D&D 5E What needs to be fixed in 5E?

[Stalker0]

I think that ongoing damage should actually be a bit rare and a bit more scary. Elemental damage from being on fire or having your arm in a block of ice, necrotic damage as your soul continues to get sucked out of your body, etc.

One of the pre-4E game elements that is missing is the "Scary damage".

I tried to do both when my last game got close to epic levels. I introduced two new concepts to the ongoing damage model:

1) Nova Damage: When exposed to nova damage, a player must immediately make a saving throw. On a failure, the player takes damage and must make another immediate saving throw. Continue until a saving throw is passed or the character is dead.

2) Escalating Damage (N): This kind of ongoing damage increases by N after each failed saving throw.

So Ongoing 5 (Escalating 5) damage does 5 damage the first round, 10 the second, 15 the third, etc.


So of course, for the scary monsters I introduced Ongoing (Nova, Escalating) damage.

The party fought a monster that dealt Ongoing 10 (Escalating 10, Nova) damage. It was extremely scary for them, because with nova damage there is nothing you can do except roll saving throws and pray. And of course with every save the pain got worse and worse.

It had the exact effect I was looking for, and also helped to overcome those ridiculous amount of resistances players tend to get at those levels.

 

[tuxgeo]

I wouldn't get rid of it either. I just don't like it for ongoing damage. There are many other game effects for which it works well.

Off the top of my head as an alternative to simple "ongoing damage (save ends)":

Decreasing Damage:
Get a saving throw every round to end it; but the amount of the damage decreases by 1/3 each round anyway; and it all ends when zero damage is being dealt, even without any successful saving throw.

It might be implemented this way:

[example]
Hit: 2d6 + [appropriate modifier] damage, plus 6 ongoing damage until the end of the target's next turn (save cancels all further aftereffects).
Aftereffect: 2/3 of the original ongoing damage of the attack until the end of the target's following turn [i.e. the turn following the "next turn" referred to in the "Hit" line] (save cancels all further aftereffects).
. Second Aftereffect: 1/3 of the original ongoing damage of the attack until the end of the target's subsequent turn [i.e.the turn following the "following turn" referred to in the "Aftereffect" line].

There. It's now broken down into three phases: full ongoing damage in the "next turn," 2/3 ongoing damage in the "following turn," and 1/3 ongoing damage in the "subsequent turn" -- and any single successful saving throw can end all further ongoing damage from this one attack in any one of those turns.

With no further aftereffects listed, no further damage results from this one attack -- so no characters necessarily have to "bleed out" due to repeated failed saves against one attack.

 

[KidSnide]

One of the pre-4E game elements that is missing is the "Scary damage". Before 4E, level drain was such an element. Players searching a barrow mound would actually be hesitant to have their PCs walk around and NOBODY went off on their own. Although losing levels is lame, there really isn't any scary effects in 4E. Most of it is "ho hum". Another wight. zzzzz

Overall, I think 5e should be a little bit scarier than 4e. I like the fact that 4e eliminated most of save-or-die and created encounter building guidelines that generate fights of more predictable difficulty. But I also think 4e went too far in making combat safe and predictable. I'd like to see 5e make combat a bit swingier, but -- just as importantly -- there need to be more combat elements that frighten the players.

Maybe more conditions need to be stackable? I think "not stackable" is probably the right default condition, but -- if the on-going damage represents a bleeding wound -- maybe each hit should produce a new wound? (And maybe, as you suggest, it should be a Heal check and not a save to get rid of it?)

Another possibility is to create more combinations. A medusa or basilisk would be scarier if characters subject to the petrification process suffered a vulnerability 5 to physical damage (as the flesh becomes brittle). You don't want situations where a character dies from a single die roll, but you do want situations where one die roll can make a player think "uh oh, I'm in trouble now."

At least part of this is about monster design. I ran a fight last month with a modified catoblepas. With it's pull power enhanced to "pull 10" and it's existing powers, my players had a tense fight and worried greatly about letting anyone drop to 0. There was real tension, but no sense of arbitrary doom.

-KS

 

[Fanaelialae]

It's possible to achieve that sense of arbitrary doom in 4e, although I do agree that it's a lot more difficult than in earlier editions. You just need to utilize monster synergy.

One of my DMs ran an encounter last year that I was certain we wouldn't survive. We had planned an ambush for enemy soldiers and sprung it without a hitch, but then everything went south. It was an important enemy commander, surrounded by a dozen or so soldier minions. Even very good rolls couldn't touch the enemy commander, and he was able to resurrect the minions that surrounded him automatically. We were considering retreat when I had my assassin make a last ditch pull attack against the commander and rolled a natural 20! Separated from the minions that boosted his defenses, I used an action point to pop a daily, along with all my shrouds, and finished him off. Without that natural 20 though, we wouldn't have stood a chance.

Both creatures came from the Monster Builder. The commander had some sort of resurrection aura for the minions, and the minions granted a stacking bonus to all defenses for any non-minion adjacent to them. Perfect synergy. Admittedly, it's an arguably broken combination, but then there was nothing especially fair about level drain either.

It is possible to put the fear of god into the PCs in 4e; just keep in mind that a TPK is a very real possibility when you do. I'll grant that that's one thing earlier editions did better; scare players without the likelihood of TPK.

I think mechanics of that variety are possible though. Perhaps energy drain could become long-term hp loss instead. It might be especially scary if, rather than a quick fix ritual, the only ones who could fix energy drain were a reclusive sect of monks (or some such). Spells like death ward and greater restoration really took the fear out of scary effects in higher level 3.x, which I feel was a mistake.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Regarding the earlier skill discussion, what about something like the following?


Aptitudes are broad "skill groups" that characters get only at first level. They're very similar to 4e skills, but instead represent areas of talent. Because of this, characters most likely wouldn't get very many of them (2-4?).

As someone suggested upthread, Aptitudes could be descriptive: Athletic, Deceptive, Knowledgeable, etc. Whatever the approach, they should cover a broad array of adventuring-oriented skills. A character who attempts something related to their Aptitude gains a talented bonus (like the 4e +5 trained bonus). For example, a Deceptive character would gain the talented bonus on checks such as bluff, disguise and forgery.


Characters would also receive skills. These would be fairly specific ala 3.x, such as Bluff, History, Pick Locks, and Underwater Basketweaving.

There could be four skill tiers: Untrained, Amateur, Expert, and Master. The latter three would grant automatic success when attempting checks of an appropriate DC. Maybe DC 5 for Amateurs, 10 for Experts, and 15 for Masters. Whatever the numbers, they should reflect an reasonable task for that given level of mastery. (Obviously, this should scale.)

Players would receive a certain number of skill points each level (8 at first level and 2 every level after that?), with Amateur rank costing 1 sp, Expert 2 sp, and Master 3 sp. If some skills are considered better than others, they might cost 1 extra sp for each rank, while "flavor" skills (Craft, Profession, and Performance) might cost 1 sp less. Obviously, the DM would have say as to how many free Amateur rank "flavor" skills one might acquire (or it could be capped by Intelligence).


I think the system has its advantages. Talented individuals with little to no training in a given skill would have a better than average chance of succeeding on a skill check, but no guarantees. A Knowledgeable character who's never had formal schooling would have a good chance of knowing something, but a low roll could indicate a gap in that knowledge.

On the other hand, a skilled but untalented character would automatically succeed with checks equal to his level of training, but anything beyond that might be quite difficult for him. A Master Historian has no difficulty recalling any but the most esoteric historical facts.

Finally, characters that are both skilled and talented gain the best of both worlds. A Knowledgeable Master Historian can recall all kinds of historical facts, and can often remember rare facts that are difficult for less talented historians to recall.

Discounting "flavor" skills also makes sense in my opinion. It costs a player nothing if they just want their character to be able to competently play the lute around the campfire after a long day. On the other hand, a character who's skilled enough to impress the king must pay for the advantage.


I'd also keep the 1/2 level bonus in some form. It makes sense that a grizzled 20th level veteran would be decent at all kinds of tasks. He's seen a lot in the time that it took to get to 20th level, and shouldn't be as inept as a wet-behind-the-ears 1st level journeyman. Even if he's never studied the subject himself, he's probably heard enough mages spout arcane facts that he has a chance of identifying an unknown magic. It doesn't necessarily have to be a 1/2 level bonus. It might be a 1/4 level bonus, or a 1/6 level bonus, or whatever. I do think it should be retained in some form though.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

Overall, I think 5e should be a little bit scarier than 4e. I like the fact that 4e eliminated most of save-or-die and created encounter building guidelines that generate fights of more predictable difficulty. But I also think 4e went too far in making combat safe and predictable. I'd like to see 5e make combat a bit swingier, but -- just as importantly -- there need to be more combat elements that frighten the players.

Maybe more conditions need to be stackable? I think "not stackable" is probably the right default condition, but -- if the on-going damage represents a bleeding wound -- maybe each hit should produce a new wound? (And maybe, as you suggest, it should be a Heal check and not a save to get rid of it?)

Another possibility is to create more combinations. A medusa or basilisk would be scarier if characters subject to the petrification process suffered a vulnerability 5 to physical damage (as the flesh becomes brittle). You don't want situations where a character dies from a single die roll, but you do want situations where one die roll can make a player think "uh oh, I'm in trouble now."

At least part of this is about monster design. I ran a fight last month with a modified catoblepas. With it's pull power enhanced to "pull 10" and it's existing powers, my players had a tense fight and worried greatly about letting anyone drop to 0. There was real tension, but no sense of arbitrary doom.

-KS

This right here! I believe it's a bit too easy to survive in 4th edition and actually stay dead to the point that I wonder why we even bother with it.

At least make coming back a pain in the ass. A -1 to all rolls just isn't enough in my opinion. I would say the higher level you are the more the negative is and I would charge the person a permanent Healing Surge drain of 1 each time they are brought back from the dead.

 

[KidSnide]

It's possible to achieve that sense of arbitrary doom in 4e, although I do agree that it's a lot more difficult than in earlier editions. You just need to utilize monster synergy.

...

It is possible to put the fear of god into the PCs in 4e; just keep in mind that a TPK is a very real possibility when you do. I'll grant that that's one thing earlier editions did better; scare players without the likelihood of TPK.

At the risk of nitpicking, arbitrary doom is a bad thing. That's when you walk into a room and the DM tells you, "Sorry, you rolled 2 on your saving throw. You're dead now." It's arbitrary because there's nothing you can do, and you had no reasonable expectation that you were putting your character's life on the line.

What we want is (1) a palpable risk that individual PCs will either die or suffer long-term consequences, where that PC and his friends can do things to seriously mitigate that risk (e.g. he's vulnerable, so the defenders try to pull enemies off him, etc.) and (2) a palpable risk that the party as a whole will lose an encounter when there is still an opportunity for the PCs to retreat.

The key to making risk fun is that (A) the PCs must be able to perceive the risk and (B) the PCs must be able to make a conscious decision to either accept the risk or give up some plot benefit (i.e. put a less vulnerable character at risk instead or retreat from the battle wholesale). If the PCs don't know about the risk then - from the player's perspective - it's arbitrary and random. If the PCs can't do anything about the risk, it can still be exciting but it's not really fair.

But yes, to address your particular example, foes that are deadly together and need to be divided and defeated piecemeal are great fun. We should have more of them.

-KS

 

[Tony Vargas]

OTOH I'm kind of skeptical about the whole aspect of 'combat' vs 'non-combat'. I disagree that there is a real distinction. I think OFTEN you can say that a SITUATION may be one or the other. I'm just not entirely sold on the concept that it is a good idea for a game to build a wall between the two.

The 'wall' would exist only at chargen and level up. The point of silo-ing choices like that is to prevent abuse of the system through extreme min/maxing. Y'know, the way you could pour all your spells, feats, skills and other choices into being an extreme bad-ass in combat, or a challenge-obviating solve-everything non-combat god, or an utterly worthless adventurer with an increadibly detailed set of background abilities who is just an /awesome/ cook or blacksmith or whatever.

Inevitably, /some/ non-combat abilities will occassionally come up in combat or vice versa, and some background ability will, once in a blue moon, make a difference in an adventuring challenge. The silos don't have to be absolute in play, they just have to keep player-choice resources balanced.

That way, a DM can let his game lean more towards combat or non-combat, or a player can get really into backstory and concept, without screwing up the balance among the PCs - or the encounter balance as the DM plans challenges.

 

[Mirtek]

I would like to see less parent classes and then just a lot of sub classes.

Like nowadays every new arcane caster is a wizard and can take wizard powers, 5e should have only a few parent classes with a lot of subclasses.

So bladesinger, arcanist, mage, witch, warlock, hexblade, swordmage and sorcerer would all be subclasses of the wizard class.

Templar, warpriest, runepriest, avenger, invoker would be among the subclasses of the cleric parent class, etc.

This way all subclasses will have a lot more support, since every time they release an article with witch powers, a swordmage or sorcerer would also be free to poach from these powers.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The 'wall' would exist only at chargen and level up. The point of silo-ing choices like that is to prevent abuse of the system through extreme min/maxing. Y'know, the way you could pour all your spells, feats, skills and other choices into being an extreme bad-ass in combat, or a challenge-obviating solve-everything non-combat god, or an utterly worthless adventurer with an increadibly detailed set of background abilities who is just an /awesome/ cook or blacksmith or whatever.

Inevitably, /some/ non-combat abilities will occassionally come up in combat or vice versa, and some background ability will, once in a blue moon, make a difference in an adventuring challenge. The silos don't have to be absolute in play, they just have to keep player-choice resources balanced.

That way, a DM can let his game lean more towards combat or non-combat, or a player can get really into backstory and concept, without screwing up the balance among the PCs - or the encounter balance as the DM plans challenges.

The way to avoid min/maxing is for the DM to create a variety of situations. People who spend all their time and energy maxing their combat capability stumble around outside of a fight being a drag. Pretty soon the player spends a feat or two or picks a utility power, etc that lets them do something outside of combat, problem solved.

Instead of making silos the answer is dual-use. There should be very few things that have no use only in or out of combat. 4e actually did a reasonable job of that with skills, most of them have explicit combat uses (some are pretty marginal or a bit dubious, but in general skills are dual-use). So the answer is to make more powers dual-use as well.

In fact instead of creating artificial silos that force people to make their characters in certain ways I would remove the division of powers into attack and utility and make EVERY power dual-use, having both a combat function and a utility function. I guess there could be a FEW powers that only do one or the other, or are mainly one or the other, but even those should have a non-combat function spelled out, even if it is rather limited.

All silos do is forbid perfectly good character concepts, or force people to do lame things like ignore half their class features in order to have a certain concept. I know you'll reply that "character who isn't much good in combat" is "not doing it right" and I agree that it isn't a type of character that has to be predominant, but there are plenty of situations where you might want to make a character that for instance starts out innocent and learns to fight, etc.