So are 4e PC's. It's balanced that way. In 4e, your "I can let you breathe under water" and your "I can float the treasure on a disk" powers don't take away from your "I can blow you to pieces" powers.
D&D 5E Monster Creation in D&D Next
- Thread starter Wizards of the Coast
- Start date
So are 4e PC's. It's balanced that way. In 4e, your "I can let you breathe under water" and your "I can float the treasure on a disk" powers don't take away from your "I can blow you to pieces" powers.
keterys
First Post
I think WotC has to be very careful with how they word this whole XP budget concept, as already shown.
Personally, I'd love to see something like:
By default, the PCs are balanced under the assumption that they'll have to face at least (Level * PCs * N) XP per day. If they face much less than that, it can be easier than intended and it also favors characters based on daily powers, such as wizards, and much more than that might be very difficult, requiring the party to expend consumable magic items, and favoring characters based around at-will powers, such as fighters.
PCs gain XP per day, rather than XP per encounter. The XP they gain is the total XP for all encounters faced, times a modifier based on how that XP compares to their expected daily XP. PCs who face greater challenges and press on to victory are rewarded for their efforts, while those who face an insignificant challenge only learn nothing from it.
Total XP overcome compared to Expected XP (Level * PCs * N)
0-20%: No XP
-50%: Half XP
-100%: Full XP
-150%: +10% XP
-200%: +20% XP
Higher: +30% XP
Ex: If the PCs are expected to be able to handle 1000 XP in a day, and they run into 1600 XP on a big day, they'd get 1920 XP (ie, +20%).
Poof, solves the whole 'I go find a kobold to kill so I level' problem and the '5-minute workday' problem _and_ gives incentive, even if just a minor one, for longevity abilities over burst abilities, which the game never really has.
But... it'd then need even more clarification that the DM can override that for when they place encounters far apart, and/or maybe allow PCs the option to continue on without the 'extended rest' even if there's travel time required.
At which point, I fall back to where I've been before, of wondering why we can't tie extended rests away from solar cycle (sun went up and down, whee more spells for me!) to something on the DM side. Like make spells recharge when the PCs level (with guidance for making that every N XP, or whatever, instead) or when the DM decides otherwise (Ex: 'You've defeated the Lich King! You're still shy of leveling, but you do recover all of your abilities during the celebrations that follow.')
Anyhow, rambling. Hopefully WotC is putting a lot of thought into this concept, maybe also with some suggestions for what makes an easy vs hard fight, XP total-wise.
Personally, I'd love to see something like:
By default, the PCs are balanced under the assumption that they'll have to face at least (Level * PCs * N) XP per day. If they face much less than that, it can be easier than intended and it also favors characters based on daily powers, such as wizards, and much more than that might be very difficult, requiring the party to expend consumable magic items, and favoring characters based around at-will powers, such as fighters.
PCs gain XP per day, rather than XP per encounter. The XP they gain is the total XP for all encounters faced, times a modifier based on how that XP compares to their expected daily XP. PCs who face greater challenges and press on to victory are rewarded for their efforts, while those who face an insignificant challenge only learn nothing from it.
Total XP overcome compared to Expected XP (Level * PCs * N)
0-20%: No XP
-50%: Half XP
-100%: Full XP
-150%: +10% XP
-200%: +20% XP
Higher: +30% XP
Ex: If the PCs are expected to be able to handle 1000 XP in a day, and they run into 1600 XP on a big day, they'd get 1920 XP (ie, +20%).
Poof, solves the whole 'I go find a kobold to kill so I level' problem and the '5-minute workday' problem _and_ gives incentive, even if just a minor one, for longevity abilities over burst abilities, which the game never really has.
But... it'd then need even more clarification that the DM can override that for when they place encounters far apart, and/or maybe allow PCs the option to continue on without the 'extended rest' even if there's travel time required.
At which point, I fall back to where I've been before, of wondering why we can't tie extended rests away from solar cycle (sun went up and down, whee more spells for me!) to something on the DM side. Like make spells recharge when the PCs level (with guidance for making that every N XP, or whatever, instead) or when the DM decides otherwise (Ex: 'You've defeated the Lich King! You're still shy of leveling, but you do recover all of your abilities during the celebrations that follow.')
Anyhow, rambling. Hopefully WotC is putting a lot of thought into this concept, maybe also with some suggestions for what makes an easy vs hard fight, XP total-wise.
These days there a lot of groups that choose not to use XP. Whatever system rewards "pushing on", I don't think it should be tied to XP.
Plus many other groups simply don't want to perform math calculations on a daily basis based on the number of combats in a day.
Finally, it somehow doesn't feel right, that group A who plays the same number of encounters as group B, but does it in one day instead of two, should level faster.
Don't get me wrong, I think there should be incentive for pushing on. Just not with XP.
Plus many other groups simply don't want to perform math calculations on a daily basis based on the number of combats in a day.
Finally, it somehow doesn't feel right, that group A who plays the same number of encounters as group B, but does it in one day instead of two, should level faster.
Don't get me wrong, I think there should be incentive for pushing on. Just not with XP.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Hero
That's what I do as well in one campaign. I really just use XP values as a measurement help to figure out how tough encounters will be. I decide when the player characters level independent of that. (In my case, I primarily let them level faster than normal, since that group is an online game where we only get 2 and a half hour of play for 4 weeks and then have 2 months devoted to other campaigns.)
I played in a 3.5 campaign, level 1-20, using the Savage Tide AP with lots of extra scenarios tacked on. We, the players, petioned the DM to cut all XP in half to make the campaign last longer, just because we enjoyed it so much...
Something I learned from MMOs where they had "double XP events" - it just made beloved characters last shorter, giving you less time to enjoy them.
Crazy Jerome
First Post
Part of it is because logically where this kind of thinking carries us, when we look at the mechanics and handling time, is a place a lot of people don't want to go. (Kind of like how making Armor as AC only makes sense if you work it through, only in reverse.)
To wit, consider having two forms of resting. We'll call the natural form "resting" and the more magical form "recharging" for sake of example. Then you might have something like this:
Short Rest - lets you bandage some wounds, drink potions and cast spells freely, etc. All it really means that if you aren't pressed right this minute, and have got some charges left in the wand of cure light wounds, you can cast 'em if you've got 'em.
Short Recharge - takes about the same amount of time as a short rest and can thus overlap it (i.e. individual party members can do one or the other). You regain some hit points and/or some "encounter" abilities. In Next, you can use a hit die.
Long Rest - get back hit points equal to your level, plus Con Mod. Regain a limited number of Vancian spells. Begin the long process of shrugging off long-term effects, such as 3E ability damage healing. You can do this once per day.
Long Recharge - Boom! Get back all your hit points and spells, or very close anyway. Regain ability damage and other long-term effects in a major way, if not fully. Overlaps with Long Rest the same way the short variants overlap with each other.
Now, to bring that back to what you were proposing, charge XP for the recharge effect, and base the cost on the level of the character getting the recharge. I'd start with something around 3% to 5% of what is needed for a level, but have this gradually increase over the course of an adventure, perhaps modified by events. You might even include a "coward" penalty if the party novas against very weak opponents and then rests.
It works out about the same as adjusting the final XP based on expected play, but is more organic in that the players are getting immediate feedback. Plus, they can very clearly set their own tolerances. That is, if one group hates to lose any XP, they can work hard not to do so. Whereas another group might consider throwing in a rest or two every adventure part of the price of doing "efficient" business.
Of course, as I've said elsewhere, this would work even better if tied to a robust and fluid action point currency or something similar. If you can use action points for extra actions, but also use them to "recharge" abilities, it becomes a very serious trade between rapid, less effective options versus more measured, more effective options.
Libramarian
Adventurer
I want them to die, but I don't want to actually be the guy who kills them. I want to be surprised by them dying. I don't want the rules to allow the players to blame me when they (their PCs) die.
I want the game to be designed so that it provides the PCs with the resources to deal with (at least find a way to survive) wildly unbalanced encounters, rather than implying that part of my job as DM is to provide perfectly balanced encounters.
I don't think it's good enough to provide me with tools to balance encounters. I want more than that from the game. I want to not have to do it at all.
Battles should be fun no matter the relative strength of the opposition. It should be fun to womp on underlevelled grunts and fun to eke out a victory or merely survival against overlevelled enemies, either by dipping into a precious stash of nonrenewable magic items, or by tricking them or running away.
I think this is a reasonable desire and an interesting and challenging design specification.
KidSnide
Adventurer
This is a reasonable desire, but it doesn't have very much to do with the xp budget. The xp budget is a method of estimating what type of battles the PCs can win. If you want to set up encounters that your PCs are supposed to beat, you can use it for that. If you want to put monsters in the world and let the PCs face whatever they run into, it lets you estimate whether or not they are likely to win.
What you are asking for is the ability to have a fun encounter -- even if the PCs can't really win it. That's a reasonable desire (I share it!), but the tools to get that are rules or techniques to help players estimate the difficulty of battles and mechanisms to let PCs avoid, evade or retreat from battles without generating a TPK.
I note, incidentally, that 4e-style monster scaling makes it harder for the PCs to figure out what's a difficult battle. If a manticore varies from levels 6-14, it's hard to know how difficult a fight with three of them will be by looking at them. On the other hand, the "bloodied" rule is very helpful in this regard, as it the information "we haven't even bloodied two of them yet!" is very valuable to knowing when you're in over your head. More spells and class abilities designed to let characters evade or retreat would go a long way to helping this kind of gaming.
-KS
Libramarian
Adventurer
I don't want tools to estimate whether they're likely to win. It's inconveniencing to me to have to explain to the players that I'm not using them.
Mike Mearls knows that this puts the DM and players into conflict. He's said on his blog, talking about CR in 3e:
In D&D, the DM has more power over the flow and implementation of play than the players. However, the players have the rules to keep the DM in line. So, if the DM throws Tiamat at a 1st level party, the players can call out the DM for throwing a CR 20+ monster at them. After all, the rules explicitly say that's wrong.
They're putting these rules into the game again. Now the players will have the authority to call out the DM for breaking the rules if they throw either an illegal encounter or an illegal "adventuring day" at them.
He also says:
IME, there's a natural tendency for DMs to houserule the game to weaken the game's leveling effect WRT DM and player power. That's a post for a completely different thread, but it's one of those things that you really have to watch out for as a designer.
So he knows that I plan to houserule XP budgeting out of the game and he's watching out for it. This cat and mouse game gets deeper and deeper. (I hate that blog post).
I want all design resources possible to go towards making encounters fun no matter the balance, rather than towards this XP budgeting thing. It's just a more robust and more inclusive and less passive aggressive way of making encounters fun.
Manbearcat
Legend
This, right here, is where there is an unbelievable amount of divergence in expectation of core tenets of game design. Without tools to properly measure the output of an encounter versus PC output, </snip>I can't even know where the encounter lies on the TPK > survivable > walk-through sliding scale...<snip>forget about working on the details that actually make it compelling/rich from a tactical/strategic standpoint and climactic from a narrative standpoint (balance is just a means toward this end).
Possibly more importantly than that is the temerity to make the statement that you don't want (and I'm assuming where I've put a *, it is implied that "to exist" would be there...otherwise the followup statement doesn't make any sense as you state "I'm not using them" - implying option rather than core - and further, nothing is inconvenient if you don't have to confront it) an option/rule to exist because its "inconvenient" for you. I've seen you say elsewhere that the mere existence of certain rules/options is an inconvenience for you because you will then have to "explain yourself to your players" when you choose to houserule them out. The implication of course is such that for Libramarian's convenience within the social accords of his game, others' design hopes (for options...not core) must be dashed. Its amazingly Orwellian.
- Edited to get Libramarian's name correct.
</snip>
Last edited:
KidSnide
Adventurer
I don't know what to say.
First, it's a tool, not a rule. It's a tool that helps DMs create balanced encounters or estimate the difficulty of encounters they built some other way. It's not a rule saying that you have to create balanced encounters or you are DMing wrong.
Second, a huge, major point of D&DN is that it's a toolbox game that you can adjust to fit your play style. Everyone is going to have tools they don't use. If your game is fun, you won't have to explain why you're not using certain tools.
-KS
Neonchameleon
Legend
That takes you what? Thirty seconds up front. Per campaign. And it saves some DMs a vast amount of time - ten minutes per planned encounter or so wouldn't be unrealistic with a perfectionist DM. For that matter accidental TPKs can break new DMs, whereas paranoia at the thought of killing PCs leads to softballs and therefore boring campaigns.
So you'd consider 30 seconds for you once as more important than half an hour per session (assuming three encounters) and a handful of broken DMs and boring campaigns.
Patryn of Elvenshae
First Post
Yeah - I can barely believe that the quoted poster is serious, but I know he is, so ...
It's like, what the heck kind of world do you live in where providing the DM with information - information that he is free to ignore to his heart's content - makes any darn sense at all?
It's just ... I can't understand how you can deliberately espouse ignorance as a virtue.
Patryn of Elvenshae
First Post
Last edited:
Libramarian
Adventurer
I don't know that there is that much divergence. Who doesn't like tactically compelling and narratively climactic encounters? I just prefer for them to happen a little less often and less predictably in exchange for being able to basically abdicate encounter balancing responsibility. What I need to be able to do this is a system where balance is not required for reasonably fun and meaningful encounters -- so attrition, nonrenewable resources, retreat rules, limited refluffing, limited monster scaling, flatter math, that stuff.
This is overwrought. We're not actually working together on the game. Both of us individually have essentially zero control over how it will turn out. We're just chattering about what we would like to see. There are things I would like to see that you wouldn't and vice versa. I think we should both just say plainly what we would like and for the most part let the designers worry about working out the compromise. Does it make it better if I say that I wouldn't begrudge you if you end up getting what you want instead of me getting what I want?
How do you explain Mike Mearls' comments about 3e CR? Can you understand why I'm concerned about XP budgeting as a rule or a tool in DDN?
It's not just that. There are many aspects of the encounter system that are affected one way or the other by which way you go on this as a guiding philosophy.
I think they're planning to present the encounter balancing system as it is presented in 3e and 4e: as a core part of the rules, with the implication that if you're not using it, it's tantamount to houseruling it out of the game.
I want it to be presented clearly as OPT-IN by the DM, rather than OPT-OUT. Only then would I say that it's presented as a tool rather than telling us how to play D&D.
Probably because I am not. I think ignorance can be productive, which is not really an unusual idea in general at all. People like being surprised. That's productive ignorance right there. Have you ever been upset at a movie trailer for giving too much away? Would it not sound ridiculous if I said you were "espousing ignorance as a virtue"?
Sir Brennen
Legend
Perhaps you should be a little clearer what you expect the result of such opting-out to be, maybe with examples. Are you suggesting a attack from Tiamat should be a viable encounter for first level characters? Sure, you could argue that it would make a great story, but D&D is also a game, with numerical values for protagonists and antagonists, and outside of certain boundaries, the outcome becomes very predictable (PC cake walk or TPK).
The CR and XP Budget systems help the DM know what fights fall inside the boundaries, and it's there that you can have more unpredictable, surprising, tactically interesting fights because the sides are more evenly matched. Note 1e and 2e did this as well, though perhaps a bit less refined, by assigning monsters levels.
Your way you could be "surprised" by having a minor, narratively insignificant encounter turn into a TPK or an final climatic battle turn into a boring cake walk for the PCs. Is this what you think should be the base assumption of the system, with a ability to avoid this unpredictability optional? I too share everyone's bafflement over this. It sounds to me like you don't want to 1) put in the minimal effort to select creatures appropriate for an encounter and 2) be held accountable by your players for a TPK because you willfully ignored the guidelines for a balanced encounter.
That element of surprise due to ignorance you describe applies to an audience, which in a game is the players. A movie's director, and the DM, should have a better idea of what's going on, and the likely outcome if a scene. Again, surprise for the DM will come from (in addition to player actions and choices) more balanced encounters, which will also help meet your criteria of more tactically and narratively compelling battles.
Last edited:
Steely_Dan
First Post
He says they have deflated HP and damage across the board, yet the new minotaur deals an extra d12 damage; and I wonder how much they are deflating character HP and damage (not sure how thee could lower weapon damage as it stands).
Manbearcat
Legend
Thank you for your reply Libramarian. However, I don't think its possible that we can have a meeting of the minds or even any constructive dialogue on this one so I'm just going to thank you and leave it be. I'm still in disbelief. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt of sincerity regarding your second paragraph and merely wonder why you even bother posting if you feel that attempting to communicate and resolve our differences (as outlined in your second paragraph) has zero net worth (for the hobby or community in general or the next iteration in DnD specifically). To keep it family safe, under the auspices of that philosophy, it would seem that posting anything on these boards is the equivalent of gratuitous, self-gratification...and nothing more. If that is your philosophy, then I don't see the purpose in attempting to communicate anything further. That is not snark so please don't take it as such. That is my honest assessment of your last few posts. So with that, I've acknowledged what you wrote (the polite thing to do in my estimation), and I'll bow out.
UngeheuerLich
Legend
I really like the 4e design priciples you see in the monster design. But this time in coherence with the world.
elite = big
solo = even bigger
Cool.
Don´t forget, as AC and to hit does not automatically go up with level for everyone, a solo medium sized enemy is just a monster some levels higher.
I also like, that Armors give a base AC now. I always believed, it is clearer, that AC bonuses are added to base AC, and the base AC is modified by magic etc.
Chainmal AC 16 is also quite good (sounds like in 4e, but with slightly lowere to hit bonuses, a little bit more useful)
elite = big
solo = even bigger
Cool.
Don´t forget, as AC and to hit does not automatically go up with level for everyone, a solo medium sized enemy is just a monster some levels higher.
I also like, that Armors give a base AC now. I always believed, it is clearer, that AC bonuses are added to base AC, and the base AC is modified by magic etc.
Chainmal AC 16 is also quite good (sounds like in 4e, but with slightly lowere to hit bonuses, a little bit more useful)
Similar Threads
