D&D 3E/3.5 Thoughts of a 3E/4E powergamer on starting to play 5E

[SkidAce]

Ugh. That's why I never throw standard monsters at experienced players. Forcing them to pantomime ignorance when their characters are in real danger is a mummer's farce.

In a similar situation, my characters enjoyed it. They played it, they weren't forced.

 

[Manbearcat]

Ugh. That's why I never throw standard monsters at experienced players. Forcing them to pantomime ignorance when their characters are in real danger is a mummer's farce.

He shoots. He scores.

But bounded accuracy and ADV/DisADV are pretty core to the feel of this system, and that is very much "change".
Is it "... and progress"? That depends on perspective.
Is turning off huge chunks of fanbase "... and progress"?
Is is turning around and going back the way you came "... and progress" when the way you came failed?

ADV/DisADV isn't really controversial at all (nor are they new mechanics, not in D&D - 4e was rife with it - nor in RPGs in general). However, its proliferation to a central mechanic for all things is certainly "new." It has some wonky side-effects when it interfaces with various PC abilities or circumstances, but nothing like the side-effect of bounded accuracy.

This is where things get interesting (at least I think so). Bounded Accuracy was a design aim intended to protect against number inflation of either the "to-hit" or the "target number" in that core resolution mechanic (ADV/DisADV was intended to work with this paradigm and double down as a low mental overhead tool for circumstance adjudication). I don't recall during development where the devs were talking about BA being intended as a means to make combat increasingly lethal for martial characters who are wading into melee skirmishes with increasing numbers of canon fodder. Perhaps that was intentional, rather than an unintentional side effect. I just don't recall that being made explicit at any point (versus being discovered upstream by players).

The reason why I find it interesting is (intended or not), this is possibly the greatest deviation (mechanically and from a genre perspective) of all D&D past that 5e offers. And it is a significant one.

- AD&D's mook/heroic fray rules and the complete outstripping of melee PC's AC values versus mook's to-hit values.
- 3.x with the cleave/whirlwind/AoE meat grinder effects and the outstripping of mook's to-hit values by melee PC AC values.
- 4e Minion rules + high HPs vs Minion damage + means of self-sustaining (unlocking of own surges via powers/effects) + inspiration by allies (unlocking your surges) + all the various means of melee control available to melee PC (Burst Attacks, OAs, Immediation Actions, Auto-Damage vs adjacent to sweep Minions)

All of these system and PC build components served the genre master of "Big Damn Heroes Reaping Endless Waves of Canon Fodder". 5e's base system has altered/nerfed that canonical paradigm and there hasn't been much (any?) nerdrage over it.

As an aside, I suspect the Cleave module helps this out a decent bit. Perhaps that is why the nerdrage hasn't percolated? Most tables running with the Cleave rules?

 

[Tony Vargas]

All of these system and PC build components served the genre master of "Big Damn Heroes Reaping Endless Waves of Canon Fodder". 5e's base system has altered/nerfed that canonical paradigm and there hasn't been much (any?) nerdrage over it.

Maybe it was just never that important. It didn't actually worked that dramatically in earlier eds, because the cannon fodder weren't even a theoretical threat and such 'reaping' was unlikely to be set up or played through. In 5e, it may be gone, but the party can still blow through cannon fodder via AEs that annihilate the little mooks even on a successful save. Still not dramatic - auto-killing never is - but familiar and quick to resolve.

I guess what I'm saying is that actually resolving Hero vs Fodder combats generally didn't happen, it was hand-waved in the case of melee or resolved with a quick calculation for AEs, so the former is not missed, except, perhaps in white-room scenarios - and what complaints we've heard about that have more been on the other side - hypothetical hordes of peasant levies killing dragons.

Perhaps that was intentional, rather than an unintentional side effect. I just don't recall that being made explicit at any point (versus being discovered upstream by players).

Two things make me think it's unintentional. First, the way the encounter guidelines that compensated for numerical superiority clearly weren't used in HotDQ, but came out just a few weeks into that season. Second, one of the later playtest L&Ls described the intent that fighters and wizards would both being able to defeat armies at higher levels, just in different ways.

 

[JonnyP71]

Ugh. That's why I never throw standard monsters at experienced players. Forcing them to pantomime ignorance when their characters are in real danger is a mummer's farce.

Far more preferable than a player with a 1st/2nd level PC suddenly blurting out 'It's a Peryton, it has resistance to non magical weapons!' - when their characters have never seen a Peryton before!

 

[MoonSong]

Look @MoonSong it honestly doesn't matter what I think since I don't run games for you... in a nutshell all I was saying was if a player comes to me with a sorcerer but then says they want access to specific wizard spells that they will pick as they go along... I might be a little hesitant to just allow that. I gave my reasoning and you honestly may not feel it's good reasoning but then again I don't think the reasons you've given for turning down every possible non-homebrew & homebrew method for attaining what you want are really in the spirit of working together with the DM to make a better game for everyone. This isn't 3e or 4e but it isn't impossible to get the spells you want, you just don't like the method 5e uses to grant them to you (which is fair because some felt the same way about 4e and/or 3e's methods)... As a DM I am always going to lean towards using the rules to grant a player what they are trying to achieve and I am going to expect them to work with me in that aspect not fight against it at every point.

As to your point above... it still isn't addressing my point. What spell at this level is an alternate to Rope Trick or Find Familiar? As it stands right now in the game those are spells the Wizard brings to a party that's unique to the wizard and allows him to do unique things. However you want access to that and numerous other spells... why do you not think being granted that (without some type of trade-off) would be stepping on the wizard's toes?

So who picks up your combat slack in the game? 5e stresses the 3 pillars so you are expected to participate and have resources for combat... with you missing any, who takes up the slack and how do you know they want to?

So like I told @pemerton earlier in the thread... much more than just Rope Trick, As a DM I would have to think through how spell points/metamagic interact with these different spells before granting them? And even after that if there's a wizard in the party you are stepping on his toes. Honestly I would much rather we work through a home brewed innate casting Wizard than have to vet all these spells, have someone else make up for your lack of combat spells and have you potentially stepping on the toes of anyone in the game who plays a wizard.

Well, my desire for these spells isn't just a whim, back in third edition sorcerers could have these spells -not all at once of course- and I played that edition with those spells in the same groups as wizards, and we never stepped on each other's toes. Also rope trick and find familiar -along with all wizard spells- were open to bards in 2nd edition, so it isn't as if they are a wizard exclusive thing -and bards can pick those two in 5e too-. (2nd and third were the editions that taught me how to play, I have a hard time seeing these things as wizard only.
Yes there is no other spells at the same levle that do the same as those spells, but from my experiences and the editions I started with these are also sorcerer things, and they were arbitrarily taken away while wizards received the toys that used to be sorcerer only and kept an even playing field.)
And it isn't as if not wanting damage spells means not contributing to combat. Weapons work too -and well, sorcerers in 3e had spears, and all weapons a cleric would know, I learned to play sorcerers with weapons, they freed spells known for more utility and quirkiness-
The edition is made that no sorcerer can do both combat and utility with spells, and combat spells are as exciting as a bag of rocks for me. But well, going for utility isn't viable because wizards are infinitely more versatile in utility without having to give up combat, and they can do a lot of things that sorcerers can't do anymore -and I enjoyed using those spells in fun ways-. Only a favored soul of nature or life can confidently avoid being completely overshadowed by a wizard, but all other sorcerers are blast or go home.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Far more preferable than a player with a 1st/2nd level PC suddenly blurting out 'It's a Peryton, it has resistance to non magical weapons!' - when their characters have never seen a Peryton before!

Seeing a Peryton before, or even currently, is not a requirement for guessing that a creature you see is a Peryton.

Nor is it a requirement for having heard a story about a Pertyon that was not seriously wounded by most of the weapons on hand, but did suffer a significant wound from the one magical weapon on hand.

And really, a Peryton is a poor example of a character not being able to guess correctly what foul beast it is that they face, considering there aren't a whole slew of things that look similar to man-sized birds with elk heads to get the description confused with.

It's not at all meta-gaming for a player to have their character believe they are facing a Peryton because an elk-headed giant bird is attacking them. It's not even meta-gaming for a player to decide their character heard some folk tale about a Peryton unless a detail that hasn't been mentioned is that there is no such thing as Peryton on this world and this encounter is the first sighting of a new or alien species.

But it is meta-gaming to be upset that the player has had their character guess, and happens to actually be correct.

 

[pemerton]

Bounded Accuracy was a design aim intended to protect against number inflation of either the "to-hit" or the "target number" in that core resolution mechanic (ADV/DisADV was intended to work with this paradigm and double down as a low mental overhead tool for circumstance adjudication). I don't recall during development where the devs were talking about BA being intended as a means to make combat increasingly lethal for martial characters who are wading into melee skirmishes with increasing numbers of canon fodder.

<snip>

this is possibly the greatest deviation (mechanically and from a genre perspective) of all D&D past that 5e offers.

<snip>

5e's base system has altered/nerfed that canonical paradigm and there hasn't been much (any?) nerdrage over it.

Maybe it was just never that important.

<snip>

In 5e, it may be gone, but the party can still blow through cannon fodder via AEs that annihilate the little mooks even on a successful save. Still not dramatic - auto-killing never is - but familiar and quick to resolve.

I suspect that Tony Vargas is correct.

For the "Martial PC vs army" paradigm to actually come into play, you have to be running a game at name-level/paragon tier or above, with a fighter PC. I suspect that is just not all that common.

Far more common for dealing with armies is AoE magic, which comes online at lower levels, and 5e still has plenty of that!

As an aside, I suspect the Cleave module helps this out a decent bit. Perhaps that is why the nerdrage hasn't percolated? Most tables running with the Cleave rules?

What are the Cleave rules, outside the context of GWM?

 

[pemerton]

Ugh. That's why I never throw standard monsters at experienced players. Forcing them to pantomime ignorance when their characters are in real danger is a mummer's farce.

What I have found in my 4e game is that the drama is not just, or even mostly, the result of ignorance, but rather of whether or not the right sort of damage can be brought to bear at the right time - eg can the PCs deliver cold damage between cutting off the head of the pyrohydra, and the start of the hydra's next turn when two new heads will grow from the stump.

 

[Eric V]

Again, the nose count would be unlikely to agree with this.
It is silly to assume that "change" == "change and progress".

And none of that addresses the real point, which was that hostility and how one reacts to change have everything to do with perspective no matter how much an individual insists that their perspective is objective truth.


But bounded accuracy and ADV/DisADV are pretty core to the feel of this system, and that is very much "change".
Is it "... and progress"? That depends on perspective.
Is turning off huge chunks of fanbase "... and progress"?
Is is turning around and going back the way you came "... and progress" when the way you came failed?

Sorry, just to be clear, I only used the term "change and progress" because I was quoting you.

 

[Manbearcat]

Maybe it was just never that important.

I suspect that Tony Vargas is correct.

For the "Martial PC vs army" paradigm to actually come into play, you have to be running a game at name-level/paragon tier or above, with a fighter PC. I suspect that is just not all that common.

Far more common for dealing with armies is AoE magic, which comes online at lower levels, and 5e still has plenty of that!

Wouldn't surprise me if this was the case. I've mentioned before that probably 50 % of my D&D GMing has been AD&D (unsurprising, given that was the period of my youth). Those games were of two variety:

1) Dungeon crawls primarily with Basic (some with house ruled AD&D).

2) Campaigns that were either Swords and Sorcery or Paladins and Princess.

The latter games spent a healthy percentage of play at or above name level. Further, they always featured primarily martial PCs (along with some F/Ts, F/MUs, MUs, or Clerics now and again). Consequently, given (a) the expectant genre tropes, (b) the level of play, and (c) the PC archetypes in play, the "canon fodder" class feature of 1e and the Heroic Fray rules of 2e saw a significant amount of actual table time in my GMed games of that era.

However, given that most folks appear to have spent the majority of their play well below that level range, I guess those (imo) canonical features aren't terribly pervasive (canonical only in the rulebooks and in the few tables that used them), thus rendering them unorthodox canon!

Canonically unorthodox. That may describe AD&D very well!

What are the Cleave rules, outside the context of GWM?

DMG under Combat Options p 272.

Effectively, if you slay an undamaged creature, excess damage transfers to a chosen adjacent creature. This process continues of that creature is also slain.

I'm certain their intent there was to capture the AD&D canon fodder rules, only with a 3.x-ish rules framework.

Two things make me think it's unintentional. First, the way the encounter guidelines that compensated for numerical superiority clearly weren't used in HotDQ, but came out just a few weeks into that season. Second, one of the later playtest L&Ls described the intent that fighters and wizards would both being able to defeat armies at higher levels, just in different ways.

Yup. Strong, strong lines of evidence to support the unintentional hypothesis.