The Tragedy of Flat Math

[Steely_Dan]

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

Exactly, I'm not into this "...but this goes to eleven..." attitude towards D&D.

If the end result is I need to roll a "9" to smack someone, does it matter if the attack is +5 or +25, bigger numbers are just unnecessary bloat.

And I think the point is D&D Next should not be breakout, but a natural evolution; that's part of the problem with 4th Ed (which has many good things): Heinsoo & Co.s' extreme take on D&D.

For me, 5th Ed is looking like what I wanted 2nd Ed to be.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Sure, except those games are also VERY FLAT in their entirety. That is you never really get that much more likely to survive any given attack in GURPS no matter how long your character plays. You may bet a LITTLE tougher, but there is basically no game that has anything like the power curve that D&D has where you go from basically ordinary human to approximately a demi-god.

Nor IMHO does your example address my point. In order for the giant's club to become more deadly if it isn't doing much more damage then it pretty much MUST hit more often, there's only those 2 knobs to tweak. You can take your pick of which to turn but if you refuse to turn the damage knob then you'll have to crank on the accuracy knob, at which point you have a giant with a club that rarely ever misses and does only a little more damage than ordinary weapons you or I could swing.

It might be perfectly OK for a fireball to simply grow in 'attack value' and not really ever do much different damage, but the same thing is pretty hard to apply to other situations. You'd also have problems with all the rest of the world, things like falling, etc. Of course it becomes pretty realistic, or at least pretty 'gritty', but frankly if you want nothing but the gritty part of D&D stop at level 5 or whatever. It was never designed to be that game and taking away aspects of the game that have existed for 30+ years seems like an odd way to make a game that fundamentally seems to be intended to be "more like D&D of old than 4e is." Anyway, I'm pretty sure it has little chance of going in that direction

 

[slobster]

Sure, except those games are also VERY FLAT in their entirety. That is you never really get that much more likely to survive any given attack in GURPS no matter how long your character plays. You may bet a LITTLE tougher, but there is basically no game that has anything like the power curve that D&D has where you go from basically ordinary human to approximately a demi-god.

Well the Dresden Files game using FATE lets you start off as literally an ordinary human. You could start off as the janitor for an office building's night shift, and progress over the course of the game to becoming an actual demigod (or hell, actual god). But in the course of doing so you'd become about an order of magnitude more resilient and powerful, so I'm not sure where that falls in y'all's debate.

Just picking nits, I fear.

 

[billd91]

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

Fifteen points of unnecessary bonuses all to end up with the same chances of success. More math errors. Lower-bonus characters (mostly lower level) being made virtually irrelevant in higher level encounters.

I don't want completely flat math. But flatter than the present method sounds pretty good to me.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Fifteen points of unnecessary bonuses all to end up with the same chances of success. More math errors. Lower-bonus characters (mostly lower level) being made virtually irrelevant in higher level encounters.

I don't want completely flat math. But flatter than the present method sounds pretty good to me.

Me too, it's not that your character will never advance in accuracy, he/she just won't go from +3 to +53.

As for +X items, I believe they have stated they will cap at +3, and are completely optional.

 

[Remathilis]

Fifteen points of unnecessary bonuses all to end up with the same chances of success. More math errors. Lower-bonus characters (mostly lower level) being made virtually irrelevant in higher level encounters.

I don't want completely flat math. But flatter than the present method sounds pretty good to me.

Which is my point.

4e's "everything advances at 1/2 level" was an illusion of math. When it worked, it still came out to an even chance of working or no. When it didn't, it lead to grindspace, feat taxes, and wholesale re-writes of sections of rules. All you did was add more numbers to the equation. The AC/defense bonus cancelled out the attack bonus in most cases.

 

[billd91]

Which is my point.

4e's "everything advances at 1/2 level" was an illusion of math. When it worked, it still came out to an even chance of working or no. When it didn't, it lead to grindspace, feat taxes, and wholesale re-writes of sections of rules. All you did was add more numbers to the equation. The AC/defense bonus cancelled out the attack bonus in most cases.

Granted, it did allow you to pretty much own lower level opponents because your bonuses really did advance relative to theirs. However, chances are DMs are/were throwing appropriately leveled minions at you instead of lower level critters undermining that feature.

 

[B.T.]

I'm not sure what the tragedy is here. I want numbers to get bigger, but not that much bigger. The fighter should get more accurate with his attacks, and he should do more damage. He needn't get +20 to attacks over his career, however.

 

[KidSnide]

4e's "everything advances at 1/2 level" was an illusion of math. When it worked, it still came out to an even chance of working or no. When it didn't, it lead to grindspace, feat taxes, and wholesale re-writes of sections of rules. All you did was add more numbers to the equation. The AC/defense bonus cancelled out the attack bonus in most cases.

Granted, it did allow you to pretty much own lower level opponents because your bonuses really did advance relative to theirs. However, chances are DMs are/were throwing appropriately leveled minions at you instead of lower level critters undermining that feature.

IMO, this is the key flaw in the 4e math. Yes, you could own lower level opponents (and, similarly, it was hard as hell to fighter higher level opponents) but the DM advice was to adjust monster roles and levels to compensate.

That compensation process took down the whole system for some people. If you're DM is replacing goblins with orcs and orcs with giants, then it mostly worked out fine. But if you DM replaces 4th level orcs with 8th level orcs, then you're just on a treadmill. For PC advancement to feel meaningful, the PCs need to change how they interact with the gameworld. Bigger numbers will satisfy some folks, but others will just see it as an illusion.

For all the flaws in the 3.x math, it did have the property of changing as characters leveled. Yeah, it might be frustrating that the BAB bonuses and saves turn into "either you dominate completely or you suck completely" but at least it made high level play different from low level play.

-KS

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Which is my point.

4e's "everything advances at 1/2 level" was an illusion of math. When it worked, it still came out to an even chance of working or no. When it didn't, it lead to grindspace, feat taxes, and wholesale re-writes of sections of rules. All you did was add more numbers to the equation. The AC/defense bonus cancelled out the attack bonus in most cases.

I wouldn't call 4e's math an 'illusion.' Nowhere do the books promise that "You'll get better at hitting same-level foes as you gain levels," and I don't recall a dev every saying that.

If you don't like the relatively constant 50/50 hit rate of 4e, that's fine, but it's not a secret. And for most 4e fans, it's a feature!

I'm not sure what the tragedy is here. I want numbers to get bigger, but not that much bigger. The fighter should get more accurate with his attacks, and he should do more damage. He needn't get +20 to attacks over his career, however.

The tragedy for me is that I don't like seeing things done in half-measures. If a design team says 'flat math,' I don't want flatter math. (Even if that's all they ever promised.) That's boring. I want truly flat math, so that they can really design to the model's strength. I want to see something that makes me at least say "Huh, that's interesting." Ya know, innovation.

IMO, YMMV, yadda yadda...