals in 4e for things like Identify and Remove Curse, but in melee, 3E wizards should be relying on their scrolls and wands and staves and items first and memorised spells second.

 

[GreyLord]

This is the problem with D&D. Everything has to be a combat class which leads to the rogue needing to be as powerful in combat than a knight. How? Backstab! In 4E it even goes so far that any flavor like not being able to backstab undead got removed because of the need of balancing the combat power of the rogue with the fighter.

When does D&D finally grow up and leave its wargaming roots behind and become a real RPG I wonder? Maybe never in the case that 5E fails.

BECMI/BX, AD&D, and 2e were NOT like that. This thing has NOTHING to do with wargaming roots. The balance of AD&D had everything to do with wargaming roots (inclusive of differeing power levels, balance through XP, limited levels for races, to hit tables (a wargaming tenet) etc.) but that didn't mean thieves fought halfway as well as fighters once you went up in XP. It meant that thieves were skilled in other things and their balance was in bringing forth the ability to sneak up on someone and pick their pocket, or read a foreign language, or climb a wall, etc.

This entire balance thing is NOT of the wargaming clan, but of the new RPG gamers that came after and never knew the balance of wargaming, nor understood it, so they created their own NEW type of balance where the Rogue and the Fighter all had the same ability to hit.

Clarification: Just to add, NOT ALL of the new RP Clan felt this way, just enough that it has made an impact on what SOME view as "balance" these days. There are others who feel differently.

 

[howandwhy99]

I liked the idea of rituals in 4e for things like Identify and Remove Curse, but in melee, 3E wizards should be relying on their scrolls and wands and staves and items first and memorised spells second.

Ironically, it used to be the opposite strategy was understood to be best. Use up easily replenished resources first, like spells per day, and only when we absolutely needed to were wands or staves used. That usually meant sticky situations like combat, but it didn't have to. Scrolls were cheaper, but ones containing spells you didn't have could expand your spellbook, so their value was relative beyond spell level.

 

[Quartz]

Ironically, it used to be the opposite strategy was understood to be best. Use up easily replenished resources first, like spells per day, and only when we absolutely needed to were wands or staves used.

Indeed yes, but then creating a permanent magic item usually meant investing a point of Con, which was a major sacrifice, whereas in 3E you merely expended XP. And expending XP meant that the crafters were often a level or more lower than the fighter-types which meant that they gained more XP per encounter. Even 3 levels lower would not be unreasonable while they were working on the Inherent Bonuses.

 

[Vague Jayhawk]

Speaking as a player who seems to be the party's rogue or cleric more often than not, I am getting a little frustrated at some of the thinking in this thread.

This game has niches and certain characters to fill those niches. The rogue is fun as written - they just are sometimes not all that good in combat. Expecting them to be equally good fighting every thing is just unreasonable.

If a person whines because your rogue is not good in combat, chances are they lack creativity. Distract the enemy, goad the enemy, find objects around the room to impede the enemy, use the rogues superior movement to get in between the enemy and a more vulnerable member of the party, find a clever use for that odd magic item. If all else fails, get to the treasure before anyone else.

The rogue might not be doing a whole lot of damage, but your rogue is helping the team and still involved and having fun.

That being said, it is good to be needed. A good backstab once in while can be quite exhilarating.

 

[Tom Strickland]

Three categories of things regarding one conception of rogues that are important to me that I wanted to emphasize apart from all of the thought-provoking discourse to this point:

1. Rogues should be supreme at gathering intel, finding tactical advantages prior to combat due to location (chokepoints, deadfalls, etc.), and perhaps providing sniper support. They also have numerous skills and can mitigate surprise from unnoticed supporting or new enemies coming at an engaged party unawares because the rogue/scout has usually-the-highest spot and listen ranks. They can position themselves stealthily beforehand where they might be inaccessible to the foes once combat erupts. They might instead be nimble bait which leads pursuing enemies into a fortified or advantageous position where other party members wait. And the rogue is first-person/directly controlled unlike summoned, followers and other means of gathering intel.
2. The 3.xE rogues (at a minimum) have "Use Magic Device" which is an option/path to gain magic advantage in stealth/travel and also combat (attack and defense)--including against enemies they cannot sneak attack. They emulate all manner of classes and trick items to operate for them. They can basically do many things that any magic-using class can do via class-specific, creature/alignment/other restrictive items and yet (for fun/challenge) there is the ever-present chance of failure or worse. This is a very interesting class feature that I have rarely seen players leverage fully. [Note that use of triggered items (wands, staves) does not cause attacks of opportunity in combat as when using potions.]
3. I like ninja combat prowess in movies, books, and RPG's as much as the next fan. There are alternate/3rdParty/custom feats, PrC's and other options to do more than d6, to do extra damage to certain classes of normally-immune-to-sneak damage creatures (plants, constructs, undead, etc.) and so on. I always liked the Oriental Adventures Iaijutsu master where striking flatfooted opponents could add several d6's that were not sneak attacks--and rogues have several advantages that support attacking flat-footed opponents (and then fading away). The point of this whole description being that there are several well-designed options to configure a stealthy archetype to be more combat-oriented/effective, but you must plan, build, and trade-off. [One player in my current campaign runs a psychic rogue, and his combat is a spring-attack, running-along-walls style. Another player previously played an acrobatic combat-effective rogue with his adamantine (very rare in my campaign) sword of wounding--he didn't mind slicing into golems and such.]

Post Scriptum: All of the above is aside from the massive skills outlay which can provide other-than-combat advantage to the individual and the party overall such as better prices on items, the inside scoop on local events, all manner of knowledge-based skill checks, and so on.

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Update: Also, as a character that usually has the minimum INT requirements and a higher DEX score, the rogue can choose standard and 3rdParty feats that allow for an elusive, counter-attacking/opportunistic barrage, which is very effective against sneak-attack-immune creatures, and absolutely devastating in a flanking position against those that are subject to such--because every strike when flanking counts unlike coming out of stealth or invis. [Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Combat Instincts, Karmic Strike, etc.] And a high DEX provides advantages to both defense AND offense during melee (aside from ranged) when using Weapon Finesse (and dual-wielding!). How about anesthetizing (or worse) poison use [and the Book of Exalted Deeds presented poisons (ravages and afflictions) that affect evil (despite some immunities)]. The possibilities are rich and varied!

In a recent session, a rogue had clung to the wall away from a ferocious combat against several displacer beasts, and at an opportune moment, jumped/tumbled from a good height, landed balanced (with only minor subdual dmg), quick-drew and struck from a flanking position, instantly felling a beast that had almost downed the wizard. It was cinematic and contributory to the overall sense of achievement.