Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 6003986" data-attributes="member: 3424">I meant it in the sense that the developers' statements were misinterpreted, expectations were raised beyond what they actually promised to deliver, and the developers ended up getting blamed for failing to deliver something that they never promised in the first place.So, in 4e, the developers promised that the Christmas tree of magic items would be trimmed down into a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. And they delivered - the Big Six magic items (actually more than six if stat boost items were counted separately) were trimmed down to just three (at first), or zero if you use the inherent bonus system (released later). Yet somehow, there is this persistent and pernicious belief (I'm being generous here) that the developers promised magic items would not be required and that they failed to deliver. (As a side note, even without using inherent bonuses, you can run a campaign in which the PCs never get a single magic item, but the concept of just using lower-level monsters with lower attack bonuses and defenses to offset the lack of bonuses from magic items seems to be somehow alien to the complainers.)And it seems to be happening again. The expectations of "bounded accuracy" and "flatter math" seem to be twisted beyond what the developers promised into expectations of completely flat math, and when the PCs do gain bonuses from level increases, stat increases, and (presumably optional) magic items, they're going to get blamed again for failing to deliver.Disclaimer here, though. I am not a fan of flatter math. I am even less of a fan of completely flat math. At this point, I am not particularly a fan of 5e, either, although there are some elements that I do find redeeming (such as Hit Dice, Combat Expertise dice, and the bonuses gained by sorcerers when they spend Willpower). However, if (as is likely) I do criticize 5e, it's going to be based on what's actually printed and what the developers have actually said.</blockquote>

Verification