D&D 5E Mechanics you don't want to see, ever

[billd91]

With all the usual caveats about everyone's experience being different, etc., etc., I have a hard time seeing this being a real issue, since getting involved in what's going on is what makes the game fun, so there's already a motivation to do that. But the converse does seem like a big problem: giving individual characters XP for things they do runs a heavy risk of discriminating against support-oriented playstyles. You can try to parcel out each character's contribution to an outcome, but it's just about impossible to do that objectively (reminds me of the rich business owner who says they don't benefit from government, despite the fact that their business uses roads, employees educated with public money, scientific and tech advances developed by others, etc.). Better to just take as a given that everyone contributes, and not split hairs about who did what.

Yeah, it seems unlikely to be much of a toxic play style as much as one that someone particularly introverted is going to stick to because that's how they're comfortable playing. It seems to me that dishing out individual XPs based on active involvement is going to tend to discriminate based on player personality rather than a real difference in PC performance.

Of course, mileage may vary. A player might cynically exploit either XP generating option - but if so, that sounds more like a toxic player than a naturally manifesting toxic play style.

 

[billd91]

Bring on the level drain. Bring on the death. Barghest eats my soul? Awesome.

Super dangerous (to pcs) effects are effects i never want to see GO AWAY. They are some very vital mechanics for a lot of people's play style. I can understand if some groups opt to play without them. But i say they should stay in the game.

Super dangerous effects, as far as I'm concerned, are fine. But there are some ways to implement them that are worse than others. Losing actual character levels/XP was a crap mechanic - always was. How does someone become less experienced? Tracking negative levels as they evolved through 3.0 (and could still lead to XP loss) and finally to PF1 was a much better mechanic. The penalties they imposed were significant and they didn't screw around with a stupid metagame issue of losing your life experiences.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

Super dangerous effects, as far as I'm concerned, are fine. But there are some ways to implement them that are worse than others. Losing actual character levels/XP was a crap mechanic - always was. How does someone become less experienced? Tracking negative levels as they evolved through 3.0 (and could still lead to XP loss) and finally to PF1 was a much better mechanic. The penalties they imposed were significant and they didn't screw around with a stupid metagame issue of losing your life experiences.

At that point the xp is a proxy for bits and pieces of your soul starting with the outer layers being vampirized. Seems plausible to me. And far more dire a threat than many other things. Will really be feared.

LOVE IT!

Really depends on how high you want to, and will have fun having them, (to) be at.

Sign my character up for a wrestling contest with a vampire and his trained barghest!

English is not my first language...

HALP!

 

[Esker]

Of course, mileage may vary. A player might cynically exploit either XP generating option - but if so, that sounds more like a toxic player than a naturally manifesting toxic play style.

Yup. And the thing is, I bet you're much more likely to see players like that in groups that use individual XP...

 

[Lanefan]

In my campaign I used starting level 1 when someone joined when the rest was up to level 4. Since I gave XP only for players present there is a level range of 1 or two levels difference across the group. But I designed the adventures so that it considers these level differences. From level 5 up to probably level 9
5 will be the level for someone joining.

This is kind of like what I do: there's a "floor" level at which new characters join in*, which slowly rises during the campaign as the party's average level rises. Right now my groups are in the 6-10 range and, depending on specific party, the floor would be either 6th or 7th. Stats and hit points are rolled. Starting wealth/gear is also somewhat random, to reflect the relative good or bad luck this character's had thus far in its [unplayed] career, but whatever gear is given is always suitable for the character to use (e.g. if my dice try to give a 6th-Wizard +2 plate mail it gets a +2 Ring: Protection instead) again reflecting the choices said character would likely have made.

That said, they've all got so many characters now that truly new PCs are few and far between; they just cycle the ones they have in and out.

* - exception: for a new player joining the game the first PC comes in at the party average, rounded up. If that one dies or retires, the next comes in at the floor level.

Side note: I think that rolling attributes can make much more differences than level differences

You might be a bit surprised on this one.

We've always used rolled stats, and have rolled up and played hundreds of characters over that time. I still have nearly all the character sheets of the characters that were in my campaigns, ditto for the other main DM in our crew.

Just for kicks a few years ago I took a sample of 50 or so random characters whose careers didn't last long - "one-hit wonders", we call these - and another sample of as many characters as I could find who'd had long and fruitful careers (using 10+ adventures as the benchmark for "long"), and ran some comparisons of their racially-adjusted** starting stats.

The difference in average stat (i.e. add them up and divide by 6) turned out to be fairly trivial between the one-hits and the long-term types. What made a much bigger difference stat-wise was having at least one really good stat as opposed to lots of mundane stats (e.g. a 17-11-11-11-11-11 avg 12.00 had a measurably better chance of success than 14-14-14-12-12-12 avg 13.00 even though the second character's average is a full point higher). That said, there were one-hits with averages over 16 (!) and long-termers with averages below 11, so read into that what you will.

** - I used racially adjusted because to try and reverse-engineer all those characters to what the dice actually said would have been beyond tedious. What I was after was the stats the characters actually had in play, and we've always used the same roll-up system of 5d6 drop 2.

Conclusion: while numeretic stat disparity might make a difference in day-to-day play at the table its effect on the overall career length (or life) expectancy of any given character was surprisingly minimal.

Disclaimer: this is all using characters from our modified 1e system, where bonuses don't tend to start until 15 (but conversely, a stat of 7 never carries a penalty). In 5e, with its linear bonus progression, even a tiny discrepancy in stat average might have more of an impact; but someone else will have to run the numbers for that. 5e also has a much quicker ASI progression than our system does.

 

[Lanefan]

With all the usual caveats about everyone's experience being different, etc., etc., I have a hard time seeing this being a real issue, since getting involved in what's going on is what makes the game fun, so there's already a motivation to do that. But the converse does seem like a big problem: giving individual characters XP for things they do runs a heavy risk of discriminating against support-oriented playstyles. You can try to parcel out each character's contribution to an outcome, but it's just about impossible to do that objectively (reminds me of the rich business owner who says they don't benefit from government, despite the fact that their business uses roads, employees educated with public money, scientific and tech advances developed by others, etc.). Better to just take as a given that everyone contributes, and not split hairs about who did what.

To a certain extent, I agree. For example, the healer who stands ready to patch up the front line, or the unlucky sods in a combat so short (e.g. the opponent is one-shotted early in the first round) that we didn't even get to their rolled initiative - they all get xp.

But if a character's not even there at the time, or who sleeps through the whole encounter, or specifically doesn't contribute anything (EDIT to add: or take any risk), I see no good reason to give that character xp.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, it seems unlikely to be much of a toxic play style as much as one that someone particularly introverted is going to stick to because that's how they're comfortable playing. It seems to me that dishing out individual XPs based on active involvement is going to tend to discriminate based on player personality rather than a real difference in PC performance.

It's on the DM to make sure the xp are given out based on what the character does rather than what the player does, because otherwise yes: it would become survival of the loudest.

 

[Esker]

But if a character's not even there at the time, or who sleeps through the whole encounter, or specifically doesn't contribute anything (EDIT to add: or take any risk), I see no good reason to give that character xp.

Is that a thing you've seen happen? As in, the player is there but they just have their character sit out an encounter? I don't think I've ever seen that. Now I suppose there might be a split party situation where one group gets into trouble and the other group has no way of knowing or no way to get there to help, but that doesn't sound like the kind of thing you're talking about.

 

[The Glen]

Cantrips without limit. Makes the game boring there's no choice cantrips are automatically better than any attack you're just picking the most appropriate spell.

 

[Coroc]

This is kind of like what I do: there's a "floor" level at which new characters join in*, which slowly rises during the campaign as the party's average level rises. Right now my groups are in the 6-10 range and, depending on specific party, the floor would be either 6th or 7th. Stats and hit points are rolled. Starting wealth/gear is also somewhat random, to reflect the relative good or bad luck this character's had thus far in its [unplayed] career, but whatever gear is given is always suitable for the character to use (e.g. if my dice try to give a 6th-Wizard +2 plate mail it gets a +2 Ring: Protection instead) again reflecting the choices said character would likely have made.

That said, they've all got so many characters now that truly new PCs are few and far between; they just cycle the ones they have in and out.

* - exception: for a new player joining the game the first PC comes in at the party average, rounded up. If that one dies or retires, the next comes in at the floor level.

You might be a bit surprised on this one.

We've always used rolled stats, and have rolled up and played hundreds of characters over that time. I still have nearly all the character sheets of the characters that were in my campaigns, ditto for the other main DM in our crew.

Just for kicks a few years ago I took a sample of 50 or so random characters whose careers didn't last long - "one-hit wonders", we call these - and another sample of as many characters as I could find who'd had long and fruitful careers (using 10+ adventures as the benchmark for "long"), and ran some comparisons of their racially-adjusted** starting stats.

The difference in average stat (i.e. add them up and divide by 6) turned out to be fairly trivial between the one-hits and the long-term types. What made a much bigger difference stat-wise was having at least one really good stat as opposed to lots of mundane stats (e.g. a 17-11-11-11-11-11 avg 12.00 had a measurably better chance of success than 14-14-14-12-12-12 avg 13.00 even though the second character's average is a full point higher). That said, there were one-hits with averages over 16 (!) and long-termers with averages below 11, so read into that what you will.

** - I used racially adjusted because to try and reverse-engineer all those characters to what the dice actually said would have been beyond tedious. What I was after was the stats the characters actually had in play, and we've always used the same roll-up system of 5d6 drop 2.

Conclusion: while numeretic stat disparity might make a difference in day-to-day play at the table its effect on the overall career length (or life) expectancy of any given character was surprisingly minimal.

Disclaimer: this is all using characters from our modified 1e system, where bonuses don't tend to start until 15 (but conversely, a stat of 7 never carries a penalty). In 5e, with its linear bonus progression, even a tiny discrepancy in stat average might have more of an impact; but someone else will have to run the numbers for that. 5e also has a much quicker ASI progression than our system does.

Very interesting, although your custom system kind of explains what happened there:

your 14-14-14-12-12-12 avg 13.00 was not profiting as much from your system (Boon only on 15 and above) as he would have with 5e, whereas the 17-11-11-11-11-11 avg 12.00 had at least one stat which shined, and probably used this as his main stat.

With 5e normally +1 from something does not really make a difference but from +3 onwards it is a big thing because of bound accuracy.

Question: do you mod your monsters also so that everything fits together again? Do you adjust their attributes analogue to the players, so that they only get bonus / malus at 15 respective 6?