D&D 5E (2014) New playtest packet available.

[FireLance]

But conversely, a character who goes from hitting on 19 of 20 to 20 of 20 has decreased their chance of failure by an infinite amount.

Not by an infinite amount. Just by 100%.

 

[ferratus]

So.... 4e was wrong because it had daily martial powers which broke verisimilitude...

Not a peep about how the Barbarian has x/rages per day, because 3e did it. D&D fandom is silly.

 

[FireLance]

The "magic items are optional" "promise" is not, and never was, a promise that magic items wouldn't make a character more effective.

It was (and still is, as far as I can tell) an intent to craft the game in such a way that if a DM chooses not to include any magic items at all it won't break the game (and, conversely, that a DM loading the party down with magic items will also not break the game).

This is something that was impossible in both 3.X and 4e without incorporating some sort of compensating measures.

Yes, it's called "eyeballing encounter difficulty" - something that most DMs that cut their teeth on 2e and earlier editions learned to do.

3e's CR system was simply a way of making the DM's job easier by providing better guidelines given certain assumptions. Throw the assumptions out the window, and you're no worse off than before.

4e greatly simplified the underlying math, so much so that adjusting monster selection for PCs with less powerful (or no) magic items is almost trivially easy. PCs of level X with no magic items can take on monsters of level 0.8 * X at standard difficulty. If they do possess magic wapons, armor and neck slot items, add the "pluses" together, divide by three and divide again by the number of PCs, and increase the level of the monsters they can take on by that amount.

Fundamentally, math is math. 5e seems to be getting around the problem by making the mathematical bonus from most magic items fairly small - capping at +3 or so. However, unless they provide some kind of guidelines for adjusting encounter difficulty for powerful magic items, a PC fighter armed with a +3 weapon (such as a vorpal sword), a belt of storm giant strength and a pale green prism ioun stone is going to have a melee attack bonus +7 higher than if he did not have these items. Of course, with bounded accuracy, maybe it simply means that past a certain point, additional attack bonuses don't matter any more because you're already only missing on a natural 1.

(As a side point, AC bonuses are actually more valuable, since attack bonuses have diminishing returns as they get relatively higher, and eventually have no significant marginal benefit once you get to the "only miss on a natural one" stage. However, AC bonuses have increasing returns as they get relatively higher, until you get to the "only hit on a natural 20" stage.)

 

[YRUSirius]

Have fun finding that belt of storm giant strength.

-YRUSirius

 

[Rune]

They do for humans. Taking the Extremis Array example in the rules you could do this:

Strength: 18 (15 Base + 2 Human + 1 Barbarian)
Constitution: 16 (15 Base + 1 Human)
Dexterity: 16 (15 Base + 1 Human)
Intelligence: 9 (8 Base + 1 Human)
Wisdom: 9 (8 Base + 1 Human)
Charisma: 9 (8 Base + 1 Human)

Ah, right, I'd been house-ruling the human starting bonuses for so long now, I'd forgotten about that bit of silliness.

Having no clothes makes you invisible.)

Only if you're a bard. Or a superhero.

I recommend if a Martial character wants to stick to an enemy he should delay his initiative until immediately before his opponent. That way if the enemy moves away, he takes his OA, but if the enemy chooses not to move away he can freely parry the next hit against him without worrying about his quarry slipping away unpunished.

- Marty Lund

That's sound advice.

 

[Remathilis]

When I wear my chain mail bikini I sometimes think my cha mod becomes a penelty to everything boys do around me. Then again I seam to have the same effect with all my bikinis

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

[Obryn]

I'm not discounting that the game shouldn't be mathematically sound. I just disagree with what that means in context. In 4e, largely because of the riders, a consistent target roll was very desirable. Because the riders that a player would want to attach were dependent on the situation, balancing them against damage cannot realistically be done with math only. Also, in practice, a lot of the "cool" that most roles did was in riders, which, if they didn't activate, made things not-fun (especially if the next turn was going to be a long way off).

I agree that the riders make a difference. They are not the entire difference. Ordinarily you could do a quick back of the envelope calculation and say that every +1 to hit is worth X damage, whatever that may be.

Right now, though, when damage far outpaces monster HPs, any hit is very likely to impose the "dead" condition.

But as FireLance said - if you want to have any ratings of any use to help DMs gauge (not necessarily balance, gauge) encounter difficulty, there's no clear way to do so. Likewise, the intra-party balance question ... is a Fighter more item-dependent than a Wizard again? Do you have to micro-manage party rewards to make sure everyone gets their +X weapon? Inherent bonuses address all of these.

If WotC isn't already baking magic items into the game's math it's an insane design decision. I personally think they are - look at the buy-your-way-to-a-better-AC system (which likewise implies some degree of WBL without outright dictating it, and really ought to be taken into account).

Isn't not ignoring those design lessons exactly what we've been doing?

Sometimes I wonder.

-O

 

[Rune]

So.... 4e was wrong because it had daily martial powers which broke verisimilitude...

I don't recall seeing anyone in this thread make such an assertion.

3e's CR system was simply a way of making the DM's job easier by providing better guidelines given certain assumptions. Throw the assumptions out the window, and you're no worse off than before.

4e greatly simplified the underlying math, so much so that adjusting monster selection for PCs with less powerful (or no) magic items is almost trivially easy. PCs of level X with no magic items can take on monsters of level 0.8 * X at standard difficulty. If they do possess magic wapons, armor and neck slot items, add the "pluses" together, divide by three and divide again by the number of PCs, and increase the level of the monsters they can take on by that amount.

That's what I mean by "compensating measures."

Of course, with bounded accuracy, maybe it simply means that past a certain point, additional attack bonuses don't matter any more because you're already only missing on a natural 1.

That's exactly the point of bounded accuracy! If you have managed to rack up such an unnaturally high hit bonus, you simply don't have to worry about missing.

(As a side point, AC bonuses are actually more valuable, since attack bonuses have diminishing returns as they get relatively higher, and eventually have no significant marginal benefit once you get to the "only miss on a natural one" stage. However, AC bonuses have increasing returns as they get relatively higher, until you get to the "only hit on a natural 20" stage.)

There are no creatures in the Bestiary with an AC higher than 18.

 

[Stalker0]

So.... 4e was wrong because it had daily martial powers which broke verisimilitude...

Not a peep about how the Barbarian has x/rages per day, because 3e did it. D&D fandom is silly.

3e Barbs at least had a fatigue mechanic built in at the end of the rage to throw a bonus to realism. The new rage doesn't even do that.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

So.... 4e was wrong because it had daily martial powers which broke verisimilitude...

Not a peep about how the Barbarian has x/rages per day, because 3e did it. D&D fandom is silly.

I have heard some small quibbles about it, and myself would prefer a better mechanic, but I don't know what one would be.

Having rages limited by rests at least makes a modicum of sense. Raging bloodlust is an emotional event that takes a lot out of a person. And even if you're good at calling such a rage, once the angry drugs are out of your system, it becomes difficult to do it again.

So, as far as uses per day abilities go, rage is more simulationist than most.