D&D 5E You can't necessarily go back

[Obryn]

I'm not arguing 2. I am strongly disputing 1. I didn't break any rule as DM when I chose to not use NPC classes. (Save expert). No rule got broken.

No, and all that means that you're running a non-standard campaign. Which is just fine (and I'm sincerely glad you found a way of playing that works for you and your group), but it's sidling up to a Rule 0 fallacy.

I am not claiming you are breaking any rules. I am saying that the notion of the PCs being "special" is very obvious in the 3.5 rulebooks themselves (and 2e books, and even 1e books, posted above). The fact that you, personally, run a different campaign is fine, but it's a bit besides the point.

-O

 

[underfoot007ct]

Are you sure you want to state that?

Let's get this straight.......

Since is is perfectly correct, I will state that as well.

 

[pemerton]

The GSL is the glaring difference.

I was rereading "Worlds & Monsters" last night. Besides being reminded that it is one of the better DMG books ever produced for D&D, I also noticed that, in one of the desinger blogs reproduced at the end (I think Bill Slavicsek), they said that they anticipated that most 3PPs would support 4e henceforth. Oops! - that's a prediction that failed to come true.

 

[pemerton]

If I understand correctly, the choice of applying an ability score to various modifiers has made it even easier than previous editions to have dump stats

I full well expect the average wizard to max Int and dump Str, I just think that it should matter that their Str is low. Even moreso, I think that it should matter if a character's Int, Wis, or Cha is low (or high). Too often in 3e, this was not the case. I get the sense 4e worsened the problem.

Your sense of 4e is, on the basis of my own experience, mistaken.

Because 4e has robust mechanics for framing and resolving non-combat challenges, it makes non-combat skills and stats more important to a range of PCs than they otherwise might tend to be.

D&Dnext is trying to replicate this feature of 4e, but by focusing on threat-avoidance (ie saving throws) rather than activity and taking charge of the story (ie skill checks in a skill challenge). I personally feel this to be a retrograde step, but it is fitting with the move away from indie-style design in 4e to traditional design in Next.

I am aware of Elminster and Mordenkainen, thanks. Where'd that come from? I am not arguing that powerful NPCs do not exist - merely that the actual rules of the game start the PCs out as "special" compared to the average butcher. And it's been this way since 1e first made "4d6 pick 3" standard for PCs. This is not some new, post-2005 invention, and it consistently shocks me when it's treated as such.

In 1st ed AD&D there is also the concept of "0-level humans" (and halflings), as well as of fighters (like sergeants, lieutenants and captains) who have fighter levels but are incapalbe of earning XP or gaining levels. And in B/X there are "normal men" (sic), who are the functional equivalent of AD&D's 0-levels.

I suggest you go back and open your 1e or Basic/Expert books and read the monster sections. You'll find rules for Normal Human, or something to that effect. And they certainly AREN'T PC classed individuals. In fact, the Basic D&D book specifically states "A normal human does not have a class" (Basic Rules p B40).

AIR, the 1e DMG did have some basic ideas for NPC classes - a witch IIRC - but, very little beyond that.

No witches in 1st ed AD&D, or any NPC classes (apologies for calling you out on your own acknowledged weakness). But there are rules for NPCs occupying PC classes which set different (less onerous) stat requirements.

There is also the sage, which is not a class, but is an 8HD NPC who has a mix of spell and other abilities that no PC can attain.

Are you making the case that a PC with a particular race, class, level, ability array, equipment set, and so on, is different from an NPC with the same characteristics?

But now all you have done is itemise that suite of mechanical features which are definitive of a character in one edition of D&D. Of course two entities who are mechanically identical will be mechanically identical. But that is not an especially interesting conclusion.

In B/X, for example, race and class are not distinct for all PCs (or NPCs). In 1st ed AD&D, there is the concept of the 0-level human (or halfling) which has no applicability to PCs. There is also the difference in stat prerequisites for PCs to be of a particular class (compared to NPCs).

I mean, in 4e it is true that a PC with a particular race, class, level, ability array, equipment set, power set and the like is identical to an NPC with the same stats. It's just that the game discourages the GM from designing such NPCs. Just as earlier editions discourage the GM from building most NPCs using the same resources and generation technique as for PCs.

If a monster has a daily ability, and using that ability once during each day of its enture in-game lifespan would cause problems, it's not balanced, even if it plays fine during a short straight-up combat.

4e has almost no daily abilities for monster or NPCs (I can't think of any other than those that result from building an NPC by drawing on the PC build rules, as described in DMG and DMG2). Monsters and NPCs do have healing surges, but (typically) no way of unlocking them other than a short rest.

So this concern is not really apposite for 4e.

You might hold them [edit: PCs and NPCs] to different standards, but they live in the same (fantasy) world.

The issue about balance is not "balance between story elements". It's about "balance between participants". It's the player, not the PC, who suffers when the PC build rules and action resolution rules produce imbalance.

If two PCs are balanced over the course of one possible type of encounter, are they balanced? If you're going to posit a game with open-ended possibilities, balance in that game needs to occur outside of the typical encounter.

That is true for PCs expected to be played in an essentially open-ended campaign. It is not true of a tournament or one-shot scenario, though, where (everything else being equal) the PCs should be balanced for that scenario.

And it is certainly not true for monsters and NPCs, which are (typically) not vehicles for anyone's protagonism.

But it matters which arbitrary metagame role is assigned to a particular character? It matters which person has control of that character

Those metagame roles are not arbitrary. And yes, it matters. If the GM has control of a character it's OK - even desirable - that it be simple to play, and therefore perhaps a little boring considered on its own. Whereas that it is a potentially serious objection to a character who is being controlled by a player.

Hence the possibility, and even desirability - as came up in another thread - of changing the stats of a creature if it moves from being a PC to an NPC or vice versa.

WotC completely missed the zeitgeist of the past decade, and focused on a narrow group: "gamers". They assumed that current or prospective D&D players were stereotypical WoWers or some other variety of the same persona: adrenaline junkies bent on dominating a game world. In trying to make the game suitable for that customer, they ignored everyone else, and ignored the actual issues plaguing D&D. The main problems with D&D are not about balance, they're about the game not being believable enough or accessible enough for new players.

This characterisation doesn't capture very well the sort of play that 4e rewards, nor the way it is being played by many of those on these forums who are running it and post about their games. It seems most apposite to characterise Gygaxian AD&D play (look at the classic Dragon magazine descriptions of "Monty Haul", for example, when Gygax and co's PCs ended up on the Starship Warden).

Apart from many other features of the game, 4e lacks the high powered magic that supports gameworld domination in earlier editions of the game.

People build characters with 10 classes because one class wasn't getting them the flavor or the power they wanted. It is needlessly complex. The solution is to let them play the character they want without having to take 10 classes

<snip>

The way to do this would be to increase the flexibility of class abilities and design the classes so that they are worth sticking with

<snip>

Ultimately, it would be addressed by letting people build characters without the constraints of classes.

<snip>

What D&D needed was a tougher health system and less powerful healing

<snip>

so someone who hasn't played D&D before can look at it and see a real scenario.

Given your apparent preferences, it surprises me that you never seem to have tried a game that plays in the way you describe here. There are many of them, some of the best having roots in the late-70/early-80s simulationist reaction against D&D: Rolemaster, RuneQuest, HERO, GURPS.

Iron Crown Enterprises has just re-released HARP (High Adventure Role Playing), a light version of Rolemaster, which I think would suit your preferences. Or, for a somewhat different take on "realistic" gritty fantasy, you might look at Burning Wheel, which has just recently released a new edition (BW Gold).

But in fact I don't think there's a lot of evidence that most D&D players want what you say they do. Hit points are plot protection in a fighting-oriented game, and I think most D&D players enjoy its focus on combat as the principal site of conflict resolution, and - given that - enjoy the (non-simulationist, unrealistic) plot protection that hit points provide.

 

[pemerton]

You have a hang up with magic being magic. I get that. If mundane does everything magic does then is magic magic?

That is a red herring. No one is saying that fighter should be able to teleport or view distant places through crystal balls without the use of magic.

But it doesn't take magic to perform a lightning-fast attack against several nearby opponents. However, the details of D&D's action resolution mechanics require that this be handled carefully in the action economy. Note the contrast, for example, with Tunnels & Trolls, where there is no mechanical difference between attacking one enemy and attacking a group of them.

Of course, D&D's action resolution system - with a turn-based action economy - is itself a metagame mechanic, which then benefits, from the mechanical balance point of view, by layering on other metagame mechanics like martial dailies.

There is no difference, in the fiction, between a 4e fighter and a T&T fighter carving their way through a horde of orcs - but only D&D has the mechanical system (turn-based combat with an action economy) to make martial dailies a mechanically apposite feature of the system.

If 1) doesn't work, we can give the fighter a set pool of points called "fatigue" or "stamina" or "adrenaline". He can use those to activate this skills, until he is too tired to do any more. He can repeat them, to avoid "plot coupons". He, as a character, is aware of this powers being tiring, just like he is aware of his hit points. So it's not dissociative.

Would you accept this solution?

I know I'm not your target audience for that question, but (for what it's worth) my concerns would be that the potential for spamtasticality (i) makes balance more difficult to achieve, and (ii) makes it more likely that gameplay will be boring. Also, there is the fact that a fighter can be low on fatigue/stamina/adrenaline yet fight, run and jump at full capacity. What are we measuring again? It looks to me like an arbitrary metagame pool. So let's just have encounter powers and avoid the problems of spamtasticality.

D&D has powerful wizards that can outclass the warriors in some ways, and especially at high levels. Part of it's identity is unashamedly as an "Ars Magica Lite".

1st ed AD&D is upfront of this. So is B/X, though to a somewhat lesser extent I think. But I don't think that 3E says this, nor did 2nd ed as best I recall (but it's been a long time since I've looked at a 2nd ed PHB). And obviously 4e does not take this approach at all.

Just as I think it can be a mistake to project 3E's approach onto all editions, I think it can be a mistake to project the classic D&D approach onto later editions.

Daily powers, regardless of rationale, have never proven great for balance in D&D - even if they don't cause class imbalance (if all classes have them, for instance), they still cause encounter imbalances if the DM doesn't stick to an average number of daily-resource-consuming challenges per day.

I'm not sure what you mean by "encounter imbalance". In 4e, if the players all deploy a good chunk of their PCs' daily powers, the encounter will be a bit easier than it otherwise would be, but in my general experience this doesn't have too big an effect on combat pacing and excitement. And hurting pacing is the only way I can make sense, at the moment, of the "balance" of an individual encounter being mucked up.

Actually, 3e can be balanced over all levels, without any excessive effort by the DM.

<snip>

If 4e were really that balanced, I don't think we'd be posting this in a 5e forum.

I think the issue here is GM force. The sort of effort that 3E requires from a GM, once play is at (say) 9th level and above, is a high degree of GM force over many aspects of the game. Whereas 4e is designed to deliver balance (both mechanical effectiveness balance and spotlight balance) without significant exercise of GM force over any but one part of the game - namely, scene-framing.

I think that part of the dislike of 4e from some RPGers is there dislike of this model of GMing (again, something that 4e takes up from well-known modern indie RPGs). And D&Dnext is turning back to a model of GMing that has been more traditional for D&D, and that I think reached its peak with 2nd ed and a certain sort of 2nd-ed-ish approach to 3E. The slogan for this is "DM empowerment".

Is a mechanic that causes you to break immersion and laugh out loud in an otherwise serious game situation a problem?

Sure. That's why many people can't take hit points seriously: either because they dislike them as a metagame mechanic, or becaus they burst into laughter at the idea of hit points as "meat", as if human bodies were planks of wood that might gradually get whittled away by goblin sword blows.

I was once such a person. Then 4e showed me a game built around taking hit point seriously as a metagame mechanic.

What excatly does this prove about hit points?

I'm going to stick with the bolded defintion then. By that defiinition, a martial daily isn't a plot coupon. Let's take "brutal strike". It completelly fails to fulfill your definition

The resource management part of it is the plot coupon. The fact I can't do it again is a game rule limitation that has no correlation in the game world.

But you can do it again. Brutal Strike reduces the hit points of the victim by X. There are other ways to reduce the hit points of a victim by X - especially if X is defined in fictional rather than mechancial terms (given that any of a range of changes in hit point status can have the same fictional meaning, and vice versa).

"Oh, divine heroinous! I'm here, fighting three evil demons from the evil Abyss, which came to defile your sacred sanctum, sent by you, personally! I'll smite them, to your glory, and to save the lives of the inocents who are praying you in this holy temple!

Here I go! ONE. TWO! Thr..err.. what the... Why can`t I smite the third one? Why does Heroious ignore me? Why would he want me to fail, die, his temple desecrated, and his inocent followers to be brutally murdered and raped?"

Did no one ever tell you that Heironeous moves in mysterious ways!

I actually posted, upthread, an argument that so-called "dissociative mechanics" provide a better support for immerisvely playing a PC of faith, because they prevent just the sort of thing you describe from happening, by permitting the player to narrate victories as divine assistance and failures as divine punishment. [MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION] has not yet responded to it.

For me this view is really the most pernicious one. I thought 3e brought this view into the game but the seeds of it were obviously growing earlier.

All the way back in the 1970s, as the quote from Gygax's DMG shows!

I do not and have never played that PCs are special in the world.

Which is to say, you depart from published assumptions for play that date back at least to 1979. Yet you continue to post as if you have some special or inherent grasp on the "essence" of D&D!

Just as you think your "no PC is special" approach best captures the spirit of D&D, so you might recognise that others of us think (for example) that our 4e games capture, in a more than merely adequate way, the spirit of D&D.

What is wrong with those who love D&D fighting for it's identity. I love D&D.

But you insist on telling other who also love D&D that they hate it. If you want your love for the game to be acknowledged, you might do others the courtesy of reciprocation.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm not sure what you mean by "encounter imbalance". In 4e, if the players all deploy a good chunk of their PCs' daily powers, the encounter will be a bit easier than it otherwise would be, but in my general experience this doesn't have too big an effect on combat pacing and excitement. And hurting pacing is the only way I can make sense, at the moment, of the "balance" of an individual encounter being mucked up.

What I mean is that a single encounter in which dailies can be expended freely (because the players feel they can arrange a sufficient 'rest' afterwards, for whatever in-game or meta-game reasons, for instance) has to be significantly more dangerous to represent the same level of challenge. It's not something that's terribly hard to compensate for, but it's a potential monkey-wrench. Players may 'go off on' an encounter that they concluded was tougher than it really was, making it trivial, and leaving them under-prepared for the next one ... so they decide to rest, making the next encounter, for which they were supposed to have already faced some attrition, /also/ easier than it was meant to be.

It's not nearly as problematic as class imbalance - it might lead to more rapid advancement then planned because tougher, higher-exp encounter need to be brought out more often, or it might make encounters seem less challenging, or it might result in the occasional TPK if it spirals out of control - but, depending on how dailies are distributed among classes, it could be in addition to class imbalance, and exacerbate it.

 

[pemerton]

What I mean is that a single encounter in which dailies can be expended freely (because the players feel they can arrange a sufficient 'rest' afterwards, for whatever in-game or meta-game reasons, for instance) has to be significantly more dangerous to represent the same level of challenge. It's not something that's terribly hard to compensate for, but it's a potential monkey-wrench. Players may 'go off on' an encounter that they concluded was tougher than it really was, making it trivial, and leaving them under-prepared for the next one ... so they decide to rest, making the next encounter, for which they were supposed to have already faced some attrition, /also/ easier than it was meant to be.

It's not nearly as problematic as class imbalance - it might lead to more rapid advancement then planned because tougher, higher-exp encounter need to be brought out more often, or it might make encounters seem less challenging, or it might result in the occasional TPK if it spirals out of control

Thanks for the reply. The point you were/are making is clear to me, though I personally haven't found this to be a big issue - despite being described by some of those who don't play it as being balanced on a razor's edge, I find 4e very forgiving of these sorts of variations. And I'm personally always happy to expedite level gain, as my group only gets to play once every 2 to 3 weeks!

But my group are not especially rest-hungry as long as they have surges left, and are very good at eking out whaterver juice they have left in the tank - I can see how a more "swat team" style group, particularly if they were also not that strong at real-time tactical play, could push this aspect of the game a lot harder. Which I think might tend to produce boring play.

 

[Neonchameleon]

The current playtest has many of the attributes that has made D&D poorly or 'delicately' balanced in the past. It's clearly poorly balanced in that relative class effectiveness can't help but swing significantly between single-encounter and multiple-encounter days, for instance.

Scratch that. The current playtest has the Warlock class - the ability to turn etherial and walk through walls for two rounds twice an encounter is spectacularly powerful. As is the ability to create ten pints of oil. Both at first level. No one is safe from arson!

At least it's better than the previous playtest which was "balanced" such that the cleric with one first level spell that lasted for an hour was as good a fighter as the fighter. Only once we get past the risible balance issues can we even start to see how the mechanics are balanced.

Are you sure you want to state that?

Let's get this straight.
Balance is some immutable property of the rules; it remains the same whether you or I are playing them, whether we're playing urban intrigue or kick on the door, whether we're system experts of newbies, whether we're trying to break the game or not, none of that matters. 3e is an unbalanced ruleset. Period.

I have to say that if that is accepted as a fair assessment (and it has been) then I agree with the scepticism. Fighty McFighter's skills with a sword aren't going to be as useful in a game of political intrigue or a detective game as Scry McDiviner the Wizard or Rapit Stolenname the rogue.

But 3e is an unbalanced ruleset. Period. This is because even if the game is pure combat, Fighty McFighter is still not able to keep up with the Godbotherer, or even under most circumstances the wizard. And you can forget about keeping up with the Aggressively Hegmonizing Ursine Swarm a.k.a. the bear druid, his bear companion, and his summoned bears (who also happens to have other spells - and more skill points and more useful skills than the fighter. Even where he is supposed to shine. For that matter Rapit Stolenname is supposed to be the specialist burglar - but if you want to case then rob a joint you still hire Scry McDiviner as he can do the job better.

You are remarkably dismissive of all the D&D games that don't fit this description at all. Do you really think that all or most or even many fighters played over the last three decades fit your model? Do you really think that every 3.5, PF, TB, and other 3.X fighter (to say nothing of the other versions) is being categorically outshown by a spellcaster?

The 2e fighter was the best there was at fighting. 2e Weapon Specialisation rocked - and they were the only class to get extra attacks at high level (OK, so the fighter variants did too). And by the time they actually started being hit by spells they had the best saves around (as opposed to the 3.X fighter who arguably has the worst).

More to the point, it doesn't mean the system itself needed to be thrown out.

It wasn't. 4e is a d20 game.

On the other hand to have a chance at balance in 3.X, you'd IMO need to either completely re-write or throw out the following classes:
Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Sorceror
Fighter, Monk, Paladin.

The Bard's just about fine as is, and the Rogue and Ranger need only slight buffs. The Barbarian can work by a few tweaks and replacing his rage with the much more metal ones from 4e.

I would define it as them all being important, but different, for each single character.

I full well expect the average wizard to max Int and dump Str, I just think that it should matter that their Str is low. Even moreso, I think that it should matter if a character's Int, Wis, or Cha is low (or high). Too often in 3e, this was not the case. I get the sense 4e worsened the problem.

Your sense is ... incorrect in my experience. Although strength is the normal dump stat for wizards IME. But whenever I see a wizard with a fully maxed int, I see a glass cannon that's not going to be that useful overall.

 

[Emerikol]

Out of curiosity since you are insisting that NPC's follow the same rules as PC's. How did your lord get to 10th level? What did he do that would gain him that much XP? What were his chances of dying during gaining that xp? Did you make a single die roll related to gaining xp when creating that NPC?

Because if you didn't then right off the bat you're admitting that NPC's and PC's use different rules.

Well not to echo A but I don't think about how they got to 10th level that much. I do believe that training and study is what gets the levels (as the in world explanation). Perhaps this is accelerated by "seeing the elephant" on the battlefield. If you aren't strict as a DM, you just assume that the characters are training all the time. Around the camp fire in the evening the wizard is pouring over an arcane text. So sure I pace the game as DM using XP but thats not an "in world" concept. Even when a vampire drains you, it's you losing effectiveness due to the experience and not some number. The difference is that for purely gamist reasons I force the PCs to adventure. Figure that.

 

[Emerikol]

I was rereading "Worlds & Monsters" last night. Besides being reminded that it is one of the better DMG books ever produced for D&D, I also noticed that, in one of the desinger blogs reproduced at the end (I think Bill Slavicsek), they said that they anticipated that most 3PPs would support 4e henceforth. Oops! - that's a prediction that failed to come true.

The question is... was it because of the GSL or was it the game itself. I think the reason varied. I believe with Paizo there were multiple reasons. But I still believe the primary reason was 4e the game. Other reasons include anger over dragon/dungeon and the GSL. Multiple reasons just make the decision that much easier.

I also think that the seething rage over 4e was identified as a market.