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Why does 5E SUCK?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6653782" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>I don't think it matters much here what you're playing, but I look at it in terms of 'process' when talking about game systems. I probably won't have established all the details of demons and demonology beforehand. It will come up at some point in the game in relation to a specific instance of demon possession or whatnot. That element will obviously be introduced to the game WRT characters and situations present at that time in play. So the DC will naturally need to reflect whatever role that element plays in the story. Hence what I will be thinking, in any system, is "I need a DC of X, this is supposed to be hard, so I want it to be high enough to explain why the PCs were called in, but low enough that when they take the proper steps they'll banish the demon." Now, if that's a pretty low DC, then maybe in the fiction I make this a 'low level' demon. That is I leave it fictionally that there could potentially be demons of much greater power which these relatively weak PCs couldn't handle. That question probably won't even come up, but its simply implicit in the way 4e handles it. </p><p></p><p>Now, maybe I've roughly outlined demonology already, or maybe I do so afterwards just for my own edification or to provide the PCs with some sort of clue or background knowledge. At that point I may well have done as you suggest, and established some DCs for different things, but again if those DCs can be attached to levels, then I am able to gauge that a DC 26 possession is one that 12th level PCs will handle with some difficulty, but that level 30 PCs will find trivially easy.</p><p></p><p>In other words you can run that system backwards and forwards as required. You can also use it to set an XP reward. </p><p></p><p>I don't think any of us realistically thinks DMs can't look at numbers and gauge these things in 5e, but it requires a bit of additional thinking, toting up what a PC's likely bonuses are NOW to see what is relatively easy or hard. 4e just did that step for you. The reasoning is a lot of DCs come up on-the-fly in play and the system acts as a good rule-of-thumb way to get generally useful DCs that can help make play interesting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 6653782, member: 82106"] I don't think it matters much here what you're playing, but I look at it in terms of 'process' when talking about game systems. I probably won't have established all the details of demons and demonology beforehand. It will come up at some point in the game in relation to a specific instance of demon possession or whatnot. That element will obviously be introduced to the game WRT characters and situations present at that time in play. So the DC will naturally need to reflect whatever role that element plays in the story. Hence what I will be thinking, in any system, is "I need a DC of X, this is supposed to be hard, so I want it to be high enough to explain why the PCs were called in, but low enough that when they take the proper steps they'll banish the demon." Now, if that's a pretty low DC, then maybe in the fiction I make this a 'low level' demon. That is I leave it fictionally that there could potentially be demons of much greater power which these relatively weak PCs couldn't handle. That question probably won't even come up, but its simply implicit in the way 4e handles it. Now, maybe I've roughly outlined demonology already, or maybe I do so afterwards just for my own edification or to provide the PCs with some sort of clue or background knowledge. At that point I may well have done as you suggest, and established some DCs for different things, but again if those DCs can be attached to levels, then I am able to gauge that a DC 26 possession is one that 12th level PCs will handle with some difficulty, but that level 30 PCs will find trivially easy. In other words you can run that system backwards and forwards as required. You can also use it to set an XP reward. I don't think any of us realistically thinks DMs can't look at numbers and gauge these things in 5e, but it requires a bit of additional thinking, toting up what a PC's likely bonuses are NOW to see what is relatively easy or hard. 4e just did that step for you. The reasoning is a lot of DCs come up on-the-fly in play and the system acts as a good rule-of-thumb way to get generally useful DCs that can help make play interesting. [/QUOTE]
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