Falling Icicle
Adventurer
Because it more accurately simulates a medieval economy.
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D&D 5E New Q&A: Starting Gold, Paragon and Prestige Paths, and bounded accuracy vs. Feats
- Thread starter gyor
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Because it more accurately simulates a medieval economy.
Argyle King
Legend
To me, this sounds like a "depth vs. breadth" decision. You can game combat depth (+1 Str), or you can gain combat breadth (something like a Cleave ability). You can gain spellcaster depth (+1 Wisdom for a Cleric), or you can gain spellcaster breadth (Necromancer feat for skeletal companion, for example).
I don't mind that kind of decision at all. Sure, the other guy does more damage, but I get toys he doesn't, and can do things he can't do. To me, this is fair. You can choose to specialize (depth), or broaden your character (breadth). Both are valid options, but it does mean that those who specialize are better in their field than those who don't; but, those who don't can do more things than those who specialize. Seems fair to me, personally. And, if they're okay with this dynamic, then they aren't "not being honest", they're just making a design decision you don't like. As always, play what you like
The problem is that all of those cool extra toys you get won't keep pace with the game. In theory, the flatter math will help breadth be an actual option (and breadth is something I support.) In actual practice, I'm not currently convinced it will be. The two editions of D&D I'm most familiar with (3rd and 4th) don't tend to have a good track record when it comes to making breadth a very viable option. In theory, the math of 5th edition will help fix that. In play, I haven't seen it yet.
It's also worth noting that ability scores do a lot more than simply help with combat. They also make your skills and saves better. I'm not saying it's impossible to balance breadth against depth. I play many games which do a great job of that. I am saying that the editions of D&D I'm familiar juxtaposed against what I've currently seen in regards to 5th edition cause me to be somewhat cynical concerning the end result. It's still very early in the playtest; a lot may change, but I can only comment on the information I have available to me to now and what I perceive as being the direction some of the current choices are going in.
JamesonCourage
Adventurer
We haven't seen the new packet since the revision, so how can either one of us say how it works in practice? They haven't actually implemented the "+1 ability or a feat" option yet.
Mind you, I'm no huge fan of 5e. But, I'm not going to judge it "in practice" without seeing it first. Right now, I'm only judging the theory, since that's all we have. I'll say whether they succeeded or failed after we get some feedback from actual play.
I think the current information is somewhat helpful, so I don't want to rule it out. For example, people should have a fairly good grasp on what ability modifiers can do for them (something you rightfully point out). But, I can't actually judge the balance until I see the what one end (ability score bumps) are balanced against (feats). So far, all I know are that feats will be reworked, and "tremendous." Until I see them, though, I'm not going to assume they're the normal feats thus far, and I'm not going to judge how well they work other than "in theory."
Once we get them, though, and people test them and weigh in, that's when I'll judge them from a "in practice" viewpoint. And, I won't be nice because it's D&D (I don't currently participate in any D&D game). If they do well, I'll voice it, and if I think they didn't do well, I'll voice it. Until then, you won't see me comment on it other than my expectations, and my thoughts on the theory behind it. I understand low expectations, but I think our collective "in practice" experience when it comes to this particular balance is "zero." Just me, though. As always, play what you like
I played a 2e campaign for many years that required me to do much more Charisma checks than any other stat, because it was roleplaying heavy, that's not to say we didn't all value our system shock rolls to keep our characters, or value that extra point of AC which assuredly kept me alive (16 vs 15 in dex). If you roll well, you gain bonus feats, essentially, but if you roll poorly, you can use your ability boosts instead of trading them for feats. This, to me, simulates reality. Those with poorer natural talent need to work harder to catch up with prodigies, and that's fine by me. I like realism in games. Why should I play a game devoted to achieving heroism where I begin the game already heroic? I want to play a variety of characters, with a roll of the dice if I want to (as opposed to point buy), and I'm fine with living with poorer consequences because sometimes those are the best characters to play. The ones who in the Wotc forums complain about having unequal stat values to someone else in the party, or having to *gasp* make do with what the gods have given them, are missing the point. Sure, it's good to make their middling buy exactly the way they want : that's what point buy or arrays are for. If you really want to grasp the true spirit of the game, (IMO), and as a consequence the true genius of allowing +ses to stats as opposed to feats, then you need to realize if you play X number of characters, who die, eventually you will get your ideal "build", and have no need to keep any stat boosts since your main stat will be maxed (lucky 18s).
I rolled a 17 16 16 15 14 11 evoker with 4d6 drop lowest, and never got to hit the limit of that 17 vs 18 int. Sure, it woulda been nice to get 9th level spells, but whatever! I had a blast. The game was brutal, and many PCs died, but the gods of the dice conspired with my clever playing (and roleplaying) to keep my character alive for 14 levels with zero magic items. That was an achievement.
What I'm saying is : use point buy and keep your first 2 ability boosts instead of feats, or take the chance to get a natural 18 and roll the dice. Why are people so upset that they can't get everything they want? You need to risk much (a poor score here and there), to gain much. IRL I have a poor Con score, which has caused me much frustration, but I'd much rather my current stat array than what I'd get with point buy, if such a thing existed. Point buy array type people shop at Gap and Walmart and have 2.3 kids and are very middle of the road. Nothing wrong with that, but one would get bored with guaranteed middleness if you could live out many lives. Try living with a severe handicap (I have), it's not fun at all, but if you can have a PC that has some negatives to get some huge pluses too, that's fun and different and memorable too. Point buy and builds makes me think of fixed mortgage repayments and RRSPs. Very low risk, low reward life.
If I can play D&D Next with a guaranteed 18+ due to point buy, I'll be very disappointed. It seems like they've unconditioned my game mentlity from the stat-entitlement that I learned (from playing that edition that will not be named) and rekindled the spark in there. It's fun to roll up many characters. It's fun to not know how Providence will treat you next go around. Will you be a strong and fierce warrior who can still hold a conversation? Or a weak-willed and deceptive, frail wizard with only her wits and her cat to keep her company in her long hours of study. Why should everyone be decent or good at everything? In my group of friends, I have several who are downright awful at certain things, so much so that it's a gag to even consider trying to engage them in it (myself included). My point is, is that every min-maxer with a point buy spread that allows a natural 18 will "cheat" and roleplay a suave guy with an 8 charisma, because everyone's supposed to level at the same time thus it's a faut-pas for DMs to award XP based on RPing or clever game play and thus everyone is levelling at roughly or exactly the same time. Once you remove the sense of PC entitlement to gain levels, have a perfect build, a starting 18 in their main stat, then you create a gritty, yet fun and exciting, climate of survival against odds, and wonder when unexpected outcomes occur. The weakling becomes king. The fool wins the hand of the fair maiden, or finds the secret treasure.
In my mind, all these aspects of RPG rules are tied together, and it's taken me 25 years since I first got into this hobby to realize why you feel some rules are good and some are bad. And even realize that rules you may have despised as a youngster were actually good rules (such as paladins having a strict code, magic being truly awesome, or fighters owning the battlefield with help from their magically inclined allies rather than mere derision).
So far, from what I've seen, as rough and imperfect as it is, lots of what they're doing is good stuff (such as not giving "expected gold" or 30 strength). I mean, really? People really want to be able to say, I'm starting at level 5, gimme plate armor? Wtf. That's absurd. Just pretend it's like all your gear was stolen or you escaped from prison. Your character should be more than just his/her gear, and any edition where it's viable to grab an oaken tree stump and use it as a shield (mathematically), and beat back the orc chieftain, deserves massive applause. Mechanics and simulation capacity go hand in hand. It is possible to come up with rules that are better AND simpler than any that we've seen before, and I do want to see that Conan character one day rubbing way paint on and sneaking around, and the other day riding into battle in plate armor on horseback. This makes the game interesting and not pigeonholing you into artificial roles or constant patterns. A DM should say, no, it's too hot here in the desert to wear your armor, if you do, you'll die. If that happened in an "encounter", you'd have half the defender classes crying foul for "wtf, imbalance!!", same for a non-magic zone or whatever else the DM comes up with or makes sense. Player entitlement is encouraged by bad rules, and it seems like they have a handle on it. It's funny reading some comments from obvious noobs in the feedback who say stuff like "why do I have to chose between stat boost and feats!! no fair!!" It's like, my god, people, getting everything you want for free does not make a good game.
If you start at level 5, or 10, forget getting more gold. You should pay the iron price for your fancy magic sword : i.e. go and raid a dungeon, steal it (and risk getting beheaded by the town guard) or kill the orc chief to get it. Starting with magic items seems like a DM fiat option to me, in a high magic campaign maybe. I don't want to roll up my paragon-level guy and say "here, I took a jagged axe, this hunter magic hide armor, etc". As if you could simply order all that stuff from Amazon.
I rolled a 17 16 16 15 14 11 evoker with 4d6 drop lowest, and never got to hit the limit of that 17 vs 18 int. Sure, it woulda been nice to get 9th level spells, but whatever! I had a blast. The game was brutal, and many PCs died, but the gods of the dice conspired with my clever playing (and roleplaying) to keep my character alive for 14 levels with zero magic items. That was an achievement.
What I'm saying is : use point buy and keep your first 2 ability boosts instead of feats, or take the chance to get a natural 18 and roll the dice. Why are people so upset that they can't get everything they want? You need to risk much (a poor score here and there), to gain much. IRL I have a poor Con score, which has caused me much frustration, but I'd much rather my current stat array than what I'd get with point buy, if such a thing existed. Point buy array type people shop at Gap and Walmart and have 2.3 kids and are very middle of the road. Nothing wrong with that, but one would get bored with guaranteed middleness if you could live out many lives. Try living with a severe handicap (I have), it's not fun at all, but if you can have a PC that has some negatives to get some huge pluses too, that's fun and different and memorable too. Point buy and builds makes me think of fixed mortgage repayments and RRSPs. Very low risk, low reward life.
If I can play D&D Next with a guaranteed 18+ due to point buy, I'll be very disappointed. It seems like they've unconditioned my game mentlity from the stat-entitlement that I learned (from playing that edition that will not be named) and rekindled the spark in there. It's fun to roll up many characters. It's fun to not know how Providence will treat you next go around. Will you be a strong and fierce warrior who can still hold a conversation? Or a weak-willed and deceptive, frail wizard with only her wits and her cat to keep her company in her long hours of study. Why should everyone be decent or good at everything? In my group of friends, I have several who are downright awful at certain things, so much so that it's a gag to even consider trying to engage them in it (myself included). My point is, is that every min-maxer with a point buy spread that allows a natural 18 will "cheat" and roleplay a suave guy with an 8 charisma, because everyone's supposed to level at the same time thus it's a faut-pas for DMs to award XP based on RPing or clever game play and thus everyone is levelling at roughly or exactly the same time. Once you remove the sense of PC entitlement to gain levels, have a perfect build, a starting 18 in their main stat, then you create a gritty, yet fun and exciting, climate of survival against odds, and wonder when unexpected outcomes occur. The weakling becomes king. The fool wins the hand of the fair maiden, or finds the secret treasure.
In my mind, all these aspects of RPG rules are tied together, and it's taken me 25 years since I first got into this hobby to realize why you feel some rules are good and some are bad. And even realize that rules you may have despised as a youngster were actually good rules (such as paladins having a strict code, magic being truly awesome, or fighters owning the battlefield with help from their magically inclined allies rather than mere derision).
So far, from what I've seen, as rough and imperfect as it is, lots of what they're doing is good stuff (such as not giving "expected gold" or 30 strength). I mean, really? People really want to be able to say, I'm starting at level 5, gimme plate armor? Wtf. That's absurd. Just pretend it's like all your gear was stolen or you escaped from prison. Your character should be more than just his/her gear, and any edition where it's viable to grab an oaken tree stump and use it as a shield (mathematically), and beat back the orc chieftain, deserves massive applause. Mechanics and simulation capacity go hand in hand. It is possible to come up with rules that are better AND simpler than any that we've seen before, and I do want to see that Conan character one day rubbing way paint on and sneaking around, and the other day riding into battle in plate armor on horseback. This makes the game interesting and not pigeonholing you into artificial roles or constant patterns. A DM should say, no, it's too hot here in the desert to wear your armor, if you do, you'll die. If that happened in an "encounter", you'd have half the defender classes crying foul for "wtf, imbalance!!", same for a non-magic zone or whatever else the DM comes up with or makes sense. Player entitlement is encouraged by bad rules, and it seems like they have a handle on it. It's funny reading some comments from obvious noobs in the feedback who say stuff like "why do I have to chose between stat boost and feats!! no fair!!" It's like, my god, people, getting everything you want for free does not make a good game.
If you start at level 5, or 10, forget getting more gold. You should pay the iron price for your fancy magic sword : i.e. go and raid a dungeon, steal it (and risk getting beheaded by the town guard) or kill the orc chief to get it. Starting with magic items seems like a DM fiat option to me, in a high magic campaign maybe. I don't want to roll up my paragon-level guy and say "here, I took a jagged axe, this hunter magic hide armor, etc". As if you could simply order all that stuff from Amazon.
FreeTheSlaves
Adventurer
I'm pretty happy with these directions.
Starting wealth basically is story driven, which works for me.
I never really liked the idea of 3E prestige classes being at the expense of the base class. Rather I liked the 2E kits where you opted for a variant. Part of that is captured by back grounds so I'm interested by what they intend to dish up.
Perfectly fine with the stat boost or feat choice. The delayed gratification of the odd score bump should act as a breaks on automatically pumping a score to 20, while later paying a handsome dividend.
All in all I look forward to the next play test.
Starting wealth basically is story driven, which works for me.
I never really liked the idea of 3E prestige classes being at the expense of the base class. Rather I liked the 2E kits where you opted for a variant. Part of that is captured by back grounds so I'm interested by what they intend to dish up.
Perfectly fine with the stat boost or feat choice. The delayed gratification of the odd score bump should act as a breaks on automatically pumping a score to 20, while later paying a handsome dividend.
All in all I look forward to the next play test.
Frostmarrow
First Post
In this case it seems to me perfectly reasonable to increase one ability score by +2 while simultaneously decreasing one by -1 (instead of increasing one by +1). It will cap quicker but at the same time your character will adapt to what kind of campaign you are playing. In a combat heavy campaign most characters at the table will become less and less charismatic. I think that would be kind of cool, and also a pretty good signal to the DM that maybe the game could benefit from some role-playing encounters.
New Q&A: Starting Gold, Paragon and Prestige Paths, and bounded accuracy vs. Fe
D&D isn't a medieval economy, though. It's a magical medieval economy, which is something completely different.
D&D isn't a medieval economy, though. It's a magical medieval economy, which is something completely different.
Heck its not even always midevil. Mulhorand is ancient Eygptianish, Turmish and Chult are varations on African, Zakhara is Arabian, Kara-Tur East Asian, Durpri is East Indian, that's just the Forgotten Realms.
I look forward to the next packet to see how these feats vs. Ability boosts turn out.
I'm betting we have all the classes in the next packet with the possible exception of Psion.
If I had to hazard a guess as to when the next packet will be released it will be not this coming week, but will be some time during the week of May Monday 6th to Friday the 10th.
After all the only classes left are the sorceror, warlock, bard, and maybe Psion. The sorceror and warlock have already been worked on partially, the Bard sounds almost done already from a previous Q&A and the Psion may come after the PHB. So it shouldn't be long.
I look forward to the next packet to see how these feats vs. Ability boosts turn out.
I'm betting we have all the classes in the next packet with the possible exception of Psion.
If I had to hazard a guess as to when the next packet will be released it will be not this coming week, but will be some time during the week of May Monday 6th to Friday the 10th.
After all the only classes left are the sorceror, warlock, bard, and maybe Psion. The sorceror and warlock have already been worked on partially, the Bard sounds almost done already from a previous Q&A and the Psion may come after the PHB. So it shouldn't be long.
Mr. Patient
Adventurer
The best argument for a silver standard is that by about third level in a normal gold standard game, PCs can't even be bothered to pick up unattended silver coins. Of course, an easier solution might be to simply dispense with copper and silver entirely.
There are a number of reasons for this, but here's the big one IMO: We have a currency system with three tiers of coinage, but gold is the only one that ever sees use in play. It's rare to see anyone pay much attention to their supply of silver, and unheard-of to worry about copper. Meanwhile, gold is ho-hum. Finding some gold pieces is like finding a couple of dollar bills. It's nice, but nothing to write home about. And it gets worse when you reach higher levels and DMs start getting more generous. In 4E, the quest to find a high-end currency worth the bother drove them to jack up the price of platinum to ridiculous levels and invent "astral diamonds." (Admittedly, the 4E economic system was a mess all around.)
I'd like to see silver take the place of gold and copper take the place of silver. Then gold would become unusual and precious; a trove of gold coins, even a relatively small one, would be a find worthy of celebration. Meanwhile, silver would come into common use. Copper would be mostly the "NPC currency," the sort of thing tunic-wearing townsfolk use to carry out their daily business--a role that silver fills now--but a thrifty PC at the low levels could still find it worthwhile to keep track of.
There was some talk about a silver standard from the designers in the early days of D&DN, but they seem to have dropped that. I wonder what the chances are of having that idea revived.
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