Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
So the Power Feats Got Nerfed!
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8796832" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>I mean I've read those guidelines many times and I strongly disagree that they're "acceptable" or "good-enough". They're bad.</p><p></p><p>The 6-8 thing seems more like a reaction their own design than a genuinely motivated and considered change, especially as it was last minute, and it was 3-4 somewhat harder encounters until then. It's definitely true that 5E works most reliably when you use 6-8 encounters of the recommended difficulty. I think if they'd tweaked some numbers, like having spells heal for more but maybe cost HD from the target (healing a standing target is rarely tactically a good idea in 5E, below level 9-ish anyway - the HD cost is to ensure overall daily healing isn't increased much), lowering the HP values of monsters slightly (like, 15-20%), and so on, then we could have seen 3-4 work well.</p><p></p><p>We should care because the maths fundamentally works best with 6-8 which is why they changed to it at the last minute, and their guidelines are not well-designed, so we're stuck with a system where 6-8 is what it works best for, and other numbers can be done but don't work great.</p><p></p><p>You mentioned White Wolf and that's a good note - the Revised version of White Wolf changed the rules to screw over anyone playing a more "heroic" version of both Vampire and Mage (I actually don't remember Werewolf Revised well enough to comment). A playstyle WW had, less than two years before Revised, been encouraging in some books (Tales of Dark Adventure for Mage 2E for example). Despite strong marketing, it didn't seem to do great for them. It doesn't matter if they gave guidelines for playing a more heroic style (I mean, they didn't, AFAIK, but w/e), because the system, especially in Mage Revised, was just fundamentally opposed to making that work.</p><p></p><p>Re: easy mode, that's a fundamental example of how the guidelines for encounters in general are not well-designed, but the system has an issue in that if you make it significantly harder, then it doesn't play as well. Let's be fair - 5E is far from the only game to have this problem! I've seen it appear in video games and board games too.</p><p></p><p>Also when you're making a game with a potentially very board audience, it's more important to consider what the audience is going to want than just what the designers think is cool, or what is the easiest to get working or whatever. 5E designed aiming for 5-10m people, 1D&D has to aim for 30m people (by WotC's own figures for people <em>actually playing 5E</em>). If you design in something that's at odds with say, 25m of the 30m, it is you who has screwed up, not them.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8796832, member: 18"] I mean I've read those guidelines many times and I strongly disagree that they're "acceptable" or "good-enough". They're bad. The 6-8 thing seems more like a reaction their own design than a genuinely motivated and considered change, especially as it was last minute, and it was 3-4 somewhat harder encounters until then. It's definitely true that 5E works most reliably when you use 6-8 encounters of the recommended difficulty. I think if they'd tweaked some numbers, like having spells heal for more but maybe cost HD from the target (healing a standing target is rarely tactically a good idea in 5E, below level 9-ish anyway - the HD cost is to ensure overall daily healing isn't increased much), lowering the HP values of monsters slightly (like, 15-20%), and so on, then we could have seen 3-4 work well. We should care because the maths fundamentally works best with 6-8 which is why they changed to it at the last minute, and their guidelines are not well-designed, so we're stuck with a system where 6-8 is what it works best for, and other numbers can be done but don't work great. You mentioned White Wolf and that's a good note - the Revised version of White Wolf changed the rules to screw over anyone playing a more "heroic" version of both Vampire and Mage (I actually don't remember Werewolf Revised well enough to comment). A playstyle WW had, less than two years before Revised, been encouraging in some books (Tales of Dark Adventure for Mage 2E for example). Despite strong marketing, it didn't seem to do great for them. It doesn't matter if they gave guidelines for playing a more heroic style (I mean, they didn't, AFAIK, but w/e), because the system, especially in Mage Revised, was just fundamentally opposed to making that work. Re: easy mode, that's a fundamental example of how the guidelines for encounters in general are not well-designed, but the system has an issue in that if you make it significantly harder, then it doesn't play as well. Let's be fair - 5E is far from the only game to have this problem! I've seen it appear in video games and board games too. Also when you're making a game with a potentially very board audience, it's more important to consider what the audience is going to want than just what the designers think is cool, or what is the easiest to get working or whatever. 5E designed aiming for 5-10m people, 1D&D has to aim for 30m people (by WotC's own figures for people [I]actually playing 5E[/I]). If you design in something that's at odds with say, 25m of the 30m, it is you who has screwed up, not them. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
So the Power Feats Got Nerfed!
Top