That is objectively not true. There no race/class combinations not allowed in 5th Edition. If you chose to not play a particular combination, that is on you, not the rule set.
You are correct, but having ASI’s ties to race has its issues and for a brand new player who knows zero about the game they are not going to “play against type” because they don’t know what type is, but could accidentally “play against type” with fixed ASI’s and choosing a race/class combo that makes it a tiny bit harder.
Tasha’s helped with this, but putting the starting ASI’s as part of level 1 class selection helps remove the issue. If a new player picks an orc wizard and at level 1 wizard they get “Academic Training” that gives them the +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1 to ability scores of their choice (and the “quick build” recommendations steer you to using one of those to INT ) it’s seems a better option than what we have now and the threads and threads of arguments. And it would be limited to character level one as part of class selection so there are no multiclassing shenanigans.
OH NO! Not *gasps* “a tiny bit harder!!” Whatever shall we do?!? Heaven forbid we be… *looks over left shoulder, looks over right shoulder* “challenged….” 🤨 (It’s not the end of the world folks.)
Never said it was the end of the world but it could help keep new players in the game. Nothing wrong with starting with a 15 instead of 16. If you know what you are doing, great have at it. But maybe, just maybe, a new player might think “why does Sam get to take sentinel or other feat at 4th level but I can’t because X stat was lower so I’m not performing or having as much versatility as they are? Someone should have told me to do Y race instead of Z!”
You can totally take the feat instead of the stat bump. What is this fixation on maxing out main stats. In 2e, whatever stats you got at creation were your permanent lifetime stats. Being able to increase your Abilities is such a luxury compared to older editions. Maybe that’s why I don’t sweat it so much, I see it as an extra perk instead of an entitlement. 🤷♂️
When 3E came out I was excited that all the races could be all the classes, compared to older editions. And maybe all the concern for bigger modifiers and maxing stats came from there, with the Base Attack Bonuses increasing as you leveled, etc... Bounded Accuracy helps, but there is still the pull toward getting the best bonus. And the allure of just playing the class/race combo you want without the feeling that you could just be missing out.
And people play D&D differently than older editions, well at least I know I and my group does. Earlier editions we just played modules and little homebrew (a lot of dungeon crawls). But now, some groups play 90% roleplay, 5% exploration, 5% combat while others are the exact opposite with 90% combat and little RP and Exploration. And a vast amount of differences in between. So for some, getting that extra +1 from maxing a stat is more enjoyable than sitting at a 17 or18, but having a feat.
And I started out on your side of the camp, with liking fixed ASI's and you just had to work a little harder if you wanted to play that Half-Orc 4 Elements Monk. But I've since changed my mind on the issue. My preference is Point Buy with floating ASI's. But my DM likes rolling so that's what we did and you lived with the consequences. He also doesn't allow multiclassing and furry or feathered or scaled races, so mainly PHB races and a few others. And I'm good with that.
Would you have a problem if they put the starting ASI's with class or background selection and not with races?
I remember in 2e min/maxing was a thing because your stats didn’t change from character creation. But life was cheap back then too, we ran three characters at a time and rolled up replacements on a nearly weekly basis. That’s pro’ly part of why I don’t worry about having top stats, I expect my character could die any session, so I play them to have fun. So while I can min/max with the best of them, I just… don’t. And I never feel like I’m possibly missing out because I didn’t either. In fact. I would feel like I was missing out more if i min/maxed instead of playing the character I wanted to.
When WotC announced 4e I boycotted the company for a decade because I refused to give into their money grubbing 🐴💩 anymore. When 5e came out I ignored it for a few years but I kept hearing good things about it from people. I was in a bookstore and saw the PHB, so I decided to check it out and see if it was worth my breaking my boycott. The very first thing I did was flip to the races section and looked for any form of racial Ability adjustments. That’s how integral fixed racial ASIs are to D&D for me. Does that answer your question?
The difference between +2 and +3 is so small to be negligible.
At level 1 it is typically 20-25% when using weapons. You may wish to recalibrate your definition of negligible.
Level 1 is, like, a session. PCs should be at 3rd level by the end of session 3, and 5th level by the end of session 10ish. That’s a couple of months and you’re staring at tier-2. It’s negligible.
Level 1 is, like, a session. PCs should be at 3rd level by the end of session 3, and 5th level by the end of session 10ish. That’s a couple of months and you’re staring at tier-2. It’s negligible.
Haven't played many modern games?
More modern games run on milestone can run ten or more sessions between levels. Characters can start at level 1 and take over a year to get to 5. Most games conclude, or peter out and die, before characters reach tenth level. Opportunities to patch one's modifiers to catch up to the Privileged Folk who get to put their numbers where they want them come, for most characters, once - at fourth level.
It's why one of my hopes for any prospective next-gen D&D games (to get back on topic) is to cut every level after 10. Or elsewise accelerate the game in such a way that reaching 20 is a reasonable goal rather than a memey pipe dream. Compress the current character classes down to ten levels and it'd make ever so much more sense on top of allowing people to actually see the end of their class. It'd help combat the ballooning HP problems that make higher-level 5e combat feel like such a slog to so many folks. And it'd just overall be a cleaner design than "we're gonna give you twenty character levels but only design the game around the first eight or so of them, then leave half our entire level progression almost entirely unsupported without even the faintest guidance for people who might want to push past level 11."
Obviously far too drastic a change for 5.5e 2024 D&D: the Reloadening, but that'd be a big one for me. Either support ALL the levels, all the way up to 20, or only design levels for the amount of game you intend to support.
Level 1 is, like, a session. PCs should be at 3rd level by the end of session 3, and 5th level by the end of session 10ish. That’s a couple of months and you’re staring at tier-2. It’s negligible.
Haven't played many modern games?
More modern games run on milestone can run ten or more sessions between levels. Characters can start at level 1 and take over a year to get to 5. Most games conclude, or peter out and die, before characters reach tenth level. Opportunities to patch one's modifiers to catch up to the Privileged Folk who get to put their numbers where they want them come, for most characters, once - at fourth level.
It's why one of my hopes for any prospective next-gen D&D games (to get back on topic) is to cut every level after 10. Or elsewise accelerate the game in such a way that reaching 20 is a reasonable goal rather than a memey pipe dream. Compress the current character classes down to ten levels and it'd make ever so much more sense on top of allowing people to actually see the end of their class. It'd help combat the ballooning HP problems that make higher-level 5e combat feel like such a slog to so many folks. And it'd just overall be a cleaner design than "we're gonna give you twenty character levels but only design the game around the first eight or so of them, then leave half our entire level progression almost entirely unsupported without even the faintest guidance for people who might want to push past level 11."
Obviously far too drastic a change for 5.5e 2024 D&D: the Reloadening, but that'd be a big one for me. Either support ALL the levels, all the way up to 20, or only design levels for the amount of game you intend to support.
No wonder youse all are so desperate for those high numbies, y’alls’ games take to frackin’ long. Sheesh. Switch to XP, dang.
As a DM I know I get ‘em to 3rd level with a bullet because I want everyone to get their subclasses quickly, but even still it shouldn’t take more than 6-8 sessions in a slow game to hit 3rd level. Your problem isn’t that your stats are too low, it’s that your DMs are stingy 💩💩 heads.
Level 1 is, like, a session. PCs should be at 3rd level by the end of session 3, and 5th level by the end of session 10ish. That’s a couple of months and you’re staring at tier-2. It’s negligible.
Haven't played many modern games?
More modern games run on milestone can run ten or more sessions between levels. Characters can start at level 1 and take over a year to get to 5. Most games conclude, or peter out and die, before characters reach tenth level. Opportunities to patch one's modifiers to catch up to the Privileged Folk who get to put their numbers where they want them come, for most characters, once - at fourth level.
It's why one of my hopes for any prospective next-gen D&D games (to get back on topic) is to cut every level after 10. Or elsewise accelerate the game in such a way that reaching 20 is a reasonable goal rather than a memey pipe dream. Compress the current character classes down to ten levels and it'd make ever so much more sense on top of allowing people to actually see the end of their class. It'd help combat the ballooning HP problems that make higher-level 5e combat feel like such a slog to so many folks. And it'd just overall be a cleaner design than "we're gonna give you twenty character levels but only design the game around the first eight or so of them, then leave half our entire level progression almost entirely unsupported without even the faintest guidance for people who might want to push past level 11."
Obviously far too drastic a change for 5.5e 2024 D&D: the Reloadening, but that'd be a big one for me. Either support ALL the levels, all the way up to 20, or only design levels for the amount of game you intend to support.
No wonder youse all are so desperate for those high numbies, y’alls’ games take to frackin’ long. Sheesh. Switch to XP, dang.
As a DM I know I get ‘em to 3rd level with a bullet because I want everyone to get their subclasses quickly, but even still it shouldn’t take more than 6-8 sessions in a slow game to hit 3rd level. Your problem isn’t that your stats are too low, it’s that your DMs are stingy 💩💩 heads.
Depends on how you define a "session", Sposta. Not everyone can do multi-hour D&D sessions, much less all-day ones. Our group has less than 2 hours to meet per week; some combats or encounters have to run over multiple weeks.
But guess what? We still have fun. I like having time to make use of my new-level features instead of rushing through them. I like getting time to decide what subclass I go with. I like getting to do some amount of roleplay, or investigation, or letting somebody try something goofy.
As always, your mileage may vary.
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Level 1 is, like, a session. PCs should be at 3rd level by the end of session 3, and 5th level by the end of session 10ish. That’s a couple of months and you’re staring at tier-2. It’s negligible.
Haven't played many modern games?
More modern games run on milestone can run ten or more sessions between levels. Characters can start at level 1 and take over a year to get to 5. Most games conclude, or peter out and die, before characters reach tenth level. Opportunities to patch one's modifiers to catch up to the Privileged Folk who get to put their numbers where they want them come, for most characters, once - at fourth level.
It's why one of my hopes for any prospective next-gen D&D games (to get back on topic) is to cut every level after 10. Or elsewise accelerate the game in such a way that reaching 20 is a reasonable goal rather than a memey pipe dream. Compress the current character classes down to ten levels and it'd make ever so much more sense on top of allowing people to actually see the end of their class. It'd help combat the ballooning HP problems that make higher-level 5e combat feel like such a slog to so many folks. And it'd just overall be a cleaner design than "we're gonna give you twenty character levels but only design the game around the first eight or so of them, then leave half our entire level progression almost entirely unsupported without even the faintest guidance for people who might want to push past level 11."
Obviously far too drastic a change for 5.5e 2024 D&D: the Reloadening, but that'd be a big one for me. Either support ALL the levels, all the way up to 20, or only design levels for the amount of game you intend to support.
No wonder youse all are so desperate for those high numbies, y’alls’ games take to frackin’ long. Sheesh. Switch to XP, dang.
As a DM I know I get ‘em to 3rd level with a bullet because I want everyone to get their subclasses quickly, but even still it shouldn’t take more than 6-8 sessions in a slow game to hit 3rd level. Your problem isn’t that your stats are too low, it’s that your DMs are stingy 💩💩 heads.
Depends on how you define a "session", Sposta. Not everyone can do multi-hour D&D sessions, much less all-day ones. Our group has less than 2 hours to meet per week; some combats or encounters have to run over multiple weeks.
But guess what? We still have fun. I like having time to make use of my new-level features instead of rushing through them. I like getting time to decide what subclass I go with. I like getting to do some amount of roleplay, or investigation, or letting somebody try something goofy.
As always, your mileage may vary.
My group usually meets for about 3 hours once per week. Large combats frequently require 2 sessions to conclude. Any combat being thrown at a 1st level party shouldn’t be that epic, and it’s still only 300 XP to level 2. That’s a single solid gobbo fight, and maybe a handful of cultists for dessert. That’s what I mean by a “session.”
My rule of thumb is that it should take (on average) a number of 3-4 hour “sessions” to reach the next level equal to the current level. So if you’re 1st level it should take 1 session to reach 2nd, if you’re 3rd level it should take about 3 sessions to reach 4th level (on average). That is, of course, depending on how much dicking around people do. Dicking around adds about 1-2 sessions per level.
I use EXP mostly but I did do a look at a couple of published milestone campaigns and tried calculating the EXP earned by the time of the milestone - if anything milestones should build you up faster than EXP if done right. I warn my players that stupid will get you killed and that I don’t have qualms killing off characters. So far my present campaign of 4-6 experienced players has moved from L1 to L3 in about 5 - 3 hour sessions and the core 4 should hit L4 in the next 2 sessions. I haven’t killed anyone yet but I’ve knocked most of the party out twice. Yes campaigns that run for years are not common so reaching high levels is rare enough that many newer DM’s may not have the experience with high level campaigns and balancing challenges.
Level 1 is, like, a session. PCs should be at 3rd level by the end of session 3, and 5th level by the end of session 10ish. That’s a couple of months and you’re staring at tier-2. It’s negligible.
Okay, at level 8 with a +1 weapon the difference between a 19 and a 20 is typically in the 15-20% range; it doesn't actually become negligible for most classes until level 12. Which is to say, it doesn't become negligible in most campaigns.
Level 1 is, like, a session. PCs should be at 3rd level by the end of session 3, and 5th level by the end of session 10ish. That’s a couple of months and you’re staring at tier-2. It’s negligible.
Okay, at level 8 with a +1 weapon the difference between a 19 and a 20 is typically in the 15-20% range; it doesn't actually become negligible for most classes until level 12. Which is to say, it doesn't become negligible in most campaigns.
Any weapon attacking character either has Extra Attack(s), ways to add damage (Sneak Attack, Divine Smite, Rage, hunter’s mark), or both, and he only caster who can add Ability mod to cantrip damage is the Warlock who can pad with hex and gets the equivalent of Extra Attacks too. If you’ve really gotta worry about doing 9 damage instead of 8 damage (or whatever) then things have either gone terriblyhorribly wrong, or you roll damage rolls worse than I do. (An’ my inability to roll above average for damage is damned near pathological, ask Yurei.) Think about it, the average combat lasts 3.5 rounds, meaning with Extra Attack that’s an average of 7 attacks. At a 60ish% hit rate that’s 4-5 hits. If 4-5 damage total over the course of an entire combat is gonna make or break anything then mistakes were made my friend, mistakes were made.
Lemme guess, none of your DMs award XP for RP, puzzles & traps, or clever use of proficiencies either, do they? Stingy, miserly mofos. No wonder you’re all so disgruntled.
I need to remember not to reply to you in these kinds of threads. I'm not a member of the Forum Loudmouth Club and don't deal well with dismissive snark responses to my earnest posts. Important lesson to learn about oneself at some point I guess.
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Level 1 is, like, a session. PCs should be at 3rd level by the end of session 3, and 5th level by the end of session 10ish. That’s a couple of months and you’re staring at tier-2. It’s negligible.
Okay, at level 8 with a +1 weapon the difference between a 19 and a 20 is typically in the 15-20% range; it doesn't actually become negligible for most classes until level 12. Which is to say, it doesn't become negligible in most campaigns.
Can someone explain this to me? Crits aren't relevant, since it's about the bonus to roll, and going from 19 to 20 is a 5.26% increase not a 15-20% increase. Is this the increase in damage from when a 19 total misses & a 20 hits? That seems really & oddly specific, so I assume I'm missing a key part of what the 15-20% represents.
Also, number of sessions per level is a bad statistic, because "session" isn't a fixed amount of playtime. Hours played per level is slightly better, but some groups can smalltalk at the pub for the entire session, while others move like thier characters will die in 7 days from radiation poisoning, so they better get revenge / make up with thier ex / start that B&B in the countryside immediately if not sooner! If only there was a way to measure fun per hour that didn't involve a ridiculous amount of bubblewrap.
Lemme guess, none of your DMs award XP for RP, puzzles & traps, or clever use of proficiencies either, do they? Stingy, miserly mofos. No wonder you’re all so disgruntled.
I need to remember not to reply to you in these kinds of threads. I'm not a member of the Forum Loudmouth Club and don't deal well with dismissive snark responses to my earnest posts. Important lesson to learn about oneself at some point I guess.
If it makes you feel any better, you definitely got the important part correct: "But guess what? We still have fun." In the end, I hope we all agree that is what really matters.
Sure. Typical hit probability is around 70%. Going from 70% to 75% is +7.1%. Going from 1d8+7 (19 str, +1 weapon, dueling style) to 1d8+8 (20 str, ...) is +8.7%. Total is +15.8%.
Level 1 is, like, a session. PCs should be at 3rd level by the end of session 3, and 5th level by the end of session 10ish. That’s a couple of months and you’re staring at tier-2. It’s negligible.
Haven't played many modern games?
More modern games run on milestone can run ten or more sessions between levels. Characters can start at level 1 and take over a year to get to 5[...]
Wait...10 sessions to get to level 2? Seriously? Either you spend a whole load of time doing random stuff, or that's a homebrew by a DM with a very different view to WotC on what level progression looks like. All but 1.2 (the point two...that's a different story) of my campaigns have been published milestone adventures. Every time, you get to level 2 at the end of the first quest. The first quest was always "knock a couple of heads together down the mine, come back for 5gp" or the single exception was "go speak to this person, shoot a deer, give it to said person, come back for 5gp". Our sessions are pretty much always after the kids go to bed. Since my wife likes early nights, that makes our sessions real short - hour and half, max, on a good night when the kids don't mess around, we're not tired (ha!), we don't have to catch up with chores or anything else. Usually, we get an hour or less. Even so, we've always hit the first milestone at the end of the first evening (not including session 0 with character creation, etc).
With the published adventures that I've seen, the model is 1 quest to get to level 2, and then, normally, 2 quests per level after that (occasionally 3). With the pacing that we have, it's usually 2 sessions per quest after the first (depending on how engrossed we get and how lucky we are). Granted, we've only gone to L13, but most modules end by then anyway. In terms of time invested, I'd say that we're not far off normal.
As for length of time...you can't account for how long (in weeks, months etc) a campaign takes. With one group, we're just about to finish our 6th adventure in the same time frame that another has taken to do the first chapter. Still, a year to get to level 5? That's pretty long. Our adventure with my Brother-in-Law is at L5 after 8 months and I'd consider that dysfunctional. While that's not an automatic label...it's only taken that long to get this far because getting together has been a PITA and we've gone several months now without a session.
The thing is, D&D has to have several axioms, base assumptions, on the pacing of an adventure. Anyone is welcome to alter it to taste, but the structure has to assume a certain pacing. Personally, I quite like the current one - I spend some time at each level, but then my character changes before they become stale. The thing is, I really don't think that 10-session levels, particularly at L1, will find much support. There is a reason why there are modules published that start at L5 or allow you to skip to L5. People aren't fans of of the early levels - or at least, not as much as later ones. That 0.2 at XP? New DM, I asked her if the adventure was milestone or XP, and she told me milestone. So, that's fine. After a while, my character has become torture to play. I've been L1 for ages and I'm really struggling against the enemies. I eventually Google it, and it's XP - she'd been waiting to be told to level us up. Gah. Early levels are okay in small doses, but I think most players like the frequent level ups. It helps keep the game interesting.
As for post L10 content - no. I'm not a fan of removing content that isn't doing harm. Indeed, only one of my adventures even ends before L10. Instead, I'd want more content that supports T4 and T5 characters. We only have one official adventure that does so (well, some do L12 and L13, but they're few and far between, plus they only dip into T4). Perhaps top-up modules that you can add on to the end of other adventures to continue your character's story. I think L1-20 adventures are never going to be viable en masse since most campaigns will never last that long, but a top-up one that could take your character from L13-20? I reckon there's a market for those. Just add it on to the end of other ones or even just start at the appropriate level. I'm not a fan of cutting content that isn't actively doing harm.
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That is objectively not true. There no race/class combinations not allowed in 5th Edition. If you chose to not play a particular combination, that is on you, not the rule set.
It punishes you in game terms if you are, say, a fighter and have less strength because you chose a race that gives ASI's that don't work well with your class.
Yes, you can pick any class you want, it is allowed.
However, if you prefer a certain race due to flavor or because you enjoyed reading about them in fantasy, your effective amount of optimal classes should NOT go down. But with 5e's rules in the category, it does.
Also, as others have mentioned, newbs who do not understand how the ASI's by race in the PHB work might choose a class that is not as good in gameplay, and that, in my opinion is a design flaw in the system.
The power level of certain race/class combinations will not majorly unbalance your character. It can still mess things up though.
It can’t really “mess up” anything. Why are “optimal classes” the only valid ones to choose? Are you really telling me that starting with a 15 instead of a 16 in your main stat is really that big of a deal? Because it’s not. You don’t “lose” anything that way, it just takes a couple of extra levels before you max out your score is all. Stop acting like it’s some major handicap or something to be only 80-90% optimized instead of 100% optimized.
Would you rather deal 1d8+2 damage, or 1d8+3?
The difference is small, but it can still be important.
Also, "optimal classes" as you put it, are certainly not the only ones you should take. I explained that racial tied ASI's are the flaw with the system, that IT forces choices between classes that work better with races, or slightly less good ones. Essentially forcing you into a situation between more fun, or a bit better optimized character.
This, is what are we are complaining about when we talk about racial ASI's, not the other way around.
The difference between +2 and +3 is so small to be negligible.
And IT doesn’t force any such thing, peoples’ own small mindedness makes them think they are forced into one thing or another. Break the shackles and free yourself li’l bruddah!
The system does force you into a choice about a bit more optimization (having your ASI's go to ability scores you need) or a bit more fun (getting to play the coolest looking race).
This choice is small, but optimization should not come at the price of fun, and that's what people like me are trying to get rid of when they ask to eliminate racial tied ASI's.
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I wonder if we could see the leveling up divided into two pillars. One would be the rank, where the PC becomes more powerful, and other the "tiers", unlocking slots of the skill tree, for example feats about crafting, social interactions and investigation, where the PCs knows more things but not more powerful. This could allow games with a frozen rank because PCs are too powerful superheroes, but the tiers or level of knownledge could be improved with the experencie, for example learning more languages.
* In a Unearthed Arcana sourcebook about optional rules I would like to can add more abilities scores as spirit (courage) and astuteness.
At level 1 it is typically 20-25% when using weapons. You may wish to recalibrate your definition of negligible.
Ladies. Gentlemen.
Not the topic of the thread.
Start a new one for discussing why people who want their numbers to be where they like them to be are all apparently small-minded ********.
Please do not contact or message me.
I remember in 2e min/maxing was a thing because your stats didn’t change from character creation. But life was cheap back then too, we ran three characters at a time and rolled up replacements on a nearly weekly basis. That’s pro’ly part of why I don’t worry about having top stats, I expect my character could die any session, so I play them to have fun. So while I can min/max with the best of them, I just… don’t. And I never feel like I’m possibly missing out because I didn’t either. In fact. I would feel like I was missing out more if i min/maxed instead of playing the character I wanted to.
When WotC announced 4e I boycotted the company for a decade because I refused to give into their money grubbing 🐴💩 anymore. When 5e came out I ignored it for a few years but I kept hearing good things about it from people. I was in a bookstore and saw the PHB, so I decided to check it out and see if it was worth my breaking my boycott. The very first thing I did was flip to the races section and looked for any form of racial Ability adjustments. That’s how integral fixed racial ASIs are to D&D for me. Does that answer your question?
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Level 1 is, like, a session. PCs should be at 3rd level by the end of session 3, and 5th level by the end of session 10ish. That’s a couple of months and you’re staring at tier-2. It’s negligible.
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Haven't played many modern games?
More modern games run on milestone can run ten or more sessions between levels. Characters can start at level 1 and take over a year to get to 5. Most games conclude, or peter out and die, before characters reach tenth level. Opportunities to patch one's modifiers to catch up to the Privileged Folk who get to put their numbers where they want them come, for most characters, once - at fourth level.
It's why one of my hopes for any prospective next-gen D&D games (to get back on topic) is to cut every level after 10. Or elsewise accelerate the game in such a way that reaching 20 is a reasonable goal rather than a memey pipe dream. Compress the current character classes down to ten levels and it'd make ever so much more sense on top of allowing people to actually see the end of their class. It'd help combat the ballooning HP problems that make higher-level 5e combat feel like such a slog to so many folks. And it'd just overall be a cleaner design than "we're gonna give you twenty character levels but only design the game around the first eight or so of them, then leave half our entire level progression almost entirely unsupported without even the faintest guidance for people who might want to push past level 11."
Obviously far too drastic a change for 5.5e 2024 D&D: the Reloadening, but that'd be a big one for me. Either support ALL the levels, all the way up to 20, or only design levels for the amount of game you intend to support.
Please do not contact or message me.
No wonder youse all are so desperate for those high numbies, y’alls’ games take to frackin’ long. Sheesh. Switch to XP, dang.
As a DM I know I get ‘em to 3rd level with a bullet because I want everyone to get their subclasses quickly, but even still it shouldn’t take more than 6-8 sessions in a slow game to hit 3rd level. Your problem isn’t that your stats are too low, it’s that your DMs are stingy 💩💩 heads.
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Depends on how you define a "session", Sposta. Not everyone can do multi-hour D&D sessions, much less all-day ones. Our group has less than 2 hours to meet per week; some combats or encounters have to run over multiple weeks.
But guess what? We still have fun. I like having time to make use of my new-level features instead of rushing through them. I like getting time to decide what subclass I go with. I like getting to do some amount of roleplay, or investigation, or letting somebody try something goofy.
As always, your mileage may vary.
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My group usually meets for about 3 hours once per week. Large combats frequently require 2 sessions to conclude. Any combat being thrown at a 1st level party shouldn’t be that epic, and it’s still only 300 XP to level 2. That’s a single solid gobbo fight, and maybe a handful of cultists for dessert. That’s what I mean by a “session.”
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My rule of thumb is that it should take (on average) a number of 3-4 hour “sessions” to reach the next level equal to the current level. So if you’re 1st level it should take 1 session to reach 2nd, if you’re 3rd level it should take about 3 sessions to reach 4th level (on average). That is, of course, depending on how much dicking around people do. Dicking around adds about 1-2 sessions per level.
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I use EXP mostly but I did do a look at a couple of published milestone campaigns and tried calculating the EXP earned by the time of the milestone - if anything milestones should build you up faster than EXP if done right. I warn my players that stupid will get you killed and that I don’t have qualms killing off characters. So far my present campaign of 4-6 experienced players has moved from L1 to L3 in about 5 - 3 hour sessions and the core 4 should hit L4 in the next 2 sessions. I haven’t killed anyone yet but I’ve knocked most of the party out twice. Yes campaigns that run for years are not common so reaching high levels is rare enough that many newer DM’s may not have the experience with high level campaigns and balancing challenges.
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Okay, at level 8 with a +1 weapon the difference between a 19 and a 20 is typically in the 15-20% range; it doesn't actually become negligible for most classes until level 12. Which is to say, it doesn't become negligible in most campaigns.
Any weapon attacking character either has Extra Attack(s), ways to add damage (Sneak Attack, Divine Smite, Rage, hunter’s mark), or both, and he only caster who can add Ability mod to cantrip damage is the Warlock who can pad with hex and gets the equivalent of Extra Attacks too. If you’ve really gotta worry about doing 9 damage instead of 8 damage (or whatever) then things have either gone terriblyhorribly wrong, or you roll damage rolls worse than I do. (An’ my inability to roll above average for damage is damned near pathological, ask Yurei.) Think about it, the average combat lasts 3.5 rounds, meaning with Extra Attack that’s an average of 7 attacks. At a 60ish% hit rate that’s 4-5 hits. If 4-5 damage total over the course of an entire combat is gonna make or break anything then mistakes were made my friend, mistakes were made.
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I need to remember not to reply to you in these kinds of threads. I'm not a member of the Forum Loudmouth Club and don't deal well with dismissive snark responses to my earnest posts. Important lesson to learn about oneself at some point I guess.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Can someone explain this to me? Crits aren't relevant, since it's about the bonus to roll, and going from 19 to 20 is a 5.26% increase not a 15-20% increase. Is this the increase in damage from when a 19 total misses & a 20 hits? That seems really & oddly specific, so I assume I'm missing a key part of what the 15-20% represents.
Also, number of sessions per level is a bad statistic, because "session" isn't a fixed amount of playtime. Hours played per level is slightly better, but some groups can smalltalk at the pub for the entire session, while others move like thier characters will die in 7 days from radiation poisoning, so they better get revenge / make up with thier ex / start that B&B in the countryside immediately if not sooner! If only there was a way to measure fun per hour that didn't involve a ridiculous amount of bubblewrap.
If it makes you feel any better, you definitely got the important part correct: "But guess what? We still have fun." In the end, I hope we all agree that is what really matters.
Sure. Typical hit probability is around 70%. Going from 70% to 75% is +7.1%. Going from 1d8+7 (19 str, +1 weapon, dueling style) to 1d8+8 (20 str, ...) is +8.7%. Total is +15.8%.
Wait...10 sessions to get to level 2? Seriously? Either you spend a whole load of time doing random stuff, or that's a homebrew by a DM with a very different view to WotC on what level progression looks like. All but 1.2 (the point two...that's a different story) of my campaigns have been published milestone adventures. Every time, you get to level 2 at the end of the first quest. The first quest was always "knock a couple of heads together down the mine, come back for 5gp" or the single exception was "go speak to this person, shoot a deer, give it to said person, come back for 5gp". Our sessions are pretty much always after the kids go to bed. Since my wife likes early nights, that makes our sessions real short - hour and half, max, on a good night when the kids don't mess around, we're not tired (ha!), we don't have to catch up with chores or anything else. Usually, we get an hour or less. Even so, we've always hit the first milestone at the end of the first evening (not including session 0 with character creation, etc).
With the published adventures that I've seen, the model is 1 quest to get to level 2, and then, normally, 2 quests per level after that (occasionally 3). With the pacing that we have, it's usually 2 sessions per quest after the first (depending on how engrossed we get and how lucky we are). Granted, we've only gone to L13, but most modules end by then anyway. In terms of time invested, I'd say that we're not far off normal.
As for length of time...you can't account for how long (in weeks, months etc) a campaign takes. With one group, we're just about to finish our 6th adventure in the same time frame that another has taken to do the first chapter. Still, a year to get to level 5? That's pretty long. Our adventure with my Brother-in-Law is at L5 after 8 months and I'd consider that dysfunctional. While that's not an automatic label...it's only taken that long to get this far because getting together has been a PITA and we've gone several months now without a session.
The thing is, D&D has to have several axioms, base assumptions, on the pacing of an adventure. Anyone is welcome to alter it to taste, but the structure has to assume a certain pacing. Personally, I quite like the current one - I spend some time at each level, but then my character changes before they become stale. The thing is, I really don't think that 10-session levels, particularly at L1, will find much support. There is a reason why there are modules published that start at L5 or allow you to skip to L5. People aren't fans of of the early levels - or at least, not as much as later ones. That 0.2 at XP? New DM, I asked her if the adventure was milestone or XP, and she told me milestone. So, that's fine. After a while, my character has become torture to play. I've been L1 for ages and I'm really struggling against the enemies. I eventually Google it, and it's XP - she'd been waiting to be told to level us up. Gah. Early levels are okay in small doses, but I think most players like the frequent level ups. It helps keep the game interesting.
As for post L10 content - no. I'm not a fan of removing content that isn't doing harm. Indeed, only one of my adventures even ends before L10. Instead, I'd want more content that supports T4 and T5 characters. We only have one official adventure that does so (well, some do L12 and L13, but they're few and far between, plus they only dip into T4). Perhaps top-up modules that you can add on to the end of other adventures to continue your character's story. I think L1-20 adventures are never going to be viable en masse since most campaigns will never last that long, but a top-up one that could take your character from L13-20? I reckon there's a market for those. Just add it on to the end of other ones or even just start at the appropriate level. I'm not a fan of cutting content that isn't actively doing harm.
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.
The system does force you into a choice about a bit more optimization (having your ASI's go to ability scores you need) or a bit more fun (getting to play the coolest looking race).
This choice is small, but optimization should not come at the price of fun, and that's what people like me are trying to get rid of when they ask to eliminate racial tied ASI's.
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HERE.I wonder if we could see the leveling up divided into two pillars. One would be the rank, where the PC becomes more powerful, and other the "tiers", unlocking slots of the skill tree, for example feats about crafting, social interactions and investigation, where the PCs knows more things but not more powerful. This could allow games with a frozen rank because PCs are too powerful superheroes, but the tiers or level of knownledge could be improved with the experencie, for example learning more languages.
* In a Unearthed Arcana sourcebook about optional rules I would like to can add more abilities scores as spirit (courage) and astuteness.
I would love to see in depth class books. More weapons, more spells, more armour. Class based feats. And all of this setting neutral.
Edit: A form of prestige class. Limited in lvls.