D&D General Reification versus ludification in 5E/6E

[TiQuinn]

Sure but it was arbitrary to begin with, is all I'm saying.

A goblin dealing d6+2 damage with a short sword because they have a Dex of 14 and short swords deal d6 damage is no less arbitrary than just saying "goblins deal d6+2 damage".

After all, the decision to make short swords deal d6 piercing damage, the decision to let someone deal Dex damage with them, and the decision to give the goblin a Dex of 14 were all equally arbitrary.

What's missing is transparency- an answer for "why is this the way that it is" if you care about such things. And there isn't one. Magic missiles deal d4+1 damage because that's what was decided decades ago, back when enemies had a lot less hit points than they do now. Once upon a time, all weapons did d6 damage.

We rarely get any real explanation as to why things change. Why do Wizards have d6 hit dice instead of d4? The people making the game felt like doing it. The same reason why Fireball does 8d6 at 5th level instead of 5d6.

Now we do sometimes get some sense of why things don't change- generally because the fans of the game would be displeased. There is an essential "D&D-ness" to the game which is based on nostalgia. Any time you tip the boat, some will grumble about it. Make magic missiles not always hit or introduce "damage on a miss" into the game for things that aren't explicitly magical, and that might make someone say "it doesn't feel like D&D anymore".

I realize I'm veering off into a whole separate discussion here, but it's really all the same. People want to be able to perceive what's going on and why it is happening. Years ago on these boards, I had an interesting argument with someone about a 4e monster that they put up as their example of why they hated 4e monsters.

The creature was a zombie that dealt damage to you at the start of your turn for being near it. Despite the fact that there were any number of reasons why this was happening, their point of contention was that the game element didn't explain which of these reasons it was.

Does the zombie have an aura of entropy? Does it claw and bite so ferociously that just being near it exposes you to harm? They didn't know, and it didn't make sense to them without an explanation.

However, if I cast a spell and say "a 20-foot-radius sphere of blackness and bitter cold appears, centered on a point within range and lasting for the duration. This void is filled with a cacophony of soft whispers and slurping noises that can be heard up to 30 feet away. No light, magical or otherwise, can illuminate the area, and creatures fully within the area are blinded.

The void creates a warp in the fabric of space, and the area is difficult terrain. Any creature that starts its turn in the area takes 2d6 cold damage. Any creature that ends its turn in the area must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or take 2d6 acid damage as milky, otherworldly tentacles rub against it.", how important is it to also explain that this is the result of I "open a gateway to the dark between the stars, a region infested with unknown horrors"?

Some would say it's extremely important. Others will shrug and say "eh, it's magic, it does weird stuff all the time."

All that makes sense, and clearly I’m in the group that wants the transparency and moreover, the attempt at an explanation. Sure, it happens because the designers simply want it to happen. But the stripping away of the narrative reasoning is to the detriment of the game, IMO. For one, it feels lazy. It feels like the designers do not care beyond simply the mechanical output and that’s not something that draws me into the game. The mechanics don’t inspire me (and I understand that I’m simply speaking at a personal level on this), the descriptions do. The artwork does.

Second, if it’s not transparent, how do I know the damage is “correct”? If some monster product down the line from either WotC or a 3PP puts out a CR 1/2 creature that now does more damage or less damage, it would fall upon the DM to catch that difference and try to parse the designer’s intent with this monster. Worse, it could be simply a bad entry. I think every edition has had some spell, monster, class, etc that have prompted people to say this is “overpowered” or “underpowered”. This basically brushes that under the rug. Do we really want a game where we can’t understand the rationale of why a monster does the damage it does? Do we want to start looking at products in the same skeptical way we would look at a custom class from DnDWiki? Isn’t this the same mindset that leads to issues like the confusing Stealth rules in 5.5?

Clearly the answer for some is: yes, I can roll with this and I don’t care about the description, any more than they care about lore. But to me, I feel like it’s a bit worse to do so.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would actually argue that what we’re seeing is more transparency. The explanation that a goblin deals 1d6+2 damage because longswords have a 1d6 weapon die and Finesse and goblins have 14 Dexterity is not really the reason. The real reason is that 5.5 average damage per attack is the amount of pressure that the designers felt was appropriate for the challenge they wanted a goblin to present. The other explanation is a clever use of illusionism to trick our primate brains into thinking of an imaginary goblin as a real creature wielding a real weapon. It’s an artificial structure used to reify the game mechanics. And the 2024 rules revision is putting less effort into maintaining that artificial structure than early 2014 did. This goes hand in hand with the observation that the 2024 monster design has more in common with 4e monster design. 4e was also very transparent with its mechanics, acknowledging directly that they are game mechanics rather than using a lot of artifice to reify them.

Depends on what you are calling transparence. I did not like that design in 4e and I don't like it in 2024.

Especially when so much else is terrible in the hobgoblin stat block.

That is no bash of 4e in general or the overall monster design. It is just a preference.

There are benefits and drawbacks to both approaches, but it’s interesting to see the degree of reification shift within an edition. We saw a similar shift in the opposite direction with 4e Essentials.

Which I did like.

So how to handle that? I think putting a bit more thought i to statblocks. Remove the shield. Change to chain mail. Increase dex to 13. And instead of poison +3d4, make the bow also do 2d8+1 damage and add 1d4 poison damage.

This way:

• All weapons do 2 dice of damage.
• Two handed weapon use doesn't permit using a shield.
• A heavy bow needs 13 dex (not even a change in the bonus)
• standard poison does 1d4 damage. Players could find PHB poison om standard hobgoblins.
• chain mail is worth 50gp. Already a lot. Breast plate is way too expensive for CR 1/2 creatures. Or make it special (scrappy fey armor that is useless to anyone else).

So. I did not change a lot stat wise (-0.5 damage on the ranged attack), but now there is at least consistency in the stat block.

 

[Charlaquin]

Depends on what you are calling transparence. I did not like that design in 4e and I don't like it in 2024.

I say it’s more transparent because it’s showing you through the artifice of the fiction to the mechanics that underlie it. We often describe a game’s mechanics as an “engine” and games that are up-front about their mechanical design as showing you what’s “under the hood.” A car with a transparent hood would allow you to see the engine at all times.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I say it’s more transparent because it’s showing you through the artifice of the fiction to the mechanics that underlie it. We often describe a game’s mechanics as an “engine” and games that are up-front about their mechanical design as showing you what’s “under the hood.” A car with a transparent hood would allow you to see the engine at all times.

Still disagree. Adding a trait that says: hobgoblin "weapon mastery: hobgoblins roll an extra weapon die with melee weapons" woul help me determine if a great sword would do 3d6 or 4d6 damage on them.

 

[Charlaquin]

Still disagree. Adding a trait that says: hobgoblin "weapon mastery: hobgoblins roll an extra weapon die with melee weapons" woul help me determine if a great sword would do 3d6 or 4d6 damage on them.

A hobgoblin warrior wouldn’t do 3d6 or 4d6 damage. It does 2d10 damage. “Longsword” doesn’t refer to a real thing that exists, it’s just the name of one of the attacks the stat block named Hobgoblin Warrior has, and 2d10 is how much damage that attack does. In thinking about “how much damage would a hobgoblin warrior do with a greatsword?” you are thinking about hobgoblins and greatswords as independent reified objects, which is not how the rules actually work. A hobgoblin with a greatsword would be represented by a different stat block, and how much damage it deals would be dependent on what degree of offensive challenge you wanted it to pose. You may not like thinking about the rules in such a nakedly mechanical way, and I don’t blame you. But it is how the rules actually work. The 2024 monster manual is just revealing those naked mechanics to you, buy making the “clothing” transparent.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Still disagree. Adding a trait that says: hobgoblin "weapon mastery: hobgoblins roll an extra weapon die with melee weapons" woul help me determine if a great sword would do 3d6 or 4d6 damage on them.

I disagree, as I really think that's an unimportant aspect of the design, but I gotta say it's definitely an interesting perspective. I've never thought about that part of the design in that way before.

You actually gave me an idea. What if every monster had a play stat block and a build description? The play stat block contains everything you need to run the monster with all the appropriate things baked in as needed, and the build description explains every feature that has been baked into the stats or which are relevant. The hobgoblin weapon damage trait should be in the build description, not the statblock.

The idea is to slim the statblock down and keeping anything that you don't need to know for play out it, and at the same time the build description allows you to list potential monster options that you could use.

 

[Charlaquin]

I disagree, as I really think that's an unimportant aspect of the design, but I gotta say it's definitely an interesting perspective. I've never thought about that part of the design in that way before.

You actually gave me an idea. What if every monster had a play stat block and a build description? The play stat block contains everything you need to run the monster with all the appropriate things baked in as needed, and the build description explains every feature that has been baked into the stats or which are relevant. The hobgoblin weapon damage trait should be in the build description, not the statblock.

The idea is to slim the statblock down and keeping anything that you don't need to know for play out it, and at the same time the build description allows you to list potential monster options that you could use.

Though it wasn’t formalized as such, this was kinda how the D&D Next playtest treated its monsters. The DM packet had the full stat blocks, with details like the monsters’ ability scores, equipment, features, etc., while the adventures had highly abbreviated monster stats like “the room contains four kobolds (12 AC, 7 HP) with spears (+1 to hit, 1d4+1 damage).”

 

[Parmandur]

I disagree, as I really think that's an unimportant aspect of the design, but I gotta say it's definitely an interesting perspective. I've never thought about that part of the design in that way before.

That approach was basically thw wntire idea behind how 3E did everything: PCs and Monaters were identical objects, and all the math had to add up for an exact reason like equipment or Feats.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I disagree, as I really think that's an unimportant aspect of the design, but I gotta say it's definitely an interesting perspective. I've never thought about that part of the design in that way before.

Thanks.

You actually gave me an idea. What if every monster had a play stat block and a build description? The play stat block contains everything you need to run the monster with all the appropriate things baked in as needed, and the build description explains every feature that has been baked into the stats or which are relevant. The hobgoblin weapon damage trait should be in the build description, not the statblock.

Yeah. Maybe also a good idea. I like useful stat blocks.

The idea is to slim the statblock down and keeping anything that you don't need to know for play out it, and at the same time the build description allows you to list potential monster options that you could use.

Thumbs up.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

A hobgoblin warrior wouldn’t do 3d6 or 4d6 damage. It does 2d10 damage. “Longsword” doesn’t refer to a real thing that exists, it’s just the name of one of the attacks the stat block named Hobgoblin Warrior has, and 2d10 is how much damage that attack does.

Sorry. This is getting uglier and uglier.
That goes into the territory of just reskinning without any thought to the player rules (I can get behind a d10 longsword when used one handed (flex mastery), even behind a 2d10 longsword)

In thinking about “how much damage would a hobgoblin warrior do with a greatsword?” you are thinking about hobgoblins and greatswords as independent reified objects, which is not how the rules actually work. A hobgoblin with a greatsword would be represented by a different stat block, and how much damage it deals would be dependent on what degree of offensive challenge you wanted it to pose.

Lacking a different stat block, I want to modify my hobgoblins. If you want your hobgoblins to be clones of each other all the time, ok. If you like stats and look dissociated, ok.
I and my players did not appreciate that in 4e and I sure don't do it now.
So while you might prefer that, I don't.

You may not like thinking about the rules in such a nakedly mechanical way, and I don’t blame you. But it is how the rules actually work.

They did not work like this in 2014. And most stat blocks make enough sense using that guideline still. AC and hit chance/damage fit the weapon used.
Creatures with finesse weapons use dex. Ranged weapons use dex and so on.
Even the DMG guidelines warn to tinker with str and dex, because it might change CR. Why? Because damage of the weapon attacks change.

The 2024 monster manual is just revealing those naked mechanics to you, buy making the “clothing” transparent.

Nope. It does no such thing. It arbitraily assigns numbers in some cases. Most humanoid or humanoid adjacent statblocks still make sense if you use PHB rules for equippment.

Some creatures break parts of it. The hobgoblin just does it in too many places at once.

So please. Stop trying to rationalize a very badly designed stat block. Or at least stop trying to convince me. I disagree with you strongly. Lets agree to leave it that way.