5e D&D is Vaporware

[hogarth]

In 5e, Dwarves only get +1 to Con, but that +1 is also +1 to all Con Checks because you add your entire stat instead of half your stat in 5e. Two players will be 10 points apart or more on their basic save bonuses at first level. The game is broken before a single ability is chosen.

But dude...that player with 10 points less in his stat might choose to play with skills instead, so the karmic wheel is balanced. Anything's possible, if you add enough complexity dials!

[ModelCitizen]

But to look outside the Matrix for a bit: the automatic success of being higher rank is largely a formality. They've never quoted a "base" DC that was more than 15, so after getting the +5 for being higher rank than the challenge, the modified DC would be 10 or less. And you're still adding your entire fucking stat to the roll. So unless your attribute is 8 or less, your rank bonus plus stat bonus would always be large enough to make you automatically succeed on any test where your rank was higher than the challenge value. Making the rank comparison even more meaningless than it looks at first glance.

-Username17

What's your source on the bolded thing? I couldn't find that part.

[Username17]

And you're still adding your entire fucking stat to the roll.

What's your source on the bolded thing? I couldn't find that part.

Because that's the only thing "every +1 to your attribute will matter" can mean in the context of their "making attributes more important" idea. Also there's the little giveaways about how you will save against fear "with your charisma" rather than "using your charisma modifier".

Sure, it's possible that zero will start at 10 or something, but that's just more accounting shenanigans. As long as you're getting +1 to your stealth roll for every +1 you add to Dexterity, you are adding your whole Dexterity to the roll. It's just that you're also subtracting 10 at the same time. But as long as that -10 or whatever is fixed for everyone, it doesn't even make any difference. Considering that much of the game is opposed tests and the fixed zero point adjustment will be done to both sides evenly, it seriously doesn't make any difference.

-Username17

[Sashi]

Because that's the only thing "every +1 to your attribute will matter" can mean in the context of their "making attributes more important" idea.

You're forgetting that Monte Cook believes giving feats odd-numbered stat requirements makes being STR15 "have meaning" even though the modifier is no different from being STR14.

[tussock]

Yeh, I'm still guessing what they've done is use DCs in the teens, and say if your stat is at least as high as the DC you win, no roll. That's the replacement for take-10, only it works mid-combat and such. Your normal check can still be a d20 with ye olde stat mod.

So if it's DC 15, your Dex 15 wins, and your team-mate with Dex 14 makes a check at d20+2. Which means hard stat and DC caps at 30 or less (they may use the classic 25), because then you can't roll better than your default. They still need that stat mod to make attacks and for damage and such (maybe, probably), so they'll use it for all their checks.

Mearls was talking about skills being +2, which might be +2 to the check and +2 to what you do automagically. That's like his earlier article on L&L, before Monte arrived, so the later stuff may have not made it.

[hogarth]

Look on the bright side!

Since a PC that doesn't use the skill system is supposed to be balanced with a PC that does use the skill system, it doesn't matter how good or bad the skill system is. You can just tear that part out of the book and throw it in the fire anyways.

[ishy]

Looking at the initial impressions article,

it sounds to me like they were playing with 3.5 skills only the dcs are 10 lower. And a lot of obfuscating that.

Though the fact that being trained only makes you 5-10% better at doing smt sounds really stupid.

We might have had ten battles spread out through these games. A(...), some of them were free-form descriptions between the DM and the player

That sounds like what you call cowboys and indians right? Bang! You are dead!

Though best thing in the article is the fact that the players expected one thing from the game (4e) and the dm went total asshole mode on them and basically said, no fuck you. You will mtp the way I like it, or fail.

[Username17]

Look on the bright side!

Since a PC that doesn't use the skill system is supposed to be balanced with a PC that does use the skill system, it doesn't matter how good or bad the skill system is. You can just tear that part out of the book and throw it in the fire anyways.

You still get to use the skill system, you just don't have any skills. Since skill checks are just stat rolls and "having skills" are just floating +5 bonuses to various arbitrarily labeled things, you actually can get by with no skills listed on your sheet.

Or to put it another way: bonuses are so divergent that having a 15 Strength lets you jump over pits and climb walls without rolling dice whether you have an Athletics skill or not. Playing a character without skills will be easy. However, having skills will push you right the fuck off the RNG (even more than characters already are).

-Username17

[ModelCitizen]

We might have had ten battles spread out through these games. A(...), some of them were free-form descriptions between the DM and the player

That sounds like what you call cowboys and indians right? Bang! You are dead!

Though best thing in the article is the fact that the players expected one thing from the game (4e) and the dm went total asshole mode on them and basically said, no fuck you. You will mtp the way I like it, or fail.

That's not what the article meant. Here's that statement again in context:

We might have had ten battles spread out through these games. As shown in Greg Bilsland’s pictures from the event, some of them were free-form descriptions between the DM and the player, some of them had loose diagrams just to keep everyone on the same page, and some had full tactical maps with miniatures. I ran it all three of those ways without any real break in the narrative of the game. We simply used what made sense.

Free-form description as opposed to minis, not as opposed to rules.

Something else from the article:

And the D&D designers didn’t. Instead, they made ability scores actually matter. As discussed in the skills and abilities seminar, ability scores now act as a sort-of passive skill check. If you want to open a barred door and that door’s DC is 13. If you have a strength ability score of 15, you don’t even have to roll. You kick in the door. It’s elegant, simple, easy to understand, and uses the whole score instead of the ability bonus. There are still bonuses for abilities, but now the score itself means something to the game and that meaning actually makes everything else much faster.

Looks like that's what they meant by every attribute point mattering, so they're probably not doing the retarded +entire stat thing that Frank speculates they're doing.

[nockermensch]

And the D&D designers didn’t. Instead, they made ability scores actually matter. As discussed in the skills and abilities seminar, ability scores now act as a sort-of passive skill check. If you want to open a barred door and that door’s DC is 13. If you have a strength ability score of 15, you don’t even have to roll. You kick in the door. It’s elegant, simple, easy to understand, and uses the whole score instead of the ability bonus. There are still bonuses for abilities, but now the score itself means something to the game and that meaning actually makes everything else much faster.

Looks like that's what they meant by every attribute point mattering, so they're probably not doing the retarded +entire stat thing that Frank speculates they're doing.

But this doesn't say what happens when the PC has STR 10. Does he have to roll 3 or more in a d20?

[hogarth]

But this doesn't say what happens when the PC has STR 10. Does he have to roll 3 or more in a d20?

No, you Magic Tea Party the door open!

[koz]

And the D&D designers didn’t. Instead, they made ability scores actually matter. As discussed in the skills and abilities seminar, ability scores now act as a sort-of passive skill check. If you want to open a barred door and that door’s DC is 13. If you have a strength ability score of 15, you don’t even have to roll. You kick in the door. It’s elegant, simple, easy to understand, and uses the whole score instead of the ability bonus. There are still bonuses for abilities, but now the score itself means something to the game and that meaning actually makes everything else much faster.

Looks like that's what they meant by every attribute point mattering, so they're probably not doing the retarded +entire stat thing that Frank speculates they're doing.

But this doesn't say what happens when the PC has STR 10. Does he have to roll 3 or more in a d20?

Exactly - there's no way to produce a logical sequence from 'roll some number which scales' to 'autopass' without somehow adding the whole ability score. Unless they went for some retarded mix of modifier + whole stat, so that basically you either auto-pass, or have to resort to modifiers to make the day. Which means that in our previous example, if you wanted to pass a DC 16 obstacle, you have to roll a fairly high number (15 if the stat yields +1, 14 if +2, etc), which makes no sense, since you just went from 'auto pass' to 'very hard' with a shift of one.

But then again, Mearls is heading this project, and he's shown that he finds basic addition and classical logic a hard thing to follow, and that shrooms are part of every design philosophy for him. So yeah.

[ModelCitizen]

You have to kick down a door, DC 15. If you have a Strength of 15 you auto-succeed. If you have a Strength of 14 you roll 1d20+2 (your Strength mod). That's what I got anyway.

In other words, this:

Unless they went for some retarded mix of modifier + whole stat, so that basically you either auto-pass, or have to resort to modifiers to make the day. Which means that in our previous example, if you wanted to pass a DC 16 obstacle, you have to roll a fairly high number (15 if the stat yields +1, 14 if +2, etc), which makes no sense, since you just went from 'auto pass' to 'very hard' with a shift of one.

[koz]

You have to kick down a door, DC 15. If you have a Strength of 15 you auto-succeed. If you have a Strength of 14 you roll 1d20+2 (your Strength mod). That's what I got anyway.

So... wait. You go from auto-succeeding to failing almost three-quarters of the time on a shift of one fucking DC point? Levels of retardation this high are hard to imagine anywhere that isn't the RPG design industry.

[Stubbazubba]

Or are they hybridizing the proficiency skill approach with numerical attributes, where you can say that a DC 15 climb check is an automatic success for anyone with STR of 15+X, where X is possibly 0, and everyone else has to roll a d20 + STR modifier? That, at least initially, makes sense. Someone should totally come along and rip it apart for me, because I'm too lazy to do so.

So... wait. You go from auto-succeeding to failing almost three-quarters of the time on a shift of one fucking DC point? Levels of retardation this high are hard to imagine anywhere that isn't the RPG design industry

Thus is the 1d20 mechanic. It's swingy.

[ModelCitizen]

So... wait. You go from auto-succeeding to failing almost three-quarters of the time on a shift of one fucking DC point? Levels of retardation this high are hard to imagine anywhere that isn't the RPG design industry.

You caught me editing. Yeah, it's stupid.

[koz]

Or are they hybridizing the proficiency skill approach with numerical attributes, where you can say that a DC 15 climb check is an automatic success for anyone with STR of 15+X, where X is possibly 0, and everyone else has to roll a d20 + STR modifier? That, at least initially, makes sense. Someone should totally come along and rip it apart for me, because I'm too lazy to do so.

So... wait. You go from auto-succeeding to failing almost three-quarters of the time on a shift of one fucking DC point? Levels of retardation this high are hard to imagine anywhere that isn't the RPG design industry

Thus is the 1d20 mechanic. It's swingy.

Sorry, what the actual fuck? There is nothing about the d20 mechanic that necessitates what I've just described on any level. Let's take the sensible example - 3.5E. You have a bonus of +x. This requires a roll of y-x on a d20, where y is some difficulty. Note that, according to this formula, difficulty y+1 requires either rolling 1 higher on that d20 or increasing x by 1. This is a logically-scaling d20 system.

What these fucks propose is not. At all.

[Stubbazubba]

Or are they hybridizing the proficiency skill approach with numerical attributes, where you can say that a DC 15 climb check is an automatic success for anyone with STR of 15+X, where X is possibly 0, and everyone else has to roll a d20 + STR modifier? That, at least initially, makes sense. Someone should totally come along and rip it apart for me, because I'm too lazy to do so.

So... wait. You go from auto-succeeding to failing almost three-quarters of the time on a shift of one fucking DC point? Levels of retardation this high are hard to imagine anywhere that isn't the RPG design industry

Thus is the 1d20 mechanic. It's swingy.

Sorry, what the actual fuck? There is nothing about the d20 mechanic that necessitates what I've just described on any level. Let's take the sensible example - 3.5E. You have a bonus of +x. This requires a roll of y-x on a d20, where y is some difficulty. Note that, according to this formula, difficulty y+1 requires either rolling 1 higher on that d20 or increasing x by 1. This is a logically-scaling d20 system.

What these fucks propose is not. At all.

You're right, it scales properly, I was talking about something completely different. My bad.

[Username17]

My speculation is that your "modifier" is simply your stat minus 10. So the guy with a Strength of 15 autopasses the DC 15 pit and needs to roll an 11+ to pass the DC 16 pit. In short, it's just that you "take 10" before you actually roll dice and if it's sufficient you don't roll at all.

Of course, this is exactly the same as just adding your whole stat and having all the DCs be 10 points higher, but that's Monte and Mearls for you.

That really is where I think they are going with all this "roll Strength" as opposed to "roll a Strength modified check" nomenclature.

-Username17

[Ice9]

I'm not sure about the "adding +5" bit - from their latest stuff, it seems like you only add +1 or 2 for having the skill. Which is actually worse, IMO - stats rule everything, and those stats are rolled randomly - brilliant!

[fectin]

It's all part of their plan to make 5e draw from every edition:
The random stats ruling everything makes it like 1e.
The overabundance of "compatible subsystems that you have to negotiate beforehand to even play the same game makes it like 2e.
The complete disregard for the RNG makes it like 3e.
The unrelenting tedium makes it like 4e.

Personally, I can't wait to start hating it.

[Neurosis]

Personally, I can't wait to start hating it.

Seems like you're already off to a pretty good start. : )

[fectin]

That was tongue in cheek; I'm actually fairly unlikely to be worse than ambivalent.

[OgreBattle]

Of course, this is exactly the same as just adding your whole stat and having all the DCs be 10 points higher, but that's Monte and Mearls for you.

Mechanically it's exactly the same, in presentation there are differences.
It feels better to have str15 defeat dc15 checks automatically than have str15 beat dc25. When you then have a dc20 door and your str15 guy has to roll d20+5 to succeed against it, you think "man, if I was strength 20 I could kick it down without a sweat". The presentation difference makes the world feel more connected to your attributes.

"your modifier is your attribute -10, so Str15 gives you +5" isn't really that much harder to grasp than how it's currently done with "your modifier is a number listed on a table next to your attribute and it goes up by one for every two points above 10 so str 15 gives you +3"

[Judging__Eagle]

and that shrooms are part of every design philosophy for him. So yeah.

I'd say otherwise. He's very sober, very close-minded, and very stupid. His work would probably improve with a mix of alcohol, mushrooms and cannabis; in varying dosages and schedules.