Ye know BL, for someone who likes to get on my case for misrepresenting the D&D Old Guard, that whole "so long as a player can make a half-dragon, half-fey flying unicorn paladin magic user pacifist" crack feels exceptionally out of place.
Balance is subjective, and every table's balance is different. A DM running a game for a bunch of tactical wizkids who know their character and the rules back to front could run an encounter for a set of four level 5 PCs that would make the next set of four level 5 PCs run by a bunch of Rules-Lite Narrative Experience sorts who have only the vaguest notion what's in the PHB's hair turn white. Wizards has no idea which set of players is gonna play which set of game, and they have to make D&D work for all of them. It's on the individual DM to tune challenge appropriately to their table, and it always has been.
Hell, just last week the DM for my Wednesday game ran our party of five level 5 PCs against an undead "Mordent Predator" with a multiattack that averaged roughly 40 damage per turn, resistance to mundane weapon damage, a rogue's cunning disengage/hide and Sneak Attack (I believe it was 2d6 sneak damage?), and the base zombie's Get Back Up ability. This was encountered near a fog wall where the predator could easily duck out of sight and deny attacks against it when it wasn't skirmishing out to carve people up on its turn - which meant the DM was playing it intelligently and tactically, as well. The blurdy thing very nearly TPK'd the team, we only beat it because it also had vulnerability to radiant damage so the paladin's Smites were chunking its health bar.
That thing would have friggin' blender'd half the parties I've seen/played with since I started this game. It was overtuned a little even for this game, but I've been in many a game where the critter would've been an absolutely unfair nightmare...but we managed to beat it, because this particular team has its head on its shoulders and could adapt to the critter's sneaky nonsense. The ranger knew exactly how to use his Healing Spirit to maximum effect, the paladin got off several nasty smites, and I managed some key disruptive plays on my wizard. We beat that encounter because the DM knew we were up for it, even if the CR math said that was a bad idea on the DM's part.
The DM knew better. And we got a really cool fight out of it.
Balance is, and always will be, table-dependent. You can complain about the lack of balance and mechanical depth and carp at all those new namby-pamby story-liking jerkwaffle Johnny-come-latelies, but that doesn't change reality.
I see a lot of people talking about monsters being limited with attacks and being nothing more then a bag of HP. I also see some talk about the CR system. Monsters are what you make of them and it seems that far to many play them to the text as they are written. Personally I have never played a monster to the text written, and have always made changes to make the game more interesting. Ill leave the details out here, but I have been doing this since AD&D days.
I mean I do that too. It's called homebrew. My point was that it would be nice if we didn't have to shoulder that entire burden. That the people who's job it was to engineer monster mechanics actually did so in an evocative way. If I'm making up everything about a monster but its ability scores, what am I actually paying for when I buy a monster manual?
For the record, I don't think they were being lazy in 5e. I think the mandate was simplicity over everything, which is just not my jam. Obviously 5e has been wildly popular so I may be in the minority. But I think now that they've accumulated this wider customer base, they may be willing to introduce material that is a bit more complicated, at least that's my hope.
I use a custom encounter level chart adapted from 3.5 and also use hero points as a sort of slush fund to manage otherwise OP encounters. A hero point allows a toon to change any die roll against them to any number, thus turning a fumble into a crit potentially, or mitigating a failed "save or die" roll. After each encounter, I rate players based on performance as player and PC and other factors, and assign them a small (5-15) percentage chance of gaining a hero point. I also award everyone in the group a hero point after a completed adventure (about every 3-5 sessions).
Hero point use has the side effect of making the PCs feel heroic. You see our hero dodging (ala Matrix) that otherwise deadly fireball, or jumping across that impossibly wide chasm, or firing that arrow right into the eye of that ettin about to smash his buddy. The hero fumbles and the sword slips out of his hand, but (hero point) it fortuitively flies into a corner of the floor and impales itself, preventing that hydraulic door from closing and trapping him in the room with the army of undead. It feels more like what we see in the movies.
My group has kludged a similar mechanic on to Inspiration, where you can spend Inspiration to make a Heroic Action akin to those you describe. I agree its a lot of fun. The base Inspiration mechanic is kind of bland but it's a great base to expand upon with stuff like this - something that would be great to see in an updated PHB...
I agree with the point that balance is in the hands of the DM, when it comes to encounter design. When it comes to designing player classes/subclasses/races etc, some are just better designed or more powerful and useful than others. I think that's a fair criticism, but the DM can still always take into account the strengths and weaknesses of the party to compensate to a degree.
On the topic of too many monsters that are just multi attack hp sponges, I think that is a fair criticism. Yes, DMs can homebrew things onto them. I never use a monster straight out of the MM even if I take its general concept. I'm always tailoring things with the capabilities of my party in mind. But that doesn't let WOTC off the hook either. Not every monster is like this of course, but 'the DM can add things to it' doesn't really excuse it when this DOES happen.
The 'half dragon half fey paladin caster who doesn't fight' thing is blatant hyperbole. Even as someone who leans heavily into the narrative/RP side of the game, I never never seen someone try to make a character anywhere near this sort of stereotype. And I suspect it's not just that I'm somehow shockingly lucky in that regard.
Ye know BL, for someone who likes to get on my case for misrepresenting the D&D Old Guard, that whole "so long as a player can make a half-dragon, half-fey flying unicorn paladin magic user pacifist" crack feels exceptionally out of place.
I find it rather strange given I didn't direct any comments in your direction you still managed to identify this particular passage and saw yourself in it. For what it's worth, I was just teasing a little for dramatic effect.
Balance is subjective, and every table's balance is different.
I don't disagree with you entirely, poor tactics can give the impression of a lack of balance in one direction while good tactics in the other, that is definitely true. From a game design perspective, however good balanced design targets experienced gamers exclusively. It's a basic principle of good game design but you would only know and understand that if you were an educated game designer, which you are not and why you believe "balance is relative". I assure you there is no "balance is relative class" when getting your education in game design. Don't take this personally, its not meant as an insult, the overwhelming majority of D&D players (gamers in general) are not game designers, there is no such expectation. Good game design.. is good design, balance is balance, these are not subjective things, these are calculable, observable concepts that game designers learn to implement in their games. I will grant you it's very difficult and even educated game designers fail at it all the time, but that does not make it subjective.
To borrow a phrase: Horse poopy.
People like to say D&D's 'balance' exists on a razor's edge of fine-honed perfection, if only people would use it right. Nuh. The game was actively built with deeply fuzzy math in mind. Yes, the devs say "players are expected to hit their attacks roughly two thirds of the time", but even as a broad generalization that falls apart. They can't know which two-thirds of a party's attacks will hit, so encounters have to have enough give in them to account for all the high-value hits like a paladin's Smites or a rogue's SneakaBlasts hitting and nothing but chaff missing as well as the opposite - a disproportionate number of high-value attacks whiffing and leaving the party at the short end of a rope. And that's just the most basic aspect of "balance"
How do you balance the game such that a party who adheres to the Standard Adventuring Day is challenged while one that only has one major fight every few sessions is also challenged?
How do you balance the game for a team consisting of nothing but sorcerers with noncombative magic while also balancing it for a team of hardened monster hunters?
How do you balance the game for a table that adhere's strictly to encumbrance and logistics while also ensuring a table that doesn't give a single rat feels the pinch?
Balance is not a 'point' in D&D. Not as an aggregate whole. Balance is a region. A range. A balance blob, if you will, within which the numbers are fuzzy enough that different tables can hit different markers and still be playing more-or-less "as intended." The game's math is deliberately fuzzy and trends towards over-generous to the players, with the expectation that the DM will cover it for unusually adept parties. Remember, all the CR math is predicated on a group of four average PCs using nothing but their basic at-will resources. No spells, no surges, no smites, none of that. Just The Attack Action and basic cantrips. The game's math can't be so fine-tuned as all that, especially if the DMG still allows for players to generate their stats basically however they wish and allocate them the same way. If it was truly so dialed in and fragile that one or two points either way could tip things? Then there would be only one method of generating characters, and that method would be called out as too important to fiddle with homebrew-style.
Good Game Design(TM) includes designing a game for as much of your core audience as you can. The average D&D gamer of today is not a forty-year veteran tactical super wizard; they're somebody who got into the hobby after watching the favorite streaming show, or who got into the hobby after one of their friends got into it after watching their favorite streaming show. You abandon the casual market at your peril, and overtuning encounter math is one of the quickest, surest ways to turn off casual players.
Please don't try that sort of thing with me, BL. I may not be a trained, professional game designer, but my brain works as well if not better than the brains of anyone else here, and I'd like to think I've demonstrated enough insight into how the game works to merit better than being shooed off as a cute li'l know-nothing. if you don't like what I have to say, that's fair. But don't try and handwave off reality because you prefer a different reality.
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I do have to say I don't see how anyone can construe some sort of return to "objective balance" in the tea leaves offered for steeping and smoking. Folks have always played the game outside of the lines I think "objective balance" hopefuls feel were core to the game. 5e is just the first edition to make that really explicit and endorse the fact that there are many ways to play the game, and I think if anything future expressions of the rules are going to push that fact further. I think I'm going to actually use "rules expression" in favor of edition till "the future" is actually named ... the implied concept is sort of in line with that recent Colville video language not rules. People use D&D for dramatically different games, as Yureil has illustrated in some examples, yet anyone who sees themselves as a D&D player can recognize all those dramatically different games as D&D. They may not fully appreciate the nuances of particular expressions, but some blanket rigor is exactly what 5e moved away from, and I highly doubt the design studio sees a return to blanket rigor or objective balance as something being asked for. 5e transformed the game, some folks may call it devolution because it's an easy mean spirited rhetorical move. However, many more perspectives see D&D's growth as progress, and whatever comes next is very unlikely to be a revanche maneuver, because, you know, not mean spirited.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
My argument is against your stated notion that all these F@#$ing New Guys are strictly at fault for the current state of D&D and if Wizards just left all the design decisions to the Old Guard everything would be better.
Yes, design by committee is a terrible approach. Note that I am not trying to design an RPG system, nor even defending this one. Yes, I'm arguing that balance is fuzzy, because it is. It's also a well-known idea that "balance" is overhyped by armchair game designers and amateur hobbyists who spend too much time trying to nail the math and not enough time trying to nail the proper game feel. When it matters, balance can be waggled fairly easily. Hell, DMs with absolutely no Formal Game Design Training have been waggling the balance on their encounters at the table for decades and mostly doing just fine with it. The art of game design is in nailing down something that feels right when you're playing it, and it is almost entirely subjective. It's the reason successful game companies are the ones that iterate endlessly, constantly adjusting and refining based on the most extensive playtest and feedback data they can get. Learning to properly interpret that data is important, knowing what it is and how to use it is part of that FGDT thing you're accusing me of being too stupid to understand, but the bare bones fact of the matter is that if you only involve playtesters, playtest data, and feedback in your design process after your game is more-or-less complete and all you're looking for is confirmation that people like it?
Your game is going to suck, and nobody will like it.
Telling 25 million D&D players they're all too stupid to have an opinion on their game is a great way to make sure 25 million D&D players swiftly stop playing D&D.
Telling 25 million D&D players they're all too stupid to have an opinion on their game is a great way to make sure 25 million D&D players swiftly stop playing D&D.
My argument is against your stated notion that all these F@#$ing New Guys are strictly at fault for the current state of D&D and if Wizards just left all the design decisions to the Old Guard everything would be better.
Quote me where I stated such a notion and I will apologize, otherwise, I would appreciate it if you kept your profanity to yourself and stop acting like this forum is your personal club house.
The question I suppose is, why do people love it so much and I think the answer, as much as it pains me to say it out loud, is that people truly don't give a squirt about game balance in D&D and perhaps not in RPG's in general anymore. In essence, game design gets a pass as long as the narrative design is unobstructed. It is the era of the narrative first approach to mechanics, which is to say as long as you can make a Half-Dragon, Half-Fey flying unicorn Paladin/Magic-User who refuses to fight because of story reasons, then we are all good, it doesn't matter if that character makes the rest of the game mechanically irrelevant. The important part is that players imaginations aren't "limited" because that would be the real crime. Now the traditional answer is "your the DM" or "it's your table" etc.. etc.. do what you want, but I think it's that mantra that got us from there (a past in which designers actually tried to make good D&D even if they didn't necessarily always succeed at everything) to here where we just mail out a survey to millions of people who are not game designers (and for good reasons) and let their law of mediocracy decide how to design D&D. In essence what D&D is going to be in the future will be decided by the masses rather game designers that spent decades honing their craft. And really can you blame Wizards of the Coast? I mean it's not like the D&D community is particularly kind to them, game designer is just a notch above defense attorney in how the D&D consumer treats them.
Quote designer is just a notch above defense attorney in how the D&D
Where did I reference "new guys" and "old guard". How in the world do you come to that conclusion? I was speaking to the concept of democratic design, where did I single anyone out whatsoever!?
For the record I called no one stupid, I pointed out that D&D players are untrained game designers.
"a past in which designers actually tried to make good D&D even if they didn't necessarily always succeed at everything) to here where we just mail out a survey to millions of people who are not game designers (and for good reasons) and let their law of mediocracy decide how to design D&D"
Seems to me that's what you are saying here.....
The old way being the way you are used to it and the new way being what we do now.
Also if you think they actually use the surveys to change things I have a bridge to sell you.
I do have to say I don't see how anyone can construe some sort of return to "objective balance" in the tea leaves offered for steeping and smoking. Folks have always played the game outside of the lines I think "objective balance" hopefuls feel were core to the game. 5e is just the first edition to make that really explicit and endorse the fact that there are many ways to play the game, and I think if anything future expressions of the rules are going to push that fact further. I think I'm going to actually use "rules expression" in favor of edition till "the future" is actually named ... the implied concept is sort of in line with that recent Colville video language not rules. People use D&D for dramatically different games, as Yureil has illustrated in some examples, yet anyone who sees themselves as a D&D player can recognize all those dramatically different games as D&D. They may not fully appreciate the nuances of particular expressions, but some blanket rigor is exactly what 5e moved away from, and I highly doubt the design studio sees a return to blanket rigor or objective balance as something being asked for. 5e transformed the game, some folks may call it devolution because it's an easy mean spirited rhetorical move. However, many more perspectives see D&D's growth as progress, and whatever comes next is very unlikely to be a revanche maneuver, because, you know, not mean spirited.
There is such a thing as balance, there is a base of rules that everyone uses exactly the same way. When you make an attack, when you use special actions, when you cast a spell when you do damage with X or Y weapon, everyone is using the same rules and even if they aren't those rules still need to be balanced for those that do because they are THE rules of the game. There is a central core to the game that needs to be balanced and that balance IS achievable, it's not some sort of abstract concept. Whether a spell does 1d6 or 5d6 damage.. is a mathematical construct, too much damage and its unbalanced, not enough and its unbalanced, there is an amount that is just right, that's balance. This is not some foreign concept in game design, you do the math, you test it, you figure it out and you pick something that is balanced over something that is not. Again.. that is not some abstract, superficial or circumstantial thing.
Yes, that is the balance we already have. You're nostalgically fetishizing something else. I'm also "having fun" by labeling it "objective balance." And really these things you're trying to apply some sort of gravitas to in your above quote ... folks jigger with those sacred mathematical constructs all the time.
At the end of the day, or rather in a few years time, there will be an expression of rules. I highly doubt they'll be a return to what you want, though would likely accommodate what you want if you were willing to work with them. Sort of like what we have now.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I wonder what the new "scary" setting they leaked will be. Will it be Shadowfell? Or probably something definitely new we absolutely never heard of? I only hope it won't be Innistrad. It would be really poor if the next year's MTG setting will be Innistrad. I believe they'll do Kamigawa as I think it could be amazing in D&D and it's something we've never seen before. We just had Ravenloft this year that is very similar to Innistrad and actually much better.
The 'half dragon half fey paladin caster who doesn't fight' thing is blatant hyperbole. Even as someone who leans heavily into the narrative/RP side of the game, I never never seen someone try to make a character anywhere near this sort of stereotype. And I suspect it's not just that I'm somehow shockingly lucky in that regard.
Ok, again.. I was teasing, I thought if I made the example outrageous enough it would be obvious but perhaps I didn't go far enough. I was going to add thief/pirate, but I thought it would be overkill! Perhaps I was wrong.
Problem is it really wasn't THAT out there as an example; I have seen/had presented to me for approval similar concepts (granted I have seen worse in 3.x/Pathfinder... but not by much).
I am still mildly hopeful for a Dark Sun book, but only mildly.
It'd 100% fit "Scary".
As for the Boo book, I think it could be one of the following three books! I assume the title will be Minsc, as Xanathar has Sylgar and yet the fish is only mentioned. The names are very rough.
"Minsc's Adventures to Everywhere", a book that elaborates on Planar Lore (specifically the First World and the Outer Planes), mixed with an "Everything" book in the rough, setting-free style of TCoE or even FToD or MP: MotM. I will also add the eye-like design on the variant cover sketch that evokes a beholder - or the great wheel cosmology diagram. Food for thought.
"Minsc's Guide to Baldur's Gate", basically Minsc's hometown now. Plus, it would be a "return to a setting we've seen before" or a "return to a classic setting", and as there's both Baldur's Gate III and a MtG Commander set known as "Battle for Baldur's Gate" (coincidence that it shares its name with an expansion for the other game Dungeon Madness? I think not) coming out next year, this could be a thing, and if so it would be a very different book "format" for WotC. However, it's still a stretch. BUT I WANT THE STRETCH TO BE TAKEN! FIND ME A BALDUR'S GATE BEHOLDER! Gimme just that city! I'd be happy forever.... Well, no, but...
And, finally, drumroll please...
"Minsc's Marvelous Adventures", a Candlekeep Mysteries-style book, each one involving Minsc. I doubt this one very much, but huh. I never saw WBtW, FToD, CM, S:CoC, ID: RotF, or MP: MotM coming, so I might be right in saying this is an option. This, however, doesn't solve the (Candlekeep) Mystery that is the 9+ eyes behind Boo on the Alt Cover, the MtG set and Baldur's Gate game next year, or any other one of the threads that don't exist that I am pulling on.
- I like having more optional rules that you can tack on or off so groups more easily make things more complex if they wish.
- I do not like how the DMG deemphasizes downtime activities and treats them as something that does not deserve the same amount of attention as "real adventures", and I think that is a HUGE missed opportunity. In my opininion, D&D has an issue with overwhelming focus on combat, and many downtime activities are not only great hooks, they can be full on adventures and fun diversions in their own right where there is little to no combat.
- I think it is impossible to get rid of the fuzziness of CR and baseline balance, but having it be less fuzzy would be nice for GMs who prefer something more tight and snug. I do not think it is super important since you can always adjust difficulty mid combat with reinforcements, fudging rolls, deus ex machina, and various other tools at the GM's disposal, but in terms of homebrew, it is a good idea to know how far you are diverging from the baseline.
- I am not a fan of the class system, so I want a progression system more free form and flexible. One of the perks of being a GM is that you have complete freedom in designing your NPCs, and one of the factors that discourages me from being a player is the rigid class system and level limit.
- This is more of a formatting and presentation issue than any change in mechanics, but I think it would be nice if monster statblocks and character sheets are formatted ideally the same way, or at least more similarly. I think the familiarity would better help players transition to being a GM. I also think having a unified streamlined format on NPCs and PCs will make it easier on digital companies to implement homebrew. Right now, some people on Beyond want a tool to convert character sheets to statblocks, and that whole issue can be avoided in the first place if statblocks and character sheets have the same format foundation, so instead of Beyond having to develop a character sheet, monster statblock, and eventually a sidekick system, Beyond would just be implementing one statsheet or whatever you want to call it, and the player version of the statsheet would basically be just a variation of what the GM has access to.
- I think it is impossible to get rid of the fuzziness of CR and baseline balance, but having it be less fuzzy would be nice for GMs who prefer something more tight and snug. I do not think it is super important since you can always adjust difficulty mid combat with reinforcements, fudging rolls, deus ex machina, and various other tools at the GM's disposal, but in terms of homebrew, it is a good idea to know how far you are diverging from the baseline.
I've been thinking about this and I'm not convinced that there is much that can be done. Low levels are highly dependent on rolls, and high levels are highly dependent on optimisation. A few recent examples of my experience:
Had 6 goblins fight a party of three level 1s. It was a bloodbath - and the PCs weren't even harmed. The first two went down to a surprise round. Second two went down on second round before being able to respond due to PCs getting high initative. Third pair actually got to have a turn, but missed their attacks, and died the next round. One of the three PCs effectively didn't even participate - she missed every round. I did the maths on what would have happened had there not been a surprise round, the goblins had high initiative and actually hit with their attacks - TPK in two rounds and only two goblins would have died.
A party of two level 5s against an invisible stalker. Luckily, one had detect thoughts spell and was able to locate the stalker. Had it not been for that, the party would have been stuffed. The wizard used up his fireballs up and after that there were only targeted attacks. Since they had detect thoughts, I'd have described the encounter as medium/hard, but because it's invisible, if they had not had detect thoughts, they woukd have been slaughtered.
Same party but level 6 nearly got killed by a young white dragon, but due to items and especially a magic sword designed to fight dragons, managed to kill it with only a little difficulty. Had the party not had that sword, they'd be toast. Well, frozen toast.
How do you even weight that? At low level, everything is on the roll of a dice. Stats help push it one way or the other, but battles are over before averages mean much. With higher levels, the exact build of the players, like their mix of classes, approach to the fight and how skilled they are have a massive influence. I'm not convinced that the concept is even valid. Maybe if you have a computer program you could get something close(ish), but it's not doable by hand and even with a program it would be very rough.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
- I like having more optional rules that you can tack on or off so groups more easily make things more complex if they wish.
- I do not like how the DMG deemphasizes downtime activities and treats them as something that does not deserve the same amount of attention as "real adventures", and I think that is a HUGE missed opportunity. In my opininion, D&D has an issue with overwhelming focus on combat, and many downtime activities are not only great hooks, they can be full on adventures and fun diversions in their own right where there is little to no combat.
- I think it is impossible to get rid of the fuzziness of CR and baseline balance, but having it be less fuzzy would be nice for GMs who prefer something more tight and snug. I do not think it is super important since you can always adjust difficulty mid combat with reinforcements, fudging rolls, deus ex machina, and various other tools at the GM's disposal, but in terms of homebrew, it is a good idea to know how far you are diverging from the baseline.
- I am not a fan of the class system, so I want a progression system more free form and flexible. One of the perks of being a GM is that you have complete freedom in designing your NPCs, and one of the factors that discourages me from being a player is the rigid class system and level limit.
- This is more of a formatting and presentation issue than any change in mechanics, but I think it would be nice if monster statblocks and character sheets are formatted ideally the same way, or at least more similarly. I think the familiarity would better help players transition to being a GM. I also think having a unified streamlined format on NPCs and PCs will make it easier on digital companies to implement homebrew. Right now, some people on Beyond want a tool to convert character sheets to statblocks, and that whole issue can be avoided in the first place if statblocks and character sheets have the same format foundation, so instead of Beyond having to develop a character sheet, monster statblock, and eventually a sidekick system, Beyond would just be implementing one statsheet or whatever you want to call it, and the player version of the statsheet would basically be just a variation of what the GM has access to.
I could see some of that happening, like expanding on downtime and more optional rules etc.
I don't think the class structure is going to change though. That would be too big of a change for an update to 5E. That would have to be a full on 6E, if they ever went that direction at all.
I feel like it's more important to have that structure on the player end than the npc end. The DM controls everything but the players, they can mold encounter difficulty etc. They can add an NPC that does whatever that NPC needs to for the story etc. But if you allow that freedom on the PC end, the game starts to lose cohesion as an actual game. In a freeform RP deciding what your character can and can't do freely is fine, so long as everyone infolved is a team player and on the same wavelength. If you gave players anywhere near the level of freedom a DM has in building an NPC, I feel like the game part of D&D would start to fall apart fast. Multiclassing is probably the most you can really go in that direction without losing too much structure.
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Ye know BL, for someone who likes to get on my case for misrepresenting the D&D Old Guard, that whole "so long as a player can make a half-dragon, half-fey flying unicorn paladin magic user pacifist" crack feels exceptionally out of place.
Balance is subjective, and every table's balance is different. A DM running a game for a bunch of tactical wizkids who know their character and the rules back to front could run an encounter for a set of four level 5 PCs that would make the next set of four level 5 PCs run by a bunch of Rules-Lite Narrative Experience sorts who have only the vaguest notion what's in the PHB's hair turn white. Wizards has no idea which set of players is gonna play which set of game, and they have to make D&D work for all of them. It's on the individual DM to tune challenge appropriately to their table, and it always has been.
Hell, just last week the DM for my Wednesday game ran our party of five level 5 PCs against an undead "Mordent Predator" with a multiattack that averaged roughly 40 damage per turn, resistance to mundane weapon damage, a rogue's cunning disengage/hide and Sneak Attack (I believe it was 2d6 sneak damage?), and the base zombie's Get Back Up ability. This was encountered near a fog wall where the predator could easily duck out of sight and deny attacks against it when it wasn't skirmishing out to carve people up on its turn - which meant the DM was playing it intelligently and tactically, as well. The blurdy thing very nearly TPK'd the team, we only beat it because it also had vulnerability to radiant damage so the paladin's Smites were chunking its health bar.
That thing would have friggin' blender'd half the parties I've seen/played with since I started this game. It was overtuned a little even for this game, but I've been in many a game where the critter would've been an absolutely unfair nightmare...but we managed to beat it, because this particular team has its head on its shoulders and could adapt to the critter's sneaky nonsense. The ranger knew exactly how to use his Healing Spirit to maximum effect, the paladin got off several nasty smites, and I managed some key disruptive plays on my wizard. We beat that encounter because the DM knew we were up for it, even if the CR math said that was a bad idea on the DM's part.
The DM knew better. And we got a really cool fight out of it.
Balance is, and always will be, table-dependent. You can complain about the lack of balance and mechanical depth and carp at all those new namby-pamby story-liking jerkwaffle Johnny-come-latelies, but that doesn't change reality.
Please do not contact or message me.
I mean I do that too. It's called homebrew. My point was that it would be nice if we didn't have to shoulder that entire burden. That the people who's job it was to engineer monster mechanics actually did so in an evocative way. If I'm making up everything about a monster but its ability scores, what am I actually paying for when I buy a monster manual?
For the record, I don't think they were being lazy in 5e. I think the mandate was simplicity over everything, which is just not my jam. Obviously 5e has been wildly popular so I may be in the minority. But I think now that they've accumulated this wider customer base, they may be willing to introduce material that is a bit more complicated, at least that's my hope.
My group has kludged a similar mechanic on to Inspiration, where you can spend Inspiration to make a Heroic Action akin to those you describe. I agree its a lot of fun. The base Inspiration mechanic is kind of bland but it's a great base to expand upon with stuff like this - something that would be great to see in an updated PHB...
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
I agree with the point that balance is in the hands of the DM, when it comes to encounter design. When it comes to designing player classes/subclasses/races etc, some are just better designed or more powerful and useful than others. I think that's a fair criticism, but the DM can still always take into account the strengths and weaknesses of the party to compensate to a degree.
On the topic of too many monsters that are just multi attack hp sponges, I think that is a fair criticism. Yes, DMs can homebrew things onto them. I never use a monster straight out of the MM even if I take its general concept. I'm always tailoring things with the capabilities of my party in mind. But that doesn't let WOTC off the hook either. Not every monster is like this of course, but 'the DM can add things to it' doesn't really excuse it when this DOES happen.
The 'half dragon half fey paladin caster who doesn't fight' thing is blatant hyperbole. Even as someone who leans heavily into the narrative/RP side of the game, I never never seen someone try to make a character anywhere near this sort of stereotype. And I suspect it's not just that I'm somehow shockingly lucky in that regard.
To borrow a phrase: Horse poopy.
People like to say D&D's 'balance' exists on a razor's edge of fine-honed perfection, if only people would use it right. Nuh. The game was actively built with deeply fuzzy math in mind. Yes, the devs say "players are expected to hit their attacks roughly two thirds of the time", but even as a broad generalization that falls apart. They can't know which two-thirds of a party's attacks will hit, so encounters have to have enough give in them to account for all the high-value hits like a paladin's Smites or a rogue's SneakaBlasts hitting and nothing but chaff missing as well as the opposite - a disproportionate number of high-value attacks whiffing and leaving the party at the short end of a rope. And that's just the most basic aspect of "balance"
How do you balance the game such that a party who adheres to the Standard Adventuring Day is challenged while one that only has one major fight every few sessions is also challenged?
How do you balance the game for a team consisting of nothing but sorcerers with noncombative magic while also balancing it for a team of hardened monster hunters?
How do you balance the game for a table that adhere's strictly to encumbrance and logistics while also ensuring a table that doesn't give a single rat feels the pinch?
Balance is not a 'point' in D&D. Not as an aggregate whole. Balance is a region. A range. A balance blob, if you will, within which the numbers are fuzzy enough that different tables can hit different markers and still be playing more-or-less "as intended." The game's math is deliberately fuzzy and trends towards over-generous to the players, with the expectation that the DM will cover it for unusually adept parties. Remember, all the CR math is predicated on a group of four average PCs using nothing but their basic at-will resources. No spells, no surges, no smites, none of that. Just The Attack Action and basic cantrips. The game's math can't be so fine-tuned as all that, especially if the DMG still allows for players to generate their stats basically however they wish and allocate them the same way. If it was truly so dialed in and fragile that one or two points either way could tip things? Then there would be only one method of generating characters, and that method would be called out as too important to fiddle with homebrew-style.
Good Game Design(TM) includes designing a game for as much of your core audience as you can. The average D&D gamer of today is not a forty-year veteran tactical super wizard; they're somebody who got into the hobby after watching the favorite streaming show, or who got into the hobby after one of their friends got into it after watching their favorite streaming show. You abandon the casual market at your peril, and overtuning encounter math is one of the quickest, surest ways to turn off casual players.
Please don't try that sort of thing with me, BL. I may not be a trained, professional game designer, but my brain works as well if not better than the brains of anyone else here, and I'd like to think I've demonstrated enough insight into how the game works to merit better than being shooed off as a cute li'l know-nothing. if you don't like what I have to say, that's fair. But don't try and handwave off reality because you prefer a different reality.
Please do not contact or message me.
They already have those in VRGtR
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I do have to say I don't see how anyone can construe some sort of return to "objective balance" in the tea leaves offered for steeping and smoking. Folks have always played the game outside of the lines I think "objective balance" hopefuls feel were core to the game. 5e is just the first edition to make that really explicit and endorse the fact that there are many ways to play the game, and I think if anything future expressions of the rules are going to push that fact further. I think I'm going to actually use "rules expression" in favor of edition till "the future" is actually named ... the implied concept is sort of in line with that recent Colville video language not rules. People use D&D for dramatically different games, as Yureil has illustrated in some examples, yet anyone who sees themselves as a D&D player can recognize all those dramatically different games as D&D. They may not fully appreciate the nuances of particular expressions, but some blanket rigor is exactly what 5e moved away from, and I highly doubt the design studio sees a return to blanket rigor or objective balance as something being asked for. 5e transformed the game, some folks may call it devolution because it's an easy mean spirited rhetorical move. However, many more perspectives see D&D's growth as progress, and whatever comes next is very unlikely to be a revanche maneuver, because, you know, not mean spirited.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
My argument is against your stated notion that all these F@#$ing New Guys are strictly at fault for the current state of D&D and if Wizards just left all the design decisions to the Old Guard everything would be better.
Yes, design by committee is a terrible approach. Note that I am not trying to design an RPG system, nor even defending this one. Yes, I'm arguing that balance is fuzzy, because it is. It's also a well-known idea that "balance" is overhyped by armchair game designers and amateur hobbyists who spend too much time trying to nail the math and not enough time trying to nail the proper game feel. When it matters, balance can be waggled fairly easily. Hell, DMs with absolutely no Formal Game Design Training have been waggling the balance on their encounters at the table for decades and mostly doing just fine with it. The art of game design is in nailing down something that feels right when you're playing it, and it is almost entirely subjective. It's the reason successful game companies are the ones that iterate endlessly, constantly adjusting and refining based on the most extensive playtest and feedback data they can get. Learning to properly interpret that data is important, knowing what it is and how to use it is part of that FGDT thing you're accusing me of being too stupid to understand, but the bare bones fact of the matter is that if you only involve playtesters, playtest data, and feedback in your design process after your game is more-or-less complete and all you're looking for is confirmation that people like it?
Your game is going to suck, and nobody will like it.
Telling 25 million D&D players they're all too stupid to have an opinion on their game is a great way to make sure 25 million D&D players swiftly stop playing D&D.
Please do not contact or message me.
Quoting and bolding it because THIS SO HARD.
You say this pretty much right here:
"a past in which designers actually tried to make good D&D even if they didn't necessarily always succeed at everything) to here where we just mail out a survey to millions of people who are not game designers (and for good reasons) and let their law of mediocracy decide how to design D&D"
Seems to me that's what you are saying here.....
The old way being the way you are used to it and the new way being what we do now.
Also if you think they actually use the surveys to change things I have a bridge to sell you.
Yes, that is the balance we already have. You're nostalgically fetishizing something else. I'm also "having fun" by labeling it "objective balance." And really these things you're trying to apply some sort of gravitas to in your above quote ... folks jigger with those sacred mathematical constructs all the time.
At the end of the day, or rather in a few years time, there will be an expression of rules. I highly doubt they'll be a return to what you want, though would likely accommodate what you want if you were willing to work with them. Sort of like what we have now.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I wonder what the new "scary" setting they leaked will be. Will it be Shadowfell? Or probably something definitely new we absolutely never heard of? I only hope it won't be Innistrad. It would be really poor if the next year's MTG setting will be Innistrad. I believe they'll do Kamigawa as I think it could be amazing in D&D and it's something we've never seen before. We just had Ravenloft this year that is very similar to Innistrad and actually much better.
Did they say one of the settings will be "scary?" It was my impression that they'd be bringing three classic settings into 5E. My guesses would be:
They said that they were going somewhere scary, not that it would be one of the settings.
My guess is an adventure that touches in the Far Realm. Possibly the same book that has a cameo of an older setting (possibly Spelljammer).
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I am still mildly hopeful for a Dark Sun book, but only mildly.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Problem is it really wasn't THAT out there as an example; I have seen/had presented to me for approval similar concepts (granted I have seen worse in 3.x/Pathfinder... but not by much).
It'd 100% fit "Scary".
As for the Boo book, I think it could be one of the following three books! I assume the title will be Minsc, as Xanathar has Sylgar and yet the fish is only mentioned. The names are very rough.
"Minsc's Adventures to Everywhere", a book that elaborates on Planar Lore (specifically the First World and the Outer Planes), mixed with an "Everything" book in the rough, setting-free style of TCoE or even FToD or MP: MotM. I will also add the eye-like design on the variant cover sketch that evokes a beholder - or the great wheel cosmology diagram. Food for thought.
"Minsc's Guide to Baldur's Gate", basically Minsc's hometown now. Plus, it would be a "return to a setting we've seen before" or a "return to a classic setting", and as there's both Baldur's Gate III and a MtG Commander set known as "Battle for Baldur's Gate" (coincidence that it shares its name with an expansion for the other game Dungeon Madness? I think not) coming out next year, this could be a thing, and if so it would be a very different book "format" for WotC. However, it's still a stretch. BUT I WANT THE STRETCH TO BE TAKEN! FIND ME A BALDUR'S GATE BEHOLDER! Gimme just that city! I'd be happy forever.... Well, no, but...
And, finally, drumroll please...
"Minsc's Marvelous Adventures", a Candlekeep Mysteries-style book, each one involving Minsc. I doubt this one very much, but huh. I never saw WBtW, FToD, CM, S:CoC, ID: RotF, or MP: MotM coming, so I might be right in saying this is an option. This, however, doesn't solve the (Candlekeep) Mystery that is the 9+ eyes behind Boo on the Alt Cover, the MtG set and Baldur's Gate game next year, or any other one of the threads that don't exist that I am pulling on.
Frequent Eladrin || They/Them, but accept all pronouns
Luz Noceda would like to remind you that you're worth loving!
As for what I want out of the 5e improvements:
- I like having more optional rules that you can tack on or off so groups more easily make things more complex if they wish.
- I do not like how the DMG deemphasizes downtime activities and treats them as something that does not deserve the same amount of attention as "real adventures", and I think that is a HUGE missed opportunity. In my opininion, D&D has an issue with overwhelming focus on combat, and many downtime activities are not only great hooks, they can be full on adventures and fun diversions in their own right where there is little to no combat.
- I think it is impossible to get rid of the fuzziness of CR and baseline balance, but having it be less fuzzy would be nice for GMs who prefer something more tight and snug. I do not think it is super important since you can always adjust difficulty mid combat with reinforcements, fudging rolls, deus ex machina, and various other tools at the GM's disposal, but in terms of homebrew, it is a good idea to know how far you are diverging from the baseline.
- I am not a fan of the class system, so I want a progression system more free form and flexible. One of the perks of being a GM is that you have complete freedom in designing your NPCs, and one of the factors that discourages me from being a player is the rigid class system and level limit.
- This is more of a formatting and presentation issue than any change in mechanics, but I think it would be nice if monster statblocks and character sheets are formatted ideally the same way, or at least more similarly. I think the familiarity would better help players transition to being a GM. I also think having a unified streamlined format on NPCs and PCs will make it easier on digital companies to implement homebrew. Right now, some people on Beyond want a tool to convert character sheets to statblocks, and that whole issue can be avoided in the first place if statblocks and character sheets have the same format foundation, so instead of Beyond having to develop a character sheet, monster statblock, and eventually a sidekick system, Beyond would just be implementing one statsheet or whatever you want to call it, and the player version of the statsheet would basically be just a variation of what the GM has access to.
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Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
I've been thinking about this and I'm not convinced that there is much that can be done. Low levels are highly dependent on rolls, and high levels are highly dependent on optimisation. A few recent examples of my experience:
How do you even weight that? At low level, everything is on the roll of a dice. Stats help push it one way or the other, but battles are over before averages mean much. With higher levels, the exact build of the players, like their mix of classes, approach to the fight and how skilled they are have a massive influence. I'm not convinced that the concept is even valid. Maybe if you have a computer program you could get something close(ish), but it's not doable by hand and even with a program it would be very rough.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I could see some of that happening, like expanding on downtime and more optional rules etc.
I don't think the class structure is going to change though. That would be too big of a change for an update to 5E. That would have to be a full on 6E, if they ever went that direction at all.
I feel like it's more important to have that structure on the player end than the npc end. The DM controls everything but the players, they can mold encounter difficulty etc. They can add an NPC that does whatever that NPC needs to for the story etc. But if you allow that freedom on the PC end, the game starts to lose cohesion as an actual game. In a freeform RP deciding what your character can and can't do freely is fine, so long as everyone infolved is a team player and on the same wavelength. If you gave players anywhere near the level of freedom a DM has in building an NPC, I feel like the game part of D&D would start to fall apart fast. Multiclassing is probably the most you can really go in that direction without losing too much structure.