D&D 5E Quibbles with NEXT rules

[Pickles JG]

Advantage raises the expected result to just over 13.8 from 10.5

Double advantages raise the expected result to just shy 15.5.

The curves are more pronounced the more dice you add.

If you need a particular dice roll to succeed eg 16+4 attack bonus to hit ac 20 then you can calculate the exact benefit the advantage is worth at that point on the curve. This is relevant as the bonus varies & an equivalent straight bonus is greater in the middle of the range. ie it is about +1 if you need to roll a 20 to succeed & about +5 if you need 11+ (well exactly +5).
As most target numbers are likely to be in this middle ground the actual benefit of advantage will be more than the average value over the whole range. +4 is a good working approximation.

If you have "advantage" on damage such as with weapon mastery feat then using the average makes sense as usually you will just want as much damage as possible.

 

[Nagol]

If you need a particular dice roll to succeed eg 16+4 attack bonus to hit ac 20 then you can calculate the exact benefit the advantage is worth at that point on the curve. This is relevant as the bonus varies & an equivalent straight bonus is greater in the middle of the range. ie it is about +1 if you need to roll a 20 to succeed & about +5 if you need 11+ (well exactly +5).
As most target numbers are likely to be in this middle ground the actual benefit of advantage will be more than the average value over the whole range. +4 is a good working approximation.

If you have "advantage" on damage such as with weapon mastery feat then using the average makes sense as usually you will just want as much damage as possible.

Yeah, it is important to understand the curve to really get a handle on how advantageous Advantage or multiple-dice advantage can be in different scenarios. Extra dice really skew the probability of really high rolls.

 

[Falling Icicle]

The action Dodge gives you advantage on Dex saves and makes attacks against you gain disadvantage. It is generally useless to dodge if you're fighting in a dark area where the enemy takes disadvantage from seeing you (or any other circumstance wherein the enemy has disadvantage on attacks). If there's a VIP who must live, and one PC is 'hindering' the enemy while the VIP tries to dodge, the efforts don't stack. If a spell already gives you advantage on saves, there's no benefit to dodging if you expect an incoming fireball.

Yeah, I hear you. I can understand why they don't want advantage to stack, as it's a lot simpler if it doesn't. The problem is, they hand out advantage like candy. So many things grant it that you're bound to run into a lot of common situations where you get no benefit for things that by all rights should grant a stacking bonus. This may not bother some people, but it does bother me. I think they should include an optional rule where you get a +2 bonus to your roll if you have more than one instance of advantage, as you said. That would be a satisfactory solution for me.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Do you have any quibbles with D&D Next's rules?

The biggest concern I have right now is with the basic math for ability checks and skills, which is extremely swingy and makes even expert characters very likely to fail at actions that you'd expect them to succeed at a large majority of the time.

For example, take a Thief with an 18 (+4) Dexterity and 1d6 skill die, and he will fail trying to pick a simple lock (DC 15) about 1/3 of the time. This is one of the most dexterous people possible, trained in the task, and he still fails at picking the easiest lock in the game that often? He'll fail more often than not when trying to pick a typical lock (DC 20). And if he tries to pick an elaborate lock (DC 25), he'll fail about 2/3 of the time. Want to pick a magical lock? Its DC 30. So you need to roll a 20 on the D20, a 5 or 6 on your skill die, AND have an 18+ ability score. I don't even want to calculate the probability, but it's probably less than a 5% chance of success. And again, this is one of the most talented prodigies in the world who is trained at picking locks!

And this isn't the only example of ridiculously high DCs. An 18 hour forced march is a DC 25 Con check! Most people couldn't ever succeed on that check. I guess 99.9% of people would fail boot camp in DnD's world.

But what about at higher levels? Surely higher level characters are a lot better at things? Actually, not much. Bounded Accuracy and all. Skill dice only go up from d6 (avg. 3.5) to d12 (avg. 6.5). So a high level character is really only getting +3 on average more than his low level counterparts.

It gets even worse when you realize most characters won't have an 18 or 20 ability score at the task they're attempting. Most characters will only have that high of a score in one or maybe two abilities, and the rest will be no more than 14 or so, assuming you use the standard array. An average person, with a 10, gets no bonus on his roll at all. And characters only have four skills to help them, and skills are pretty specific. So the large majority of the time, characters are going to fail even "moderate" difficulty tasks that they attempt. And if these "great heroes" dare to attempt something "hard?" Have fun with that! Be prepared to fail 75-95% of the time, unless that happens to be one of your four skills, and then you'll "only" fail about 1/2 or 2/3 of the time.

The other problem is, even taking the most expert character possible, a 20 ability score with a d12 skill die, it's still possible to fail easy actions. They try to address this with a feat that makes your minimum roll 10, but feats are optional, and even if they weren't optional, feats should never be used to fix the math of the basic game.

 

[Ferghis]

The main benefit of stacking advantage is the increased odds of rolling a crit. Each extra d20 raises the average by substantially less and less, but the odds of rolling a 20 increase by almost 5% with each extra die.

This is a fantastic design element. Every advantage grants a benefit, but one that stays well within the boundaries of a character's capacity, since the best result never increases. You simply do max damage, which, lets face it, is a fair result when you have a bunch of advantages.

If anyone wants the exact numbers, I can post them in a few days, or you can look them up in an old thread I posted them in. I'm on a mobile device for a bit.

 

[Warbringer]

Check out he new L&L; they are starting to deep dive the player math

 

[Li Shenron]

Quibble: "A trivial or minor complaint, objection or argument."

I think I might have plenty of minor complaints here and there, but I don't even remember then because they are, well... quibbles

Larger than minor, let's say a "pet peeve" rather than quibble, is my concern about saving throws needed in the game being heavily slanted to Con/Wis/Dex, and too small representation of Cha, and near zero presence of Str/Int saving throws.

I am keeping track on what changes at every packet about this, which is practically nothing: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?333927-We-need-more-Int-Str-Cha-saving-throws

 

[Blackbrrd]

... And this isn't the only example of ridiculously high DCs. An 18 hour forced march is a DC 25 Con check! Most people couldn't ever succeed on that check. I guess 99.9% of people would fail boot camp in DnD's world. ...

I haven't read what a forced march is in 5e, but in earlier editions, it was walking at 50% above normal speed. My "normal" speed is about 5 kmph, a forced march would be 7.5 kmph, well above my max walking speed of 6 kmph. I wouldn't last 4 hours, much less 18. Let's say it's 4/6 kmph instead. 6kmph is something I could do for hours on end, but 18? That means 6*18 = 108 km in less than a day. The longest I have walked in a day is around 26km (but that was in the mountains, not on roads, so it's more comparable to about 40km).

The longest I have walked in time is 9 and 10 hours. After the 9 hours walk I was ok the next day, while after the 10 hours walk I was exhausted. The usual length is 6-7 hours. To me this indicates that every hour over the usual 8 hour "workday" gets exponentially harder. The chance of getting any of the "normal" problems like gall (if that's the right word) or a very sore foot or knee, ankle or hip joint problems is probably what will stop you.

My conclusion, 108km in 18 hours is something I would reserve for the 1% of the population that is doing endurance sports, for instance participating in marathons on a regular basis. For myself who like talking walks in the mountains, and do on a regular basis, it would just be too far in to short a time.