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Survey Launch | Player's Handbook Playtest 5 | Unearthed Arcana | D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9034553" data-attributes="member: 6877472"><p>Thinking about it, the problem with this sort of thing is, since it's not something characters can natively do (bound around the battlefield like Jackie Chan), unless they gain some ability to do so, a DM has to decide if characters are meant to have such abilities. Would they be broken to just let everyone do? </p><p></p><p>The Thief, for example, can fast climb and make longer running jumps as an ability. Should someone who isn't a Thief be able to do this? Should it be gate kept by a Feat? If it's simply a matter of hitting the DC on a check, how difficult should it be?</p><p></p><p>The book says Athletics checks can allow for longer jumps, but infamously, no system in the PHB tells you how. It's up to the DM to just decide "I think you can exceed your jumping distance by (arbitrary amount) by making (arbitrary check)". A little bit of real guidance would be really helpful for some people.</p><p></p><p>Many DM's, I get, have a good enough handle on their game that they can figure out how fair a given stunt would be at a given difficulty, but some would flounder, and, of course, if your DM in one game lets you leap 30' in the air to attack a flying dragon, it's very likely another DM would laugh at you even asking to perform such a "silly anime stunt".</p><p></p><p>You're basically being asked to make your own version of D&D, and while that's a huge feature for some, others can flail about not really sure where to start.</p><p></p><p>I know when I first started DMing, long ago in an edition far far away (AD&D), I often felt the urge to make houserules. But a lot of my early houserules fell flat because I had no idea what I was doing, and I did more damage to my games. Nowadays, I prefer to run games as close to the rules in the book as possible, because I've learned that nobody is going to remember what I've put in a six or seven page rules document, but anyone can read the books, lol.</p><p></p><p>5e is literally begging for house rules, however, and that great freedom can be a stumbling block for some. Some people can look at an empty page and immediately get to work creating. Others work best within set boundaries.</p><p></p><p>Over the years, D&D has been both a boundless and a bound system, ranging from original flavor, where you basically didn't have skills or much in the way of abilities, so everything was "ask the DM and they can decide what you need to do", all the way to AD&D which had niche protection and bespoke subsystems, to 3.x where there was a real attempt to provide rules for just about every darned thing.</p><p></p><p>I kind of prefer my D&D to be somewhere in the middle, but it's obvious that some prefer looser rules and others prefer tighter rules, and, just like every iteration of the game, the current version suits some people and irks others.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 9034553, member: 6877472"] Thinking about it, the problem with this sort of thing is, since it's not something characters can natively do (bound around the battlefield like Jackie Chan), unless they gain some ability to do so, a DM has to decide if characters are meant to have such abilities. Would they be broken to just let everyone do? The Thief, for example, can fast climb and make longer running jumps as an ability. Should someone who isn't a Thief be able to do this? Should it be gate kept by a Feat? If it's simply a matter of hitting the DC on a check, how difficult should it be? The book says Athletics checks can allow for longer jumps, but infamously, no system in the PHB tells you how. It's up to the DM to just decide "I think you can exceed your jumping distance by (arbitrary amount) by making (arbitrary check)". A little bit of real guidance would be really helpful for some people. Many DM's, I get, have a good enough handle on their game that they can figure out how fair a given stunt would be at a given difficulty, but some would flounder, and, of course, if your DM in one game lets you leap 30' in the air to attack a flying dragon, it's very likely another DM would laugh at you even asking to perform such a "silly anime stunt". You're basically being asked to make your own version of D&D, and while that's a huge feature for some, others can flail about not really sure where to start. I know when I first started DMing, long ago in an edition far far away (AD&D), I often felt the urge to make houserules. But a lot of my early houserules fell flat because I had no idea what I was doing, and I did more damage to my games. Nowadays, I prefer to run games as close to the rules in the book as possible, because I've learned that nobody is going to remember what I've put in a six or seven page rules document, but anyone can read the books, lol. 5e is literally begging for house rules, however, and that great freedom can be a stumbling block for some. Some people can look at an empty page and immediately get to work creating. Others work best within set boundaries. Over the years, D&D has been both a boundless and a bound system, ranging from original flavor, where you basically didn't have skills or much in the way of abilities, so everything was "ask the DM and they can decide what you need to do", all the way to AD&D which had niche protection and bespoke subsystems, to 3.x where there was a real attempt to provide rules for just about every darned thing. I kind of prefer my D&D to be somewhere in the middle, but it's obvious that some prefer looser rules and others prefer tighter rules, and, just like every iteration of the game, the current version suits some people and irks others. [/QUOTE]
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