D&D 5E (2024) Martials and Magic. Two Years of Testing.

[W'rkncacnter]

Imagine if 4e had waited two years and really drilled down during that time, addressing the places where the math was still off and getting better feedback about what folks wanted in terms of presentation. Whole different ballgame if you ask me.

and if they'd kicked whoever suggested the GSL in the boinloins.

metaphorically, obviously. for firing them.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

The other thing is spell slots are not the only resource. HP is too. And wizards and sorcerers get the least HP, and not coincidentally, they get the strongest spellcasting. So theoretically, running out of HP should be more of a problem for them than running out of spell slots.

the problem with this theory is it presupposes that spellcasters will take damage as often as frontliners. considering the various ways spellcasters have to up their defenses and avoid bad positioning, and that spellcasters are much more likely to be in a position where they won't take as much damage anyways, i would argue this is an extremely faulty premise.

 

[Zardnaar]

That last bit is more or less my point.

Zardnaar and others seem to be of the opinion that players are ignorant rubes who cannot observe that their characters fall short or fly insanely high. I don't accept that. Now, I certainly agree that it takes time. If players barely read the rules, then they have to rely on the (very crappy) human intuition about probabilities and such. But over time, folks notice. Which is exactly what I have been arguing @Zardnaar : sacrificing the long-term health and stability for the quick fix of a new edition that doesn't actually address the fundamentals.

Unfamiliarity and ignorance get you a few years at least. Maybe a decade if you're pretty lucky. But after that, the cracks show too badly. 4e was a couple years early for that relative to 3e's launch. Imagine if 4e had waited two years and really drilled down during that time, addressing the places where the math was still off and getting better feedback about what folks wanted in terms of presentation. Whole different ballgame if you ask me.

This is a good one. 4E was announced 4 years after 3.5 came out. 3.5 3 years after 3.0, 4E 4 years.

With the release schedules.....

 

[Zardnaar]

3.x they dod

the problem with this theory is it presupposes that spellcasters will take damage as often as frontliners. considering the various ways spellcasters have to up their defenses and avoid bad positioning, and that spellcasters are much more likely to be in a position where they won't take as much damage anyways, i would argue this is an extremely faulty premise.

dodnt have reaction type spells like shield.

AoEs were a threat. Saw a few casters die to dragon breath or fireball/lightning Bolt.

D4 hit dice, 1hp a lvl after 10. They also had to roll initiative every round and nut take a single point of damage.

We used weapon speeds and casting times. Magical daggers often had no initiative modifier while a lvl 7 spell was often 7. In modern terms negative 14 to initiative rolls 1 damage you lose the spell slot and spell.

Hence why high level fighters were useful to have around.

Lost a lvl 19 wizard to trolls grumble grumble. Clone spell but -1
Con lose all the items.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

3.x they dod
dodnt have reaction type spells like shield.

ignoring that i was responding to someone discuss 5e, you're probably right, they just eventually had access to so much buff stacking it didn't matter.

AoEs were a threat. Saw a few casters die to dragon breath or fireball/lightning Bolt.

D4 hit dice, 1hp a lvl after 10. They also had to roll initiative every round and nut take a single point of damage.

We used weapon speeds and casting times. Magical daggers often had no initiative modifier while a lvl 7 spell was often 7. In modern terms negative 14 to initiative rolls 1 damage you lose the spell slot and spell.

Hence why high level fighters were useful to have around.

Lost a lvl 19 wizard to trolls grumble grumble. Clone spell but -1
Con lose all the items.

...why are you gonna bring up 3.x and then immediately divert to talking about tsr era dnd? what sense does that make?
also you basically just said high level fighters exist purely to make sure casters don't get interrupted while they play the game. which is kind of a crazy thing to argue if you're trying to say fighters are competitive.
also also the fact your level 19 wizard had access to clone at all kind of demonstrates how crazy casters were compared to martials, doesn't it?

 

[tetrasodium]

the problem with this theory is it presupposes that spellcasters will take damage as often as frontliners. considering the various ways spellcasters have to up their defenses and avoid bad positioning, and that spellcasters are much more likely to be in a position where they won't take as much damage anyways, i would argue this is an extremely faulty premise.

While true, I think that the bigger hurdle for his "but it but hp!" Claim is the fact that it's a different axis to the adventuring day rather than something that is an encounter specific axis impacted by the 23 round thing . The many many design choices that 5e takes in an effort to ensure that the concept of an adventuring day can be trivially sidelined by players who choose to simply nope out of it.

 

[Johngernaut]

the problem with this theory is it presupposes that spellcasters will take damage as often as frontliners. considering the various ways spellcasters have to up their defenses and avoid bad positioning, and that spellcasters are much more likely to be in a position where they won't take as much damage anyways, i would argue this is an extremely faulty premise.

That's a problem if you're a commercial game publisher like WOTC, which I am not. DMs have total control over who the monsters target in combat. And I've become a big fan of monsters doing AOEs.

The many many design choices that 5e takes in an effort to ensure that the concept of an adventuring day can be trivially sidelined by players who choose to simply nope out of it.

Players will try to get long rests as often as possible, this is an annoyance. This is why I am a fan of rest rule variants. The standard rest rule of 5E is probably one of its biggest mistakes. Leomund's Tiny Hut also deserves to be looked at.

 

[Zardnaar]

ignoring that i was responding to someone discuss 5e, you're probably right, they just eventually had access to so much buff stacking it didn't matter.

...why are you gonna bring up 3.x and then immediately divert to talking about tsr era dnd? what sense does that make?
also you basically just said high level fighters exist purely to make sure casters don't get interrupted while they play the game. which is kind of a crazy thing to argue if you're trying to say fighters are competitive.
also also the fact your level 19 wizard had access to clone at all kind of demonstrates how crazy casters were compared to martials, doesn't it?

They almost needed it. By the time you can even potentially got close you had 5 levels of 1/hp. And you didnt automatically get it. Your average hp was 30, 40 with 15 con and 50 with 16 con. Fighter average was 70 (80, 90, 100, 110 con depending).

Every time you used clone you permanently lost 1/hp and you didn't get a youthful body. Cleric had been raising people 6 lvls earlier

Your saves were often worse than the fighters. A fireball was save or die effectively unless you precast a 3rd level spell you may or may not have had access to (DM dependent).

Unlike modern D&D you had 0 control over what spells you actually got. Iirc 2E was the 1st time that happened but only if you were a specialist (you got 1 at lvl 3,5,7,9 etc).

We legit made it to lvl 18/19 once in 2E and played tgat high a couple of times. Wizard died the most went from 15 or 16 con down to 9 or 10 con. Not enough hp to survive a power word kill, dragon breath or AoE big trouble. No replacement character of equal level if he died to "reset" his stats. Sub 40 jp at 18 (lost a level), fighter had to kill death ( automatic initiative automatic hit cant cast spells effectively) for him twice plus face his own death.

Why not use this spell? Didnt have it. Why not research it. Didn't have library etc. That was spelljammer as well. Spell jam no spells that day. Ships full of beholders anti magic. Okd school magic resistance.

They stripped out the "unfun" stuff, gave wizards a unified xp table and wrecked the saving throws as well in 3.0. And accidentally nerfed the fighter.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

.....

If the average game is only SIX SESSIONS LONG, maybe we have much, much bigger problems like why it is that the people playing don't even seem to want to go long enough to gain two levels???

I'd want to see the actual wording of the survey where these responses were gathered. If, for example one-shot or similar adventures were considered "campaigns" then they could be skewing the data.

For example, my "average" game will come out to less than 6 sessions despite me never playing a 6-session game. I either play campaigns that will last at least a year or several, or Adventurer's League, which is effectively a series of one-shots. Two current multi-year campaigns are only two games, and the data gets swamped by the AL games once or even multiple times each week.

 

[Zardnaar]

I'd want to see the actual wording of the survey where these responses were gathered. If, for example one-shot or similar adventures were considered "campaigns" then they could be skewing the data.

For example, my "average" game will come out to less than 6 sessions despite me never playing a 6-session game. I either play campaigns that will last at least a year or several, or Adventurer's League, which is effectively a series of one-shots. Two current multi-year campaigns are only two games, and the data gets swamped by the AL games once or even multiple times each week.

Ive seen conflicting things. One filtered out 1 shots. Another not clear.

Beyond vs another VTT iirc.

DM shortage. I suspect stable groups offering longer campaigns are the exception.

Spoke to newbie last night. Looks like he's joining on of my players games (we have 4 DMs, ) via referral. Our groups seem more stable than most. Probably venue helps.