Level Up (A5E) What is off the table?

[Morrus]

The more choices a player has in building their character, and the more rules options there are to work with, the greater the possibility for optimization. I don't know how you'd meet some of those desires, and somehow not have power creep.

One thing we hope to do is flesh out non-combat pillars with the extra options.

 

[Umbran]

One thing we hope to do is flesh out non-combat pillars with the extra options.

Hooray! My pet peeve gets some attention!

And, yeah, building out non-combat pillars is not really an issue for combat balance most of the time.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes, well, the problem there is that, as the rules and grow more complicated, you can hide the penalty in places where they aren't of significant impact.

Not saying that it cannot be done. I am saying it can be difficult, and expectations should be set accordingly - expect some power creep.

Depends. Maybe the design-intent goalposts might need to be moved from "steady power level" to "slight power decline" overall, to combat the power creep?

Failing that, make sure the penalty applies to the same general area as the benefit. For example, if a class gains some new benefit from having high Intelligence, make sure the corresponding penalty is also Intelligence-based.

 

[clearstream]

Yes, well, 5e itself is the result of playtesting by thousands. I doubt this project will have that level of testing. So, this project generating rules that are more complex, but somehow less buggy, is probably not a realistic expectation.

That is putting words in my mouth. Game mechanics benefit from playtesting: it is critically correlated with quality. I was interested in the plan for that.

Pragmatically, about as buggy would do

The more choices a player has in building their character, and the more rules options there are to work with, the greater the possibility for optimization. I don't know how you'd meet some of those desires, and somehow not have power creep.

There are a lot of choices in design, and power creep is not always accidental. In the past it sometimes appeared as a selling point: "buy this and your characters will be more powerful". I am saying that I would dislike that path, and I do not believe it necessary. Design is a deliberate activity. Designers can make themselves conscious about power-creep and think of balance in terms of sustaining the most valid strategies. They can ask - is X strictly better than Y - and they can plan scenarios for playtesting that check X against a decent range of options.

So while I would agree that the more pieces a system has, the more difficult it is to avoid assiduous optimisers finding stronger possibilities, I would reject the idea that one should shut down concern for power-creep just because of that. One can still seek to craft balanced options - ones that sustain the most mechanically valid choices.

 

[jmucchiello]

One thing we hope to do is flesh out non-combat pillars with the extra options.

But will that be considered a balance against a combat advantage. Class X gets combat extra N. Class Y get non-combat extra M. Does that contribute to calling the classes balanced. (And for hypothetical purposes all else is equal except for extras M and N.)

 

[Morrus]

But will that be considered a balance against a combat advantage. Class X gets combat extra N. Class Y get non-combat extra M. Does that contribute to calling the classes balanced. (And for hypothetical purposes all else is equal except for extras M and N.)

We're really early in class design right now. I'm sure we'll try out all sorts of things.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I assume we want this game to be fun for players and GMs. Players generally don't like having their toys weakened or taken away, so I think a power decline is out of the question. How to do that while allowing the DM to maintain some level of control over his game I'm not sure.

What I'd really like to know is: how differently will this play compared to vanilla 5e?

 

[Kinematics]

If we just look at threads here, it appears the majority of posters just try to hope that Level Up will "fix" what they consider issues with 5e, so definitely "advanced as evolved" i.e. a game revision. The problem is, the majority of those who are NOT posting, is because they see nothing to fix, and have no interest in such changes, not to mention that everyone wants a different fix for the same thing.

I've avoided getting involved in some threads because I didn't want to get involved in the flame wars that were brewing up over certain topics. But I've also posted in threads where discussion just kinda died, because you reach a point where you can't really go anywhere without any feedback from those who are doing the development.

Does the idea not work with their vision? Is it something they're interested in, but would need tweaking? Is it something they like? Is it a design space they're not even interested in tackling? Are they making something of their own, and user discussion is a pointless exercise that's just going to be ignored? There's no way to know, because Morrus et al aren't talking. And without any direction, either the discussion just dies, or a handful of people burn thread space on circular arguments that don't go anywhere, and just drive people off.

 

[Morrus]

I assume we want this game to be fun for players and GMs.

No, we're designing it to be as unfun as possible.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

No, we're designing it to be as unfun as possible.

I'm sure you'll receive plenty of suggestions conducive to that.