D&D 5E The math of D&D Next; a moderating proposal

[Blood & Bones]

All interesting thoughts.... but my idea of flattening the curve is simpler yet; No magic item, race, or feat, numerically changes attack, armor class, or initiative. Ever. And then minimize "buffing" spells.

It's boiled down to BAB + Ability Mod +/- situational modifiers.
OR Armor + Ability Mod + Shield +/- situational modifiers.

 

[Halivar]

I don't like the scaling of BAB into the stratosphere. I'd take out BAB (or severely flatten it) and leave in magic items (up to +3 for non-artifact). Also would like to get rid of linear stat bonuses.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Experienced fighters land a higher percentage of their blows than inexperienced fighters, even against opponents of equal skill.

Only because experienced fighters make better judgments on which "openings" to pass up, instead of flailing around. In an abstract system like D&D, where the roll to hit is to represent the reasonable opening to attempt, there is no particular reason to think that fighters attack will progress faster than their defense.

If you want to look at historical arms manuals, the progressions seems to be that one goes from "tenative but somewhat reckless (i.e. ignorantly and inexpertly trying things while keyed up on fear and excitement)" to "highly defensive (i.e have discovered that getting whacked hurts)" to "a balance of attack and defense (designed to win most efficiently)".

According to that logic, experienced characters would attack far less often, but would make someone really hurt when they did attack.

Suffice it to say that when modeling a fantastical game, there is no particular reason to think that "experienced fighters land a higher percentage of blows" other than you think it will have good game play, for some reason. An appeal to perceived reality is not one of them.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I'd prefer to see math flat enough that a 1st level character has a chance (aside from a natural 20) to hit the highest AC (at least pre-epic). As such, I think that the math should be flatter.

Also, I agree that accuracy should mostly hover in the 60-70% range. There's a reason the concept of the "sweet spot" exists and it has a lot to do with accuracy. Constantly missing is both boring and frustrating. Never missing is only slightly less boring though, admittedly, unlikely to be frustrating.

 

[Dragonblade]

Yes, the default hit percentage when all things are equal (equally good offense vs. equally good defense) should be around 65-75%. Not 50%.

A player should on average only miss an opponent of their level 1 out of every 3 or 4 rounds.

 

[AeroDm]

Yes, the default hit percentage when all things are equal (equally good offense vs. equally good defense) should be around 65-75%. Not 50%.

A player should on average only miss an opponent of their level 1 out of every 3 or 4 rounds.

I absolutely agree with this. We want the players to succeed most times they get to act. Conversely, you can drop monsters to succeed a bit less often because they all sort of get rolled up into the DM's turn and so long as a couple of them succeed you got a good round.

The next step, though, has to be a discussion of what a success means. If you are only missing one out of every three or four turns, we have to make sure that successes don't take too long. I think this is where 4e started to drop the ball because powers were so complex and successes so frequent that combat couldn't help but lag. One solution is to develop tiers of successes. Maybe weapons have a base damage (e.g. long sword: 5 dmg, great sword: 10 dmg) and on a hit you deal base damage. On a critical hit you roll to deal extra damage. Obviously that is just an example, but you get the gist. If people succeed a lot, you gotta streamline what happens during a success.

 

[Connorsrpg]

I was actually liking the math and the base 50%, which it isn't really, as PCs will generally be more optimised than their opponents.

I liked what you did there, but would also be happy with even less adjustments over time.

Nice approach.

 

[Essenti]

I was actually liking the math and the base 50%, which it isn't really, as PCs will generally be more optimised than their opponents.

I liked what you did there, but would also be happy with even less adjustments over time.

Nice approach.

Yes, this is on the money. If the math the OP is describing is based on PC advancement, not NPC/Creature advancement. I like the 50% mark for maximally optimized PC attacker versus a maximizally optimized PC defender. Keeping in mind that in order to achieve either extreme, they would have had to forgo optimization in the opposite. Why should we punish the PC who spent all effort on becoming amazing at dodging attacks (and therefore thinning out their attack level). They have already made a trade-off to get there.

The golden sweet-spot of 62-70% should apply to a PC maximal attack versus a typical epic monster and for the PC maximal dodge to avoid getting nailed 62-70% of the time from a typical epic monster.

Please note the typical in there, leaving room for even bigger fish that just shouldn't be messed with on their own terms (like those ones that are dead but dreaming...)

Ultimately, I would still prefer the math to be even flatter in the core, but what the OP presented in addition to the rest of the discussion in this thread has got a lot of my slower cogs turning!



Addendum: Maybe the maximally optimized PC should be on the high side nearing 75% versus typical epic monster, since they are going to be weaker in the opposite mechanic...

 

[Szatany]

A good solution to escalating numbers problem.
I would use a multiple roll mechanic with this system. What it does is to trade a bonus to roll for multiple rolls (choose best). This allows for greater customization and improves the odds of success, but you still can't reach DCs that were normally out of reach.
For example, abilities could add extra dice instead of modifiers to rolls.
-4 - roll three dice, choose worst
5-8 - roll two dice, choose worst
9 or 12 - normal roll with attacks/AC
13-16 - roll two dice, choose best
17+ - roll three dice, choose best
If you do this, you've just freed 5 points of bonus from your equation, which can be spread across feats, etc.

Or maybe abilities work as normal and extra dice come from expertise (skill level) or just feats and class abilities.

 

[tlantl]

I don't like this absolute symmetry between attack bonus and AC, based on the assumption that there is a mathematically ideal success chance that we want to maintain for the whole game. That's boring.

It adds a nice texture to the feel of advancement if your chance goes up as you level. And it makes sense, particularly in combat. Experienced fighters land a higher percentage of their blows than inexperienced fighters, even against opponents of equal skill.

I'd like to see the chance of hitting an equal level opponent scale from say 50% to 80% as you level.

Good points.

If an upper level character is able to hit his opponent more often then fights get finished quicker, lower level attackers can engage higher level monsters without having to worry that they will be wasting their time, and the player will feel that they are in fact getting better and more powerful as they advance in levels.

Level appropriate needs to go away in favor of exciting challenges of all kinds.

If armor classes are constrained to a certain spread while attack values increase modestly this might be a real possibility. AD&D did it and it felt good to get the upper hand in combat.
Rogues didn't need the cheesy sneak attack devised in 3e to make a difference in combat, Mages could occasionally deal a telling blow without having to use their mighty spells to do it, Druids and rangers didn't need to rely on their animal companions to gain an advantage.