D&D 5E L&L December 1st design finese. Part 2

[Balesir]

I'm appealing to something? That's news to me.

You were claiming that various things were "logical" in the game world. The only way to claim that is to assume ("appeal to") some model of the game world that provides features that support the logic. That model was what you were appealing to.

This does not necessarily make your assertion baseless, but it (a) means that it relies on an assumption that the game world mirrors the real world in specific respects and (b) assumes that your view of how the real world works in those respects is accurate. Both of these assumptions are open to challenge.

No problem mate, you buy the plane ticket I'll supply the spear, bow and beers and I'll give you all the evidence in the world.

I want a ticket - I'll bring popcorn!

Having shot longbow fairly extensively in the past, I will say that risking getting hit seems like a fairly unsatisfactory way of modelling the realities of shooting an armed person at zero range, but getting a penalty to hit them with your shot seems at least as bad.

Edit: to clarify that I actually am not bothered either way. I have long come to the conclusion that D&D is at its best modelling cinematic reality, rather than some sort of hokey, mass-primary-education-fed model of what the average member of the public thinks medieval stuff worked like.

 

[gweinel]

Yes. A mage can shoot fireballs pointblank but there's that whole area of effect thing.

The point is that a large percentage of the caster's spells are given flaws to make melee casting a bad idea either by losing the spell or getting in the spell's effect.

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Am I the only one who is dissatisfied with the way they built the spells in 5e? I mean they (over)promote only the damage spells while at the same time they degrade the utility combat spells making them in many ways less appealing.

I find concetration as a general rule to handle the powerfull spell a poor designer's choice because that way they punish creativity (focus only to damage, when someone cast the concetration spell then indirectly will have lesser choices of spell selection in a combat) and thus making the caster less fun in comparrison with the casters of 1-3 edition. I would much prefer another way to handle the (unbalancing) spells, something that has to do not with the nature of the spell but with the general danger of casting spells in combat. Not an internal factor but an external one like the spell disruption of 2nd e.

 

[1of3]

Am I the only one who is dissatisfied with the way they built the spells in 5e? I mean they (over)promote only the damage spells while at the same time they degrade the utility combat spells making them in many ways less appeaing.

I don't understand. They are not actively promoting damage spells. They limited all casting compared to 3.x by reducing spell slots and removing scaling by caster level. The latter especially hurts damage spells. Buffs on the other hand are limited by concentration. This I enjoy very much because in 3.x whoever has the opportunity would employ half a dozen buffs, making Dispel a must have.

 

[am181d]

Having shot longbow fairly extensively in the past, I will say that risking getting hit seems like a fairly unsatisfactory way of modelling the realities of shooting an armed person at zero range, but getting a penalty to hit them with your shot seems at least as bad.

You don't think you'd have an easier time shooting a target 10 feet away then one that's in your face and messing with you?

(Admittedly, what this suggests to me is that an archer should get advantage when they're firing from outside of melee, not that they should get disadvantage when they're IN melee -- since everybody in melee has someone in their face messing with them.)

 

[Minigiant]

Am I the only one who is dissatisfied with the way they built the spells in 5e? I mean they (over)promote only the damage spells while at the same time they degrade the utility combat spells making them in many ways less appealing.

I find concetration as a general rule to handle the powerfull spell a poor designer's choice because that way they punish creativity (focus only to damage, when someone cast the concetration spell then indirectly will have lesser choices of spell selection in a combat) and thus making the caster less fun in comparrison with the casters of 1-3 edition. I would much prefer another way to handle the (unbalancing) spells, something that has to do not with the nature of the spell but with the general danger of casting spells in combat. Not an internal factor but an external one like the spell disruption of 2nd e.

Actually they aren't pushing damage spells.

Instant Damage and Instant effects spells like fireballs are powerful and can't be interrupted. The drawback is that they are only cost effective in your 3 highest spell levels. At mage level 10, 1st and 2nd level instant damage spells are mostly useless.

Constant damage spells like flaming sphere and flame blade and utility spells have the biggest effects if you keep them going.. They also don't fade in strength as you level as bad as instant spell. The drawback is that the caster must concentrate and use actions to continue the damage.

It's the age old Direct X vs X Over Time. If your mage takes the direct approach, they don't need to worry about concentration Direct mages worry about the "casting at higher level slot" rules.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm fond of Concentration, and I'm fond of reducing the redonkulous OA rules and I'm fond of rules that make sense in the context of the world, so this is all solid stuff.

"Unwieldy" is a little weird. Solid conceptually (some penalty or limit on hitting doodz in melee who are up in your face with bows and suchlike), but not great in implementation quite yet ("So, if this guy is up in my face, he's HARDER to hit?"). I'm basically OK with "you can't make attacks with weapons that use ammunition if you are in a creature's reach," but I'm very comfortable with certain binaries.

One off-the-wall idea I just had would be to steal the Concentration mechanic and apply it to archers on basically the same principle: as long as you have Concentration, you can shoot your bow/sling/whatever. Lose Concentration, and you also lose the ability to make those attacks until you take some time to take aim again.

...I'm kind of fond of that path of thinking, hmm.....

 

[Li Shenron]

The thing is, both 3e and 4e make it superbly easy for a caster to be in melee. 2e is the last edition where failing to cast a spell was a thing. 3e might look like it's hard, but between Concentration, feats and the 5' step, it was rare to see an AoO be triggered by a spellcaster. A lot of rules for no effect!

Spot on! In 3e it was like "you have the power of immortals, you can cast spells!", then "hang on, you're too good so here's a penalty for casting in combat, to balance you down", and then "ok that was too harsh, here's a workaround to avoid the penalty"...

 

[Minigiant]

Actually, I'd go the other way. If you attack an enemy within 5 feet with an unwieldly weapon, you open your gaurd and they have advanatge to attacks against you.

The issue of course is this creates a rule both the archer and target must know.

 

[TerraDave]

Actually, I'd go the other way. If you attack an enemy within 5 feet with an unwieldly weapon, you open your gaurd and they have advanatge to attacks against you.

The issue of course is this creates a rule both the archer and target must know.

Or you could just allow a free attack...oh wait...

 

[Scorpio616]

Evidence. please? It may sound logical, but then a lot of people thing a greatsword should be hard to use in a 5' passage. And they're wrong.

That is your opinion on the matter. It can still be lethal, but IMO it won't have its full potential for tissue damage without swinging room.