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

[Lanefan]

The only real problem with level drain is that it's much more difficult to enact in 5e than it was back in AD&D, which didn't have new abilities every level, and isn't useful with milestone leveling.

Sorting out what came with what level has been a headache since 3e; I see that, along with a lot of other character complexity added during the WotC era, as a bug rather than a feature.

There's no reason why level drain can't work with milestone levelling: the drained character is simply a level behind at each step (or more if multiple levels were lost) until a high-level Restoration can be found. This does, however, point out one huge issue with milestone levelling: there's no 'J-curve' to allow lower-level characters or henches to catch up.

Now here's the second question: Would more item and gear destruction actually make for a better game? Or simply a harder or more punishing one?

If 5e's my starting point the two bolded pieces are directly synonymous.

What do the players get out of destroying their property? Even if the point is to make the game harder, it should at least make it more interesting in some way. Does this rule accomplish that goal?

If the players also like getting new items (IME nearly all of them love it) then yes, as it allows for more item turnover. Over the long run, gain 10 lose 8 is far more fun and interesting than gain 2 lose 0.

Because that's what we're talking about: house rules to make the game better. Does destroying property and nerfing spell slots actually make the game better, meaning more fun for everyone?

Nerfing spell slots makes the game more fun for the higher-level non-casters, perhaps at the expense of some fun for the higher-level casters.

See, I think it might in my group. When the silvery barbs spell came out--it's horribly overpowered, it was the players, not the GM, who said no to it. I brought up the idea of incorporating the 5.24 weapon properties to the game before I really looked at how they work, and they seem really unbalanced to me (at least in a 5.14 game) so I was quick to say "whoops, I didn't realize they were so powerful, my bad."

That's good on your players, but I'm inclinded to think they're something of an outlier group in this way.

It's not necessarily power creep when it's simply more options.

When things aren't balanced*, there's usually only two ways to fix it: nerf one or boost the other. As I've already seen more power creep over the years than I'd really like, my first thought these days is to nerf some things down a bit.

* - and for me to notice or care, it's got to be really out of whack.

For instance, in Level Up, martials get maneuvers. The lower-level maneuvers let warrior-types briefly cause some condition (the target is tripped, shoved, disarmed or something like that), let the warrior reduce the damage they take, or give the warrior some extra movement. There's a saving throw involved, so it's not an automatic effect, and some take the place of doing damage entirely. And there's really nothing stopping you from giving adversaries these abilities as well.

I don't see this as a power creep at all. It's just things for fighters to do that aren't just "I hit and do 9 damage."

If these things make the warrior better and-or more versatile at what they do than they were before, it's power creep.

 

[Maxperson]

Well said! In games it can take some "tuning" to make players feel death's consequences.

No, I don't mean physical torture.

Although...

 

[Lanefan]

Same crap DM mentioned above. This one i wasn't there for. One of the players was saying he heard it from another player. Grain of salt.

DM had an NPC mage who wasn't supposed to die who did. That NPC had his spellbook in his lair and the PC mage grabbed it. I don't know what spell was in it (something from the Spell Compendiums) but the DM decided after the PC used it that he didn't want them to have it. So the next game he started targeting the mages spellbook. Apparently he was able to take out both the NPCs spellbook and the PCs personal book in some fire trap (he also managed to take out a bunch of collateral items like potions as well). Apparently, he never called for saves on items before that, and nobody was allowed to look at the saving throw table for items. The PC mage was able to go to the local wizards guild (similar to Dragonlance's orders except no moons) and get access to rebuild his spellbook for every spell EXCEPT the one the DM didn't want the mage to have. However, the spell was still learned and he couldn't unlearn it, so he apparently had this one spell known but could never use it.

I do know when I played with him, I didn't make item saving throws for failing a fireball, and apparently he did do it again until there was some other item that he wanted gone.

Yeah, that's bad DMing in more ways than one.

 

[Lanefan]

All RPGs have story loss. Fail to save that NPC you liked....loss. Town gets overrun by demons...loss. Didn't win the trophy in the lie eating contest....loss.

I can't imagine a game where story based loss doesn't drive the narrative vastly more than all other factors. But then again when conversation here I always feel like some sort of mad hermit with my ideas.

Story loss is at most a soft-loss condition, in that it doesn't mechanically affect the character's ability to do what it does nor does it mechanically affect the player's ability to play the character as desired. Hard-loss conditions bring about one or both of these effects either temporarily or permanently.

 

[Lanefan]

Which means it behooves the GM to try and even that out; its not an excuse for deciding to do it all himself.

I agree it's on the DM to try and even out the influence level.

Doing it all yourself and presenting it as a fait-accompli for post-hoc discussion (usually during or in place of a session) is a very simple and straightforward means of doing so.

We exist in the days of Discord and email. If you want to tell me someone can game regularly but not present his opinion in downtime, that's going to be a hard sell.

I know players who very intentionally ignore anything game-related except during the actual sessions as real life is too busy.

 

[AlViking]

You are either deliberately disregarding my distinction between individuals and groups, or blind to the distinction. In the first case I see no reason to not find your own position insulting. In the second case you're apparently incapable of actually conducting this conversation, since I made the distinction entirely clear in the post you were responding to.

Edit: I'm not quite sure what happened here, as that's acting as though it was quoted from K4K, but the message I was responding to was from AIViking. I did not mean to misascribe this.

I've explained my opinion. Group dynamics can be messy and I don't believe design by commitee is necessarily better. I don't know what else there is to discuss, we disagree.

But you repeatedly saying that I belittle my players is insulting. I value and respect my players but I also think people have a very different perspective when they are a player vs when they are a GM.

You don't have to agree but you can disagree without telling me that I'm a bad DM.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I've explained my opinion. Group dynamics can be messy and I don't believe design by commitee is necessarily better. I don't know what else there is to discuss, we disagree.

But you repeatedly saying that I belittle my players is insulting. I value and respect my players but I also think people have a very different perspective when they are a player vs when they are a GM.

You don't have to agree but you can disagree without telling me that I'm a bad DM.

I have no idea how you are as a GM. That's a gestalt of a number of factors, most of which can't be seen from a distance.

And I haven't said you specifically belittle your players. But I stand by my opinion your position belittles non-GM gamers as a group.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I agree it's on the DM to try and even out the influence level.

Doing it all yourself and presenting it as a fait-accompli for post-hoc discussion (usually during or in place of a session) is a very simple and straightforward means of doing so.

I know players who very intentionally ignore anything game-related except during the actual sessions as real life is too busy.

If someone has decided to ignore emails on game topics, then they can't care too much about rules decisions in the first place.

 

[AlViking]

I have no idea how you are as a GM. That's a gestalt of a number of factors, most of which can't be seen from a distance.

And I haven't said you specifically belittle your players. But I stand by my opinion your position belittles non-GM gamers as a group.

Saying that I belittle my players because I have a different preference is calling me a bad GM. After all, if I was a good one I'd agree with you, right?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Saying that I belittle my players because I have a different preference is calling me a bad GM. After all, if I was a good one I'd agree with you, right?

Otherwise good GMs have blindspots and bad elements all the time. In particular, this is one a lot of old-school style GMs fall into, and I'm sure at least some of them are excellent in other ways.