D&D 5E (2014) What direction should 5th edition take?

[keterys]

Sounds like a huge buff to arcane and divine casters.

Do you give anything to other sources, to counterbalance it?

 

[eriktheguy]

So a short summary of points we have seen so far:

Spell Casters
Some people think all the classes powers are similar, some do not. Most people agree that having all powers "do damage with an added minor effect" was a bad design choice.
Most people agree that most PCs will choose to use damage dealing attacks, rather than non-damage dealing attacks, because 4e focuses on damage first and rewards players more for these actions.
It is plain to see that a major change from 3e to 4e is that wizards (and other classes) no longer use illusions, charms, barriers in combat in the same way they used to. Spells that focus on effect tend to be non-combat rituals, spells used in combat tend to focus on damage.

Spells that can end a combat without reducing a monsters HP to zero pretty much don't exist anymore. For example, it is harder to dominate the monster and tell it to leave, suggest it into leaving, charm it, or convince it to run from an illusion than it used to be. A few rare powers like sleep can essentially kill a monster with a little bit of luck, but usually just by exploiting broken features (like orb wizards -x to saves).

Some people say that letting spell casters do these things in combat was wrong. Letting them do damage like everyone else is more balanced. Some people say that making spell casters do damage like everyone else takes away from the wonder. I'm pretty sure that the right answer is somewhere between this. In 5e I don't think that the spellcaster should be able to easily control a red dragon, but I don't think that casting a mind control spell should just deal "x psychic damage, and control the monster to make an at-will attack once, for one turn".

In previous editions, the fighter dealt with problems with damage, and the wizard with a spell. I think it is necessary for flavor that a spell caster should be able to teleport or fly around a challenge every once in awhile. A rogue should be able to sneak past an encounter or coup de gras the boss every once in awhile. Fighters might not skip encounters as often (I guess it depends on the build and the player), but they contribute to every encounter with HP and damage, and look much cooler doing it in 4e. Most in this thread agree that the current edition does not award spell casters for ingenuity as often as we like it too. 5e should look at the 'broken' powers in the game, like flight teleportation, domination etc and decide how to implement them in a non-broken way, rather than replacing them with damage and a minor effect, or restricting them to the point of near-uselessness.

Power Variety and Options

Most people in this thread seem to admit that it is boring to use the same 2 at-wills and a small variety of encounters/dailies for your entire career. Some agree that more at-wills is a must have. I think that the current at-will are lots of fun for players. Without using up any resources they can say (Hmm, I can shift one square for combat advantage and attack with this one, or I could give the ally who is going to be attacked 5 times +1 AC with this one...) This keeps the players making decisions and is a lot of fun. People like to make choices. They like to have a few options (4 or 5) to choose from, and they like to see the effects of their good choice (combat advantage lets them hit, bonus AC saves an ally). Some people here have suggested more at-wills would be good. 4 or 5 at level 1 seems to be a common idea. Giving these options at level 1 ensures that PCs are not bored for the first few levels. An extra at-will at paragon and epic is cool. It mixes things up and makes flavor sense. Another great idea is non-class restricted at-wills. Rather than just choosing class at-will powers, players could choose powers available to their power source (martial powers), their role (striker powers), their race, their feats, their skill, and even some that are available to everyone. These would be balanced, reward synergy, and fit the flavor well.
Give players more at-wills
Make powers that can be taken in place of class powers according to race, role, power source, skills, feats
Make a lot more at-wills to choose from


Resources that limit the adventuring day
This is a tough one to summarise because everyone disagrees. Some people like healing surges, some don't. Some people like dailies, some don't. Some people like action points and milestones, others don't. In 3e healing was limited by the party. Once the party ran out/low on healing they had to rest. In 4e healing is limited per player. Once a player runs out of surges, the entire party must often rest. This mechanic is seen by most of us as having issues.
Ditto for daily powers. When one player runs out they wan't to rest, even if the rest of the party is still ready for action. This problem has been around since earlier editions though, and not everyone sees it as a problem. Some people contend that you still have encounter powers left, and that the rest of the party should be able to use their dailies to make up for it.
Milestones offer incentive to keep going after a few fights, but not much. For some parties an extra action point is nothing compared to resting and getting back dailies and surges.
Since we haven't agreed on any solution to this problem yet, I'll just list the issues that need fixing
The adventuring day shouldn't end for everyone just because the fighter is out of surges
Milestones need to offer more to convince players to adventure longer
Players need more motivation not to take an extended rest between every fight

Miscellaneous
Math fixes to replace expertise, epic defense feats, fix advancement problems with lowest non-AC defenses
Possibly implement a new ability system that is simpler, mathematically equivalent to the current system, but not based on the legacy system that is no longer relevant
Use updates to fix problems that many players agree are game-breaking (orb wizards, bloodclaw, reckless)
Don't put out items, feats, powers that are flavorless but so powerful that they take the place of more interesting items/feats (iron armbands of power, expertise, possibly toughness and weapon focus)

 

[KarinsDad]

Sounds like a huge buff to arcane and divine casters.

Do you give anything to other sources, to counterbalance it?

Well, I created the rules before the Primal power source came out.

I really should have called the second rule Spell Scrolls, not Power Scrolls.

But, I don't see the need to "counterbalance" the other sources.

I think many 4E people have this "all classes need the same set of resources and similar numbers, power, and utility of powers" on the brain. They equate perfect equity with balance. It really is a very excellent marketing ploy by WotC to get people to think in one and only one balance mindset. If you give something to one class, you MUST give something to everyone else. It's a marketing masterstroke which brainwashes the DND gaming community into one set idea of what is fun and what is not fun. 4E is fun because it is balanced. 3E is bad/not fun because it is not balanced.

In earlier editions, the Wizard's AC sucked and his hit points sucked, so he actually was forced to either stay out of combat as much as possible, or he spent resources on defensive spells just to stay alive, or both. That left fewer spells leftover for amazing effects, so those other spells could be fairly amazing. Those spells were resources which could not be cast every encounter, so they could be more amazing.

Now that the Wizard's AC is fairly close to everyone else's and his hit points are not that far behind everyone else's, there is this idea that all of his spells need to be on par with everyone else's. Why? Because of a vanilla concept of PC capabilities. Balance is achieved by nerfing spells so that many of them have the limited duration of a single sword swing. Err, what???


So with regard to these house rules, if a player creates these types of spell scrolls, first off he is using up GP resources to do so. Secondly, he is helping the party when he uses them.

And finally, I think magic is so mundane in 4E that I have no problem making it more fantastic again. Allow the spell casters to shine as SPELL CASTERS a bit more and use other spells in combat. The spell power is the same as before and they use up monetary resources to do so.


Spell availability and duration has been throw away. As an example the Invisibility nerf flow of DND:

1E Invisibility lasts forever or until the target attacks
2E Invisibility lasts 24 hours or until the target attacks
3E Invisibility lasts 10 minutes / level or until the target attacks
3.5 Invisibility lasts 1 minute / level or until the target attacks
4E Invisibility lasts until the caster no longer spends standard actions on it or until the target attacks

It's absolutely amazing that WotC convinced millions of DND players that most spells should be one or two rounds, some spells could last the 10 or so rounds of an encounter, and that a few could go as fricking high as 5 minutes. All in the name of the one true god, Balance.

It boggles the mind how altered the DND gaming communities idea of what is reasonable has changed. This is not a dig at 4E. This is an observation how the thinking of millions of people has been changed within a year via marketing such that they cannot even conceive that their thought processes from a little over a year ago could still be valid.

The first thought when a house rule gives something to a class or set of classes: "Do you give anything to other sources, to counterbalance it?"

Instead of: "So do your players have fun with this?"

 

[keterys]

*shrug* Maybe you didn't see groups of all specialty priests, or an excess of casters, when the balance swung far, far that way.

But, yes, I'd like someone to pick swordmage or fighter because they enjoy the playstyle, not because the swordmage is sharply better than the other.

And being able to spend a few gold to continually have more encounter powers than others is sharply better.

Much like if someone said 'All Martial characters get +1 to all defenses' I'd say 'and what do the others get' and 'why?'.

I remember with some amusement older characters who were nigh impossible to kill, or other characters who had abilities that were completely outclassed... was it fun? Sure, it could be. Was that inherently due to the mechanics? Well... no, not really.

Things, huge, violent, gameshattering things, had to happen to spellcasting in dnd. Thankfully, they did. Some further adjustment would be welcome, but it shouldn't be made blindly.

 

[Turtlejay]

I think many 4E people have this "all classes need the same set of resources and similar numbers, power, and utility of powers" on the brain. They equate perfect equity with balance. It really is a very excellent marketing ploy by WotC to get people to think in one and only one balance mindset. If you give something to one class, you MUST give something to everyone else. It's a marketing masterstroke which brainwashes the DND gaming community into one set idea of what is fun and what is not fun. 4E is fun because it is balanced. 3E is bad/not fun because it is not balanced.

In earlier editions, the Wizard's AC sucked and his hit points sucked, so he actually was forced to either stay out of combat as much as possible, or he spent resources on defensive spells just to stay alive, or both. That left fewer spells leftover for amazing effects, so those other spells could be fairly amazing. Those spells were resources which could not be cast every encounter, so they could be more amazing.

Now that the Wizard's AC is fairly close to everyone else's and his hit points are not that far behind everyone else's, there is this idea that all of his spells need to be on par with everyone else's. Why? Because of a vanilla concept of PC capabilities. Balance is achieved by nerfing spells so that many of them have the limited duration of a single sword swing. Err, what???


So with regard to these house rules, if a player creates these types of spell scrolls, first off he is using up GP resources to do so. Secondly, he is helping the party when he uses them.

And finally, I think magic is so mundane in 4E that I have no problem making it more fantastic again. Allow the spell casters to shine as SPELL CASTERS a bit more and use other spells in combat. The spell power is the same as before and they use up monetary resources to do so.


Spell availability and duration has been throw away. As an example the Invisibility nerf flow of DND:

1E Invisibility lasts forever or until the target attacks
2E Invisibility lasts 24 hours or until the target attacks
3E Invisibility lasts 10 minutes / level or until the target attacks
3.5 Invisibility lasts 1 minute / level or until the target attacks
4E Invisibility lasts until the caster no longer spends standard actions on it or until the target attacks

It's absolutely amazing that WotC convinced millions of DND players that most spells should be one or two rounds, some spells could last the 10 or so rounds of an encounter, and that a few could go as fricking high as 5 minutes. All in the name of the one true god, Balance.

It boggles the mind how altered the DND gaming communities idea of what is reasonable has changed. This is not a dig at 4E. This is an observation how the thinking of millions of people has been changed within a year via marketing such that they cannot even conceive that their thought processes from a little over a year ago could still be valid.

The first thought when a house rule gives something to a class or set of classes: "Do you give anything to other sources, to counterbalance it?"

Instead of: "So do your players have fun with this?"

Your first paragraph reads to me as "People who like 4e are brainwashed", which is a little offensive to me. I like 4e. I like everyone at the table having fun. I like everyone having moments where they contribute to the fight.

I played a 3.5 short campaign where I was a gnomish conjuror (specialist wizard). After the first session I changed PC's. I didn't like that a few rounds in I had three dire lions dominating the battlefield, and my turn took two or three minutes. I was self conscious that my time in the spotlight was really a drag to the other players.

Moving along, what level are you playing at? I find it odd that you think a wizard has HP's near a defender's. In our 9th level game my fighter has around 30 or so more HP than the Invoker, and twice as many surges. Higher HP's mean higher surge values and a deeper dip into negatives before I die.

Wizards may have alright AC's now, but the games I have played have pretty consistently had the defenders with an AC 2-5 points higher. I don't think this is a valid point.

My poor departed PC was a wizard. My current one (as I mentioned) is a fighter. Try playing that combination back to back and then typing

Balance is achieved by nerfing spells so that many of them have the limited duration of a single sword swing. Err, what???

I think you are being disingenuous. My wizard did very little damage, with his highest power being something silly like 2d8+int, but had increcible control, with debuffs and controlled movement out the wazoo. My fighter has at wills that do more than that daily of the wizard. He *marks* enemies and stays on top of them. His behavior in and out of combat is wholly different.

The question about giving the other players something since you massively buffed arcane and divine casters is a valid one. You dismiss it, and imply that by asking it we are slaves to Wizards marketing/brainwashing complex. You simlutaneously claim to not be bashing 4e the *game* while suggesting that those who play it are somehow being hoodwinked into something lesser.

Balance does not mean that every player does 1d6+5 damage in a circle until something dies. It means that one player cannot dominate or control every situation that comes up to the detriment of the enjoyment of everyone else. You misinterpret what I and others have been saying.

Jay

 

[Garthanos]

Sleeping Beauty Magic

Spells that can end a combat without reducing a monsters HP to zero pretty much don't exist anymore.

Typically called "Save or Die" effects and players sure don't like them done to their character. They are anticlimactic even when perpetrated against the exact folks you want them used on like premature something or another. These are very hard to rate what potency and they end up being easy to abuse.

Hit points are a representation of what --- note both luck and energy adn defensive skill is prominent in the list (so you are using magic to bypass a characters fundamental luck, and defensive skill and remaining energy) and all you spent was one standard action to do it.... man what a bargain -- sign me up for that gravy train.

I suspect more than a little that the current sleep spell might be a legacy design. Certain things really shouldn't occur to heroes or significant villains unless they are completely out of luck. At minimum in a bloodied state.(see the intimidate skill).

The Sleeping Beauty Spell or Fatiguing Sleep
or Welcome to the embrace of Deaths little sister.

This spell actually fatigues the target as a part of the magic and causes the loss of an appropriate number of hit points as part of its effect also the target is slowed with ongoing hit point loss save ends. If you reduce the targets hit points to zero he is in either a perpetual coma that requires a fairly serious ritual to remove (alah a certain faerie tale princess) or in a very groggy hard to wake from sleep (often called unconsciousness) <= Casters choice of which as the two are subtle variation of the same magic.

Different damage types exist the most common : poison and psychic and cold... often visualized as a gas or wave of scintiallateing sound or light or even a wave of cold that creeps from the inside out stilling ones energy.

In some forms of this hit point loss induced by this effect may be paid on a two for one basis with Temporary Hit Points.( ie 1 thp loss reduces the hp loss by 2).

The primal version of this is said to bypasses ones passion (temporary hit points) entirely.

Some forms of sleep magic actually allow the victim to use a healing surge if it fails to reduce there hit points to zero.

A very controlled version of it was said to be used to bring Battleragers to there senses and only causes loss of temporary hitpoints only in a relatively large area of effect.

 

[KarinsDad]

Things, huge, violent, gameshattering things, had to happen to spellcasting in dnd. Thankfully, they did. Some further adjustment would be welcome, but it shouldn't be made blindly.

Agreed. An adjustment had to be made. No doubt about it.

I just disagree with some as to the type of adjustment. When my spell caster cannot do anything but throw damage, there's a problem. IMO. YMMV. I'm 9th level. I can cast 2 whole utility powers in an entire day and they might last 5 minutes each. Or, they might not.

In a real world analogy, that would be like having a MP3 player that lasts for a single song and a cell phone that can be used to make one phone call. Ok, what do we do with the rest of the day?

Not what I would consider "MAGICAL". The capital letters are missing. There is no thunder in the background. Casting a spell is no different than firing an arrow.

The counter argument that one could pull out a bunch of gold and cast a ritual seems weak at best.

 

[Garthanos]

I like everyone at the table having fun. I like everyone having moments where they contribute to the fight.

I like people having moments to contribute and interesting things to choose frequently enough that "I hit it with my sword" becomes the action description of somebody playing in a different game entirely...

 

[keterys]

When my spell caster cannot do anything but throw damage, there's a problem. IMO.

Have you looked at some of the more recent additions to the game in Arcane Power or Divine Power? They've been adding a lot more things that aren't damaging of late.

The things you're talking about don't necessarily require changing the structure of the game, after all. You can play a completely pacifistic cleric now - it wouldn't take much to do the same for wizards.

Not that I'm sure you should. Making spells entirely conditions and no damage makes the game slower unless handled well, and if color spray can do damage, eh.

But anyhow, add more utilities for everyone. I'd been working on an addon that would give extra specifically non-combat utilities at 1st, 4th, 8th (+10, +20) - nothing that can be used in combat, all skill challenge, racial, environmental, etc type stuff. Never really got close to finishing it, though.

 

[AllisterH]

I think Karinsdad is ignoring how many more restrictions there were on spellcasting in previous editions and only looking at the pure power of the spell. If you're going to argue that spellcasting has gotten weaker, make sure you list ALL the drawbacks in previous editions.

Sure, the spell has become weaker over time, but the availability of the spell and various other restrictions have been lifted.

Ex: Creatures that had 10HD and were highly intelligent (never really defined per se in 1e but in 2e was defined as 13+ INT) automatically had a chance to see invisibility (and given a fighter had AT LEAST a 11 as their saving throw...).

A prime example of how you didn't NEED magic to combat magic pre 3e. Given that in 3e the only mundane way to detect invisibility is via Scent or Tremorsense, it should be nerfed.

The "saving throw" system of pre 3e actually made high level characters pretty much immune to magic spells and that's even before you add in magic items. None of this "fighter is more likely to become dominated at higher levels nonsense".

He also downplays the rarity aspect of the spells. Spells could become powerful since they weren't being put into scrolls.
(Sure, a 9th level wizard could create a scroll but the formula was 80% + 1% per wizard level - 1% per spell level and took one day per spell level to complete)

A 12th level wizard only had 4 2nd level slots and that's even assuming the wizard actually knew it (no automatic acquisition of spells and even a 16 INT mage only had 70% chance to learn a spell and could only know a maximum of 11 spells per level)

Karinsdad is quietly forgetting or maybe he didn't play by RAW in 1e/2e every single restriction that spellcasters had in previous editions

(spellcasting in combat where a) you took any damage BEFORE your turn came up and you automatically LOST the spell and b) spellcasting being slower than melee especially at high levels - wizard spells added their level to the wizard's initiative count whereas magic weapons SUBTRACTED their plus to the count.

Meaning that magic missile was the best combat spell around.

3e's magic system is definitely WAY MORE powerful in pretty much every aspect than the pre 3.x version so I don't know how you can wite and say that WOTC nerfed magic.

They dialled it way to far up in 3.x and maybe too far down in 4e but under WOTC, MU made out like bandits for about 8 years.