D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

[EzekielRaiden]

Odd, in that the more dice you roll at once the less random (i.e. more predictable) the result is likely to be; the law of averages will trend the expected result closer to the middle of the bell curve with every added die.

Example: rolling a d16+2 will give an equal chance of any result between 3 and 18 while rolling 3d6 will give a result in the same 3-18 range but bell-curved around an average of 10.5, the most likely results being 10 or 11 and the least likely being 3 or 18.

I'm aware of the regression to the mean.

I have no confidence that Mearls knows about such a thing. Mostly because I have no confidence that anyone working at WotC knows more than the most fundamental baseline concepts of statistics. And WotC isn't alone in this, to be clear. Paizo is just as guilty, and their PF1e Gunslinger class is the living proof. A job that gets permanent harm from misfire effects...which occur when you roll low on the natural die (e.g. a weapon might have a misfire range of 1-2). But...because PF1e is built around making more and more attacks as you gain levels...this means your chance of misfiring on any given round actually gets higher as you become a more skillful gunslinger! No one at Paizo noticed this, and when it was brought up by critical playtesters...several such testers were banned from the forums and the whole issue was ignored until after publication.

So.....yeah. I'm well aware that the idea that throwing a fistful of dice doesn't actually lead to the hyper random results. I'm just of the opinion that Mearls either does not know that, or understands it incorrectly and perceives (or at least perceived) it to have much fatter tails than it actually has.

 

[Lanefan]

I have no confidence that Mearls knows about such a thing. Mostly because I have no confidence that anyone working at WotC knows more than the most fundamental baseline concepts of statistics. And WotC isn't alone in this, to be clear. Paizo is just as guilty, and their PF1e Gunslinger class is the living proof. A job that gets permanent harm from misfire effects...which occur when you roll low on the natural die (e.g. a weapon might have a misfire range of 1-2). But...because PF1e is built around making more and more attacks as you gain levels...this means your chance of misfiring on any given round actually gets higher as you become a more skillful gunslinger!

The chance of misfiring within a given round gets higher but it's ironclad sure that's not what they were looking at. Instead they were looking at the chance of misfiring per attack, without regard for how closely or widely spaced in in-game time those attacks might be.

Put another way: if you're going to attack twelve times in a combat it is, for these purposes, irrelevant whether those twelve attacks come over four rounds at three per round or over twelve rounds at one per round. Your odds of misfiring on any individual attack never change, and that's what matters.

This is relevant to me in that it's exactly the same way I view criticals and fumbles: barring external influence (e.g. a Fumble spell from 1e) the odds of critting or fumbling should always be the same on any individual attack roll, without regard for level or how many attacks you get in how much time.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The chance of misfiring within a given round gets higher but it's ironclad sure that's not what they were looking at. Instead they were looking at the chance of misfiring per attack, without regard for how closely or widely spaced in in-game time those attacks might be.

It ironclad should be what you look at.

Because that controls the player's experience of misfire.

Put another way: if you're going to attack twelve times in a combat it is, for these purposes, irrelevant whether those twelve attacks come over four rounds at three per round or over twelve rounds at one per round. Your odds of misfiring on any individual attack never change, and that's what matters.

Absolutely not. Because if you misfire, you literally can make your weapon EXPLODE.

So...no, it really really really is not that it doesn't matter. For more complex weapons (misfire 1-2, even 1-3 or 1-4!), at 4 attacks per round, you would literally misfire more than once every other round.

This faulty logic is precisely what leads to the problem here, Lanefan. When you only misfire 5% of attacks and you only make one attack a round, it's no big deal. When you misfire 10% of the time and you make four attacks per round? It could not matter less that your per-attack chance remains unchanged, you are going to experience misfires at an incredibly accelerated rate.

This is relevant to me in that it's exactly the same way I view criticals and fumbles: barring external influence (e.g. a Fumble spell from 1e) the odds of critting or fumbling should always be the same on any individual attack roll, without regard for level or how many attacks you get in how much time.

Fumbles are a bad rule in the context of a game where you're definitely going to be making more and more attacks per round for most of the same reasons. Doubly so if you have one of those incredibly wrong-headed "you can outright hurt yourself if you fumble" rules.

 

[Minigiant]

Ummm....Fumbles are bad mmmkay.

If you are gonna have Fumbles but all PCs are not equally likely to fumble then that fact should be upfront or their should be mitigation to lessen the frequency or seriousness of fumbles.

But unfortunately the previous generations of designers in many RPGs favor coolness over stability or logic so they push bad ideas, get cosigned by DMs of similar thoughts, and it... heh... misfires and blows up in their face.

This is why diversity in workplace is important. Because someone might catch bad ideas early without needed it to blow up in your face to notice

 

[Staffan]

The chance of misfiring within a given round gets higher but it's ironclad sure that's not what they were looking at. Instead they were looking at the chance of misfiring per attack, without regard for how closely or widely spaced in in-game time those attacks might be.

Put another way: if you're going to attack twelve times in a combat it is, for these purposes, irrelevant whether those twelve attacks come over four rounds at three per round or over twelve rounds at one per round. Your odds of misfiring on any individual attack never change, and that's what matters.

This is relevant to me in that it's exactly the same way I view criticals and fumbles: barring external influence (e.g. a Fumble spell from 1e) the odds of critting or fumbling should always be the same on any individual attack roll, without regard for level or how many attacks you get in how much time.

The problem is the combination of per-attack fumble chance and representing the increased lethality at higher levels through multiple attacks. So it's not as big an issue in PF2, because higher-level characters in PF2 generally don't get more attacks. Instead, each attack gets individually more lethal through striking runes and weapon specialization. But in a game like PF1 or 5e where the biggest damage increases you get are from multiple attacks? Fumble-per-attack is devastating and turns fighter-types into the worst clutzes.

 

[SkidAce]

More times you shoot unreliable pre-industrial age gun, more times it breaks.

Makes sense to me.

 

[CreamCloud0]

More times you shoot unreliable pre-industrial age gun, more times it breaks.

Makes sense to me.

and it makes sense to me that trying to sculpt the wild energies of more complex and higher level magics would have a bigger chance of backfiring and in worse ways but magic rebound tables aren't exactly being made commonplace are they? wizards don't have a progressively better chance to reduce themselves to ash each turn as they become better spellcasters do they? so why is it so with weaponry and firearms?

 

[SkidAce]

and it makes sense to me that trying to sculpt the wild energies of more complex and higher level magics would have a bigger chance of backfiring and in worse ways but magic rebound tables aren't exactly being made commonplace are they? wizards don't have a progressively better chance to reduce themselves to ash each turn as they become better spellcasters do they? so why is it so with weaponry and firearms?

That's a different discussion that I wasn't referring to.

Maybe a different thread? It is worth discussing.

 

[CreamCloud0]

That's a different discussion that I wasn't referring to.

Maybe a different thread? It is worth discussing.

i think it lines up fairly well with the theme of the conversation, a better point of what i said besides pointing out the double standard is that yes you could do it, and you could find a justification to make it 'realistic', but would that be a fun thing to do? and the answer for the majority of people i'd wager would be no it would not be.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

and it makes sense to me that trying to sculpt the wild energies of more complex and higher level magics would have a bigger chance of backfiring and in worse ways but magic rebound tables aren't exactly being made commonplace are they? wizards don't have a progressively better chance to reduce themselves to ash each turn as they become better spellcasters do they? so why is it so with weaponry and firearms?

Nerd fantasy goes brrr
Martial fantasy goes derrr