D&D 5E No ascending bonuses: A mathematical framework for 5e

[Crazy Jerome]

Part of the purpose of the seemingly goofy numbers (and Armor as AC) in early D&D was to avoid the problem of really good armor completely cancelling out attacks, moment to moment.

That is, mathematically, consider that 10th level hero versus a bunch of 1st level guards. If you scale the 10th level guy more naturally, but keep the hit point adjustment reasonably in-line with everything else, then what you get is that a lot of the 1st level guys miss, until a couple of them finally connect (and bypass armor, if you use some other armor system). There are or course "feast or famine" issues, with going with low chance to connect, relatively low hit points, armor as damage resistance, and that is what a lot of people tend to focus upon when we have this dicussion. It just seems more "realistic" that our hero doesn't get hit at all--and then finally he does and he is quickly in trouble. Or if unlucky, he gets smacked several times right away.

What I think keeps getting missed in this respect is that Gygax and company wanted that sense of slowly being whittled down--and in order to have that, you needed a marker. Since they clearly didn't want an overt "death spiral", the scaling hit points that represented fatigue, luck, physical damage, etc. was a perfectly fine solution.

If your intention is to preserve the kind of pacing that has been like in all versions of D&D in one form or another, then you must address this issue.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

And what about a 20th level Fighter vs. 20th level Mage in an archery contest?

Under 4E and this proposed system...they tie.

Just to be clear, in 4E they don't. They might come closer to a tie than a lot of people want, but they don't tie. You can make some specific wizard or fighter builds where they might, or where the wizard would even win. But by default, the wizard has no proficiency with the bow, and is less likely to invest in Dex or any useful feats.

I don't think the proposed solution is assuming no weapon proficiencies, relevant abilities, etc. either.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This issue of how the numbers progress has come up before, and I actually believe that many of the numbers don't progress nearly enough -- at least if we want them to match "realistic" expectations.

In many ways, characters (in 3E, at least) aren't competent enough, given how the d20 combat system and non-combat skill system work. Should a typical young American Indian hunter or Roman auxiliary archer -- presumably a 1st-level Warrior, Fighter, Ranger, or Barbarian, with a +1 BAB -- really only have +1 to hit. If he grew up bow-hunting, he hits a target 55 percent of time rather than 50 percent? And a great archer -- let's say 5th-level -- hits that target 75 percent of the time?

If a 5th-level Fighter is a great knight (or samurai, or whatever), and a 10th-level Fighter is the greatest knight (or samurai) in the land, then I wouldn't find it "unrealistic" for the 5th-level Fighter to more-or-less always hit and always kill 1st-level Fighters, and for the 10th-level Fighter to always hit and always kill 5th-level Fighters -- without magic weapons, magically boosted strength, etc.

I also wouldn't bat an eye at a 10th-level Fighter who was effectively unhittable, even without his magic armor, as long as he had his sword or shield.

What elements of the D&D progression are unrealistic? Really, there's nothing "unrealistic" about a 10th-level thief in AD&D -- except his 10d6 hit dice. And there's nothing "unrealistic" about a 10th-level fighter either -- except his 9d10+3 hit dice. His +10 to-hit isn't implausible at all.

When we look at how (old-school) D&D characters progress, it's fairly odd. Let's look at the fighter:

To-Hit: +1/level
Damage: +0/level
Armor Class: +0/level
Hit Points: +1d10/level, until 9th level​

If we were starting from scratch, we might just as likely come up with something like this:

To-Hit: +1/level
Damage: +1/level
Armor Class: +1/level
Hit Points: +1/level​

A 10th-level fighter might be even more powerful under that progression, but he wouldn't seem "unrealistic".

On the other hand, increasing his hit point total is the one thing practically guaranteed to make him seem "unrealistic" -- at least as long as hit points remain tied to physical toughness and taking damage.

Another way to think of it - was is this damage thing supposed to mean an archer rolls when he hits something? Maybe hitting the target is not the problem (AC 5 or something like that). The "challenge" is dealing significant damage - and there, you could still scale things (especially if you still want hit points to grow up, you must do that, unless high level combats are expected to take longer - which may be an option, fighting for days against your enemy?).

Scaling damage can avoid several problems that scaling attacks, defenses and skill bonuses bring with them. It's okay if a 10th level Fighter can kill a 1st level NPC in one hit. It's less nice when he auto-hits and the NPC auto-misses all the time.

 

[Dragonblade]

What elements of the D&D progression are unrealistic? Really, there's nothing "unrealistic" about a 10th-level thief in AD&D -- except his 10d6 hit dice. And there's nothing "unrealistic" about a 10th-level fighter either -- except his 9d10+3 hit dice. His +10 to-hit isn't implausible at all.

When we look at how (old-school) D&D characters progress, it's fairly odd. Let's look at the fighter:

To-Hit: +1/level
Damage: +0/level
Armor Class: +0/level
Hit Points: +1d10/level, until 9th level​

If we were starting from scratch, we might just as likely come up with something like this:

To-Hit: +1/level
Damage: +1/level
Armor Class: +1/level
Hit Points: +1/level​

A 10th-level fighter might be even more powerful under that progression, but he wouldn't seem "unrealistic".

On the other hand, increasing his hit point total is the one thing practically guaranteed to make him seem "unrealistic" -- at least as long as hit points remain tied to physical toughness and taking damage.

Basically, you are going the other way. Adding +1 to every level instead of subtracting. I thought about that too. It certainly works, but you end up with something that might look more like True20 than D&D. Nothing wrong with that. I love True20.

But I think it bakes in a certain amount of lethality that I think works better as an option. It also focuses the game into a narrower level range and makes it harder to convert between editions, which I think is a strength of no ascending bonuses.

I want a shallower power curve for levels is because it opens up more of the game for play. I don't like 5 levels being enough of a difference for a PC to totally dominate every NPC or monster they meet that doesn't fall into that range. I think clever kobolds should still be a threat to a 10th level PC, not a speed bump. I think it also ties the DMs hands a little in terms of what they can throw at the PCs.

And I also like options. I want the options of a high level PC by being able to play up to those levels without the DM feeling like the game has changed so much they no longer want to run it. Basically the feel of old school 1e levels 1-10 or E6, but spread out over more levels.

 

[Dragonblade]

Scaling damage can avoid several problems that scaling attacks, defenses and skill bonuses bring with them. It's okay if a 10th level Fighter can kill a 1st level NPC in one hit. It's less nice when he auto-hits and the NPC auto-misses all the time.

Yes, exactly.

 

[Saint&Sinner]

Or maybe a lower level option like E6 might be to some of our liking?

 

[Frostmarrow]

Yes, exactly.

So... Does that mean the quality of a skill attempt should be decided by an additional die roll? Say I roll to jump a chasm and succeed. Now, do I roll a die plus bonus and compare the result with the difficulty of the chasm?

Skill challenges and aid another would be simpler to run. Say there is a mountain and you'll need 30 progression points to reach the summit. Let's say I roll Wisdom (mountaineering) and succeed. Then I roll 1d8 (fine climbing gear)+Wis to see how much progress I make. Every round me and my friends fail to reach the peak the mountain gets to spring a random encounter on us.

 

[billd91]

Scaling damage can avoid several problems that scaling attacks, defenses and skill bonuses bring with them. It's okay if a 10th level Fighter can kill a 1st level NPC in one hit. It's less nice when he auto-hits and the NPC auto-misses all the time.

I can see some of that argument, particularly making a high level character still vulnerable to being hit by a low level one. But shouldn't a high level character have an easier time hitting the lower level one compared to back when he was low-level? Doesn't it make sense that he's gotten better because he's more experienced?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, there are a lot of advantages to this system from a system-wide standpoint. You don't even need artificial constructs anymore like "solo" monsters. You can simply have a high level dragon, it has lots of hit points and hits for a lot of damage. Your lower level guys can go tussle with it and make SOME progress, but they're not going to win easily. OTOH the same stat block works fine as an element of a high level encounter. Likewise 'minions' aren't really needed, etc. A level 1 kobold can run around the field and do something, not much, but at least he can hit the 20th level fighter once before he dies hard, much like a 20th level minion does now.

I don't think the non-scaling issue is that big a deal. First of all not everything is combat. Lets say damage does scale by level, there's no reason that a PC's RESULTS from using his skills cannot also scale. An archery contest isn't combat, you want to engage in one then use DEX checks, the two activities are quite different, and you can always give a +level bonus to the results for the master archer. You can do this as say a 'trained activity' bonus where being an adventurer trained with a weapon grants it. You don't use it in combat, or only for damage, but in setpiece situations like a contest it does.

I actually wrote this system up about a year ago and ran through numbers. Any issues of 'feel' aside it works rather well. One of the great things about it is the way a horde of 50 orcs is suddenly SCARY and not a joke to Mr Epic Hero. It opens up a LOT of plot space. You can always shut some of that down again later in other ways (give Mr Epic Hero a "just kill them with your bad-assed looks" ability, like Cuchulain did, etc).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I can see some of that argument, particularly making a high level character still vulnerable to being hit by a low level one. But shouldn't a high level character have an easier time hitting the lower level one compared to back when he was low-level? Doesn't it make sense that he's gotten better because he's more experienced?

He is better, his attacks do far more lethal damage for instance (1 hit on low level guy is a kill, low level guy can hack on you all day and do squat). Remember 'hits' are rather abstract in many respects.