D&D 5E Will magic be problematic at latter levels?

[RangerWickett]

Why do you loathe thresholds?

I swing a sword at you. If you have enough HP, that sword will never kill you.

I dump you into a pit of acid. If you have enough HP, that acid won't be fatal.

I grapple you and try to snap your neck. If you have enough HP, your neck is okay for another round at least.

So why, if I try to take control of your mind, turn you into a frog, or simply stop your heart does HP not matter any more?

I think we're all pretty clear that HP isn't just flesh that has to be hacked away before an enemy gets to your internal organs. It's your ability to turn something that should mess you up into something that messes you up less.

If you're okay with a low level wizard casting hold person and paralyzing the high-level guy because he rolled low on his save (or even both saves, if you're getting advantage), then you should be okay with a goblin getting lucky when he throws a spear and kills your high-level PC in one hit.

I know the go-to counter is "it's magic; you can dodge a sword, but you can't dodge a spell," but since magic doesn't really exist, and the game designers get to decide how magic works, I'd much prefer they pick a variety of magic that can a) do awesome things like levitate, turn invisible, and open portals to other worlds without b) being unbalanced and challenge-short-circuiting in combat.

 

[Kraydak]

Why do you loathe thresholds?
...

HP thresholds have a useful place, but they don't really work to rein in high level spellcasters. Firstly, they suffer from the fact that in DnD you cannot tell a target's hp from their description. You can put lower bounds on the hp totals of really big guys, but even those are very approximate. HP thresholds are therefore frustrating to players. Secondly, once beyond the first few levels, spellcasters have a goodly number of top level/near top level spells. Allowing even one all-but-guaranteed-to-land save-or-really-suck spell is really risky balancing, and using hp threshold means allowing many such with the current saving throw rules. That makes HP thresholds a non-solution to the Saving Throw Scaling problem.

Where HP threshold are useful is at (very) low levels. Low level casters don't have that many spells, so they need their spells to be fairly effective. On the other hand, you don't want the spells staying effective at higher levels, when the casters have decent size spell pools. High level casters should be relying on high level spells for powerful effects. Having a category of low level spell that is over-effective but threshold limited (like 1e/2e Sleep!) is a good workaround.

 

[pemerton]

Basically in previous packets spellcasters had "magical attack bonus" with presumably the same progression up to +5, but it rolled against the taget's static AC. OTOH the spell DC for ST IIRC did not scale by level.

A level-based save DC progression, but less than the attack progression, was introduced in the October packed. The two progressions were merged in the December packet.

As far as I can tell, they were always intended to merge, but in the earlier packets, which only went up to 10th level, the attack progression was compressed so as to scale to it full (20th level) extent over the course of 10 levels (presumably as a test of bounded accuracy for AC), whereas the save progression, when introduced over 10 levels, already reflected its full 20-level spread. (So the 10 levels of save progression in the October packet are identical to the first 10 of 20 levels in the December packet.)

 

[n00bdragon]

HP thresholds have a useful place, but they don't really work to rein in high level spellcasters. Firstly, they suffer from the fact that in DnD you cannot tell a target's hp from their description. You can put lower bounds on the hp totals of really big guys, but even those are very approximate. HP thresholds are therefore frustrating to players. Secondly, once beyond the first few levels, spellcasters have a goodly number of top level/near top level spells. Allowing even one all-but-guaranteed-to-land save-or-really-suck spell is really risky balancing, and using hp threshold means allowing many such with the current saving throw rules. That makes HP thresholds a non-solution to the Saving Throw Scaling problem.

Where HP threshold are useful is at (very) low levels. Low level casters don't have that many spells, so they need their spells to be fairly effective. On the other hand, you don't want the spells staying effective at higher levels, when the casters have decent size spell pools. High level casters should be relying on high level spells for powerful effects. Having a category of low level spell that is over-effective but threshold limited (like 1e/2e Sleep!) is a good workaround.

Or they could just put a rule in the game that players are allowed to know the HP values of monsters so we don't have the ridiculous guessing game and having to rely on the DM's description to figure out how close something is to dead.

Seriously, is there a reason this isn't a rule already? Like-- a real reason and not "IT VIOLATES MY VERISIMILITUDE!"?

 

[GX.Sigma]

Or they could just put a rule in the game that players are allowed to know the HP values of monsters so we don't have the ridiculous guessing game and having to rely on the DM's description to figure out how close something is to dead.

Seriously, is there a reason this isn't a rule already? Like-- a real reason and not "IT VIOLATES MY VERISIMILITUDE!"?

Is there a reason it should be?

 

[n00bdragon]

Is there a reason it should be?

Other than:
- It gets rid of pointless guessing at how dead monsters are
- It gets rid of players having to carry a monster manual with them and count down the HP themselves
- It allows the game to use number of monster hit points as design space, such as with HP threshholds, in a sane way
- It's commonly done at many tables anyway, codifying it as a rule removes ambiguity and improves the experience of new players who may not recognize its value

absolutely none whatsoever.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Why do you loathe thresholds?

I think HP thresholds are a bad mechanic for several reasons.

* It forces players to guess what a monster's HPs are (or worse, resort to metagame knowledge). Guessing wrong means the spell is wasted with little or no effect. For example, if I try to cast Power Word Kill on a monster that has more than 50 HP, the spell does absolutely nothing. At least a damaging spell would have reduced its HP and brought the monster closer to death.

These spells are binary, they either work or they don't, and the mechanic that decides whether they work or not is not something a player could reasonably be expected to know. Since HP are an abstraction, there really is no way to convey to a player in roleplaying terms how many HP a monster has. There are creatures that have immunities or resistances that make sense in the game world. A player can tell that it is probably unwise to try and trip a gelatinous cube, or that using a fire spell on a fire elemental is futile. But how do you know if something has a certain number of HP? You can't, not unless you cheat. And since the consequence of being wrong means wasting your turn and a daily spell, you often can't afford to be wrong.

* Some of these spells use HP thresholds as an excuse not to have a saving throw, despite having a very nasty effect (Power Word Kill, again, being a good example). If you have less than 50 HP and some casts that on you, you're dead. No save. No roll to hit. Nothing. You just lose. These spells are useless if the target has too many HP, and overpowered if they do work. I don't find either extreme to be acceptable.

* This mechanic is contrary to the bounded accuracy philosophy. One of the design goals of this edition is that players and monsters don't get large bonuses to stats, attack rolls, saves, AC, etc. just because they're higher level. This gives lower level characters a chance against higher level creatures, but also allows lower level monsters to remain somewhat relevant threats against higher level characters. But there is a stat that does still greatly inflate with level - hit points. And by tying that to these spells, they alone are stuck with the old level paradigm, even though it clashes with the rest of the system. Spells like Charm Person remain just as useful at level 20 as they were at level 1. Spells like Sleep do not.

* This mechanic leads to nonsensical player behavior, such as "beat up the shopkeeper so I can charm him!" I know charm person doesn't have a hp threshold anymore, but it used to, and I'm just using it for the sake of example to show how nonsensical this concept is and the equally nonsensical behavior it causes.

 

[kerleth]

[MENTION=6689371]n00bdragon[/MENTION], aside from versimilitude (which CAN be a good enough argument in some situations), how about because suspense can be built by not knowing how much more it will take to drop an enemy except in vague terms. I always told players when something hit half hp but that was it. Also, some might wish to prevent the metagaming that might result. Instead they want someone to say "I don't know how much more it will take to drop this guy, if this doesn't do it I'm done. Should I retreat?" If it is in the rules then it can be houseruled away, but it is generally easier to add than to subtract, as a general design rule and a rule of interaction (the "Don't take my shiny!" phenomenon).

 

[n00bdragon]

[MENTION=84383]kerleth[/MENTION]
I don't follow. If you tell players when a monster hits half HP then you are essentially telling them exactly how much HP it has. Not that it matters because they can, in most cases, simply flip open a monster manual and look at the monster's exact stat block. This will become doubly true with 5e since there doesn't appear to be any underlying formula to monster design, making designing your own that much more difficult. So what's more metagamey? Simply telling your players that the ogre has 10HP left or having them sit there with a pad of paper and a monster manual counting damage and referencing the book?

 

[Kinak]

I do really like the HP thresholds, but they need some effect on "miss." Like they deal damage if the target's HP are too high (which makes sense for things like Power Word: Kill) or the spell isn't expended if it fails, that sort of thing.

With that caveat, I'd love to see HP thresholds as an option. Not all spells need them, obviously, but ending a battle based on the effect of one die roll has never sat well with me.

This is even more important in 5e with the slow scaling (other than damage/HP). You can see it easily comparing Lightning Bolt and Hold Person. They're trying to fix the "quadratic wizard" problem by making Lightning Bolt scale with spell level, but Hold Person still automatically scales based on the difficulty of the opponent you're targeting.

Cheers!
Kinak