D&D 5E Polls in Wizards Community D&D Next Blogs

[FireLance]

Not sure if it's been mentioned previously, but there are currently three polls in the Wizards Community D&D Next blogs:

Can the holy damage and radiant damage types exist in the same game?

What to do about Resist/DR/"+1 or better to hit"?

Should flavor stand independent of mechanics, or it should be backed up by game rules?

If you're interested, pop by and cast your vote!

 

[Halivar]

What fascinated me was this poll option for "+1 or Better to Hit?":

• Yes, but only as the 1st and 2nd edition rules.
• Yes, but as the 3rd edition rules.

I would hope this could be something that could be modularized. As it seems now, they want a single mechanic to cover this.

 

[delericho]

What to do about Resist/DR/"+1 or better to hit"?

No good options on this poll, unfortunately.

They should do three things with Damage Reduction, IMO:

1) With the exception of vampires and werewolves, they should remove DR entirely from all categories of monsters. If a monster is supposed to be extremely tough to kill, there's already a better mechanic for that - lots of hit points.

2) For unique, named monsters they should consider keeping DR (or, better, Vulnerability), but instead of having it keyed to one of five special materials (silver, cold iron, adamantine, magic, alignment) it should be tied to a unique named item/ritual/whatever. (Perhaps that demon lord is vulnerable to the sword of the paladin who beat him last time.)

Doing this eliminates the 'golf bag' mentality. In 3e/4e, players quickly reach a point where almost every encounter is against a creature with some resistance, but that that resistance can be bypassed with one of five materials. Under those circumstances, of course they're going to want a 'golf bag' of weapons to deal with it!

By restricting DR to unique, named individuals and to unique, named countermeasures you make it much more memorable - both the bad guy and the magic item have built-in flavour. Additionally, there ceases to be any reason for the 'golf bag', since the weapon that worked this time won't work next time. And, finally, it gives the PCs an interesting choice - do they quest to go get the unique magic item, or do they take on the monster without it at greater risk?

There is an exception to this:

3) Vampires and werewolves are special cases, because these are classic monsters with well-known and iconic vulnerabilities. (I think they're the only such iconic cases, but I may have forgotten some?) Here, I recommend taking a look at two recent films for inspiration:

In "Dog Soldiers", the werewolves are really tough, but they can be taken down using normal weapons. That is, they have lots of hit points. However, the soldiers also have a small number of one-shot silver weapons that are extremely effective. I would recommend modelling this by eliminating the concept of 'silvered' weapons entirely, and instead having silver weapons that, if used, quickly become useless (like magic ammunition in 3e). Oh, and give the werewolves a very significant Vulnerability to such weapons, of course!

In "From Dusk Till Dawn", the vampires are also extremely resistant to normal weapons. However, after that initial encounter the heroes then proceed to construct themselves a number of better weapons - they whittle stakes, bless holy water, improvise holy symbols, and the like. Having done this, they could effectively ignore the resistance for the rest of the film. In game terms, that is of course easily modelled - an easy-to-use ritual that can be cast during a short rest. That way, you get the initial 'shock' encounter of vampires that can't be killed, followed by a rest, and then on with the fun vampire-killing antics! (Plus, it means that groups don't have to carry lots of vampire-killing gear for that once-in-a-campaign adventure when they suddenly need it.)

Incidentally, Vulnerabilities are generally more satisfying that Damage Reduction, and simply giving a creature lots of hit points seems to be a better way of making a monster really tough (in general).

I think DR/Vulnerabilities can be a fun mechanic. But they should use it very sparingly, and make it count.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I would hope this could be something that could be modularized. As it seems now, they want a single mechanic to cover this.

They probably are trying to find out if it needs to be modularized. If the results end up showing that 95% of the voters prefer one over the other, that's a pretty good indication that they could leave the other out without too much hue and cry.

The big thing to remember here is that they aren't going to put every iteration of every rule in the book... modular or not. Word count becomes prohibitive. So in some places, trimming will occur to some rules from the previous editions that just don't need to reappear (like AC going downwards for example). If the poll results end up with both choices being equal in popularity, that will tell them that this might be a place where adding the module is a good thing.

 

[Anselyn]

By restricting DR to unique, named individuals and to unique, named countermeasures you make it much more memorable - both the bad guy and the magic item have built-in flavour. Additionally, there ceases to be any reason for the 'golf bag', since the weapon that worked this time won't work next time. And, finally, it gives the PCs an interesting choice - do they quest to go get the unique magic item, or do they take on the monster without it at greater risk?

I guess in the sense that the DM chooses or generates what the vulnerabilty is for these named memorable opponents? So, referencing the MM can't help the players know that they need the blessed crossbow bolt, for example.

I would support this for my style of play but can see that perhaps it should be an optional style of play. I guess that there's a substantial sub-set of players who would want to be able to use their game mastery, having memorised all the monsters and their weaknesses. Should they be allowed their golf bags?

 

[Umbran]

3) Vampires and werewolves are special cases, because these are classic monsters with well-known and iconic vulnerabilities. (I think they're the only such iconic cases, but I may have forgotten some?)

Traditionally, fae creatures are usually vulnerable to "cold iron".

 

[avin]

"Flavor should be backed up by game rules." YES, YES, YES!

I'm surprised that so many voters have said no o0

As for DR, yes, there should be monsters with DR, but simple like that DR5/Cold Iron. Cold Iron or nothing or 5 RD. No more "better elements work as cold iron"...

 

[delericho]

Traditionally, fae creatures are usually vulnerable to "cold iron".

Good call. Forgot that one.

 

[LurkAway]

"Flavor should be backed up by game rules." YES, YES, YES!

I'm surprised that so many voters have said no o0

I voted Yes, but I regretted that after I read the blurb later about dwarves and axes and thought the issue was more nuanced then a simple general yes or no.

 

[Hassassin]

I'm a bit torn on damage resistance.

I'd like to see flavorful vulnerabilities like silver (werewolves) and cold iron (fey), but I'm not sure DR is the best mechanic for these. Dragons and Elementals have vulnerabilities, where they take double damage, so maybe that would work for these cases.

OTOH, I think skeletons resisting (at least) piercing damage makes total sense.

 

[Aeolius]

...the issue was more nuanced then a simple general yes or no.

Agreed. I voted for fluff but agree with both sides of the equation, so we balanced out the poll.

Flavor stands independent of mechanics.
Flavor should be backed up by game rules.

Both. I like boatloads of fluff. "Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide" is as useful as any Monster Manual, in this respect. But there need to be game mechanics, to ensure that everyone is playing the same game.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I still believe that "takes double damage from" is much better to represent vulnerability than DR 5/silver. It has the side effect of remaining relevant in high levels.

Cheers,

 

[KidSnide]

They should do three things with Damage Reduction, IMO:

1) With the exception of vampires and werewolves, they should remove DR entirely from all categories of monsters. If a monster is supposed to be extremely tough to kill, there's already a better mechanic for that - lots of hit points.

2) For unique, named monsters they should consider keeping DR (or, better, Vulnerability), but instead of having it keyed to one of five special materials (silver, cold iron, adamantine, magic, alignment) it should be tied to a unique named item/ritual/whatever. (Perhaps that demon lord is vulnerable to the sword of the paladin who beat him last time.)

3) Vampires and werewolves are special cases, because these are classic monsters with well-known and iconic vulnerabilities. (I think they're the only such iconic cases, but I may have forgotten some?) Here, I recommend taking a look at two recent films for inspiration:

I would recommend modelling this by eliminating the concept of 'silvered' weapons entirely, and instead having silver weapons that, if used, quickly become useless (like magic ammunition in 3e). Oh, and give the werewolves a very significant Vulnerability to such weapons, of course!

In game terms, that is of course easily modelled - an easy-to-use ritual that can be cast during a short rest. That way, you get the initial 'shock' encounter of vampires that can't be killed, followed by a rest, and then on with the fun vampire-killing antics!

I have to spread some xp around, but this is a great idea. I think the key is that, if you're going to have a resistance/vulnerability, it needs to be an important part of the encounter where the PCs (1) expect to suffer initially, but muddle through a mass of hit points and (2) are able to overcome/exploit the vulnerability once they have time to take the necessary steps.

A key to making this dynamic work is making it impractical for the PCs to constantly have a golf-bag of appropriate items. Instead, the items should only be available once the PCs can take a short rest (for a ritual) and/or collect the necessary items.

-KS

 

[harlokin]

"Flavor should be backed up by game rules." YES, YES, YES!

I'm surprised that so many voters have said no o0

As for DR, yes, there should be monsters with DR, but simple like that DR5/Cold Iron. Cold Iron or nothing or 5 RD. No more "better elements work as cold iron"...

I voted no.

To me flavour being backed up by game rules means things like bonuses for Elves using bows, Dwarves wearing heavy armour and using axes.....yawn....Half-Elves being good at social skills etc..

This results in certain Race/Class combinations becoming practically default as they have such a significant advantage.

This to my mind is not needed, just because a world's population of Elves and Dwarves live up to tedious Tolkien stereotypes, is no reason why PCs cannot be cut from a different cloth.

I also dislike having a glut of magic items, so don't like the idea of requiring them being hard-coded into the game.

 

[drothgery]

No good options on this poll, unfortunately.

They should do three things with Damage Reduction, IMO:

1) With the exception of vampires and werewolves, they should remove DR entirely from all categories of monsters. If a monster is supposed to be extremely tough to kill, there's already a better mechanic for that - lots of hit points.

And there's already a better mechanic for making a monster harder to hit -- give it a better AC / defenses / saves.

 

[Herschel]

Yeah, the listed asnwers rather limited.

DR should be shot with feces and buried under 67 yards of moldy peat. It's only use is fertilizer to remind the designers to make a better system. I don't mind some elemental resistances, ala the Genasi, Tieflings, and Deva but the whole DR/ +x to hit stuff was always needlessly complicated and inelegant. It also engendered golf bags for weapon users.

The fluff/mechanics one is also too limited. As above, minor elemental resistances and the like are fine, but stay away from generic bonuses to hit with weapons/whatever by race. For example, if you give Dwarves bonuses with all hammers, axes and picks, and Elves bonuses with all bows, it tends to shoehorn character building, especially if Gnomes get a bonus for Bolas and Blowguns. Crappy weapons are still crappy weapons and if you want a certain weapon for flavor then shoehorning the player in to a certain racial choice is a little heavy-handed.

 

[Stormonu]

What I did not like about DR was magic always bypassed it - it was just another way to gimp the fighter vs. the spellcaster. And it was usually just a speedbump at higher levels.

If you're going to use DR, it should make sense to use it at a level that having the appropriate counter is definitely the way to go.

"It's not so tough when you have magic missile," should not be the solution to DR, nor should "Why should I get a silver dagger, when I'll only lose 5 damage off my 35-damage longsword attack?".

That said, I want to seem some form of DR remain in the game. Whether it sees the return of DR x/counter, granting +X to AC/saves except against counter or even if it's reducing damage down die steps and or rolling x dice and taking the lowest, I want my werewolves to have characters scrambling to find silver weapons to defeat them.

 

[Tilenas]

1) With the exception of vampires and werewolves, they should remove DR entirely from all categories of monsters. If a monster is supposed to be extremely tough to kill, there's already a better mechanic for that - lots of hit points.

I don't think that the point of DR is to make a monster extremely tough to kill, but rather, as you point out, to reflect some lore aspect (like werewolves and silver). You could reflect that by giving them a buttload of HP and have silver weapons deal double damage, but I don't find that a particularly elegant solution because of the ensuing HP creep.

 

[Hassassin]

I don't think that the point of DR is to make a monster extremely tough to kill, but rather, as you point out, to reflect some lore aspect (like werewolves and silver). You could reflect that by giving them a buttload of HP and have silver weapons deal double damage, but I don't find that a particularly elegant solution because of the ensuing HP creep.

I think 2x vulnerability is actually more elegant, assuming damage scales with level, since the effect of DR is very damage-dependent.

OTOH, if we had static hp and damage...

Of course, you could restructure damage resistance as: half damage/silver, i.e. non-silver attacks deal half damage. That would be fine, too.

 

[delericho]

I don't think that the point of DR is to make a monster extremely tough to kill, but rather, as you point out, to reflect some lore aspect (like werewolves and silver).

I think it was intended to be that, but it quickly became just another thing that got tacked on to monsters of a certain CR, often without a great deal of thought.

If only vampires, werewolves and fae had DR, it wouldn't be an issue, at all. However, as it is (in 3e), by mid-levels almost every encounter features some sort of DR, and it gets bypassed by one of five special qualities. So, PCs either carry around a golf bag of weapons (dull), or they spend a lot of time having many of their hits negated (frustrating).