Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6384176" data-attributes="member: 42582">I have put these two quotes together, because I think the second makes the point that, from the point of view of RPG design, there are devices and techniques available that can extend the hit-point model for failure ablation to other spheres of activity.I think that it is the relative (not total) absence of these from 5e which, at least for some potential players, is a problem.But a great deal of spell casting in 5e actually has no chance of failure (even though, from the point of view of RPG technology, spell failure mechanics have been around for over 30 years).This is one of the significant points of contrast between martial and spell-using characters.I have two responses to this.First, it misdescribes what I (and I think not only me) am looking for in a martial PC. I have no objection to martial PCs having to use persuasion and skill to get by in the world. But that can be implemented in a myriad of mechanical ways, and many of those ways can enable the character to play out as preternaturally skilled or lucky (like Batman) - typically by metagame mechanics that permit rerolls, or minimum rolls, or stipulated natural 20s in place of actually rolling the dice, etc.Second, it seems not to take account of the levelling system. If I want to play a magic-user PC who takes on Orcus while having access only to the simplest of cantrips, I can do that without building a whole new sub-class of wizard that doesn't learn higher level spells. I just build a 1st level wizard PC and take him/her off to meet Orcus. Likewise for martial PCs - if you want to play a PC who is not capable of preternatural prowess, just build a lower level character!</blockquote>

Verification