D&D General Practical advice for running 5.5e and 5e PCs side by side

[CreamCloud0]

Sure that there would be different properties seems intuitive but the specific properties with different weapons do not always seem so intuitive.

Greataxe having cleave seems intuitive.

The fact that an arrow hit will always give you advantage on your next immediate attack against them if shot from a shortbow but will instead always slow the target if shot from a longbow is not really intuitive. Or that the blade slashing longsword's special property is called sap or that the sap property has nothing necessarily to do with blunt impact.

yeah, like, i'd say the most 'intuitive' implementation would be certain masteries being tied to specific weapon properties and categories in general, like maybe graze applies to all finesse and slashing weapons, flex for all versatile weapons, 2-handed get topple, light weapons get nick and heavy weapons get topple, bludgeoning gets push, ect, ect...

so you pick up a longsword and with that one weapon you have the potential to use it for any of graze, flex or topple.

 

[Tigris]

Sure that there would be different properties seems intuitive but the specific properties with different weapons do not always seem so intuitive.

This is a roleplaying game playing in a Fantasy World made for millions of people. I know many people are GMs and are used to players having to guess what for them is "logical", but its impossible to have weapon mastery which are for every human "intuitive". As someone with a martial arts background the pure idea of a "basic attack" is ridiculous, but its an abstraction for people with less knowledge, I cant expect the game be made just for people like me.

Is every name of a spell, and their effect, and their spell level and how the spell progresses intuitive? Most likely not its part of the content.

In the end it is YOUR job as people playing the game to add the flavour in a way such that things make sense to you.

Greataxe having cleave seems intuitive.

Good! You succeeded at this part of roleplaying.

The fact that an arrow hit will always give you advantage on your next immediate attack against them if shot from a shortbow but will instead always slow the target if shot from a longbow is not really intuitive.

And you failed here. There are many explanations for this:

• Long bows are made for long range, so it makes sense that fighting styles focusing on it try to limit the enemies mobility in order to profit as long as possible from the long range.
  • Meanwhile shortbows are more for mid range so fighting styles using shortbows are concerned of finishing the enemy as fast as possible by creating weakpoints with their first shots and then attacking them to kill the enemies as fast as possible since they will soon reach you anyway.
• Long Bows have really heavy arrow attacks making the arrows often stick deep in the enemies which makes it harder for them to move.
  • Meanwhile shortbows dont have as much power, so people with them focus on attacking the same point again to have higher chances to go through armor (chain and other armor gets less stable at the part where there was an impact before)
• Long bows in generally are better than short bows, but short bows are still used, this means they must have some advantage over the other. And that can be that its easier to navigate with them and find openings on enemies. So it makes sense that the weaker weapon has the stronger mastery, else it would not be used in this world.
• etc.

Or that the blade slashing longsword's special property is called sap or that the sap property has nothing necessarily to do with blunt impact.

A rose with any other name would smell as sweet. And this is english which is known to have many overlapping words. I never thought with the name "sap" about a "blunt impact".

Sap means sapping the enemies strength away. A long sword is exceptional well in intercepting the enemies attack by attacking their arms, and intercepted attacks have less power behind them, so they will less likely harm you.


In the end "hitting" is not just hitting in DnD it includes everything, evasion, pary, going through the armor, just the chance to have an attack which impacts the enemy.


Its really not hard to find intuition behind these roughly 10 keywords. Especially when there are literally 100s of spells which have damage types, level, classes on which spell list it is, on top of names and effects for which we just accept that they are part of the content.

 

[Pamphylian]

Lots of good advice here, I'll try to respond to some, but in regards to Weapon Mastery in particular (since that has been the direction of conversation):

I'm still undecided. Any non-negligable speed up is of high value to me, but I like the idea of more interesting weapon niches. I think my ideal would be a homebrew situation that aims for weapon differentiation (hopefully somewhat related to the historical use of these weapons) but avoids multiple rolls, tracking statuses, etc.. I probably won't do this route, since I want to keep homebrew rather restrained for an open table (and I will likely spend by limited "homebrew capital" elsewhere). But I'm dreaming of something like this, inspired by the TSR era -weapon or damage vs. AC table (which provided bonuses for different weapons depending on armor type):

• Slashing weapons get a +1 (or something) to hit bonus against unarmored or leather-like armor (Hide, Padded etc.)
• Bludgeoning weapons get a +1 versus platelike armor (half, full, etc.) and maybe a +1 vs chain?
• Piercing polearms: if you ready an action to attack a charging opponent (moves more than half their movement to attack you), you roll double damage die on a hit (and maybe a plus to hit as well).
• Other polearms: +1 against mounted opponents, and a successful opportunity attack may dismount a save-failing rider?
• Flails ignore shields up to a +2 AC bonus
• Piercing ranged weapons: +1 vs chain?
• Daggers - +1 against prone/restrained/grappled opponents with armor
• Rapiers - +2 vs unarmored?
• Shields - you can sacrifice your shield to ignore a single attack up to 30 points (or something) of damage of a ranged/melee attack (the classic Shields shall be splintered rule...)

As for non humanoid creatures with no armor, I'd be tempted to say this mostly doesn't apply unless obvious (Bulette clearly is plate like, hide-having animals have hide, scales are a bit like chain, etc.)

Anyway just spitballing - maybe free weapon switching makes this a bit pointless. Might have to ban that lol.

 

[Pamphylian]

"[*]EDIT: I'm hoping to use an extra feat as a reward for nerfing oneself in a fun way (you die at 0 hit points, or stats determined by rolling 3d6 down the line) - is this reasonable for feats in both editions?"

No.

This is obviously a minor element of the post but I'm interested in elaboration! Do you mean in a 2014 vs 2024 balance way or a "this is a bad idea in general way"? 5.5e seems fine giving out extra feats for ancestry (Human), so I don't see why it would be a big issue for giving out in response to taking on a trait that is something even worse than....being Human. I generally like the idea of letting characters get higher variance combinations strengths + weaknesses (as long as they aren't overly strong), but am curious if it breaks anything specific.

 

[Voadam]

This is a roleplaying game playing in a Fantasy World made for millions of people. I know many people are GMs and are used to players having to guess what for them is "logical", but its impossible to have weapon mastery which are for every human "intuitive". As someone with a martial arts background the pure idea of a "basic attack" is ridiculous, but its an abstraction for people with less knowledge, I cant expect the game be made just for people like me.

Eh, while it is impossible to be perfect things can be more less intuitive. 4e in their expertise feats seemed to do a better job of having their riders feel like they intuitively matched the mechanics to the weapons. 5.5 seems a bit more arbitrary or possibly tied to a designer's sense of balancing mechanics and a less intuitive match of mechanics to various weapons.

Is every name of a spell, and their effect, and their spell level and how the spell progresses intuitive? Most likely not its part of the content.

When they are not, it is fair to call them not intuitive.

In the end it is YOUR job as people playing the game to add the flavour in a way such that things make sense to you.

The first job is for the game design to provide a base to work with. That can be done to a greater or lesser extent.

Good! You succeeded at this part of roleplaying.

That is not roleplaying, it is an evaluation of whether the mechanics are intuitive or not.

And you failed here.

This is not a failure, it is an evaluation of whether the mechanics are intuitive or not for me.

There are many explanations for this:

While you can come up with explanations, they do not change the design choices to be intuitive.

A rose with any other name would smell as sweet. And this is english which is known to have many overlapping words. I never thought with the name "sap" about a "blunt impact".

Sap means sapping the enemies strength away. A long sword is exceptional well in intercepting the enemies attack by attacking their arms, and intercepted attacks have less power behind them, so they will less likely harm you.

Yes, many words in English have many meanings. Sap is one of them with multiple meanings beyond sapping strength. D&D has a couple-decades-long history of using the word sap in its meaning as a blunt weapon intended to knock out opponents from behind which means for some D&D players its use as the name of a longsword weapon rider in D&D is actively counterintuitive. To sap someone is to knock them out with a sap. When I first saw that as the rider name for a longsword I wondered if it was supposed to represent hitting someone in the head with the sword pommel.

From 1e D&D:

From Basic D&D:

From 3e D&D:

It can work as meaning to sap the strength of and applying that to a longsword, but even then it is not necessarily intuitive why it is the only slashing or sword weapon with such a property or why sap goes with the specific other weapons with the property (mace, spear, flail, morningstar, war pick).

Its really not hard to find intuition behind these roughly 10 keywords.

You can search for and come up with a reason to make the design choices make sense to you but that is not intuition. The reason you come up with may even be the designers intent of what they think of as an intuitive reason, or it might be just creating a reason for an arbitrary assignment. There might be a purely game mechanics reason to balance stronger mechanical elements with weaker ones or vice versa that have nothing to do with intuitive flavor and mechanics connections. Maybe they wanted to spread around most traits as best they could so that there would be an option with a simple and a martial weapon, and a bludgeoning and a piercing and a slashing option where they could.

Especially when there are literally 100s of spells which have damage types, level, classes on which spell list it is, on top of names and effects for which we just accept that they are part of the content.

I am really not catching your point here. Do you have any specific examples? The things that do not seem to match flavor and mechanics seem to be called out as such in discussing magic as in the weapon mechanics. I had a whole thread on trying to figure out what the narrative description of the 5.5 arcane mind flayers' magic power was because the powers were mechanically specific and clear but it was not clear what they were supposed to represent narratively or how it connected to existing illithid or spell stuff.

 

[Li Shenron]

This is obviously a minor element of the post but I'm interested in elaboration! Do you mean in a 2014 vs 2024 balance way or a "this is a bad idea in general way"?

Yeah I meant in general, I don't think it's reasonable for a player to pay for a feat with either of those example costs.

 

[Pamphylian]

Yeah I meant in general, I don't think it's reasonable for a player to pay for a feat with either of those example costs.

Like, too expensive or too cheap? (This would be optional, for players wanting an unusual game, not required, in case that wasn't clear)

 

[Li Shenron]

Like, too expensive or too cheap? (This would be optional, for players wanting an unusual game, not required, in case that wasn't clear)

Way too expensive if exhanged with the inferior ability generation method, and non-comparable with the variant death rule (it's like saying I am going to be more powerful but I will die earlier... and then what? Make another character who is again more powerful until dying earlier?).

 

[yuriko_diaz84]

The healing thing is probably your easiest call - just nerf 2024 down to match 5e and be done. Encounters don't really balance around healing spells anyway, so your players won't even notice.

 

[Clint_L]

The healing thing is probably your easiest call - just nerf 2024 down to match 5e and be done. Encounters don't really balance around healing spells anyway, so your players won't even notice.

I suggest doing the opposite: just use the 2024 spell descriptions. Period. 95% of them are unchanged, though possibly clarified, and the few that are different are mostly improvements. Healing spells other than healing word are actually somewhat meaningful now.