D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

[pemerton]

what exactly is the player authoring here

The player, by choosing to activate his/her class feature, is making it true that somewhere within a week or so's journey there exists a suitable mount, complete with backstory, level-appropriate guardian, etc. The GM gets to fill in the details, but the player establishes the broad outline.

It is different in 3.5, where using the power has the ingame effect of summoning a mount down from the heavens.

 

[pemerton]

The original assertion that brought us onto this tangent as a statement that combats in 5E are short. I pointed out that combats are short only when they're straightforward/easy.

<snip>

In my experience, most 5E encounters rated less than double-Deadly finish in fewer than four rounds. A five-round combat is an outlier.

Then you agree with me? I said that the typical duration for a fighter in 5e is two or three rounds. Which would be fewer than four rounds (but more than one).

I don't think double-deadly fights count as typical.

In 4e the typical fight lasts for 4 or more rounds, and a 5 round fight is by no means an outlier.

The other part of my original assertion is that these differences in the mechanical duration of combats will be relevant to determining what roles emerge from the system (in the sort of way that [MENTION=2656]Aenghus[/MENTION] describes not far upthread). If the typical fight is only two-or-three rounds long, for instance, debuff conditions may be less significant (because having fewer rounds in which to take effect). Conversely, of course, those short durations may be caused by the presence of very strong debuff or lock-down conditions, which turn enemies into sitting ducks. (Sleep would be an example of a spell that inflicts such a condition.)

These are the sorts of mechanical features of a game that engender the presence of various roles.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Then you agree with me? I said that the typical duration for a fighter in 5e is two or three rounds. Which would be fewer than four rounds (but more than one).

I don't think double-deadly fights count as typical.

In 4e the typical fight lasts for 4 or more rounds, and a 5 round fight is by no means an outlier.

Agree with you? Sort of. I agree that your statement is true under certain conditions.

I run lots and lots of double-deadly encounters though.

 

[pemerton]

If you as a player have powers that your character can not have then it is defacto true that you are not immersed in "being that character".

By "de facto" I think you mean "ipso facto".

In any event, the claim is false.

Immersion is a psychological state. The question of what causes it or impedes it, whether in general or for some particular RPGing individual, is an empirical question. It can't be answered just by armchair speculation, and generalising from one's own case and one's own experience - even if one has a clear grasp of them - is likely to lead to false conclusions.

I will give one example that shows why the claim is false. It is somewhat parallel to [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION]'s examples around group membership and knowledge of friends/acquaintances.

I like to play religious PCs, and I currently have multiple PCs in my 4e game who are religiously fervent. As a player, when playing a religious PC, I also determine, from time-to-time, the will and desires of my god. The players in my 4e game do the same - eg "We can't do such-and-such because the Raven Queen's preference is for so-and-so."

The player is exercising a power to determine what is true in the fiction about his/her PC's god. The PC does not have any such power. Yet this does not reduce immersion in the character. Indeed, nothing is more debilitating, in my view, to immersion in a religious character, than to have to stop at every point and seek the GM's advice on what the religion does or doesn't permit: this produces the experience of a bare novice still under instruction while trying to roleplay a deeply engaged initiate

 

[SirAntoine]

Two or three round combats on average is surprising to me because how many more hit points monsters have in 5th Edition. If the average PC party is still set at four or five, I am surprised they can do so much damage that quickly.

 

[pemerton]

I run lots and lots of double-deadly encounters though.

In 4e, if you run lots and lots of all-minion encounters, the roles won't emerge as described in the rulebook (eg rangers will go from being powerful damage dealers to very weak, because they lack AoE capability).

I think when looking at whether roles emerge within a system, it is reasonable to focus on the typical mechanical conditions that the game was built towards. (Assuming the designers haven't made some terrible error in their conception of what is typical within the framework of the game - in 4e two major revisions were required for just this reason, to default level-appropriate non-combat DCs and to default level-appropriate damage.)

 

[SirAntoine]

In 4e, if you run lots and lots of all-minion encounters, the roles won't emerge as described in the rulebook (eg rangers will go from being powerful damage dealers to very weak, because they lack AoE capability).

I think when looking at whether roles emerge within a system, it is reasonable to focus on the typical mechanical conditions that the game was built towards. (Assuming the designers haven't made some terrible error in their conception of what is typical within the framework of the game - in 4e two major revisions were required for just this reason, to default level-appropriate non-combat DCs and to default level-appropriate damage.)

AD&D had it down to a science. There were warriors, wizards, priests, and rogues.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Two or three round combats on average is surprising to me because how many more hit points monsters have in 5th Edition. If the average PC party is still set at four or five, I am surprised they can do so much damage that quickly.

HP scales roughly as the 3/2 power of CR, so a Medium encounter doesn't actually have that many HP in it. Two Trolls (168 HP) is a Hard encounter for 4 7th level PCs, and it's not that much of a stretch for PCs to average 15+ points of damage each, per round. (Especially from players who like to Nova.) This is why I keep emphasizing that only easy encounters are short--it's an artifact of the encounter balancing rules. If you use AD&D-sized encounters (where trolls come in bands of 1-12) the encounters can be much longer.

 

[BryonD]

By "de facto" I think you mean "ipso facto".

Thanks

In any event, the claim is false.

Immersion is a psychological state. The question of what causes it or impedes it, whether in general or for some particular RPGing individual, is an empirical question. It can't be answered just by armchair speculation, and generalising from one's own case and one's own experience - even if one has a clear grasp of them - is likely to lead to false conclusions.

If you feel immersed in checkers while playing poker, then I guess I can't dispute your claim. I'll consider you a bit deranged, however.

I will give one example that shows why the claim is false. It is somewhat parallel to [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION]'s examples around group membership and knowledge of friends/acquaintances.

I like to play religious PCs, and I currently have multiple PCs in my 4e game who are religiously fervent. As a player, when playing a religious PC, I also determine, from time-to-time, the will and desires of my god. The players in my 4e game do the same - eg "We can't do such-and-such because the Raven Queen's preference is for so-and-so."

The player is exercising a power to determine what is true in the fiction about his/her PC's god. The PC does not have any such power. Yet this does not reduce immersion in the character. Indeed, nothing is more debilitating, in my view, to immersion in a religious character, than to have to stop at every point and seek the GM's advice on what the religion does or doesn't permit: this produces the experience of a bare novice still under instruction while trying to roleplay a deeply engaged initiate

And, AGAIN, you are misrepresenting. As I just described, knowing things the character would know is not at all the point. Now, if I happen to know some fact that the player does not and the player declares "my religion believes "this" when it would contradict that fact, they they get trumped. Does this kind of trumping happen often at the table? No. As just stated, rolling with unexpected player input is part of the fun.

But you mis-stating what I have said does not change what I have said.

If you are playing a character but solving problems through impacting the world in the way that this character could not then you are NOT immersed in *being* that character. You may very well be immersed in the story.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

In 4e, if you run lots and lots of all-minion encounters, the roles won't emerge as described in the rulebook (eg rangers will go from being powerful damage dealers to very weak, because they lack AoE capability).

I think when looking at whether roles emerge within a system, it is reasonable to focus on the typical mechanical conditions that the game was built towards. (Assuming the designers haven't made some terrible error in their conception of what is typical within the framework of the game - in 4e two major revisions were required for just this reason, to default level-appropriate non-combat DCs and to default level-appropriate damage.)

I hope this post wasn't addressed to me because I don't know what it means. You seem to be saying that fighting 5 trolls at 7th level in 5E is somehow equivalent to an "all-minion" encounter in 4E, and then something about how that makes the "roles not emerge." My sense is that the word "minion" is basically synonymous with "mook" and implies "weak compared to the party", so if I'm understanding you correctly, the analogy seems off on that score (trolls are quite strong, two of them is officially a "Hard" fight--they're not mooks).

Just as FYI, anytime people start talking about 4E, I generally skip over it. This thread isn't about 4E in the first place, it's "what are the roles in 5E", and right now we're on a completely different sub-tangent anyway about the duration of 5E combats.

Important mechanical features of 5E combat that can affect combat length include the Dodge maneuver, the ability to move and fire/cast spells in the same turn, bounded accuracy, attacks of opportunity/monster sizes (interacts with Dodge), various damage-increasing feats like Sharpshooter, unlimited cantrips, spell ranges, and disabling spells, among others. Relative to AD&D, 5E encourages kiting and discourages smiting--at least against large groups. (AD&D's Parry mechanic from CFH encouraged one-on-one duels which could be very long, in order to kill the enemy without suffering any hit point ablation. In this corner case, 5E combats will actually be much shorter than AD&D combats.)