D&D 5e: For real this time?

[Bozwevial]

Bumping with Robert Schwalb's latest article.

So the gist of the article is as follows:

• Randomized hit points are bad. Fair enough.
• Having players start with low hit points was bad because it forced them to be creative instead of charging headlong into "the most exciting aspects of the game: combat." Half right; you want players to be able to participate in combats without worrying that a stiff breeze will tear up their character sheet, but I dislike the notion that "cunning, stealth, and simple robbery" shouldn't be acceptable paths to victory.
• 4th edition went too far in the other direction by making it difficult to wipe out a party. Someone who play(s/ed) 4th frequently can comment on this; I've only played a few games and they were all low-level.

But the best part is really this gem.

Character durability has been something of a moving target in the entire process of working on the game these days. We have some ideas about where we’d like hit point values to sit, but before we commit to this idea fully, we’d like some feedback from you.

Rather than break down a number of systems we could go with, I’m just going to ask you how many hit points a fighter should have at 1st level. Each of the following assumes the fighter has a 14 Constitution. Which one feels right to you?

I don't want to say that they've dropped all pretense of actually designing 5th edition instead of eyeballing it, but actually, Rob, it would be just peachy if you did go ahead and break down those systems you have. Start telling us about how you got plastered and wondered if you could turn it into wound boxes like FATE or nWoD. Anything to let me know there's some honest-to-god mathematics behind what you're doing as opposed to "here are some numbers; let us know which one looks prettiest so we can start hitting things with a hammer until they fit." It's one thing to get some feedback on the feel of your game. It's another thing entirely to base what is at least a good forty percent of the game mechanics on a set of numbers you just kinda threw out there.

[kitep]

because it forced them to be creative instead of charging headlong into "the most exciting aspects of the game: combat." Half right

Half right indeed.  I love combat, but I also love the out of combat stuff.  Too much or too little of one or the other makes for a dull game IMO.

[RedWarlock]

Plus, hit points themselves are an arbitrary scale.. Unless we also get knowledge of average damage and various dpr expectations, then it doesn't matter how many hit points a fighter has, because it's an arbitrary number. WTF?

[veekie]

Well, we can assume weapon damage remains consistent, which gives us a ballpark for first level fighters. 2d6 and various minors would be going in, so 14 means you can survive about 2 hits with a greatsword, but a bit of bad luck is fatal.

[Bozwevial]

I will be fair and say that the numbers do have some basis in prior rules. Some of them. 29 is obviously a base of 15 plus the entire Constitution score, 14 is just the Constitution score or 10+the weird ability-score-minus-ten modifier they may be toying with, 12 is the standard d10+2 Con mod, 7 is either half the Con score or 5 plus the 3.5 modifier, and 6 is...actually, why is this even an option? Is it really that far from 7?

But the mere fact that they are doing this means they don't have a system for this in mind, which means that combat in general is smoke and mirrors right now and also strongly hints that they don't know what's going on with ability scores either. I've seen some weird numbers from playtesting and it sounds like what they're doing is both convoluted in weird ways and plays hob with probability.

I strongly suspect that the playtesting they did was largely do-what-feels-right DMing which they will attempt to reconcile with the results from these polls into a workable game system. So, you know, we'll see how that turns out.

[linklord231]

I would much prefer it if they gave us examples of ways to calculate starting HP that they're toying with rather than arbitrary numbers.  At least with that we'd know that they are, in fact, using real math to figure stuff out instead of just kind of guessing at what seems right.  I totally agree that in order to know what ballpark HP numbers should be at, we need to know how much damage per round we can expect to be seeing.  27 sounds like a lot, but not if enemies do 25 per hit.

[Agita]

4th edition went too far in the other direction by making it difficult to wipe out a party. Someone who play(s/ed) 4th frequently can comment on this; I've only played a few games and they were all low-level.

Also half-right. "Padded sumo" was lamented frequently especially during 4e's earlier days, but I'm given to understand that the lethality was later increased. It certainly is very possible for a party with a good Striker to take down monsters very quickly, and conversely, monsters especially from MMIII on can be plenty dangerous. As an anecdote, the 12th-level Ranger I played once easily took close to half the hp off a dragon in the opening round, and was swiftly reduced to less than half her hp in return. So playing Rocket Tag is still possible - with optimization.

As for the numbers... seriously, that's just a slap in the face. It doesn't matter one whit what the numbers look like when we don't know how damage scales.

[veekie]

Thats assuming they understand that. They hadn't gotten that damage increases need to be met by proportionate damage resistance increases.

[FatR]

At this point we can only hope that their polls and whatever are nothing more than a marketing stunt. But, really, I don't hold much hopes about 5E anymore.

[Risada]

Also half-right. "Padded sumo" was lamented frequently especially during 4e's earlier days, but I'm given to understand that the lethality was later increased. It certainly is very possible for a party with a good Striker to take down monsters very quickly, and conversely, monsters especially from MMIII on can be plenty dangerous. As an anecdote, the 12th-level Ranger I played once easily took close to half the hp off a dragon in the opening round, and was swiftly reduced to less than half her hp in return. So playing Rocket Tag is still possible - with optimization.

I remember this... Chaedi, Right? But yeah, rocket tag is still around 4e...

As for the numbers... seriously, that's just a slap in the face. It doesn't matter one whit what the numbers look like when we don't know how damage scales.

This. Just picking a number out of nowhere to define HP isn't very... professional...

[veekie]

Well, one very basic problem is that your durability pretty much all comes from binary defenses and damage resistance doesn't notably increase, whereas per-attack damage and number of hits go up steadily. Anything that hits for more than once is going to make that obvious in a hurry.

[Agita]

Also half-right. "Padded sumo" was lamented frequently especially during 4e's earlier days, but I'm given to understand that the lethality was later increased. It certainly is very possible for a party with a good Striker to take down monsters very quickly, and conversely, monsters especially from MMIII on can be plenty dangerous. As an anecdote, the 12th-level Ranger I played once easily took close to half the hp off a dragon in the opening round, and was swiftly reduced to less than half her hp in return. So playing Rocket Tag is still possible - with optimization.

I remember this... Chaedi, Right? But yeah, rocket tag is still around 4e...

Yeah. Especially considering that the other Ranger then novaed and killed it the rest of the way. Still, possibly the most fun I've had in a 4e game to date.

Well, one very basic problem is that your durability pretty much all comes from binary defenses and damage resistance doesn't notably increase, whereas per-attack damage and number of hits go up steadily. Anything that hits for more than once is going to make that obvious in a hurry.

4e was, relatively speaking, better about this than 3.5, that is, it didn't break down until you put in a nontrivial amount of effort. The fact that everyone, especially the classes that were supposed to take hits, had powers that allowed them to take hits hardcoded into the class's selection helped.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

4th edition went too far in the other direction by making it difficult to wipe out a party. Someone who play(s/ed) 4th frequently can comment on this; I've only played a few games and they were all low-level.

Also half-right. "Padded sumo" was lamented frequently especially during 4e's earlier days, but I'm given to understand that the lethality was later increased. It certainly is very possible for a party with a good Striker to take down monsters very quickly, and conversely, monsters especially from MMIII on can be plenty dangerous. As an anecdote, the 12th-level Ranger I played once easily took close to half the hp off a dragon in the opening round, and was swiftly reduced to less than half her hp in return. So playing Rocket Tag is still possible - with optimization.

As for the numbers... seriously, that's just a slap in the face. It doesn't matter one whit what the numbers look like when we don't know how damage scales.

I once (... just once) debated an over-hyper for 4e
about whether PCs should be able to die at all.

My ace-up-the-sleeve argument was WotC
suckered him into paying for the 1/4th of a page
that the Raise Dead ritual was printed on.
They done took yo' money dawg.

4e CO builds should get to the point they can't die
rather early. Still a level+8 encounter is dangerous,
especially is the monster isn't run like a cupcake.

[Ziegander]

How much HP should a 1st level Fighter have poll: fucking pathetic.

[Keldar]

Pathetic indeed.  That question is absolutely meaningless in a vacuum.  What rate is he hit on average?  What is the expected range of damage he will face?  What other defenses does he have?  Does he have any personal recovery tools?  You might as well answer Blue, its a useless answer for a useless question.

The proper question for them to ask at this point would be:  How many enemy actions should a Fighter be able to survive on average unaided?  With standard Cleric intervention?  Bear in mind that doubling the monsters would halve the number of rounds the Fighter would survive.

You can use that information to decide if your total system is in the apparent sweet spot for the community then without having to actually show any numbers.
The number that are easy to guess later. 

[Agita]

https://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120227

VAANNNNCCCCEEE!

For several reasons, other than just nostalgia, we are exploring putting Vancian spellcasting back into the game. It's good for gameplay.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

[Prime32]

One idea we’re considering is a magical feat. These feats represent magical abilities that a character can use all the time. For example, we might have a basic feat called Wizard Mark. This feat could indicate that a character is an arcane spellcaster, and it might grant him or her a minor, at-will ability. Maybe a minor blast of force. Maybe a telekinetic ability like mage hand. More potent feats could then be accessed later. Imagine a Disciple of Mordenkainen feat that grants a spellcaster a magical hound companion (a la Mordenkainen's faithful hound) or a Disciple of Tenser feat that grants him or her a floating disk to use.

This concept accomplishes two things: First, it allows us to give new life to some spell effects that get lost in a traditional Vancian system compared to fireballs and magic missiles. Second, it provides a way for casters to be magical even when they're not using their limited resources.

One of the most interesting aspects of this system is that it allows us to design a class that relies entirely on these magical feats instead of spells. Such a class would be far easier to play than the wizard, with no spells to prepare, but would still have a number of interesting magical offensive, defensive, and utilitarian options to call upon. In effect, a non-Vancian caster with 4th-Edition-style arcane powers.

Sounds familiar.

[Bozwevial]

One idea we’re considering is a magical feat. These feats represent magical abilities that a character can use all the time. For example, we might have a basic feat called Wizard Mark. This feat could indicate that a character is an arcane spellcaster, and it might grant him or her a minor, at-will ability. Maybe a minor blast of force. Maybe a telekinetic ability like mage hand. More potent feats could then be accessed later. Imagine a Disciple of Mordenkainen feat that grants a spellcaster a magical hound companion (a la Mordenkainen's faithful hound) or a Disciple of Tenser feat that grants him or her a floating disk to use.

This concept accomplishes two things: First, it allows us to give new life to some spell effects that get lost in a traditional Vancian system compared to fireballs and magic missiles. Second, it provides a way for casters to be magical even when they're not using their limited resources.

One of the most interesting aspects of this system is that it allows us to design a class that relies entirely on these magical feats instead of spells. Such a class would be far easier to play than the wizard, with no spells to prepare, but would still have a number of interesting magical offensive, defensive, and utilitarian options to call upon. In effect, a non-Vancian caster with 4th-Edition-style arcane powers.

Sounds familiar.

Even before that, it existed in the form of reserve feats. Remember those? Yeah, me neither.

[ksbsnowowl]

Even before that, it existed in the form of reserve feats. Remember those? Yeah, me neither.

I've got two players that were just ENAMORED with them when I told them about it.  They both took Fiery Burst at the first opportunity.

But keep in mind that only one of my players has even expressed any desire to multiclass AT ALL in my gestalt game.  He's taking Runescarred Berserker starting just now at 8th level.

I've no idea why the Wizard//Rogue didn't want to take Acidic Splatter.  At least that would have synergised well with the sneak attack.  (Of course, he still can't seem to remember that he can't sneak attack with things like fireball...)

[Keldar]

https://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120227

VAANNNNCCCCEEE!

For several reasons, other than just nostalgia, we are exploring putting Vancian spellcasting back into the game. It's good for gameplay.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

As much as I loathe Vancian magic, the one thing I learned about it from 4E is that it honestly doesn't feel like D&D without it around.  Its as much a part of D&D's character as D20s and Fighters.  ...

Even if I try to avoid it like the plague.