D&D 3E/3.5 The New Playtest: Why return the failed 3e mechanics?

[Raith5]

I made my Will Save.

It also missed my Will Defence

 

[Lanefan]

I made my Will Save.

It also missed my Will Defence

You both have henchmen named Will? Cool!

Lan-"but I did make my save vs. paralysis"-efan

 

[Greg K]

The problem with 3e-style progressions is that the gap between fighter BAB and rogue BAB (let alone wizard BAB) keeps getting bigger as you go up in level. So anything the fighter has a non-trivial chance of missing at 15th level is almost impossible for the rogue or un-buffed cleric to hit at all, and if the wizard's not shooting a ray at something with a bad touch AC he might as well not bother rolling an attack without casting true strike first.

Not everyone considers the gap to be a problem- especially, between Fighter and Wizard

 

[ferratus]

The biggest problem with BAB is multiclassing. It makes it very difficult to play a fighter/mage if every level you sacrifice a +1 to attack. How do you attack with a sword if you can't hit the monster's defenses? If you were allowed to keep fighting lower level monsters it isn't really a problem, but you can't keep pace with a single classed characters.

The other problem was when melee characters (rogue, bard, cleric, etc.) were expected to attack the same defenses as a fighter, but simply couldn't keep pace. Backstab is nice, but if you can't hit the AC then you don't really have that ability. The cleric didn't really suffer for having a lower BAB because he could make up the +5 attack that he lost (and then some!) through spells, but the other classes couldn't.

A lot of the problem with BAB though would go away if you stop doing ever increasing monster defenses by level, and if you have more varied encounters. This is something that 2e did much better than 3e. In 2e you essentially had BAB (we called it THAC0) but the monster defenses only went to -10 (equivalent to +20) instead of +40. In the same adventure, you would find monsters with +4 to +15 to their AC. A rogue, or bard, or less than optimized character can still hit and be effective against all but the highest AC monsters, which is when the fighter got to shine.

In 3e and 4e however, all the monsters had the same amount of AC, which was designed to be challenging for the optimized fighter to hit. Which meant that the rogue always missed, that multiclassed characters missed, and the unbuffed cleric missed.

Hopefully with the flatter math, and the idea that you add more monsters to make weaker monsters challenging, we can go back to the encounter and adventure design that makes lower BAB melee characters viable again.

 

[adamc]

Here's the thing - power is like salt. It is easy to add to a concoction, but generally difficult to take it away.

"First level characters are too weak!" has a simple solution - start at a higher level, no rules changes required.

"First Level characters are too tough!" has no simple solution.

Thus, if they want to cater to folks that like a breadth of character power, having starting characters be weak is a better choice.

You could make exactly the same argument running the other way. Want more powerful characters? Use [some mod] that up's the damage per level.

If you give me level 1 characters that can be killed in a single hit, it won't be an issue of starting at a higher level -- I won't bother with that version of D&D.

 

[Blackwarder]

What baffles me a bit is that pcs have very high damage and low hp, and that they've therefore lowered monster damage to make up for it (like the comparison everyone ha made between the pf and 5e troll). Wouldn't it make more sense to increase monster damage and keep the hp levels higher, so if the wizard gets pissed off (or charmed) he can't murder the entire party with one Burning Hands?

That a design decision in order to avoid number bloat and make sure that the bounded accuracy won't get swamped by tons of hp.

I like the fact that generally speaking weapons doe the same damage no matter who wield them but those with more experience will generally hit more often.

Let's take a real world analogy, to people walk into a gun range, one is a trained soldier the other is a civilian, both use the same assault rifle on same size targets at the same range, the soldier will more often than not hit the target more often and will be more accurate while the civilian will probably need more bullets to hit the target the same number of hits.
Regardless of how many bullets used each hit will generally make the same ammount of damage (in this example using bullets it means A Lot) but the soldier will probably be able to do the same amount of damage as the civilian with fewer bullets.

At least that's how I see it.

Warder

 

[Raith5]

I like the new backgrounds and specialties. I also really like the weaker starting point for first level PCs (despite being a 4th ed fan).

Some elements like monsters are clearly in early stages of thought of development but currently look uninspiring.

But the skill system seems so random to me. I just do not see how the system makes any sense.

I also think saving throws are one element I am sad to see back. I have never seen why I can save versus lightning bolt but not an arrow. I think defenses ala 4th ed is more intuitive and simple. The various types of saves and trying to bring all stats into saves, and minor spells dont have saves, well it just produces a mess in my view.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Why return the failed 3e mechanics?

To get people currently buying Pathfinder to buy 5e.

 

[Danzauker]

Regarding multiclassing, seeing the rules as is, I'd bet that they would have a multiclass character get the higher "attack bonus" for each category (weapon and magic for now, but later maybe psionic, who knows...) from each class.

They would lose something in other respects, of course (less combat maneuvers, less spells...) leveing up, but this way they'll keep most of the bounded accuracy thing viable.

 

[Pickles JG]

I like the fact that generally speaking weapons doe the same damage no matter who wield them but those with more experience will generally hit more often.

Let's take a real world analogy, to people walk into a gun range, one is a trained soldier the other is a civilian, both use the same assault rifle on same size targets at the same range, the soldier will more often than not hit the target more often and will be more accurate while the civilian will probably need more bullets to hit the target the same number of hits.
Regardless of how many bullets used each hit will generally make the same ammount of damage (in this example using bullets it means A Lot) but the soldier will probably be able to do the same amount of damage as the civilian with fewer bullets.

That is more or less the oppositre of 5e maths where your accuracy barely increases but your damage (& resistance to damage) rockets sky high. Which in turn reamphasises how much HP are NOT meat.

On the topic I expect the cleric gets an accuracy bump at level 6 in both aspects meaning fighters/wizards get +1to hit/4 levels. Rogues being less capable warriors get 1/5 & celric being both less capable & less focused get 1/6. Over 20 levels they will gain 3 to hit compared to the fighters 5 so a totla of 3 behind given they start one off. This is a very significant bonus for the fighter but one that keeps the cleric in touch (MAD notwithstanding).

The buff spells chenged in this test from the last being almost entirely party buffs which make the warcleric good but the fighter even better. Divine favour is a solid catch up ability rather than a (significantly) overtake so I am not too worried about this aspect, though it may be a little too good.

What I am worried about is that none of the spells seem as useful as (maximised) healing spells so the cleric is back to heal bot. At some level he will have so many spells he can't use them all to heal & can start with the other stuff again, but that's 6/7 level in 3e ime.


Divine favour is quite unlike 4e healing word taking you whole action (unless you are War) & the vailability of massive healing from the cleric means he is likely to do that not anything else. I would lose CLW & keep Healing word. (though with no CLW its not really D&D)


OTOH I really like the weird sorcerer/MU style of Vancian casting they have given to clerics which serves to differentiate them from both those arcane classes.