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

[Siberys]

[MENTION=7006]DEFCON 1[/MENTION] Ah, okay then. That, I agree with.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I can imagine in play, it sure will be fun to see another character get something cool from a feat while I take my +1 and get nothing that level. What happens if the campaign ends at this level? That would really suck.

Uh... why would that suck? Wouldn't that be your choice to have taken the +1 rather than the feat? If you did that... the obvious inference there is because you WANT to have your modifier (of probably your primary stat) go up a point in a couple levels, rather than play around with some feat.

And let's not forget... if you're a caster, you going to be getting at least a spell slot when you level, and if you're a fighter or rogue, it sounds like we might be seeing some maneuvers or tricks getting added to their repetoire (which also quite possibly eliminated several "dead levels" per se.) So I fail to see any sort of "woe is me, I'm so poor!" situation if you go ahead and choose to go halfway to your next mod bonus by taking the +1.

At the end of the day... will these feats be "awesome"? I'm sure. But I also don't see them being as universally applicable and all-the-time useful as a bump to your modifier like one or two +1s ability score raises are going to be. So you as a player are going to decide which you'd rather have... a pair of situationally useful special abilities, or two +1 bumps that give you a +1 modifier bonus across almost all your figured statistics. So needing to give that person an extra bennie on top of that for the times when their +1 score bump is on an even level is to my mind, rather unnecessary (especially since you are choosing to spend it that way.)

 

[Ainamacar]

Well I agree MAD is unlikely to happen, but designing classes with two equally important ability scores isn't. I suggested this because of the level of complaining that +s would be a waste at higher levels because the player would have maxed his primary and would be spending feats in sub-optimal ability scores; solution, two equally important primaries

OK, thank you, that really clarifies things for me. I agree with you as long as the number of ability score bumps can, at best, max both those scores. Really, it's the same thing: to prevent wasting +1s the number of bumps we can get should be less than the number of bumps we really want, whether that is from 2 ability scores (your suggestion) or 6 (traditional MAD).

Well personally, I have no problem with character rules being different from monster rules, ergo, monsters would not get these benefits.

Re feat pre-requisities, I hopes these are a thing of the past

Fair enough. Probably not the game I would make, but I appreciate the merits of both those preferences and how they can inform the larger design.

 

[thedroid]

What if you just get the ability bumps twice as often as you might get a feat? Doesn't that help even it out?

 

[Warbringer]

Fair enough. Probably not the game I would make, but I appreciate the merits of both those preferences and how they can inform the larger design.

Agreed, that is definitely one of those divergent paths in edition love/hate. I just got burned out after 6 years of 3e building NPCs and Monsters from the ground up, but loved it for 5 years 364 days it was great

 

[hbarsquared]

Given what Mearls says in the article...

It sounds like what's going to happen is this:

For games sans- Feats, everyone only gets Ability Score increases. Fair enough.

For games with these "Feats," everyone (on average) will spend their first 10ish levels bumping up their primary (and possibly secondary) scores to the maximum 20. Then begin choosing these awesome tremendous Feats.

Yes, I get what the designers are attempting to do, and theoretically see the lure, but if this is what most players will probably do, it's not actually a real "choice." Up your scores first, then choose cool-awesome abilities. If it's predetermined, that's not how it should turn out.

 

[Dwimmerlied]

I think we all just need to get over the "this +1 doesn't do anything!" mentality.

Taking a +1 when you have an even stat isn't "getting nothing"...

Agreed.

 

[Argyle King]

Given what Mearls says in the article...

It sounds like what's going to happen is this:

For games sans- Feats, everyone only gets Ability Score increases. Fair enough.

For games with these "Feats," everyone (on average) will spend their first 10ish levels bumping up their primary (and possibly secondary) scores to the maximum 20. Then begin choosing these awesome tremendous Feats.

Yes, I get what the designers are attempting to do, and theoretically see the lure, but if this is what most players will probably do, it's not actually a real "choice." Up your scores first, then choose cool-awesome abilities. If it's predetermined, that's not how it should turn out.

If that is how the game turns out; on a personal level, I think that would come across as though I needed to play the first half of the game in a way someone else wants me to play before I can get to the fun part in which I get to pick what I want.

I do not believe that is the intent. However, my earlier posts were made with a concern for that end result in mind.

 

[Blackwarder]

For games with these "Feats," everyone (on average) will spend their first 10ish levels bumping up their primary (and possibly secondary) scores to the maximum 20. Then begin choosing these awesome tremendous Feats.

I disagree, that seems very unlikely. I'd much rather grab a cool ability than a simple +1 and with bounded accuracy that +1 won't be something that I'll have to grab, Especialy if the choice is between an ability of an ability increase that don't raise a bonus.

Warder

 

[Argyle King]

I disagree, that seems very unlikely. I'd much rather grab a cool ability than a simple +1 and with bounded accuracy that +1 won't be something that I'll have to grab, Especialy if the choice is between an ability of an ability increase that don't raise a bonus.

Warder

I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. I'm not saying it's wrong per se, but I believe a +1 means a lot more in a system where the range of numbers is lower. I believe that because I can look at 4E (which had flatter math than 3rd Edition) and see how good Expertise feats were. I can also look at games I play (such as GURPS) which don't have any levels at all and see that a +1 magic sword is a tremendous item to have. In the case of GURPS, there is a bell curve, so there's a point past which more +1s don't really help a whole lot; D&D uses a flat d20 roll, so that +1 is always going to improve my ability.

I'm also not sure that I've seen the "bounded accuracy" which they've mentioned. I've seen some amount of flatter math, but -for every piece of flatter math- I've also seen mechanics added which seem to bump the numbers back up. I hope the design team does succeed in making a game in which the choice between a +1 and something else is an actual choice. However, at this point in time, what I currently see doesn't translate (in my mind) to that game (where that choice is an actual choice) later down the road. The playtest is still in early stages, and a lot may (and probably should) change, so I believe at some point I will see some of the things I am not seeing now, but, at this point in time, I can only comment based upon what I currently see and where I think that is going.