Ya know, I've argued against this rule from personal opinion quite a bit, but this was playtest content, so as a DM, I feel I should also represent the opinion of the group I playtested with:
They really flippin' hated it.
The two casters really didn't like not being able to crit on their spells (qouth the warlock: "No, I don't want to trade my ability to crit on my Eldritch Blast for the ability to 'crit' on saves that a 20 was going to succeed on anyway, thanks.")
The Rogue player didn't like not getting to double the dice of her sneak attack on a crit. According to her, her ability to sneak and scout ahead was already made mostly irrelevant by the 5e changes to familiars and made completely irrelevant the moment one of the casters learns invisibility and with a crit only doubling weapon dice, the one advantage left to the Rogue in combat (getting a rare massive damage boost on crits when you have advantage on the one attack you get to make per turn) is quickly outpaced by a Fighter's ability to make more attacks with a much bigger weapon (especially since they have ways to make sure they get advantage on each of those multiple attacks). We did some quick math and some testing and yeah, a Fighter would quickly start outperforming Sneak Attack damage if they use a Greatsword and take GWF as their fighting style. Especially past level 5 if the Fighter chose Battlemaster (with the right Manoeuvres) or Champion as their Archetype.
And the entire group asked me whether we could please stop using the new rules for d20 tests for the rest of our playtest when we did a combat to test the changes to grappling when the aforementioned Rogue (Dex 18) rolled a nat 1 on her Dex (Acrobattics) check (for an irrelevant total of 9, the modifier being +8 thanks to Expertise). The goblin rolled a 7 (for an equally irrelevant total of 6).
The scenario was that a band of goblins with nets were trying to capture slaves from a merchant caravan the party was protecting by dragging people towards another group of goblins waiting with clubs a little further away. We were testing the changes to Grappling and the Slowed condition at the same time. The Rogue ran forward trying to protect a commoner who had already been grabbed. She attacked the goblin who was grappling the commoner with advantage because it was Slowed and got in a lethal amount of damage thanks to Sneak Attack. Then a nearby goblin hit her with a net, giving her disadvantage on her dex checks and another goblin managed to grab her because of the unlucky nat 1 (she still defended with Dex (Acrobatics) despite the disadvantage as her Str (Athletics) was +0. The other die was a 14.) and dragged her into the middle of four waiting goblins who, because she was level 1, restrained and only had 8 HP left (her total was 10 HP and the net hit her for 0+2 bludgeoning, which in retrospect was me making a mistake since nets aren't supposed to do any damage, not even from strength or dex bonusses, but it wouldn't have mattered, she got hit for 11 total points of damage by the four goblins, the last one rolling a 4 and doing 6 damage, anyway), proceeded to club her unconscious.
Under 5e rules she would have succeeded that contested roll, not have gotten dragged into the range of the club goblins (who, by the rules of the encounter I designed, weren't moving except to drag unconscious captives away) and would have probably been able to keep the goblin trying to grapple her occupied long enough for the rest of the party to focus it and the one other net goblin still on its feet down (the predetermined condition for the club goblins to run away). Instead, she got grappled, dragged, knocked unconscious and then dragged again (this time without the need for a Grapple and therefore without the goblin dragging her getting the Slowed condition)... Off map to be enslaved while the rest of the party was occupied with the net goblins.
The incident confirmed what we pretty much already knew: That failing something your modifier should have let you succeed at had you rolled literally any of the other 19 sides on your 20-sided die feels terrible and does not, in fact, make the game more fun.
I feel like they really thought the vast majority of players really did use the nat 1/20 house rule though; like that was their reasoning for making it the rule or did I interpret Jeremy Crawford wrong?
Most people do interpret nat 1/20 as special in some way, but not necessarily as auto success/fail.
I'm okay with the inspiration idea, I might limit it to attack rolls and the first attempt on a test, taking 20 effectively should not grant inspiration. That can be the perk for rolling a 20.
DND 5e doesn't have a "take 10 or 20" in the sense of dice value. The rules say the attempt takes 10 times as long and you just pass.
Any type of fixed rolls are baggage DMs are bringing over from other editions' take 10/20.
Passive checks are also greatly misunderstood. They're not there to describe when the PC is doing something passively. They are when you want to determine an average outcome when the player is passive.
It was a colloquialism, I was just saying making attempt after attempt until you roll a 20 should not give you inspiration for skill checks and other repeatable actions you should only get inspiration if the 20 is on the first roll.
Well of that's the case you could just make natural ones burn inspiration if they have it automatically. Then the odds of each would make such tactics pointless even if the DM should just not allow stuff like that
Actually, that might not be that bad of an idea. If Nat 1s burned away Inspiration if you had it, it would compel people to use it more liberally just on the off chance that they might end up losing it if they get unlucky in the future.
Yeah. I'm not a fan of the natural 1/20 but the same time I can look at the rules and see how easily they're modified to work at a given table, much of 5e is that way, I don't think it's that big of a deal in the end.
Purely speaking on the strategic metagame of the rules, ability checks are already a risky proposition cuz not only does the check need to have consequences for failing they're usually is built in consequences for inaction as well. That means inspiration is most likely going to be burnt canceling disadvantage which has the largest impact on your results assuming you have a half way decent chance to pass the save to begin with.
I really don't think it is a good thing to say that changes to RAW is a good thing because you can house rule it to be something different. RAW often sets the precedent for things and can affect how people house rule things. There is also Organized Play where things have to be run RAW. RAW very much is a big deal because it sets the foundation on which house rules are then added. Plus, as this is UA, this is the chance to change RAW with feedback; we very much should treat it as a big deal.
I can't say the rules changes are good or bad. I can only say I personally don't like them and they won't work for my style game which is fine. I said my piece in the survey and provided the limited playtest feedback I had.Nat 1/20 are already a variant rule in 5e and RaW is the weakest form of ruling outside of organized play. That means as long as they keep the same level of variants in play the net difference is nil.
This modular setup is probably the most ingenious part of 5e. The only times it really has conflict is form discussion such as this where having a sound standardized ruling makes communication better but that doesn't necessarily translate to a better game because of the nuances of an individual table.
Them trying to take this modular game and force it into organize play It's its own separate problem. Some people like it and that's fine but trying to write the rules for a structured transferable game that stuff like AL or con play is looking for isn't really 5e. I'm not trying to gate keep gameplay it's just doesn't work well. It lacks the rule structure so by the time they get done modifying and adding in mandatory subsystems it has become a different animal. I DM for both so this isn't a hypothetical stance. They're two entirely different games being ran on the same platform.
I disagree with the notion that RAW is the weakest form of ruling. RAW is the foundation upon which house rules are built on; it sets an immediate precedent on what is commonly accepted. The modular setup isn't something new to 5E; optional and variant rules have been part of D&D for a while now. I highly disagree with the idea that RAW changes making no difference; if that was the case there would be no point in giving feedback. We give UA feedback because RAW matters.
There is no problem with Organized Play and how it sets up a set of standard rules to be used at a multitude of tables. In a home game, you agree to a specific set of rules set forth by the DM, generally established during session 0. In Organized Play, you do the same only the rules are not set by the DM but by whomever is running the Organized Play and the rules are set for multiple tables. D&D under Organized Play rules is still D&D; it isn't some other aninal. And I also say this as someone who has DM'd in AL.
I feel like they really thought the vast majority of players really did use the nat 1/20 house rule though; like that was their reasoning for making it the rule or did I interpret Jeremy Crawford wrong?
Most people do interpret nat 1/20 as special in some way, but not necessarily as auto success/fail.
I'm okay with the inspiration idea, I might limit it to attack rolls and the first attempt on a test, taking 20 effectively should not grant inspiration. That can be the perk for rolling a 20.
DND 5e doesn't have a "take 10 or 20" in the sense of dice value. The rules say the attempt takes 10 times as long and you just pass.
Any type of fixed rolls are baggage DMs are bringing over from other editions' take 10/20.
Passive checks are also greatly misunderstood. They're not there to describe when the PC is doing something passively. They are when you want to determine an average outcome when the player is passive.
It was a colloquialism, I was just saying making attempt after attempt until you roll a 20 should not give you inspiration for skill checks and other repeatable actions you should only get inspiration if the 20 is on the first roll.
Well of that's the case you could just make natural ones burn inspiration if they have it automatically. Then the odds of each would make such tactics pointless even if the DM should just not allow stuff like that
Actually, that might not be that bad of an idea. If Nat 1s burned away Inspiration if you had it, it would compel people to use it more liberally just on the off chance that they might end up losing it if they get unlucky in the future.
Yeah. I'm not a fan of the natural 1/20 but the same time I can look at the rules and see how easily they're modified to work at a given table, much of 5e is that way, I don't think it's that big of a deal in the end.
Purely speaking on the strategic metagame of the rules, ability checks are already a risky proposition cuz not only does the check need to have consequences for failing they're usually is built in consequences for inaction as well. That means inspiration is most likely going to be burnt canceling disadvantage which has the largest impact on your results assuming you have a half way decent chance to pass the save to begin with.
I really don't think it is a good thing to say that changes to RAW is a good thing because you can house rule it to be something different. RAW often sets the precedent for things and can affect how people house rule things. There is also Organized Play where things have to be run RAW. RAW very much is a big deal because it sets the foundation on which house rules are then added. Plus, as this is UA, this is the chance to change RAW with feedback; we very much should treat it as a big deal.
I can't say the rules changes are good or bad. I can only say I personally don't like them and they won't work for my style game which is fine. I said my piece in the survey and provided the limited playtest feedback I had.Nat 1/20 are already a variant rule in 5e and RaW is the weakest form of ruling outside of organized play. That means as long as they keep the same level of variants in play the net difference is nil.
This modular setup is probably the most ingenious part of 5e. The only times it really has conflict is form discussion such as this where having a sound standardized ruling makes communication better but that doesn't necessarily translate to a better game because of the nuances of an individual table.
Them trying to take this modular game and force it into organize play It's its own separate problem. Some people like it and that's fine but trying to write the rules for a structured transferable game that stuff like AL or con play is looking for isn't really 5e. I'm not trying to gate keep gameplay it's just doesn't work well. It lacks the rule structure so by the time they get done modifying and adding in mandatory subsystems it has become a different animal. I DM for both so this isn't a hypothetical stance. They're two entirely different games being ran on the same platform.
I disagree with the notion that RAW is the weakest form of ruling. RAW is the foundation upon which house rules are built on; it sets an immediate precedent on what is commonly accepted. The modular setup isn't something new to 5E; optional and variant rules have been part of D&D for a while now. I highly disagree with the idea that RAW changes making no difference; if that was the case there would be no point in giving feedback. We give UA feedback because RAW matters.
There is no problem with Organized Play and how it sets up a set of standard rules to be used at a multitude of tables. In a home game, you agree to a specific set of rules set forth by the DM, generally established during session 0. In Organized Play, you do the same only the rules are not set by the DM but by whomever is running the Organized Play and the rules are set for multiple tables. D&D under Organized Play rules is still D&D; it isn't some other aninal. And I also say this as someone who has DM'd in AL.
If you have a conflict between RAW, RaI, and RTMS then RaW is the first one you eliminate.
Not always, for example: Magic Missile, RAI you can either roll once or roll for each dart; RAW you roll once. I have seen people just do RAW to save time.
I have also taken the side of RAW when it conflicts with any House Rules I made before. I don't immediately eliminate RAW because it is the foundation things are built on and understanding it is important.
5e has the idea of RTMS>RAI>RAW built into it. It is stated clearly in page six of the Player Handbook says that the game is played by:
The DM describes the environment. The players describe what they want to do. The DM narrates the results of the adventurers' actions.
The DMG also says:
The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren't in charge. You're the DM, and you are in charge of the game. That said, your goal isn't to slaughter the adventurers but to create a campaign world that revolves around their actions and decisions, and to keep your players coming back for more! If you're lucky, the events of your campaign will echo in the memories of your players long after the final game session is concluded.
organized play is in direct conflict of this and that cannot be rectified with adding more rules.
First off, organized play is not going against it Organized play uses a standardized set of rules because it leads to more stable.play from table to table. So it is still following that excerpt. Organized Play is simply considering the overall enjoyment of a multitude of tables than just a singular table. I doubt it would be enjoyable if you had a different set of house rules for every table you played in AL. Plus Organized Play, actually can have its own house rules *gasp*. For example, AL handles Magic Items in its own way.
Honestly, better to think as the DMs in Organized Play as sub-DMs and the administration for the Organizer Play as the actual DM.
Also, the RTMS > RAI > RAW idea is false. I had RAW take precedence in a number of cases because it lead to more enjoyment at my table. There are times when RAW actually leads to more fun. Take the Magic Missile example; some groups would prefer a more speedy resolution so you can get more turns done, so doing it fully RAW where you only roll once for each dart leads to more enjoyment for that group.
My group threw in a bunch of house rules at the beginning and over the years we shed them more and more, playing closer to RAW, because we found it more enjoyable that way.
I am not saying house rules are bad, but that fully understanding the RAW leads to better house rules. Whenever I make a house rule, I carefully consider the RAW because that is the foundation on which the house rule is built upon. I consider why the RAW is the way it is, and make sure a house rule really is needed, and that has directly lead to a better experience.
I am not bound by the rules like you think I am. I am purposely choosing to adhere to the rules because I have found it leading to more enjoyment for my players, only issuing changes after careful consideration. I am still very much in charge.
If RAW doesn't matter like you are suggesting it is, then UA feedback does not matter. However, UA feedback very does matter so RAW does matter.
I never said RAW doesn't matter. I said as soon as they interfere with the game you disregard them. Which you cannot do in organized play. You have adhere to them to silly end results.
You really heavily downplayed the importance of RAW however. Disregarding a rule isn't unique to RAW though; when any rule (RAW or not) interferes with the game, you should disregard it. My group ended up disregarding house rules we used previously because we simply found that the RAW rules worked for us. We still use some house rules, but no where near as many as we did before. There is nothing wrong with adhering to RAW if it leads to the overall experience being better, which I would argue that it does in Organized Play when you take into account every table in Organized Play and not just a singular table. If people could have table specific house rules in Organized Play, it would lead to all sorts of issues with individual tables having differing rules. Honestly, I have not found RAW interfering with any of the games I've DM'd and played in AL, and I have done plenty of both. In home games, I've actually found poorly designed house rules interfering with games more often than RAW rules ever did.
My group ended up learning the importance of RAW when we actually sat down and considered why the RAW rules are the way they are, why were we changing it, and if we really needed to change them. More often that not, we ended up reverting a number of house rules, even a number of variant rules. We now take RAW into massive consideration whenever we introduce a house rule and it has greatly improved my group's experience.
Ya know, I've argued against this rule from personal opinion quite a bit, but this was playtest content, so as a DM, I feel I should also represent the opinion of the group I playtested with:
They really flippin' hated it.
The two casters really didn't like not being able to crit on their spells (qouth the warlock: "No, I don't want to trade my ability to crit on my Eldritch Blast for the ability to 'crit' on saves that a 20 was going to succeed on anyway, thanks.")
The Rogue player didn't like not getting to double the dice of her sneak attack on a crit. According to her, her ability to sneak and scout ahead was already made mostly irrelevant by the 5e changes to familiars and made completely irrelevant the moment one of the casters learns invisibility and with a crit only doubling weapon dice, the one advantage left to the Rogue in combat (getting a rare massive damage boost on crits when you have advantage on the one attack you get to make per turn) is quickly outpaced by a Fighter's ability to make more attacks with a much bigger weapon (especially since they have ways to make sure they get advantage on each of those multiple attacks). We did some quick math and some testing and yeah, a Fighter would quickly start outperforming Sneak Attack damage if they use a Greatsword and take GWF as their fighting style. Especially past level 5 if the Fighter chose Battlemaster (with the right Manoeuvres) or Champion as their Archetype.
And the entire group asked me whether we could please stop using the new rules for d20 tests for the rest of our playtest when we did a combat to test the changes to grappling when the aforementioned Rogue (Dex 18) rolled a nat 1 on her Dex (Acrobattics) check (for an irrelevant total of 9, the modifier being +8 thanks to Expertise). The goblin rolled a 7 (for an equally irrelevant total of 6).
The scenario was that a band of goblins with nets were trying to capture slaves from a merchant caravan the party was protecting by dragging people towards another group of goblins waiting with clubs a little further away. We were testing the changes to Grappling and the Slowed condition at the same time. The Rogue ran forward trying to protect a commoner who had already been grabbed. She attacked the goblin who was grappling the commoner with advantage because it was Slowed and got in a lethal amount of damage thanks to Sneak Attack. Then a nearby goblin hit her with a net, giving her disadvantage on her dex checks and another goblin managed to grab her because of the unlucky nat 1 (she still defended with Dex (Acrobatics) despite the disadvantage as her Str (Athletics) was +0. The other die was a 14.) and dragged her into the middle of four waiting goblins who, because she was level 1, restrained and only had 8 HP left (her total was 10 HP and the net hit her for 0+2 bludgeoning, which in retrospect was me making a mistake since nets aren't supposed to do any damage, not even from strength or dex bonusses, but it wouldn't have mattered, she got hit for 11 total points of damage by the four goblins, the last one rolling a 4 and doing 6 damage, anyway), proceeded to club her unconscious.
Under 5e rules she would have succeeded that contested roll, not have gotten dragged into the range of the club goblins (who, by the rules of the encounter I designed, weren't moving except to drag unconscious captives away) and would have probably been able to keep the goblin trying to grapple her occupied long enough for the rest of the party to focus it and the one other net goblin still on its feet down (the predetermined condition for the club goblins to run away). Instead, she got grappled, dragged, knocked unconscious and then dragged again (this time without the need for a Grapple and therefore without the goblin dragging her getting the Slowed condition)... Off map to be enslaved while the rest of the party was occupied with the net goblins.
The incident confirmed what we pretty much already knew: That failing something your modifier should have let you succeed at had you rolled literally any of the other 19 sides on your 20-sided die feels terrible and does not, in fact, make the game more fun.
I disagree with the notion that RAW is the weakest form of ruling. RAW is the foundation upon which house rules are built on; it sets an immediate precedent on what is commonly accepted. The modular setup isn't something new to 5E; optional and variant rules have been part of D&D for a while now. I highly disagree with the idea that RAW changes making no difference; if that was the case there would be no point in giving feedback. We give UA feedback because RAW matters.
There is no problem with Organized Play and how it sets up a set of standard rules to be used at a multitude of tables. In a home game, you agree to a specific set of rules set forth by the DM, generally established during session 0. In Organized Play, you do the same only the rules are not set by the DM but by whomever is running the Organized Play and the rules are set for multiple tables. D&D under Organized Play rules is still D&D; it isn't some other aninal. And I also say this as someone who has DM'd in AL.
Not always, for example: Magic Missile, RAI you can either roll once or roll for each dart; RAW you roll once. I have seen people just do RAW to save time.
I have also taken the side of RAW when it conflicts with any House Rules I made before. I don't immediately eliminate RAW because it is the foundation things are built on and understanding it is important.
First off, organized play is not going against it Organized play uses a standardized set of rules because it leads to more stable.play from table to table. So it is still following that excerpt. Organized Play is simply considering the overall enjoyment of a multitude of tables than just a singular table. I doubt it would be enjoyable if you had a different set of house rules for every table you played in AL. Plus Organized Play, actually can have its own house rules *gasp*. For example, AL handles Magic Items in its own way.
Honestly, better to think as the DMs in Organized Play as sub-DMs and the administration for the Organizer Play as the actual DM.
Also, the RTMS > RAI > RAW idea is false. I had RAW take precedence in a number of cases because it lead to more enjoyment at my table. There are times when RAW actually leads to more fun. Take the Magic Missile example; some groups would prefer a more speedy resolution so you can get more turns done, so doing it fully RAW where you only roll once for each dart leads to more enjoyment for that group.
My group threw in a bunch of house rules at the beginning and over the years we shed them more and more, playing closer to RAW, because we found it more enjoyable that way.
I am not saying house rules are bad, but that fully understanding the RAW leads to better house rules. Whenever I make a house rule, I carefully consider the RAW because that is the foundation on which the house rule is built upon. I consider why the RAW is the way it is, and make sure a house rule really is needed, and that has directly lead to a better experience.
I am not bound by the rules like you think I am. I am purposely choosing to adhere to the rules because I have found it leading to more enjoyment for my players, only issuing changes after careful consideration. I am still very much in charge.
If RAW doesn't matter like you are suggesting it is, then UA feedback does not matter. However, UA feedback very does matter so RAW does matter.
You really heavily downplayed the importance of RAW however. Disregarding a rule isn't unique to RAW though; when any rule (RAW or not) interferes with the game, you should disregard it. My group ended up disregarding house rules we used previously because we simply found that the RAW rules worked for us. We still use some house rules, but no where near as many as we did before. There is nothing wrong with adhering to RAW if it leads to the overall experience being better, which I would argue that it does in Organized Play when you take into account every table in Organized Play and not just a singular table. If people could have table specific house rules in Organized Play, it would lead to all sorts of issues with individual tables having differing rules. Honestly, I have not found RAW interfering with any of the games I've DM'd and played in AL, and I have done plenty of both. In home games, I've actually found poorly designed house rules interfering with games more often than RAW rules ever did.
My group ended up learning the importance of RAW when we actually sat down and considered why the RAW rules are the way they are, why were we changing it, and if we really needed to change them. More often that not, we ended up reverting a number of house rules, even a number of variant rules. We now take RAW into massive consideration whenever we introduce a house rule and it has greatly improved my group's experience.