D&D 5E what is it about 2nd ed that we miss?

[Tony Vargas]

Reality is bad at modeling reality. One person can get shot several times without taking fatal damage while another drops dead of no apparent cause. That is not realistic at all.

"Reality isn't real." Yep, it's a trope.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

There's no DC needed unless a roll is called for. That's the basic 5e resolution system, it's based first on DM judgment, then on dice rolls if the DM judges there is uncertainty. No uncertainty, no roll, no DC, no theoretical problem with a blacksmith being less than 13th level.

You can say that there's no check required, and I can say that the DC for such a check would be low enough that no roll is necessary. They are two ways of stating the same thing.

 

[Shasarak]

"Reality isn't real." Yep, it's a trope.

So then it turns out that the random weather generator actually does come close to modelling reality.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So then it turns out that the random weather generator actually does come close to modelling reality.

Nope.

You can say that there's no check required, and I can say that the DC for such a check would be low enough that no roll is necessary. They are two ways of stating the same thing.

What 5e is says is that the DM decides if there's uncertainty. You can estimate a DC and compare it to a bonus to do so in a more deterministic way, if you like, but the game doesn't require that, and your choosing to do so doesn't mean that a blacksmith needs a certain bonus to 'not require a roll in 5e.' All you need in 5e to not require a roll is a DM telling you don't need to roll, and all the DM needs to do that is a good sense of what's best for the flow of the game.

 

[Shasarak]

Nope.

It is what meteorologists use when their dart board is broken.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It is what meteorologists use when their dart board is broken.

I thought darts were what you used when you were out of (Melf's Minute) meteors.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It was a monster power, if that helps. We were fighting some Drow, and one of them set down something like a blanket of webs that was crawling with magic spiders. It was memorable to me because we were on an escort mission to rescue some Dwarven miners, and they all died in the first action of the first combat, without so much as a single die being rolled.

Yeah, I can see that being memorable. It shouldn't be happening after your first campaign though? 4e is deliberately built asymmetrically.

My first hint that this would be the case came during an earlier campaign, when my Goblin Warlock was one-shotting giants as a minor action with no attack roll, using his... I want to say it was a "rod of reaving" ... some sort of Warlock implement that dealt one damage when you applied a curse.

Rod of Reaving sounds about right - and that item eventually got nerfed to not effect minions (mostly because people were dual wielding them with Rods of Corruption and taking out burst 5 in minions).

That said in the name of the little black pig what level were you when you were facing minon giants? The lowest level giant in the Monster Manual is the Hill giant at level 13 and it isn't a minion. And should only be minionised at around level 20. Either you were approaching epic tier fast, that was a bad homebrew monster, or someone at WotC really screwed up.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Tony Vargas]

Poor Melf. You ever think he was thinking to himself, "Man, Bigby? He gets remembered for his giant honking hands! But me, Melf? Melf the Great? Melf the Magnificent? Yeah, my little itsy bitsy teenie weenie minute meteors. MY METEORS ARE NOT SMALL. THEY ARE AVERAGE!"

Well, and the Acid Arrow.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That said in the name of the little black pig what level were you when you were facing minon giants? The lowest level giant in the Monster Manual is the Hill giant at level 13 and it isn't a minion. And should only be minionised at around level 20. Either you were approaching epic tier fast, that was a bad homebrew monster, or someone at WotC really screwed up.

I want to say that we were probably late Paragon. This was our second campaign, and I think we started at level 11 so we could get a better feel for the edition as a whole.

I distinctly remember entering a room and feeling like we were in way over our heads, because there were seven giants in the room, and the last time we'd fought a giant or two (a few months and ~six levels prior), they were big and scary. I knew that my stats hadn't gone up enough to make a difference, so this should have been a big and scary fight. Instead, while I was still figuring out which Daily power to use in order to best coordinate with the rest of the party, two of the giants just died outright from the curse damage. It was probably the single most jarring experience I'd had in a D&D game up until that point.