D&D General There are no "Editions" of D&D

[Mannahnin]

It is just an option. We have played ‘14 characters without the 1sr level feat along side playtest characters with the new feat. Not an issue, they play just fine at the same table

In the four adventures we played they didn’t feel any weaker, and that is all that matters

Yes it does. Feeling, perception, and experience are more real than words on a page. Words on a page do not play a game, people do. We are not machines. What we experience is absolutely more real and more the truth then your white room analysis.

And now I had to go back and reread how it started

"14 characters without the 1sr level feat along side playtest characters with the new feat."

From that there's really no way to tell given everything that goes into it (like a movie or cars). If it had been "made a set of characters just like the playtest ones, but without the feat", then it feels like it would have been akin to the +1 bonus case.

Right. If it had been something as simple as "we played identical characters in two different sessions but gave one group an additional +1 to hit", I don't think there would be any debate at all. Nor would there be any need of playtesting, I suspect!

I don't know what all feats people took, but Uni's observation seems to be that the difference was not noticeable. That it didn't impact play to a sufficient degree that the characters with the feats felt meaningfully more powerful, or that the parties which were comprised of such characters clearly performed better in the scenarios tested.

Obviously "meaningfully" and "noticeable" and "clearly" are subjective things. And maybe this is all essentially a semantic debate, where you and I and Max might all agree that "all else being equal, if Fighter B has an extra feat, he's just better than Fighter A", but Uni's point was actually that the degree of "better" was small enough as to be trivial. Not enough to impact the play experience. I'm guessing it's something like that, anyway.

 

[Cadence]

but Uni's point was actually that the degree of "better" was small enough as to be trivial. Not enough to impact the play experience. I'm guessing it's something like that, anyway.

If I ingore the original post (because why read everything!), it felt like the argument was about the case where they were identical except for the feat and about whether they were actually better to any degree at all.

Gah, reading!

 

[codo]

Look at two fighters that are identical other than one of them has Alert and the other doesn't. Fighter B having +2 to initiative more than fighter A is a measurable advantage, as is the ability to initiate an initiative swap. Or one has Lucky. Fighter B having advantage on demand that can be added after you roll OR inflict disadvantage against a creature rolling an attack against you is measurably better than not having that ability at all.

This not just a subjective movie review where you like the acting of the leading actress, but I felt that her performance was a bit rushed for my taste. These are tangible objective facts.

That isn't the situation though. Fighter B doesn't get Alert for free, while Fighter A get nothing. Fighter A gets a background feature instead of a feat. Sure the starting feats give more mechanical effects and MORE NUMBERS, and the background feats are more roleplaying features, but in the right campaign the background features can be incredibly powerful.

In a wilderness survival campaign the outlander's wanderer feature can be game breaking. In a globetrotting exploration and thievery based campaign the criminal's criminal contact can be really useful. Even features like the noble's position of privilege can give a party access to the nobility and parts of society they would never normally have the means to interact with.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I'm going to take a stab at this.

Uni made a broad blanket statement about perception equaling reality, but it was specifically about experience of a game.

Uni's statement could be applied to other areas of reality, but I think that's an error. I don't think they intended to claim that subjectivity trumps a scale for measuring an object's weight, and trying this reductio ad absurdum has failed to engage them or win the argument because that's not a point they're defending.

They were talking about the experience of playing D&D*, which is one which has a great number of confounding variables which inevitably result in different people at different tables having very different experiences with the game. At one table it may be "obvious" that a given class is more powerful than others, because everyone at the table sees the PC of that class constantly kicking butt and performing heroically. But that could still be a class which is mathematically, measurably, LESS good at their function than some other class. Which either is not represented at the table, or is played by a less competent player. Or one which is nasty enough that the DM overcompensates and hits them with more threats, resulting in that mathematically more powerful character underperforming at the table in the experience of the players observing. Or maybe the mathematically-weaker class is being boosted by a synergy with another class/player at the table. Or by some house rule the DM is using (maybe Flanking giving Advantage? That's a pretty common one). Or maybe the guy with the weaker class happened to roll great ability scores and so his particular character objectively IS more mathematically powerful than an average example of the class, but the other players aren't taking that into account in observing that "Damn, Bob's Fighter is a badass character!"

There are any number of these potential factors which impact the experience players actually have at the table. And what they see and feel at the table IS their reality. Even if it's contradictory to what math and white room analysis would predict.

One repeatedly observed phenomenon that has come up rany number of times is that Very Online players often do detailed statistical analyses of classes, DPR, and mechanical features which are rigorous, internally consistent, and mathematically verifiable, but far enough down in the weeds that they're often below the level of interest or visibility in play for casual players. Even for a lot of serious players who are less math-inclined. Even with players capable of following the math (which usually isn't very complicated), experience at the table always subjectively looks different than an ideal white room calculation. I know that as a DM, I've (e.g.) sometimes dealt with a perception from players that their luck is abysmal and they "almost always" roll badly that I did not perceive to be true. But if it's true on enough dramatic occasions, it will absolutely stick in the mind. It will shape their perceptions of and experience with the game.

(*with maybe a brief aside about how perception or personal experience comprise a given person's reality much more directly than abstract descriptions or mathematical models, which has a lot of validity. Remember Hamlet? There is nothing good or bad, but that thinking makes it so?)

Right. If it had been something as simple as "we played identical characters in two different sessions but gave one group an additional +1 to hit", I don't think there would be any debate at all. Nor would there be any need of playtesting, I suspect!

I don't know what all feats people took, but Uni's observation seems to be that the difference was not noticeable. That it didn't impact play to a sufficient degree that the characters with the feats felt meaningfully more powerful, or that the parties which were comprised of such characters clearly performed better in the scenarios tested.

Obviously "meaningfully" and "noticeable" and "clearly" are subjective things. And maybe this is all essentially a semantic debate, where you and I and Max might all agree that "all else being equal, if Fighter B has an extra feat, he's just better than Fighter A", but Uni's point was actually that the degree of "better" was small enough as to be trivial. Not enough to impact the play experience. I'm guessing it's something like that, anyway.

Yes, you explained it better than I could

Thanks!