D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Lanefan]

Then you assert there are a lot of GMs not worth their salt.

Maybe so.

"Kitbashing" 99.99% of the time means "the rules are merely suggestions".

You are extremely unusual in this regard. You are literally the only person I've ever met who treats their new rules as actual rules, and not as provisional suggestions that can, and frequently will, get overridden (indeed, overwritten) at the drop of a hat.

If you're ever in Victoria I can introduce you to some others. I'm by no means unique in this regard.

Besides, isn't this what "exception-based design" is precisely supposed to capture? Specific beats general. Write your specific thing. The general rule still always applies when the specific exception isn't relevant. How does that not do precisely what you want, while also giving all the benefits of an otherwise-general system?

Because it means two rules are often trying to apply at the same time: the specific, and the general. When they conflict, even though specific beats general is the intent, it's still a fertile breeding ground for what I see as preventable arguments.

 

[Lanefan]

That is what AlViking had demanded, though. That if something "becomes a minion", it is only and exclusively because things have been outscaled.

Hence: anything strong early on MUST eventually scale down to minion status--killable in a single hit, if you can hit them.

Why? "Must" is only true if you're specifically looking for a steeper power curve than the gain in PCs' power and ability already gives as they level up.

You've broken the trilemma by simply choosing to ignore one of the three prongs. Not exactly solving the problem.

Denying a prong's relevance is different than ignoring it.

Then nothing becomes a minion because only the absolute weakest enemies--CR <1--are weak enough to be outscaled.

Sounds good so far.

The scaling is required. The small numbers are required. And the other considerations are required. You are embarked; you can't have a system that accomplishes all three things. You're wanting a system that rejects something most players specifically desire it to have.

To the bolded: am I?

And even if it's true (which I dispute, but whatever) that most players want that god-like feeling of churning through hordes of foes, is it good for the overall game - which, I should note, at its heart is NOT a supers game where such things would fit seamlessly - to try to design that ability into the system?

 

[AnotherGuy]

If I'm throwing a horde of high-hit-point monsters at the party then I-as-DM an willingly taking on the task of tracking all those hit points.

As a preface I will reiterate my table is around 15th level.
I do track hit points, when we play - we play in my lounge and I open up an excel on my tv monitor which tracks initiative, conditions, notes and hit points. I do though appreciate the simplicity that minions can bring to an invovled combat.

And I'm not much for emulating fantasy tropes unless it happens by chance.

Fair. But to be clear this is a common trope in all fantasy.

To the setting at large including the PCs. If a monster takes just one hit point to knock down when a PC strikes it then IMO that should be true for any and every NPC who strikes it as well, whether there's PCs around at the time or not.

To solve the issue with the 1 hit point, I attach 5e's Damage Threshold rule from the DMG which requires x points of damage to be cleared before the damage is validated. i.e. if the Damage Threshold is 10, then any attacks which do 9 or less do not knock down he monster and are ignored.

In broader terms, the setting shouldn't be modifying itself on the fly just because some PCs walked in.

Monsters which are modified to minions, are inconsequential to my setting lore. They're merely challenges in that instant to be overcome.
We see things differently.

Some parts of it are not metagamey or abstract, though, and this is one such place. Simulation says the mechanics of a monster - including its hit points which reflect its toughness and resilience - should be consistent at a given point in time without regard for what that monster is doing or who it is facing.

In 5e PCs have uncapped hit points, healing is much easier and recovery too hence my insistence hit points are a metacurrency rather than some objective truth.

I have made some necessary changes to make the game grittier, which would please some simulationists here , but the game is faster paced than likely your game which draws its inspiration from 1e and thus I can understand your pushback to the minion concept better than anyone elses involved in this discussion.

In a full-on gamist milieu I can see this. However, I'm not after that full-on gamist situation. I want fog of war, with resulting info gaps leading to not-always-perfect decision-making - just like it'd be in reality.

I'm actually quite particular on what I feel should be a fog-of-war.

Puzzle monster? Yes, because the challenge that this monster provides is to figure out the puzzle.
Secret terrain feature on the map? Yes, because the challenge of the terrain is to navigate it safely.
Minion? No, because the minion's challenge is to keep the attention of the PCs off the BBEG.

 

[Maxperson]

I just reread the section and quoted the text of the rules. They're quite clear. There have to be X successes before Y failures and every character has to contribute. The most the DM is allowed to do if running as written is to add a +/-2 or allow a skill they hadn't thought of.

Where does it say every character has to participate? I can't find that.

 

[bloodtide]

We tried for years to make 3e feel and play like our 1e games, mostly failing, and then capitulated when 3.5 came out and played it stock (which brought its own, different, suite of issues).

My games are 1E(2E) D&D feel no matter if we are playing 3X or 5X. A lot of it is how the game is run outside the rules. This is a big point. Utterly drop the ideas of balance and fairness. Drop the idea of being on the players or PCs side. Any 1/2E rule that a player says they don't like add that back into your 3/5E game, but give it a twist.

Take my polymorph twist for example. Star with the basic "you need a handful of whatever creature you want to polymorph into as a material component." This so perfectly blocks and stops lots of bad players. Add back in 1/2E system shock rolls...change your shape..roll some dice...maybe your character dies. This so perfectly blocks the rest of the bad players. Then finally I add in the rules for loosing your mind in another shape. Easy enough as the 'creature" mind might take over. For the bad players the DM takes control, but good players will have tons of fun "acting out" being whatever they shapechanged into. And for even-more of a fun twist, you get all the abilities of the creature when you 'loose your mind".

(the above is the most generic rules as druids and some other classes and races have tweaks. And there are feats, abilities, spells and magic items to modify things too.)

And yes, part of the point is that each table ends up with its own houserules binder and thus its own more or less unique game.

I agree.

"Kitbashing" 99.99% of the time means "the rules are merely suggestions".

I'm not sure the two are connected.

In other words, there is no game. Only the suggestions this group will adhere to or ignore whenever their lord and master GM feels like today.

Plays "Imperial March"

 

[AnotherGuy]

From 3e, the main thing I swiped was the Sorcerer's casting mechanics - all my casters work that way now.

That is interesting that so little was taken from 3e.
Do you still use 1e-2e's saving throw systems? attack matrixes? turn undead? So no Feats?

Didn't like 4e's rituals, and they don't fit in with a hard-limit slot system in any case.

Ah right.

Haven't taken anything from 5e really - thought about doing something with BIFTs then gave up on it.

I wouldn't think that would be a good fit for your game either.
What about atunement?

One thing I've given lots of thought to but haven't ever got around to doing anything concrete with is pulling 4e's bloodied mechanic across. It has gobs of potential; even more so as we already use a body-fatigue hit point system.

Ah yes, that was a great idea for recharging monster abilities for the final hurrah/desperation and countering the death spiral.

For things like spell tweaks, it's usually the DMs' doing after (sometimes very!) long discussion.

Funny enough we recently went back to 2e for the Identify spell and modded in the part when you protect yourself when you Identify an item that could be cursed or harmful to the one Identifying it. I'd forgotten about that 2e tidbit until a player reminded me. A PC was identifying a Talisman of Ultimate Evil.
I just told the table it makes sense in the fiction to incorporate a 5e version of that section of 2e's Identify, and I made a rule on the spot.
Feel like we have lost a lot of neat ideas from earlier versions of the spells.

That said, there's various other long-discussed and pretty big changes also waiting in the wings which also really can't be introduced without a full reboot, so who knows?

On our campaign pace, we (your table and mine) are pretty similar, but I'm fortunate enough to have made big adjustments mid-campaign - thanks to my players. There is no chance I could wait for a reset.

TBH I do not know if we will ever get to another campaign. @Upper_Krust has just opened up a kickstarter for even higher-level play and that is something I have wanted to explore given my fascination with Mystara-lore. We will see when the time comes.

 

[Maxperson]

Only for certain skills. Things like Use Magic Device or Knowledge: Something Specific. Not for more basic skills like Jump. Also, I think that was removed in 3.5e.

3e skills in general were a case of "really quite good when used in completeness, but also way to much of a pain in the butt to follow completely."

It was not removed for 3.5e.

 

[Maxperson]

Then you assert there are a lot of GMs not worth their salt.

I don't remember anyone here saying that they just change rules on a whim. There are reasons for rules changes.

"Kitbashing" 99.99% of the time means "the rules are merely suggestions".

That's not accurate. It's 100% of the time. And for every game out there. You can't name me a single game where the players/DMs can't sit down and alter the rules as they see fit to create or at least attempt to create the experience that they want.

You are extremely unusual in this regard. You are literally the only person I've ever met who treats their new rules as actual rules, and not as provisional suggestions that can, and frequently will, get overridden (indeed, overwritten) at the drop of a hat.

Not only is he not unusual, that's the way every DM I've played with has done it. If you make a rule, it's a rule. Yes DM created rules can be changed, but also not on a whim. Sometimes new rules don't work out as expected and need to be tweaked or even gotten rid of. Nobody is perfect.

In other words, there is no game. Only the suggestions this group will adhere to or ignore whenever their lord and master GM feels like today.

No. There is a game whose group will adhere to the suggestions, pretty much the entire time as the DM doesn't change things on a whim, so "feels" never comes into play. Neither does "lord and master."

Good God. If I ever even hinted at trying to be lord and master of my players they'd string me up by my toes. The DM has no authority over the players at all. Just the game.

 

[AlViking]

Bb

"Take a different approach" in this case has to mean not being what D&D has been--either in thematics, or in mathematics.

People want small numbers. People want it to be guaranteed that you outscale weak creatures. And people want absolute diegetic processes and never ever ever ever ever simplifying things with game mechanics when they deem it an unnecessary simplification.

These three things cannot all be true at the same time.

You must choose one of them you wish to break. The combination of the three cannot all happen; even getting both of the first two is already an extremely difficult thing and possibly not achievable!

Choose which one you want to break; but you must choose one. There literally is no other option--unless we abandon the core thematic and structural processes that make it "D&D" (e.g. removing combat would obviously get rid of this problem but I don't think that would be acceptable!)

You're making assumptions about what people want. I don't care about the first, if I was concerned about my ability to add I wouldn't be playing D&D. Every edition has always succeeded at the second, the dramatic increases in numbers we had in 3 and 4e meant that lower level monsters were just a nuisance.

So yes, I'm ignoring the first two legs of your "trilema" because they're non-issues. Since I have no problem breaking the first two (and the second is particularly weak) there's not a problem.

Of course you can always create Gordion knots if you just assume people agree with your criteria. It doesn't mean anyone will agree.

 

[AlViking]

That is what AlViking had demanded, though. That if something "becomes a minion", it is only and exclusively because things have been outscaled.

Hence: anything strong early on MUST eventually scale down to minion status--killable in a single hit, if you can hit them.

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I see no reason to have multiple versions of the same monster, although it makes sense for some. If the characters are at a point where ogres are no longer a threat I won't use ogres.

You've broken the trilemma by simply choosing to ignore one of the three prongs. Not exactly solving the problem.

Then I guess any solution that doesn't agree with your arbitrary criteria will always fail. Almost as if that was the whole point.

Then nothing becomes a minion because only the absolute weakest enemies--CR <1--are weak enough to be outscaled.

The scaling is required. The small numbers are required. And the other considerations are required. You are embarked; you can't have a system that accomplishes all three things. You're wanting a system that rejects something most players specifically desire it to have.

Assuming most players want something nobody I know has expressed an interest in.