D&D 5E What are the Roles now?

[EzekielRaiden]

I disagree. I'll take a 20-25% chance any day.

Well of course--if it's a choice between "slim but possible" and "nothing at all," the former is logically better in a strict sense. But, again, I wouldn't use the term "effective" for "misses two-thirds to four-fifths of the time."

 

[SirAntoine]

Well of course--if it's a choice between "slim but possible" and "nothing at all," the former is logically better in a strict sense. But, again, I wouldn't use the term "effective" for "misses two-thirds to four-fifths of the time."

In what medium? In D&D, at least traditionally, that is effective because a) you don't know when any character will hit, and b) every hit counts for a lot. If you have a character who will hit 20-25% of the time, that is effective help. If that is the party's main offense, that could present challenges, but sometimes it is. The sweet spot is "if you don't have to wait too long" for a hit. It doesn't have to be likely to hit each time, or even closer to 50/50. It has to pull its weight in the medium you're in.

Now, what they need to do to seal the deal is increase everyone's damage output in a similar way. "Bounded damage", in other words. In this way, each hit will count more.

 

[SirAntoine]

And also, the closer a hit is to a sure thing, the more combat becomes a matter of timing. There should be a lot of uncertainty, to provide a sense of excitement and desperation at times.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Ugh. I'd written a longer reply, but it got eaten. I'll try for shorter this time.



I...didn't focus entirely on combat. "Skill checks that Aragorn finds challenging..." is talking about skills and not combat, right?

And saying the hobbits don't contribute to combat pokes a hole in your "the hobbits can meaningfully contribute!" statement. "They can contribute...as long as they avoid all the places where they can't" should be true of all games ever. You can have any color you want, as long as the color you want is black. Catering to the minimum-level players by shielding them from the things that would hurt them or challenge them doesn't make 5e any more friendly to highest-and-lowest mixed parties than any prior edition of D&D. (Nor, for that matter, does it make 5e any less so.)



If we're adhering to the fiction, the hobbits' deception only matters one time IIRC (pretending to be goblins in Mordor) and sleight-of-hand never matters--and if we're not adhering to the fiction, you're being somewhat inconsistent about your standards. Also, Aragorn does not have +8 to +9 in his best skills. He has +9 to +10, depending on whether he went for capped stats or just 18s. For Gandalf, it's +10 to +11, same deal. Covering all of Aragorn's "best skills" is probably impossible unless we allow Ranger spells to substitute for some stuff he does (the herbal healing thing, frex)--but he's a leader of men as well as an expert tracker, so I'd say Persuasion, Stealth, and Nature myself; and since he's a Ranger (in fact, almost certainly the, or at least an, inspiration for D&D rangers) I'd expect him to be high-Dex rather than high-Str. (Nevermind the fact that he uses a two-handed sword once Narsil is reforged! )



That they will level up wasn't the point. Something that is actually a challenge to Aragorn and Gandalf *when they set out* will be lethally dangerous to the hobbits in combat, and skill checks that would challenge them will be difficult or (potentially) impossible for the hobbits. The only difference is that, where the hobbits are specialized, they actually stand some chance of success (DC 20 with a +5 bonus ~ 30% success vs. Aragorn's 55% or Gandalf's 60%)--but that may or may not be true for other games anyway. Areas where they're weak are still, as in every edition, completely impossible (DC 20 with a -1 = 0% success), and any given task that is initially impossible will (almost) never become possible because 5e favors Ad/Dis rather than numeric bonuses. (As opposed to 4e, where the half-level bonus means a particular task might be impossible at level 1, hard at level 11, and between easy and moderate at level 21, as the character gains +11 to all ability checks, 10 from half-level, +1 from the "all stats increase by 1" for each new tier.)



Fair. I don't own an MM. That said? AC 21 or AC 20 is not particularly uncommon, as I understand it (just plate+shield or sufficiently high dex+natural/light armor), and that's only 10 percentage points easier to hit (20 to 25% range). I'd go into how Gandalf and Aragorn are doing 3-4 times as much damage (hitting 2-2.75x as often, rolling 2x as many attacks, offset by hobbits having a higher fraction of successful hits that are crits), but you've already excused the hobbits from having to take any risks in combats that would challenge Gandalf and Aragorn.

On my phone so short shrift: how does your Aragorn afford straight 18s in Cha, Dex,AND Int? Given his MADness I thought assuming 16s and 18s was pretty generous, but you seem to consider that insufficient.

You should review the MM ACs, it will change your ideas about the uselessness of a couple of hobbits with missile weapons.

I haven't found low level members of heterogenous parties to be as fragile as you think they are. Could be a playstyle difference but let me all you: how often have you seen the low-level guys die? Not just get knocked out, but actually die? I haven't seen one death yet, much less permanent death. I don't have a twenty-level disparity but my guys do fight CR 8-10 creatures and other deadly threats, which is only slightly weaker than what the hypothetical Gandalf-led party would be fighting by DMG guidelines, so I think my experience is relevant. It's quite hard to kill PCs in 5E unless you deliberately try--e.g. hitting hobbits when they're down--and why would anyone do that unless you're fighting them on death ground? (And good guys don't usually fight people on death ground at all--they accept surrender instead.)

 

[SirAntoine]

Great point about the delayed death rules in 5th Edition! They let low level characters contribute a lot more, because they don't have to be so afraid to get into the action.

 

[Aribar]

In what medium? In D&D, at least traditionally, that is effective because a) you don't know when any character will hit, and b) every hit counts for a lot. If you have a character who will hit 20-25% of the time, that is effective help. If that is the party's main offense, that could present challenges, but sometimes it is. The sweet spot is "if you don't have to wait too long" for a hit. It doesn't have to be likely to hit each time, or even closer to 50/50. It has to pull its weight in the medium you're in.

Now, what they need to do to seal the deal is increase everyone's damage output in a similar way. "Bounded damage", in other words. In this way, each hit will count more.

Is this actually fun to the average D&D player, though? I think 4E combat lasts on average 4 rounds (not sure on other editions since encounter math is potentialy swingier), so by your estimate there's a chance I may miss every single time in an entire combat and contribute nothing! I play in a large group and if I miss with my melee attacks, that means I spent ~15-25 minutes for naught and have to wait another 15-25 to maybe make a difference next round. If I recall correctly, both 4E and 5E are roughly modeled so that players should have around a 60% chance to hit targets on an even level. I think you can have excitement and desperation in combat without resorting to making a player's actions worthless the vast majority of the time.

 

[SirAntoine]

Is this actually fun to the average D&D player, though? I think 4E combat lasts on average 4 rounds (not sure on other editions since encounter math is potentialy swingier), so by your estimate there's a chance I may miss every single time in an entire combat and contribute nothing! I play in a large group and if I miss with my melee attacks, that means I spent ~15-25 minutes for naught and have to wait another 15-25 to maybe make a difference next round. If I recall correctly, both 4E and 5E are roughly modeled so that players should have around a 60% chance to hit targets on an even level. I think you can have excitement and desperation in combat without resorting to making a player's actions worthless the vast majority of the time.

It's a lot more than fun.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

On my phone so short shrift: how does your Aragorn afford straight 18s in Cha, Dex,AND Int? Given his MADness I thought assuming 16s and 18s was pretty generous, but you seem to consider that insufficient.

You should review the MM ACs, it will change your ideas about the uselessness of a couple of hobbits with missile weapons.

He's a human (though could be sold as a half-elf, what with being descended from Elros). If we presume the default array, he started at level 1 with 16, 15, 14, 13, 11, 9. (This would be easier if he'd rolled lucky, or used point buy, but we'll stick with it for now). Presuming he put his best scores as Dex, Cha, Int, he could have 18 Dex at level 4, and 18 Cha by level 12 (and be partway to 18 Int, too). I figured he wasn't really pushing Int though, and focusing only on Dex/Cha. If he had rolled even moderately lucky (that is, done more than slightly better than the array, which is the "expected value" for rolling), he could potentially have all three 18s, or one 20 and one 18, since he'd have a total of +6 stat points to distribute. (For example, if he rolled 16, 15 as his highest two stats, plus the human bonus for 17, 16, he'd have more than enough points to be 20, 18 at level 14.) Meanwhile, Gandalf--even with the array--easily has 20 Int and 20 of whatever one other stat he wants, since everyone gets a total of +10 stat points to distribute (except Fighters, who get 14; if Aragorn is built as a Fighter instead, he could absolutely have two 20s by level 14, regardless of method used, and possibly a 16 in a third stat if he rolled well.)

There's pretty much no way I'll be able to actually check an MM, so I'll have to take your word for it. When the free rules include three threats, of challenge levels not-inappropriate for first- or second-level characters to face, that a first-level character can't possibly hit (on average) more than 40% of the time if they rolled lucky (or picked highly synergistic race/class options), I'm not particularly impressed with the claim that a sub-level-3 character can adventure alongside a higher-than-12 character and "contribute meaningfully."

I haven't found low level members of heterogenous parties to be as fragile as you think they are. Could be a playstyle difference but let me all you: how often have you seen the low-level guys die? Not just get knocked out, but actually die? I haven't seen one death yet, much less permanent death. I don't have a twenty-level disparity but my guys do fight CR 8-10 creatures and other deadly threats, which is only slightly weaker than what the hypothetical Gandalf-led party would be fighting by DMG guidelines, so I think my experience is relevant. It's quite hard to kill PCs in 5E unless you deliberately try--e.g. hitting hobbits when they're down--and why would anyone do that unless you're fighting them on death ground? (And good guys don't usually fight people on death ground at all--they accept surrender instead.)

Sadly, I haven't played tabletop anything for a good three months, and no D&D for over a year--lack of group, moving, schedule conflicts, etc. So I haven't actually seen either way. What I can do, though, is look at to-hit values and damage values, and consider the reports I've heard. Admittedly, people with "extreme" situations are more likely to mention something, but I've heard a lot of complaints about TPKs in the Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure because of the...Redbrand Thugs, I think? And the fight you're apparently supposed to run away from (a half-dragon, IIRC?) where that is poorly telegraphed.

As for "quite hard" to kill PCs without trying--when they're at least level 3, sure, it's not trivially easy to kill people anymore. But for a level 1 or level 2 character, even with a +2 Con and d8 hit dice (since the Hobbits are pretty clearly not Fighters, Rangers, or Paladins), they only have 10 HP at level 1 and ~17 at level 2. A couple of hobgoblins, which I'd call decent approximation of Uruk-hai, can hit for 1d8+2d6+1, on average 4.5+7+1 = 12.5. A lucky crit (8+12+1 = 21) kills a first-level character outright, no death saves at all (-11 HP is greater than the total), and drops a fresh second-level character to Dying. Two below-average hits puts a second-level character at Dying; a slightly above-average hit on a Dying second-level character is also instant death (17+ damage happens ~12% of the time, before counting crits).

The hobgoblin is a CR 1/2 creature. Two of them are worth 200 XP; since there are two, the difficulty multiplier is x2. So the "fight difficulty" is 400 XP. This is exactly the threshold for a "medium" encounter for four level 2 characters, and exactly the deadly threshold for four level 1 characters. I think it is thus fair to say that facing off against a mere two Hobgoblins/"Uruk-hai" is "deadly" for the 1st-level people, and very dangerous for the 2nd-level people, while being a breeze for a 20th-level person and not particularly challenging for the 14th-level person.

If the hobbits were at least level 3, which is the "this is where things change" point I've been using this whole time, then a pair of hobgoblins ceases to be super duper dangerous. I can pretty easily buy the idea that many challenges are also much less scary at that point--not non-lethal, to be sure, but not a meatgrinder either. They'd also have all their specialization stuff squared away by that point, so they'll have all the basic tools 5e gives them (more or less) for interacting with the world, whether combatively or skillfully.

Again: I am not trying to say that 5e can't accomodate a spread of character levels. It absolutely can. I just think your "some level 1 and 2 alongside level 20" example is hyperbolic to the point of not actually supporting your argument. If, instead, it had been level 3-4 hobbits alongside a level 7 Boromir, level 10 Aragorn, and level 14 Gandalf? I could buy it. It'd still be too wonky *for my tastes,* but the group could make it work, without "coddling" the hobbits and without throwing them headfirst into lethal danger.

[sblock=Digression about 4e]I am, however, also saying that if you adjust the level range for the altered numerical scaling, 4e and 5e don't actually accommodate THAT much of a different range. In 5e, it is "best" (in the sense of "everyone is damn close to the same footing") to have a range of +/- 2 (range of 4) levels, or as I said before, "everyone within 4 levels of each other." The first two levels are excluded from this, because they are so squishy and have fewer tools (sometimes far fewer) regardless of what "pillar" you look at. If you're comfortable with some people lagging behind noticeably, but not dramatically, then you can double that range to +/- 4 (range of 8; again, excluding levels 1 and 2). Since 5e scales about half as fast as 4e, its ranges should be about twice as big--and lo and behold, 4e is pretty much identical for characters that are all within +/- 1 (range of 2) level of their average, and can work (though will have some noticeable-but-not-dramatic hiccups) for +/- 2 levels. And as I've noted with DCs, the half-level bonus in 4e means tasks that had previously been impossible become quite achieveable. (If you look at "tasks that are very hard for a particular level," then non-specialists do fall behind, but the world is not typically scaled to fit the character, so that's not as important to me IMO.)[/sblock]

Great point about the delayed death rules in 5th Edition! They let low level characters contribute a lot more, because they don't have to be so afraid to get into the action.

Believe it or not? This is one of the very few mechanical structures taken precisely as-is from 4e. Death saves are how dying works there. (Minor caveat: I don't *think* 4e had "massive damage = instant death" rules, but it might have, possibly as a later option.)

 

[SirAntoine]

Sorta depends on class and/or build. Barbarians get away with it by having decent defenses and good HP (or ablative THP or whatever), and Avengers generally have stellar AC. Sorcerers, for example, usually get their attack stat to AC (Dex as normal, Str from a feature for Dragon and Cosmic Sorcerers). So there are some Strikers that fall into the "tanky bruiser" category, to appropriate a League of Legends term. In general, I'd say (most) Strikers are less fragile than (most) Controllers, but more fragile than (most) Leaders, and all of them are much more fragile than even a low-HP Defender.



Generally agreed. IMO, Bard, Fighter, and Monk are sort of the "barometer" for an edition. Do they, statistically speaking, fall noticeably behind other classes? Do they have access to a similar (NOT THE SAME) breadth of mechanical impact? In 3e, in general, they do fall behind and do not have the same breadth of mechanical impact. In 4e, they're all strong classes (Monk is the weakest of the three, and that really isn't saying *that* much) and they have access to a pretty impressive array of things, both solely within their own resources, and through things like Ritual Casting, Martial Practices, and Skill Utilities. In 5e, I personally feel that the Bard is great, the Monk is acceptable, and the Fighter falls behind--other classes can easily match its damage output (e.g. Paladin) while having both excellent passive benefits and/or additional active/selective-use effects that provide far greater breadth.

And that--again, IMO--is the problem of designing classes without deciding on a foundation (role) first. Let the player build whatever they like on top of it--and do whatever they want inside that building. That's the player's business. The designer's business should be just as you've said: Avoid "good at all/most things" and "good at few/no things," which means seeking "good at some things." Deciding which things in particular is deciding what role, even if you don't formally call it anything whatsoever.

It would be better to design classes without making any assumptions about the priorities players will have in combat. All characters should be good at most things, also, to avoid dependencies on others.

 

[pemerton]

If I recall correctly, both 4E and 5E are roughly modeled so that players should have around a 60% chance to hit targets on an even level.

That's about right for 4e - some characters (eg rogues, using +3 prof bonus daggers with another +1 from class) are good at making that chance higher, and if (as in my group) your PCs have +2 prof weapons and you are not using Expertise feats then, at epic, the chance drops to more like 50/50 before buffs.

In 5e I think the chances are better than 60% for specialist warriors: eg a 1st level fighter with 16 STR has +5 to hit, and against AC 12 (not too uncommon at 1st level) will hit 70% of the time.

This is one of the very few mechanical structures taken precisely as-is from 4e. Death saves are how dying works there. (Minor caveat: I don't *think* 4e had "massive damage = instant death" rules, but it might have, possibly as a later option.)

In 4e, unlike 5e, you have to track negative hit points. If a PC falls below negative bloodied than s/he dies. This has happened twice (maybe 3 times? there's a death the cause of which I can't remember) in my game (5 PCs over 28 levels), and has been threatened on other occasions. I think it has been scarier than the risk of 3 failed death saves, at least in the past few years for which I have a better memory.