D&D 5E What direction should 5th edition take?

[ExploderWizard]

If you think that sort of thing is good, why not make the rules work in a way that either rewards the player for doing it or make it so that you have to describe your attack?

It's not too hard to do: "The DM determines the DC for the attack roll by selecting a Defense (AC, Fort, Ref, or Will) based on the description of the attack." That would do it. (That might not be the best way to do it, it's just an example of something that would make description necessary.)

That would mean that player creativity and imagination would have a mechanical impact on the play of the game. Such interactions cannot be modeled by a computer at this time and so will not make it into any rulebooks.

 

[bonus]

This is a matter of opinion I guess; I wouldn't like it if such a system were in place. I can see a lot of people just giving four paragraph monologues for their melee basic attacks to get a good attack bonus on their next turn.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

That would mean that player creativity and imagination would have a mechanical impact on the play of the game. Such interactions cannot be modeled by a computer at this time and so will not make it into any rulebooks.

That wouldn't really be the problems. If the rules state the range of allowed bonuses or penalties (and limits it so a small range), the game designers can just make an assumption and build their system around that. Just like we have magic items guidelines but not rules that you can't use an item outside a certain level range.

The problem is more that you can _not_ enforce this rule very long. The player will still fall back to a default answer once they figured what works. Of course that's boring, and the DM might not allow it, but at some point, you really exhausted your creativity on describing your attacks. Maybe it would work if you made only 10 attacks per game session or something like that...

Though, maybe repeating the same over and over is not a problem for LostSoul?

 

[LostSoul]

The problem is more that you can _not_ enforce this rule very long. The player will still fall back to a default answer once they figured what works. Of course that's boring, and the DM might not allow it, but at some point, you really exhausted your creativity on describing your attacks. Maybe it would work if you made only 10 attacks per game session or something like that...

Though, maybe repeating the same over and over is not a problem for LostSoul?

What works would be dependent upon the changing situation in the fiction. Since things are different at this moment, it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a different description for your attack, either trying to take advantage of what's going on now or to set something up for later.

 

[Nifft]

What works would be dependent upon the changing situation in the fiction. Since things are different at this moment, it shouldn't be too hard to come up with a different description for your attack, either trying to take advantage of what's going on now or to set something up for later.

I was about to bring up Exalted, and how "using the environment" was the lowest, easiest level of bonus dice available.

It seems to work pretty well.

Cheers, -- N

 

[invokethehojo]

My biggest complaint is that the mystery and magic is gone.

There are no surprises, no secrets, nothing...

Where are the days where the fighter found an arcane runed sword laying across the skeleton king's lap, and wondered, "Is this cursed? Is it better than what I have? It was wielded by a king... surely it is a decent weapon, or is it what led to his downfall..."

Gone are the days of, "What manner of beast is that?!?" As the players stare down a new monster from the new monsters manual....

Instead, we have the fighter say, "We take a 5 minute break and identify the sword..."

Instead, we have the party say, "Ok, what check is it, Arcana? Religion? Dungeoneering? Nature?" and identify the monster in no time, knowing all of its strengths and weaknesses...

We also have the players handing in lists of items they want, and the books tell the DM to make sure they become available... In 3rd it wasn't any better, we had "the store" where any item could be made or bought...

I just wanna see that mystery and magic come back... It has become just a waste of potential in my opinion... great mechanics for fights and skills, but nothing hidden or secret... even secret doors are too easy to find... No going on quests to find answers as to where this item came from and what it does.... Just the party looking at the DM waiting for them to just lay it out for them to soak up....

5th edition: Bring THAT back.

fo sho

 

[Garthanos]

fo sho

So that means you didnt read the players handbook either?

"Some magic items might be a bit harder to identify, such as cursed or nonstandard items, or powerful magical artifacts. Your DM might ask for an Arcana check to determine their properties, or you might even need to go on a special quest to find a ritual to identify or to unlock the powers of a unique item."

Or did you both chose to ignore it because you have an agenda? Guess who determines which magic items are nonstandard ... what do you assume? its in the sentence too.

Normally I'd chide Invokethehojo for his first sentence in the next post, but he's right - you did come off as a dick when you posted like this. Folks, this is actually a great example of how not to post. Please don't use angry sarcasm; it almost never helps the conversation, and inevitably hurts it. Far better to walk away from the keyboard for a bit and find a better way to phrase your point.

That being said, if you run into a post like this, please report it using the little triangular "!" to the left of every post. That's much better than continuing the argument.

Thanks -- PCat

 

[invokethehojo]

So that means you didnt read the players handbook either?

"Some magic items might be a bit harder to identify, such as cursed or nonstandard items, or powerful magical artifacts. Your DM might ask for an Arcana check to determine their properties, or you might even need to go on a special quest to find a ritual to identify or to unlock the powers of a unique item."

Or did you both chose to ignore it because you have an agenda? Guess who determines which magic items are nonstandard ... what do you assume? its in the sentence too.

Man, you kind of come off as a dick with the way you post you know that?

You have described half of the problem, I did read the PHB, and so did all of my players, so they all know all the magic items ahead of time, so when I give them a "amulet of protection" they whine because they all want a "cloak of distortion". And they all know that the sword they found today will be better than the one they have because if it's not it throws off the treasure system. Everything is so defined and spelled out, like a lesson plan, so that if I change one thing it will affects something else and then I either spend all my time making house rules or my game falls apart. There is no mystery because the game is so written around magic items and monster knowledge that all the players know about everything before they sit down at the table. It's become a metagame.

4e is a slut, it's written around the concept of defeating the mystery, players are encouraged to look through all the magic items and such. So as the DM the only way I can combat this is to spend more time outside of playing to make new monsters and magic items and changing things to make them mysterious, which is the other half of the problem, I don't have that much time. If I did I would just make my own system and not have to bother with someone else's, but that's why we buy things, because we can't do everything ourselves.

I don't see why, with it's near limitless resources, Wotc couldn't have written the game in such a way that it doesn't cater towards any one play style, or at least not so heavily. The way it is, you have to work to make the game not focus on magic items and treasure and tracking endless bonuses and effects. For the money they charge Wotc should have done all that work, I shouldn't have to. Class vs classless and the question of character customization aside, at the beginning phases of development I think it would have been very do-able to make the game more customizable to the DM's preferred style of storytelling. We all shouldn't have to tweak such a complicated system all the time to make it work for us, Wotc does research, they know that we all house rule stuff, they know we all have different tastes, why can't they design a game from the ground up to be easily customizable to every group, or at least most groups?

I know my arguments aren't perfect and they are biased, so you don't have to point it out to me dude, I just feel like 4e is the gaming equivalent of a summer blockbuster like Transformers 2... I gotta deal with it cuz it's playing at all the theaters.

 

[Rel]

The sniping at each other should cease immediately.

 

[Garthanos]

Class vs classless and the question of character customization aside, at the beginning phases of development I think it would have been very do-able to make the game more customizable to the DM's preferred style of storytelling.

"No going on quests to find answers as to where this item came from and what it does"

Not what you said but what you echoed is ironically almost exactly a claim the game doesn't allow something explicitly that the game does. It makes it look like bad don't you think?

The post you quoted was complaining about Characters having knowledge about the world they live in? (ummm are they twelve year olds?)

Ny players characters those with the right backgrounds have knowledge skills which give them fair clues about the very magical universe that they live in... I am pretty sure that makes sense. Heck some of my players take history skills just so I have an excuse to tell them about the worlds history.

There are Player knowledge versus character knowledge issues going on
you are complaining about players having too much game world knowledge (which is distinct)

My magic items are frequently rarer with a tad more interest/oomph..(they also don;t get traded out as often) . If a player wants a vanilla flaming sword and doesn't want the Ebony Brand of Teraskel..which also grants a low-light vision and just a minor boost of fire - resistance... once you awaken it.. well then I would be very surprised.

That D&D doesnt quite have game rules that fit my game world exactly I am not suprised...And that improves my game in my opinion.. is it too much work? I don't like vanilla gaming anyway so its something I would do anyway. D&D waffled historically between having too much game world defined and pretending it didn't have that much defined.

My pc's include one who loves to design his own weaponry... started that way out of the box way back before any rules existed at all to help with it. His character is a sure source of quests... but

In fact I think I have seen quite a few players making smiths and ritual casters in various incarnation with the exact reason of wanting to design there characters toys.(this latter part giving the players a route to designing more of there characters -- and enabling them is what we see with wish lists).