D&D General The Resurrection of Mike Mearls Games.

[cbwjm]

On https://www.patreon.com/mikemearls the Article about Skill DCs is free (don't even need an Account). It talkes about how the standard DC Ratings are to high (at least for entry level Characters).

I actually use DC10 as standard for years now (at least at the lower leves) and this works quite well. But at Tier2+ this will become a bit too easy and I change my reference back to the default DCs.

I've used DC 10 as my standard DC since 2e after reading an article by Ray Winninger. If something could be accomplished by a commoner 50% of the time, make it an ability check. That became DC 10 from 3e onwards, it's served me well over the years.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Agree with the skills assessment, I very quickly realized that the default skills were not calibrated to the newbie character, but rather to the skills of an Experienced Professional. A proficient, level 5 character with a +4 in an ability score or a level 1 character with a +3 ability score and expertise would find the default DC descriptions to be accurate, with that +7 in either scenario giving exactly 65% chance of success.

Level 1-4 characters, therefore, seemed to me to be intended to be somewhat incompetent at their lower levels, to give room for growth. It is also fitting of the scale of stories that are supposed to be told at those levels.

 

[el-remmen]

This helped me realize that I already used DC 10 as "medium" and DC 5 as "easy" with most things I'd call "very easy" as not requiring a roll to succeed, esp. if your character is proficient in the skill.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Psionic system? That soulds really interesting!

 

[OakenHart]

All that said, my plans are to show off how flexible 5e can be and the sorts of things you can build with it. Spell slots and the class + sub-class approach to class design are just two paths among many.

This is fantastic, the most excitement I had during D&D Next's playtest and early 5e was the modular approach it looked like it was taking and was discussed, which largely seemed to have slowly faded over time.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I've solved the issue (for myself) with DCs in two ways: 1) I tend to make "failure" at the standard DCs "success with a complication" unless you fail by more than 5; 2) I only tend to make players roll when I WANT something interesting to happen. Failure (when it doesn't actually slow progress, but only create drama) is FUN!

 

[SlyFlourish]

The analysis on DCs is excellent and changed my mind about how to run them. It was definitely worth five bucks!

 

[overgeeked]

This is fantastic, the most excitement I had during D&D Next's playtest and early 5e was the modular approach it looked like it was taking and was discussed, which largely seemed to have slowly faded over time.

Same here. That was the best part of the playtest for me. And Mearls’ articles on skill challenges were wonderful.

I really hope he gets around to talking about the faster combat options he did that Twitter poll about all those years ago.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

The analysis on DCs is excellent and changed my mind about how to run them. It was definitely worth five bucks!

Agree, but hasn't changed my mind. I'm fine with lower level characters feeling somewhat incompetent and weak. PCs shouldn't be super exceptional at level 1, imo...

 

[jgsugden]

When it comes down to how much he can capitalize upon the work he did with WotC/Hasbro in his new ventures there are three concerns: Copyright/IP concerns, contractual concerns, and quality of life concerns.

Absent the other concerns, Copyright/IP is easily maneuvered around for game mechanics. He likely is already well versed in this and has enough friends in WotC that he can avoid these issues pretty easily.

His contract with WotC might provide more of a barrier and might specifically call out things he can't do - and any severance he received may have been contingent on certain terms. You can fight these agreements in certain circumstances, but it is a pain ... and a fight.

Which brings me to the third issue: Quality of life. Fighting a corporation sucks. It isn't logical. Harrassment is often a technique. They can be big jerks ... so even if you're in the right, you can pay a higher quality of life cost by fighting them than just giving in when they're not pushing you too hard. To that end, I believe he'll want to be cautious and not risk angering WotC/Hasbro.

I wish him well. I hope that he enjoys being more free to do his own thing. However, with the upcoming Rules Wars coming as people fight between One D&D, Pathfinder, Daggerheart, Tales of the Valiant, and other contenders ... it may be hard to carve a place. Even with his name brand recognition, the split between systems will mean less money out there to support each of the systems, so whereever he hangs his hat, he'll be competing with established names that will be suffering from decreasing support as some of the people currently supporting their D&D Patreon go to others that are doing Daggerheart or Tales of the Valiant content.