D&D 5E L&L: Mike Lays It All Out

[zoroaster100]

My main concern with this article was the reference to the DM having to adjust DCs if you use the skill system. What!? If I am someone who wants to use skills, I'm not going to be able to use these rules if all the DCs for checks in the rule books assume I'm not using skills, and I have to wing the adjustments, design my own mini-game of skill DCs or derive appropriate DCs by trial and error as DM, or if the entire monster manual and future monster supplements are filled with DCs that require adjustment due to my choice to use skills in the game.

 

[Falling Icicle]

So one of the great benefits of doing feats this way is that different players or groups can play with or without them and still be balanced, so the DM doesn't have to "make any special considerations or changes to how he or she creates adventures or manages the game." Okay, got it. Sounds great.

But then when it comes to skills, the game is going to be built around the assumption that they don't exist, and if the DM decides to use them, well, just adjust the DCs or accept that players will succeed more often. That is exactly what they were just praising themselves for not doing with feats. And all of this because people are getting confused over calling for a wisdom vs a perception check? But that problem still exists for people who choose to use skills, but oh well, just figure it out yourself... This seems like a copout to me.

 

[Evenglare]

This all sounds great. I love it.... except for this one sentence which has been my fear since talking about feats.

"On top of that, adding +1 to an even ability score doesn't have an actual effect on a character but still gives a player a sense of progress"

I sure hope he doesn't mean what he says in regard to this effect. If adding a +1 doesnt affect a character then why even have it? If it DOES make your character more powerful, are the benefits of feats going to be worth lagging behind a character who takes these +1's constantly? I understand they are going for bounded accuracy and the +1 feats cant make an ability go above 20... but that doesnt really solve these core questions. One extremely worrisome thing for me is rolling up characters. It seems that these +1s will have a greater or lesser impact on characters depending on how they are generated "point buy or rolling". I understand the thinking behind this I just cant possibly equate the 2 in my head. Also I'm curious about the way they are combining feats into prestige classes or paragon paths. It seems that they will have to have tailored feat sets depending on your class since your class will gain feats at different rates. Again, this whole feats at different rates just baffles me to no end, quite literally every single design flaw I see can be solved with a standardized feat leveling system, ala 3.x, 4th, or most any other d20 game. If the feats are given more frequently to classes that lag behind casters (such as fighters) to bring them up to par with casters what is the whole point of the expertise dice that took them months to implement? I'm not saying this wont work, I hope it works flawlessly, but I just can not see how it will.

 

[GX.Sigma]

"On top of that, adding +1 to an even ability score doesn't have an actual effect on a character but still gives a player a sense of progress"

...If adding a +1 doesnt affect a character then why even have it?

He's talking about if you add +1 to an even ability score. Because the ability modifier only changes if you bump it from an odd to an even number.

...are the benefits of feats going to be worth lagging behind a character who takes these +1's constantly?

Do you doubt their ability to make really powerful feats? There's a thread here all about it (short version: it's absolutely possible to make feats that are as good or better than a +1).

It seems that these +1s will have a greater or lesser impact on characters depending on how they are generated "point buy or rolling".

To quote Mearls on Twitter: "DM picks - do you start as Conan (strong, fast, tough) or have option to grow into him?"

It seems that they will have to have tailored feat sets depending on your class since your class will gain feats at different rates.

Or the feat sets just have lots of feats in them?

 

[GX.Sigma]

The double-posting fairy strikes again!

 

[Evenglare]

He's talking about if you add +1 to an even ability score. Because the ability modifier only changes if you bump it from an odd to an even number.

So I gather from this there are going to be dead levels essentially? I thought they were trying to get RID of dead levels which was the purpose of giving fighters more feats? It also raises questions of... okay, so I COULD get a +1 which may do nothing since it's an odd number OR I could have this nifty feat that allows me to do things. It seems to me they SHOULD balance feats towards a +1/2 since half the time a +1 wont actually accomplish anything. This is further compounded by rolled characters where ability scores may be odd so the +1 you get could raise up to 6 stats, or if the stats are even you could theoretically pump +1 into 6 ability scores and quite literally see no change in character power at all.

Do you doubt their ability to make really powerful feats? There's a thread here all about it (short version: it's absolutely possible to make feats that are as good or better than a +1).

You answered this for me it seems. I have a problem with the fact the feats are either going to be underpowered, giving the player who takes these feats a disadvantage. A feat that is on par with +1 abilities makes me wonder if I were playing a character would I rather be proficient with my class by raising attributes, or do many things that im mediocre at. If they make feats BETTER than a +1 ability score... well do I really have to point out the obvious.... it makes a character who would take the +1 worse off than a character who didnt.

As it seems they are balancing the classes towards giving the characters +1 then it is built into the system to account for this, which would make my middle scenario more worrisome. I'm not saying they can't do it, but it seems very easy that this will slip up in higher levels where characters are balanced to have +X but they won't have anywhere near that because they kept taking feats which would have lagged their innate ability score growth. Not to mention the fact that there is almost certainly no way to truly balance a system of feats that are subjective to a very hard mathematic term of +1.

Or the feat sets just have lots of feats in them?

So essentially f you pick a class with few feats then you are not going to be able to master that prestige class in the way that a class with MORE feats could. Thats extremely disappointing and a turn off.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I still think that +1 to an ability score is inelegant with the current divide-by-two modifier calculation, but we'll see.

If they want to make skills optional without modifying DCs, then present skills as compensating for having an otherwise low ability. If you have a high ability already, you don't need special training to be good at sneaking, but if it's low, you can choose to train it for a bonus that's better than your bad dexterity modifier. Then set a limit of +5 to any given check, obtainable through an ability at 20, or an ability at 16 and a +2 skill, or an ability at 8 and a heavily-invested +6 skill.

 

[1of3]

I'm wondering what proficiency means. With weapon proficiency I can still use a weapon unskilled, I just take Disad. Will that be the case with other proficiencies as well? - I guess so.

 

[Li Shenron]

Indeed kodos... ehm, kudos to Mike for this great article!

I really like most of the changes suggested here, and I can live with the rest.

I am not a huge fan of increasing ability scores in general, so I actually welcome the fact that this happens regularly only in Basic, while in Standard (where certainly most min-maxers will gravitate around) you will have to give up feats if you want to indiscriminately boost your ability scores.

I am not worried about even ability scores. Feats will follow the tradition of having odd-numbered ability score requirements, so increasing something from 14 to 15 will still have the benefit of qualifying for new feats (although part of me would prefer to see feats prerequisite go away, but this is hardly going to happen anyway). Second, I do find it fair enough that always boosting your primary score is not strictly better than spreading your bonus around.

The +10 to knowledge checks first gave me a wtf? reaction. That's a huge number. But there is actually a hidden problem with knowledge checks, and that problem is that unless you restrict the check to "trained only", everybody should try knowledge checks on everything all the time. It is not the same as other skills really... the essential benefit of lore checks is getting clues that can be used to your advantage, but the check has no penalty and doesn't even take time. Therefore you either say "trained only" (or something more complicated like "trained only when the DC is at least XX") or you give the trained characters a huge bonus so that it actually makes a difference.

The part about the DM adjusting checks DC depending on whether the group uses skills doesn't bother me much, but I can understand that a lot of gamers will hate the idea because it makes for an inconsistent world where jumping over a chasm is more difficult if the protagonists are better at it. In fact I think this should not be suggested at all... rather, the DMG should suggest to use wider chasms in your adventures

OTOH I think it's totally fine for one group to be better at jumping chasms and another group to be worse, just because the first uses skills and the second doesn't. This is not different from group #A in any edition using default rules vs group #B granting some extras (like more feats, more HP or more generous starting ability scores) which frankly happens the majority of the time.

If even this is not widely accepted, they can always toss in a simple "if the group does not use skills, every PC chooses one single ability score and get +N to all relevant checks".

Overall the article reveals changes that really improve the modularity of 5e!

 

[Dwimmerlied]

So I gather from this there are going to be dead levels essentially? I thought they were trying to get RID of dead levels which was the purpose of giving fighters more feats?

I see what you are saying, but Mike also explicitly mentioned that class abilities themselves will be carrying part of the level advancement thing, so dead levels need not yet exist if the class progression is planned in a particular way.