Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
One of the well known MtG developers said on Twitter he was called in to help with the math tuning on D&D Next.
Legends & Lore: What Worked, What Didn't
One of the well known MtG developers said on Twitter he was called in to help with the math tuning on D&D Next.
Ahh, k, I knew I heard that somewhere.
Basically, as best as I can tell, the ways to be a playtester for all RPG companies (Paizo, WotC, White Wolf, pretty much every RPG company is guilty of this)
a) be known online as a blogger / writer for the system
b) live in the home city of the company and run games at local game stores (check)
c) know the developers personally through non work ways
d) the developers like you for some reason / famous fan (Vin Diesel, for instance)
One of the things I am a fan of is online playtests, because I sort of think in many cases, their closed playtesting groups are just basically friends, family, friends of friends, and contributors to earlier editions. WotC & Paizo, to their credit, has been much better about looking outside of their normal branches for more opinions than in the past.
Argyle King
Legend
Your idea makes sense, but then it's still also hard to tell what the intent is because -in previous editions- if I were to say walk through multiple squares containing a wall of fire, I would take damage each time (or so I believe.)
I do plan to try a mage in the newest season so that I can see the differences.
I think, overall, there were a lot of different conversations going on here that kind of crossed over each other, but may not have been directly intended to be about each other. I cannot presume to know what exactly other posters had in mind, but I would like to try to explain what my outlook was, and why I posted some of what I did.
First, while I do think web is a very good spell, I was not posting it to showcase that I felt it was broken per se. I was posting to showcase that (in my opinion) a better measure of what a wizard can do is looking at many spells which do not directly damage the enemy. I see a lot of direct number comparisons. "Well the fighter can do ## damage versus the wizard doing ## damage." I feel that is a very poor measurement of a caster's capabilities. If I can warp reality, there's far more I can do than simply damage.
Second, while I wasn't exactly saying I felt web is broken, I did want to illustrate what a wizard can do because those spells were some of the most problematic spells in previous editions. As said above, I feel that direct damage comparisons are a very poor measurement. When wizards are said to be overpowered in 3.5, I don't believe most people focus on things like fireball or lightning bolt; instead, things like polymorph, evard's black tentacles, haste, and choking clouds of gas (forget the spell name for that one) are in the minds of those saying that the wizard is so good.
Thirdly, I do not necessarily have a problem with the effects that casters in D&D can produce. The issue I have is that casters can (traditionally) create those effects without really much of anything in the way of drawbacks. I think a lot of spells -even ones which I feel produce 'broken' effects- would be more manageable if costs or casting times were a little tougher. Doing so would, in my opinion, make the game more balanced without needing to nerf every spell; I also believe that doing so would make the game mechanics line up with the fluff of the game far better. Supposedly, magic is hard to learn and hard to control, but there is seemingly no difficulty in actually doing it when playing the actual game.
In one of the other rpgs I play, there is a concept of Fatigue points which measure how tired fatigued a character is and the threshold they have for pushing themselves further (much in the same way HP measure life and death.) With the default magic options, casters need to spend FP (Fatigue Points.) Mechanically, this allows them to produce effects like you'd expect from a wizard, but acts as a limiting mechanism for how often they can warp reality in an encounter. Some of the most powerful spells also require extra time to cast. I'm not saying D&D should do this; I don't feel D&D should, but I am mentioning it so as to illustrate how other games handle magic. For what it's worth, in the same rpg, FP can also be spent by characters to do things like exert more force to hit harder; run/hike for longer; etc., so non-casters can use them to push their limits as well; just in different ways. Again, I'm not saying D&D should do this; I don't feel D&D should, but I am mentioning it so as to illustrate how other games handle magic; both in trying to make magic less of an "I win" button for every encounter, and in trying to make the actual mechanics of the game fit the fiction of the game.
I understand that the finished product of 5th edition will very likely be different than the playtest rules. However, that doesn't prevent me from having concerns about the game; in some ways, it makes me more concerned about the game. I thought early 4E pre-release discussions would produce a game I would love; the finished product was vastly different than I expected. In the case of 5th, I worry about the end product being vastly different than expected for two reasons: 1) 4E Deja Vu, 2) a lot of the things which appear to be design decisions and directions in the playtest and preview materials don't seem to mesh with the language being used to describe the game. Though, on the other hand, I see how some of the polls are slanted via language chosen for answers (as well as how others answer those polls,) and I feel as though I'm pretty far outside of the target audience... which is surprising because the very early (like first and second packet) previews of the game seemed to share a lot of my views; as time has gone on, the design direction of 5th appears to be moving in a much different direction.
I have noticed in each successive public playtest, that the capabilities of casters have been dwindling. Not necessarily nerfing the spells, but the amount of spells known, or the amount of spells they can cast, is smaller, or the DC drops. I think that's an important trend to keep in mind.
I don't think it's changed too much from the original philosophy; my only concern would be that many of the options we are looking for won't necessarily come out at release, but instead in later books. 5E's biggest issue is that they have to compete with a very large set of options for existing editions. I don't think it is feasible really to expect them to be able to support all edition playstyles 100% off the bat; that's a lot of materials to support. But I do hope they get a move on doing so sooner rather than later.
I don't think it's changed too much from the original philosophy; my only concern would be that many of the options we are looking for won't necessarily come out at release, but instead in later books. 5E's biggest issue is that they have to compete with a very large set of options for existing editions. I don't think it is feasible really to expect them to be able to support all edition playstyles 100% off the bat; that's a lot of materials to support. But I do hope they get a move on doing so sooner rather than later.
Relevant to the conversation
- CK @A_real_geek Feb 12
Any word whether Aura of Antipathy (Enchanter lvl 2 ability) will be nerfed/changed? Horribly broken as is. @mikemearls #dndnext
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Mike Mearls @mikemearls 1h
@A_real_geek I think it has been revised - can't say for sure, but I know it had some issues.
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Argyle King
Legend
That is a little bit of a concern I have as well. I like the idea of a modular game. However, D&D 5th is taking a different approach to modular than I had expected. With other modular (or 'toolkit') games I'm more accustomed to a robust base/core, and then modules which give more depth to particular areas of the core, but do not change how the game works. 5th seems to be taking the approach of a simple core that later adds modules which may or may not change how the game works to varying degrees. That concerns me because I'm not sure if the modules/expansions/whatever they end up being called that I think I might want will work together without causing problems. I also question at what point 5th will be capable of providing me with a game that I want to pay money (as in buy) to play. Since I do tend to be what I feel is outside of the target audience, will anything that I want even be enough of a concern to warrant modules for the style of play I'd like?
I wouldn't say I feel exactly negative toward the game. I feel negative toward certain aspects, but I'm not opposed to playing 5th. If I was, I wouldn't continue to participate in Encounters or playtest sessions. The problem for me is that I'm stuck in a sort of apathy. Because I'm a gamer, I pay attention to what is going on with the D&D brand, and I care enough to put actual effort into developing an opinion (as opposed to blindly saying I hate something I've never played -as I've had the misfortune of reading/hear from many members of the rpg community,) but I'm not picking up on anything that makes me feel like I should open my wallet and buy the game as opposed to what some of my other options are right now. I'm trying to look at the materials I have available and ask what the game can do for me, and I'm not getting a very clear answer; the times I do actually manage to get an answer, the answer ranges from "I think I kinda like that" to "what the hell is the reason for that design choice?"
*uncloak*
First, Cybit thanks for your contributions and insights.
Second, the above has me concerned that we will only be getting a basic game upon release. It might be a good or even great basic game, but I believe that I was led to believe we would be getting a core + modules. If this is not the case then shame on me for making false assumptions, but it just feels like a bait and switch, moving the goalpost, etc.
I suppose that technically they never actually said that the modules would be released along with the core. Hmmm.
Third, I am apparenlty under the mistaken belief that the game was 98% done as of last month. Is only the basic game done, and now they are fooling with modules? If that is the case, then yeah, it's looking like core only for summer release.
I can't say for sure, sadly. There are times where I've thought not much was done, and then the next packet had a crapton of stuff all dropped on us at once. Even the latest one was a massive jump from the previous ones, so maybe they do have way more planned.
Thinking about it further, the other explanation (and it's a reasonable one) is that the reason we haven't seen as much modularity is that they intend to keep that in the DMG, which I personally haven't seen.
I do think they should at least release at launch a basic version of the game.
GX.Sigma
Adventurer
Yeah. At this point, it seems impossible to get the whole thing printed by Gen Gon (there are a lot of really important questions where the answer is still "we're working on it").
If it's any consolation, the basic game will supposedly be a complete game system that you can play a whole campaign with.
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