The Tragedy of Flat Math

[Steely_Dan]

It looks like flatter math is going to be the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of 5e.

Family Guy style.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I think he means that he finds the phrases "3.x’s unhelpful vagueries and obsfucatory rules" and "4e’s clinical precision" to be unhelpfully standoffish. Well, to be fair, that's how I see those phrases. He could have a different opinion.

Regardless of whether your underlying point is correct or not, using phrasing like that makes it look like you are looking for a fight, not a conversation.

Hm, I didn't mean to come off as standoffish. I was using [albeit slightly] more polite language to describe the views I've seen repeated again and again on 'net forums. (I myself can think of much less kind ways of describing 3.x's lack of clarity.)

Anyway, I wonder how you or Azgulor would put it?

 

[slobster]

Hm, I didn't mean to come off as standoffish.

No problem. A lot of allowance should be made online for statements that come off more harshly than they were intended.

As it happens I agree (somewhat) with your point. 4E was built with explicit expectations of attack bonuses and defenses based on character level, both for PCs and monsters. This was at least in part a response to the 3.x era, where high level characters had such wildly divergent bonuses that an enemy that the fighter could hit on a 2 might very well be impossible to hit for the sorcerer, even on a natural 20. Bonuses could also vary wildly based just on build. Two level 20 fighters at different levels of optimization could have attack bonuses that vary by double digits. This makes it difficult for a GM to design an encounter which is challenging for one of his players without being overwhelming/a cake walk for the other.

To the extent that 4E accomplished what it set out to do (in this regard), it was a success. To the extent that many people dislike the end result, they quite understandably consider it a failure.

That might not be a good (or short) way of putting it, but unfortunately we have to tread lightly these days. If I were being pithy, I might say "4E's codified math system was a response to 3.5's system, which fell out of whack as levels increased and some characters tended to fall far behind their allies. 5E seems to be a response to concerns that 4E went too far in that regard." Then you could go into why you think they are wrong/right to do so.

Really it doesn't matter anymore. We're all friends now, so we can move on.

 

[Stalker0]

To the question of why raise hp/damage and not attacks/defense per level...it comes down to handling variability.

Let us take the kobold argument.


Lets say that that a kobold could take 50% of a high level character's health with a single attack, but could only hit 5% of the time. Most of the time the kobold would be little threat as expected. But once in a while, with a lucky string of 20s a few kobolds could take down the character completely.

The purpose of HP is to reduce teh effects of variability. Even if I get attacked a lot because of lucky rolls, my HP allows me to take it and stay up. It is the "ultimate defense" as it were, and can't be bypassed by luck.

 

[pemerton]

You could do that, but that's not what has been historically done (in D&D).

That goes to a basic over-engineering of the game system

<snip>

That we have both is not entirely over-engineering, since we get two numbers to use as parameters.

<snip>

There are several tracks of related numbers: (AC, HP, AB), (DC, Save Bonus, HP), (Ability Bonus, Skill DC).

I just wanted to say that an additional factor is actions available in the action economy. This is a topic of conversation in the current "boss monster" thread.

 

[tomBitonti]

I just wanted to say that an additional factor is actions available in the action economy. This is a topic of conversation in the current "boss monster" thread.

Yeah.

(Wanders across threads .... yikes! 46 pages and counting. Will be back in a while.)

TomB

Edit:

Ok, just up to page 5. So far, folks seem to be dancing around the notion of Boss as a unique mechanic. That is, I haven't heard any real statement that providing extra actions, and making a foe harder to lock down, is a bad idea. The argument seems to be around the mechanic of marking a foe as Boss, when that should be a mechanical outcome of the level difference. In other words, that an Ogre should mechanically "work out" as a boss for first level players but be a more normal opponent to third level players, and a minion to 10'th level players. There's nothing in the normal scaling (HP, AC, AB, &etc) to make that work.

Lots more to read ...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

To the question of why raise hp/damage and not attacks/defense per level...it comes down to handling variability.

Let us take the kobold argument.


Lets say that that a kobold could take 50% of a high level character's health with a single attack, but could only hit 5% of the time. Most of the time the kobold would be little threat as expected. But once in a while, with a lucky string of 20s a few kobolds could take down the character completely.

The purpose of HP is to reduce teh effects of variability. Even if I get attacked a lot because of lucky rolls, my HP allows me to take it and stay up. It is the "ultimate defense" as it were, and can't be bypassed by luck.

Exactly.

There's another subtle effect too. If hit points hardly varied per level then the ONLY way for a monster to become a greater threat would be to have it hit more and more often. This rapidly becomes a diminishing returns situation, and you'd end up with strange setups like the breath of a dragon would be doing only a few more points of damage than a kobold's dagger, but it would be incredibly accurate for some reason. Maybe a giant's club would be a more obvious example, you'd expect the club to do more damage, not gain accuracy over the kobold's blade. The game simply doesn't work in a way that feels intuitively 'right', and I'm pretty sure that would not fly.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah.

(Wanders across threads .... yikes! 46 pages and counting. Will be back in a while.)

TomB

Edit:

Ok, just up to page 5. So far, folks seem to be dancing around the notion of Boss as a unique mechanic. That is, I haven't heard any real statement that providing extra actions, and making a foe harder to lock down, is a bad idea. The argument seems to be around the mechanic of marking a foe as Boss, when that should be a mechanical outcome of the level difference. In other words, that an Ogre should mechanically "work out" as a boss for first level players but be a more normal opponent to third level players, and a minion to 10'th level players. There's nothing in the normal scaling (HP, AC, AB, &etc) to make that work.

Lots more to read ...

Nor would it work without a change to the creature's action economy. Unfortunately a lot of people don't seem to grasp that very well. I mean, sure, you can make a monster a THREAT to the entire party by just 'normal scaling' as you call it, but an almost invulnerable ogre that does major damage on every hit and hardly ever misses is not the same thing as an interesting solo.

I'd just add for the sake of completeness that low level 'trivial threat' monsters are also not the same thing as 4e minions, and no amount of scaling will make them the same either.

 

[Remathilis]

Really, what the different between +6 atk vs. 18 AC and +21 atk vs. 33 AC?

 

[The Shadow]

There's another subtle effect too. If hit points hardly varied per level then the ONLY way for a monster to become a greater threat would be to have it hit more and more often. This rapidly becomes a diminishing returns situation, and you'd end up with strange setups like the breath of a dragon would be doing only a few more points of damage than a kobold's dagger, but it would be incredibly accurate for some reason. Maybe a giant's club would be a more obvious example, you'd expect the club to do more damage, not gain accuracy over the kobold's blade. The game simply doesn't work in a way that feels intuitively 'right', and I'm pretty sure that would not fly.

I would find this convincing, except for the fact I know it isn't true.

There are plenty of games out there with hit points that hardly vary at all over the course of a campaign, you know - GURPS, to take one example. There are also plenty of games that don't use hit points at all! (True20, FATE, etc.)

Now, no question they play differently than D&D. But it simply is not true that the only way to scale threat in such games is increasing accuracy.

To give you an idea, a GURPS Fireball generates 1d6 of damage for each round the mage builds it up, to a maximum of 3d6. 3d6 damage is terrifying in GURPS! Even 1d6 is nothing anyone takes lightly. It isn't that accuracy is the only scaling in use, it's that smaller chunks of damage rapidly scale up in fear-factor.

GURPS damage scaling wouldn't work in most D&D games, because it definitely gives a grittier, you-could-die-at-any-moment feel that doesn't lend itself to heroic, larger-than-life adventuring. But it certainly does work in its own milieu.