D&D 5E What would 5E be like if the playtest's modularity promise was kept?

[Parmandur]

I guess I see most if not all combat misses" as in fact being outright misses - you either didn't connect with the foe at all or your connection was of so little impact that the foe could - and did - ignore it completely.

Contrast this with being caught in a fireball. There's no way it can miss you entirely, the question is merely how much damage did it cause.

And it only just this minute occured to me after nearly 40 years: the save-for-half mechanic might be no more than a simple way of replicating the idea that not everyone is going to take the same amount of damage from a given effect. More accurate - but also more cumbersome - would be to roll the damage separately for each creature in the area.

Rolling a 2 and being done is, to me, just part of the game.

The main thing here is that HP are not just measures of fleshly integrity, but also represent plot armor. John McClane has way more HP than any of the East German terrorists, but it's not because his body is tougher, it's because he has the screenwriter on his side. High HP people are more important, so they get more "chances." A "hit" with a sword can be a sword to sword contact that does no physical damage, but is part of the plot armor being degraded.

 

[Ondath]

Rolling a 2 and being done is, to me, just part of the game.

Matt Colville had mentioned in a Twitter thread how a game where misses are common is mostly indicative of a fast-paced combat system designed to be run with multiple players. If there are 6+ players itching to have their turn, it's best to have a system where there aren't a lot of choices, and it's alright if your turn whiffs since others can pick up the slack for you. But if every turn already takes a while and you spend a lot of brain power on making a good decision, it hurts more if nothing you did was effective that turn. I've seen players go absolutely forlorn when they just had bad luck for an entire turn and couldn't do anything, and I've been the sore player who got really annoyed when none of their efforts paid off. 5E's current design is really pushed towards the idea of you being an epic hero doing epic hero stuff, so I think people are right when they say that rolling a 2 and passing feels bad in the current edition. In older editions (or in OSR games), that's not so.

Which does make me wonder if the math of the game should change in a modular system to replicate different play styles (and different suggested group sizes!)...

 

[Parmandur]

They didn't go with 90% even then. There's no way that 90% wanted the inclusion of alignment. There's no way 90% wanted bounded accuracy. There's no way 90% wanted a multiple classes that made it in. There's no way that 90% wanted spells not to scale with level. I doubt very many things at all got a full 90%. That's not how humanity works.

I dunno, I'm actually willing to believe all of thst, given how 5E has been received.

 

[Maxperson]

I dunno, I'm actually willing to believe all of thst, given how 5E has been received.

It hasn't been received by 90% of the people who played D&D. It has brought in many NEW people, but out of 100% of people who played up until 5e was released, there's no way 90% or more made the switch.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Here's quality for you!

"Eating McDonald's regularly — and fast food in general — isn't a sustainable diet. The 2004 documentary Super Size Me followed documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock as he ate three meals a day at the fast-food chain for 30 days. He gained almost 25 pounds and was told he suffered from irreversible heart damage."

There are a great many quality(real quality) foods that I could eat like that for 30 days and be better off for it at the end.

And then, Super Size Me! Was a highly popular documentary to site despite its results never being able to be replicated, Spurlock fudging the results by limiting his exercise and thus adding another variable, and also it turning out he lied about his starting health.

A high quality documentary that was neither of those things.

 

[Parmandur]

It hasn't been received by 90% of the people who played D&D. It has brought in many NEW people, but out of 100% of people who played up until 5e was released, there's no way 90% or more made the switch.

I dunno, the older player base is millions upon millions strong, based on the numbers we have. I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Maxperson]

And then, Super Size Me! Was a highly popular documentary to site despite its results never being able to be replicated, Spurlock fudging the results by limiting his exercise and thus adding another variable, and also it turning out he lied about his starting health.

A high quality documentary that was neither of those things.

Maybe, but McDonalds being unhealthy has been a known fact for decades. I mean, their potato fries last decades without getting moldy. Processed meat, cheese and bread. Super high salt levels. And more. It ain't quality food. It doesn't reach a grade of C(average) on the health scale.

 

[Maxperson]

I dunno, the older player base is millions upon millions strong, based on the numbers we have. I wouldn't be surprised.

I doubt it hit even 70% of D&D players, let alone the impossible(and yes with the way humans work it's impossible) level of a 90% success rate with all D&D players up to that point.

 

[Parmandur]

Maybe, but McDonalds being unhealthy has been a known fact for decades. I mean, their potato fries last decades without getting moldy. Processed meat, cheese and bread. Super high salt levels. And more. It ain't quality food. It doesn't reach a grade of C(average) on the health scale.

Yeah, not a favorable analogy, and I don't thinknit really fits. McDonalds is more like those App puzzle games where you are trying to get some gold from a minotaur.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Maybe, but McDonalds being unhealthy has been a known fact for decades.

Yeah, but it helps the point that the blatant hyperbolic hit piece was, itself super popular to the point it is still being cited.

I mean, their potato fries last decades without getting moldy.

Honey and wine can do that too. Being dehydrated (and thus preserved) is not 'unhealthy', it's just a scare tactic used by people when they don't want to engage science while whipping people into a panic. Like talking about pro...

Processed meat, cheese and bread.

Oh.

Science isn't evil. Preserving and improving food isn't evil. The actual processes involved might be problem, but not actual processing. Hemlock and anthrax are all natural. Penicillin is processed.

Super high salt levels.

There it is. We got one.

And more.

There's like so many better ones in the 'and more' than the buzzwords used to sell overpriced food with bugs in.