While I agree with the sentiment, we have to face facts. If you're going to face dozens of lethal encounters, you're either going to get really, really consistently lucky or die.What ever happened to sucking it up?
DM: "The Ogre hits you for a massive 52 points of damage and stuns you."
Player: "No he doesn't. I play my "You Dodge the Attack" card.
What's the point of playing the game?
I think immediate interrupts can add to the fun of the game, but I'm not impressed with the "all or nothing" type of "I teleport away" or "get out of jail free" ones. They're mini-cheats. But if they occur during the attack roll and the DM doesn't throw out too much information before rolling the dice, the player doesn't necessarily know everything what was going to happen to the PC, so he's not quite sure if he teleported away on the Ogre's wimpy attack, or his mega-attack. Meh, but not so egregious.
But, I really don't like the concept of some sort of "you find out all that happens to your PC, you negate it" type of system and/or having every PC have these types of abilities and having it be part of the standard rules. Talk about player entitlement. Maybe the DM should make sure that the player gets a comfy chair, some soda, and some pizza while he is at it. After all, the player is entitled to make this the best gaming experience ever and having his PC stunned takes away from that. snort
What ever happen to sucking it up?
D&D doesn't have "dodge an attack" chits, but it does have "it's just a flesh wound" chits.I think there are a number of things to be said for having a set of "dodge an attack" chits.
You make an excellent point that with 4E's powers a hit can trigger an effect that effectively bypasses hit points -- and those effects become more useful the higher the opponent's hit points.It really depends on what else you can do with a hit. Once you start factoring in any appreciable additional effects besides damage output things start to change rapidly. A 4e character that can hit 30% more often is a lot more than 1.15x more effective at attacking, its more like he's probably 1.5x more effective at low level and maybe up to as much as 2.5x more effective at high levels.
So we need a system that maintains the illusion of danger well above the actual threat of death.
A level-30 archer is presumably the greatest archer to have ever lived, putting Robin Hood and Legolas to shame. He shouldn't miss. Ever.I think that a +7 at first level vs a +13 at level 30 is enough to differentiate a inexperienced archer and the best one.
So we need a system that maintains the illusion of danger well above the actual threat of death.
While I agree with the sentiment, we have to face facts. If you're going to face dozens of lethal encounters, you're either going to get really, really consistently lucky or die.
If every encounter is 20-to-1, in the party's favor, they only have 50-50 odds of winning a dozen fights in a row.
So we need a system that maintains the illusion of danger well above the actual threat of death.
Good review, though if we are looking at core dnd stats then healing should be factored in.
Traditionally Pcs have not only gotten more hitpoints but also access to more healing.
I pulled the 20-to-1 odds number out of my bag of holding. It's supposed to be a ridiculously high number.The question is, where are you pulling out these numbers?
I think what tends to break the game (or did particularly in 3E) is not the level inputs but the enhancement bonuses. When you add magic armor, a ring of protection, a DEX boost, an amulet of natural armor, etc, to AC and they all stack, the math breaks pretty quickly (across all scores, generally except HP). To make the system work we either need to eliminate enhancements, or keep them to a reasonable number. Perhaps no stacking at all (only the best enhancement that improves AC counts, for example), or limit stacking to a total -- no more than +5 can be applied to any score or roll from any enhancements.
I pulled the 20-to-1 odds number out of my bag of holding. It's supposed to be a ridiculously high number.
I then calculated the probability of winning over and over at those odds. With 20-to-1 odds, each fight, by definition, has just over a 95-percent chance (20/21 = 95.2%) of going the party's way.
Winning a dozen such fights in a row happens roughly half the time (95.2%^12 = 56%).
If the party actually engaged in fair fights, they would only expect to win half the time, so winning even the first fight would be impressive, and getting to a dozen would be effectively impossible.
Even at 3-to-1 odds, the party will generally win just one or two in a row.
Yes, and those four value compound, so that a character who hits twice as often for twice as much damage, and who gets hit half as often and can take twice as much damage, ends up 16 times as powerful -- which is actually powerful enough to take on four times as many enemies (via Lanchester's Square Law).We essentially have four scores under discussion, two offensive (Attack bonus and damage) and two defensive (AC (or other Defense, for 4E model) and hit points).
Agreed. It's the many stacking bonuses that add up to a problem. Keeping only the largest bonus makes the math work, but it leads to "worthless" +1 items, hand-me-down amulets, etc.I think what tends to break the game (or did particularly in 3E) is not the level inputs but the enhancement bonuses. When you add magic armor, a ring of protection, a DEX boost, an amulet of natural armor, etc, to AC and they all stack, the math breaks pretty quickly (across all scores, generally except HP). To make the system work we either need to eliminate enhancements, or keep them to a reasonable number. Perhaps no stacking at all (only the best enhancement that improves AC counts, for example), or limit stacking to a total -- no more than +5 can be applied to any score or roll from any enhancements.
A sword of sharpness or a vorpal weapon is much, much scarier to another PC than to a typical monster. Automatically killing (or crippling) your enemy on a natural-20 to-hit roll makes roughly 10 percent of your attacks lethal (or disabling), which isn't a big deal if you expect to finish off your opponent in fewer than 10 hits, and it has no healing power.DMs who handed out a Sword of Sharpness or a Vorpal blade tended to regret it sooner or later.
Also, D&D weapons have a history of adding their bonus to the to-hit roll and the damage roll, so a +5 sword might allow you to hit 1.5 times as often for twice as much damage, or three times the damage per round.The vast majority of weapons handed out were +1, there were some +1 but +x in a specific situation, a few +2s and a very rare +3. 3E came along and decided that +4 and +5 weapons should be a major part of the game system and even +6 weapons showed up in some later splat books (or possibly the Epic Level Handbook) as artifact level.
4E went straight to +6.
Also, D&D weapons have a history of adding their bonus to the to-hit roll and the damage roll, so a +5 sword might allow you to hit 1.5 times as often for twice as much damage, or three times the damage per round.
Yes, that was my point. Even remotely fair fights would catch up to the PCs very, very quickly.Fights aren't fair. Ever. PCs always have a huge advantage.
I don't think the goal is to add more "get out of jail free" abilities; rather, it's to shift what kind of "get out of jail free" abilities the PCs have.So, I opine that the rationale for adding more "get out of jail free" abilities to the game system is flawed. It's not a straight up math problem. PCs have healing and PCs have many more options than monsters, hence, they win. They don't need even more ways to win. The 4E game system is already extremely easy unless the PCs have run out of Daily resources (powers and/or healing surges).
If characters have higher defenses and lower hit points, then +1 to-hit and +1 to damage becomes much more effective.+1 to hit and +1 to damage where it is not required to make the main math model work (like in 4E) combined in a system of less damage and fewer hit points (possibly where monsters have optional abilities to stay in sync) will be worth a lot more than it is today.
I believe the move toward specialized magic items was a reaction to 3E's "Christmas tree" of "mandatory" magic items that granted generally useful bonuses.I think 5E should get away from specialized magical items and move more towards generic useful items that more PCs can find useful. It's a pain for a DM to go out of his way to often hand out items specifically designed for the group of PCs he has. That doesn't make the DM's job easier.