D&D 5E New Q&A: Starting Gold, Paragon and Prestige Paths, and bounded accuracy vs. Feats

[keterys]

Do you like your own suggestion? Would it make 5e better in your opinion?

It would, if you also cleaned up some other stuff. What I was most hoping for was for people to read and understand it, then discuss the design merits and flaws, to kinda dig into that.

But, that's okay

At the end of the day, the current setup of abilities, as well as their generation, and certain magic items, are kinda intrinsically flawed.

The good example is Dexterity, which just does way too much. AC, attack, damage, initiative, good saves, good skills. Or you can go for Int, which almost never comes up personally unless you're a specific class. Though it's totally worth having _someone_ in the group have it.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I don't know about that. On 1 hand you have Str or Dex bonuses to hit, but on the other side you have Dex bonus to AC.

However, monster AC doesn't appear to take into account the Dex bonus to AC. They just get a fairly arbitrary number based on their level and how difficult they should be to hit. When most level 1 monsters have ACs of 12, it means that someone with a 20 strength and a +1 from class has a 75% chance to hit them. While someone with a 10 strength and +1 from class has a 50% chance to hit them.

Over 40 attacks(roughly the number I expect people to make in an average session), one hits 20 times, the other one hits 30.

To make it easy, if we assume that they are just doing 1d8+Str damage, that means the 10 strength character does 90 damage during the session while the 20 strength character does 285. Over triple the damage.

 

[Falling Icicle]

D&D isn't a medieval economy, though. It's a magical medieval economy, which is something completely different.

While there are many extra things, like magic, D&D (at least the basic, core game) is still based upon the medieval, European civilizations that existed several centuries ago on planet Earth.

I would hope so. Silver, gold, plasticine, chocolate - it makes absolutely no difference. It's just a word you use in D&D to denote the base currency unit. You can call it anything you want. Adamantium. Cookies. Tin. Coal.

In fact, I find people talking about "silver standards" and the like a little OTT. It's not a standard of any kind. It's just a word; one chosen to describe the base in-game currency unit. There's no economy, or even an attempt at one.

Sure, you could have anything as a currency. People on Earth just happened to pick silver and gold (among other things). In Dragonlance, they use steel as currency. But the basic D&D game was modeled after medieval Europe, and I was simply pointing out that since that is the starting point that they used, using silver is more historically accurate than using gold. I'm not sure what OTT is, but I think you are overestimating the importance I place on this issue. There are also gameplay benefits to using silver instead of gold, as others have pointed out. But really, whether they use silver or gold as the standard currency in the game is far, far down the list of things that I consider to be really important.

Yep; that's why I said it wasn't a medieval economy; it's a magical medieval economy. Which, of course, doesn't and can't exist.

Nothing in an RPG is real. That doesn't mean that people don't include things that are real in their imaginary worlds, like the laws of physics (most worlds have gravity) or social and economic conditions in their imaginary worlds. With all due respect, I think you're taking this a little too seriously.

I want a D&D "economy" where a dragon can sit on top of a huge pile of gold and gems while still being reasonable in play. Piles of loot are iconic if anything is. None of this, "you can fit a dragon's horde in a backpack" nonsense.

That's easy. Have the massive piles of coins in the dragons horde be mostly copper and silver instead of just gold.

 

[Morrus]

While there are many extra things, like magic, D&D (at least the basic, core game) is still based upon the medieval, European civilizations that existed several centuries ago on planet Earth.

Of course it isn't! If anything, D&D was originally based on an almalgam of Tolkien and Vance (and other entries in Appendix N).

Nothing in an RPG is real. That doesn't mean that people don't include things that are real in their imaginary worlds, like the laws of physics (most worlds have gravity) or social and economic conditions in their imaginary worlds. With all due respect, I think you're taking this a little too seriously.

Dude, replying to the person whose basic position has been "none of this is real, there is no economy, you're taking it too seriously" with "with all due respect, I think you're taking this a little too seriously" is a little weird of you. I think you may be vastly misunderstanding my posts; probably my fault.

So, yeah, in case I wasn't clear (and I think I was) - there is no D&D economy, and you can pick any word you like to describe your base currency unit. It won't affect anything except basic aesthetics. So pick the word you like (gold, silver, chocolate) and use it. And stop worrying.

 

[JamesonCourage]

Just chiming in at this point to voice my approval of a silver standard. In my RPG (fantasy, level 1-20,), it works well. Gold is valuable again, and copper can matter (if you're poor). This works especially well if wealth isn't inherently tied to level, and magic isn't assumed. If the latter might be the case, I'd personally suggest that they swap to the silver standard. You should see the faces of my players when they are given 200 gold... or see 62 platinum pieces in a ancient dwarven tomb. The greed, even in non-greedy characters... As always, play what you like

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I know it is tradition for a GP standard, but I think a better solution would just be to call money "crowns" or something similar and let the DM determine whether that is gold, silver, steel, fiat, etc. or just ignore the matter entirely.

 

[Szatany]

However, monster AC doesn't appear to take into account the Dex bonus to AC. They just get a fairly arbitrary number based on their level and how difficult they should be to hit. When most level 1 monsters have ACs of 12, it means that someone with a 20 strength and a +1 from class has a 75% chance to hit them. While someone with a 10 strength and +1 from class has a 50% chance to hit them.

Over 40 attacks(roughly the number I expect people to make in an average session), one hits 20 times, the other one hits 30.

To make it easy, if we assume that they are just doing 1d8+Str damage, that means the 10 strength character does 90 damage during the session while the 20 strength character does 285. Over triple the damage.

I don't know if I see a problem here. If a character has 10 strength, he's dealing damage through another means (like rogue) or contributes to combat in different way altogether (like control wizard).

Or are you saying that strength 10 fighter should be playable?

 

[Szatany]

Nothing in an RPG is real.

Nothing is supposed to be real. But many things are supposed to be realistic beacuse it adds to the enjoyment of the game. Too many unrealistic things and the world becomes weird and people suddenly can't relate to it and lose interest.
I wouldn't say I need economy in my games realistic, but it needs to be internally consistent.
I prefer silver standard because its more realistic than gold standard, at least on the surface.

 

[Li Shenron]

Nothing is supposed to be real. But many things are supposed to be realistic beacuse it adds to the enjoyment of the game. Too many unrealistic things and the world becomes weird and people suddenly can't relate to it and lose interest.
I wouldn't say I need economy in my games realistic, but it needs to be internally consistent.
I prefer silver standard because its more realistic than gold standard, at least on the surface.

I agree.

Of course in an old-school dungeon-based game of D&D the world economy is hardly important, only the PCs equipment matters, and even 3e system of assumed wealth-by-level works without problems.

Economy, including magic items market (prices, availability of magic items for purchase, ease of selling loot...), becomes important when you want to advance your game into taking place in a world that makes sense, which is typically (tho not necessary) the case for long campaigns. That's where PCG-like simple economies start to feel wrong.

Then there is the purely narrative fairytale-like gamestyle, where you want your PCs to find the unbelievable treasure in the dragon's hoard, and not destroy the game with it so that you can continue with another adventure.

I think the current idea of 5e of making no assumption about wealth is the absolute best approach, because any other approach would cut off other gamestyles. If the starting point is no wealth required, from there you can add a "module" (can be a virtual module, i.e. no real need for written rules) that works for old-school/PCG-like gamestyle, for realistic/consistent world-building gamestyle, for purely narrative style.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I don't know if I see a problem here. If a character has 10 strength, he's dealing damage through another means (like rogue) or contributes to combat in different way altogether (like control wizard).

Or are you saying that strength 10 fighter should be playable?

I'm saying that a strength 10 fighter should be playable. Or a strength 10 cleric really. Right now if you are a cleric, I've found most of your actions are still melee attacks with periodic healing. Without a good strength, your actions feel kind of wasted.

But besides that, I think that whatever character you play should be playable. I don't have a problem with "I rolled for stats and my highest stat is a 13, which I put into my strength. That means the other fighter in the group who rolled an 18 will do more damage than me." Having a lower stat should mean something about your character is worse. However, I figure a 25% difference between highest and lowest is what I expect. Not a 300-400% difference.

If Str didn't give bonuses to hit, this would be possible. As it is now, if you roll a 13 as your maximum stat(or choose a small strength for roleplaying reasons), you are pretty much useless.