What archetypes does 5E not represent well?

[OgreBattle]

So, what are the rules for jumping and grabbing onto dragons in 5e? How robust is 5e's grappling mechanics in general?

[angelfromanotherpin]

Do you know, it's both better and worse than I thought it would be. As one of your attacks, you make a Strength(Athletics) check opposed by the better of the target's Strength(Athletics) or Dexterity(Acrobatics). Success means that they get the [Grappled] condition and also that you drag them along when you move (at half speed unless they are 2 or more sizes smaller than you). You can't grapple something more than 1 size bigger than you. That's pretty sane. There's no indication it requires a free hand or anything, so you can totally grapple someone and still dual-weapon fight and such, which is a bit wacky, but whatever.

The real bad is the actual condition. [Grappled] means your speed is maxed at 0. That's all. It doesn't penalize attacking or casting in any way so far as I can tell. Also, the condition 'specifies its own end conditions,' those being the incapacitation and/or forceful removal from the target of the grappler. There's... no provision for voluntarily letting go or wriggling free. That's how poorly edited this shit is; once you tuck someone under your armpit, there they stays until you pass out or get hurled away from them by a Ring of the Ram or whatever.

edit: never mind, the grappling text does specify that you can release people at will. And how a grappled creature can use their action to wiggle free.

edit 2: So the more egregious complaints aside, the big thing for me is that the size restriction seems to reinforce the fundamentally low-level aesthetic of the edition. Instead of 3.x's thing where things could organically grapple bigger things as their grapple bonus improved for whatever reasons, now you're just arbitrarily capped at one size bigger than you. Also, it still doesn't inhibit attacking or casting, which both sharply limits its utility and makes me wonder what the hold even looks like.

[Whipstitch]

Removing DR is part of bounded accuracy. Bounded accuracy is the idea that you should be able to succeed or fail at tasks with any bonuses you could ever get, be they high or low, at any level.

-Username17

This is why the arguments on this subject get so tedious. Bounded accuracy is a really simple concept with really simple and entirely predictable implications. You can't reasonably expect to put high end monsters on the same rng as everyone else and not have that result in serious nerfs. Math doesn't fucking work that way. Jesus Christ.

[Shady314]

and makes me wonder what the hold even looks like.

They're hugging them. That is how I shall now imagine and describe it.

[ishy]

So in 5e, strong, muscly Fighters, with glistening nose hair, can force intimate actions on vulnerable dragons?

[spongeknight]

Then, 200 bow dudes divided in 20 10-strong squads. Count as if 1/5 of the arrows hit ignoring AC and instead you get a save for half. Assuming you make all the saves that's still 20 arrows auto-hitting, so easily some 100 auto-damage per round against anything without DR. If they have rapid-shot then it's double that damage.

Let's list the CR 20 challenges in 3.5 Monster Manuel that this tactic would win against: []

Let's list the CR 20 challenges this tactic would work against in 5e: [all of them].

Holy fuck, you just argued against yourself.

[fearsomepirate]

IMO it seems the real problem is they streamlined is they streamlined the patches out of the game that fixed the core mechanical problems of the system.

The 20 = Hit mechanic introduced by 3rd is one of the biggest offenders. If you give everything a minimum 5% chance to hit, then you either have to band-aid the system or have higher-level monsters be vulnerable. 3rd patches the problem with DR, confirming crits, high regeneration, and trivializing loot. 5e just embraces the problem, makes no real attempt to patch it and says, "Okay, so high-level monsters are vulnerable to a couple hundred low-level characters. That's part of the game now." I think I'm talking myself into thinking Nat 20 = Success was a terrible decision, and they should have stuck with AD&D's 18 + Beat By Five.

This discussion has definitely convinced me the low-level monsters are better-tested than the high-level ones. No way did they intend for a cheesy Fly + Acid Splash spam to kill a Tarrasque. I'll have to come up with suitable house rules as my party approaches higher levels.

[erik]

IMO it seems the real problem is they streamlined is they streamlined the patches out of the game that fixed the core mechanical problems of the system.

Aaaaaiighe! No, they created a bushel of new mechanical problems with the system. They streamlined monsters into being uninteresting damage dealers. They got rid of commonly used mechanics without replacing them. They fixed nothing while breaking tons of shit.

I think I'm talking myself into thinking Nat 20 = Success was a terrible

I really doubt you are thinking at all.

That's not even part of the problem, as evidenced by 3rd edition having had that rule and suffering from none of this bullshit. Most all of 5e monsters have such shitty AC that you don't even need 20=success to hit. Fuck, the aforementioned ancient blue dragon has an AC of 22. You just need some mook with a +2 bonus and that rule doesn't even apply. Tis not hard to come by. In fact it's a struggle to find something with a ranged attack worse than +2.
CR 1/8 Bandits have +3 to hit with their fucking crossbow.

Natural 20 successes aren't the problem, it is the whole design process whereby everyone is kept on the same random number generator range.

This discussion has definitely convinced me the low-level monsters are better-tested than the high-level ones. No way did they intend for a cheesy Fly + Acid Splash spam to kill a Tarrasque. I'll have to come up with suitable house rules as my party approaches higher levels.

Nothing to do with testing. Everything is on the same RNG, and that means that low level characters/monsters hit everything. This is simply expected for low levels and not for high levels. You shouldn't have to think for more than 5 seconds to come to the conclusion that if everyone is on the same RNG then low level opponents are always going to be a threat. 5 seconds of thought trumps 2 years of professional design and playest reviews.

You don't need a fucking house rule, you need an overhaul of the system. It is hard coded in with all the AC and attack bonuses. This shit was failure by design.

A gang of kindergartners can kick an incorporeal wraith in the shins until it is vanquished in under a minute. That's a fucking problem.

[DSMatticus]

The highest AC in the 5E MM (that I'm aware of) belongs to the Tarrasque at CR 30. It's AC 25. The smallest your proficiency bonus can be is +2. As soon as you can scrounge up three points worth of bonuses, everything in the fucking game (and 10 levels after that) is within an RNG of you. Getting rid of autohit on 20 makes no sense in the context of 5e. None at all. The numbers are on a small enough range that everyone already hits everyone else on multiple d20 results, so almost nothing changes.

[Grek]

So does this thread have a point other than to repeatedly bemoan bounded accuracy? Because judging by the title it's supposed to be about archtypes that aren't supported. And unless you're going to make the hilariously stupid comment that "No archtype is supported, because no archtype can kill armies" I see no particular reason to continue going on about bounded accuracy.

[Dean]

So does this thread have a point other than to repeatedly bemoan bounded accuracy?

I was pretty satisfied when my answer to the OP was: "Between very few classes existing, no content being made, martial class design being conceptually bankrupt, a nonfunctional skill system, and the problems of bounded accuracy the number of unsupported concepts in 5E is very high". Pretty much everything since then has just been us calling people out when they're wrong.

unless you're going to make the hilariously stupid comment that "No archtype is supported, because no archtype can kill armies" I see no particular reason to continue going on about bounded accuracy.

Hey remember when this happened?



Do you remember it being the last scene in the movie? 20 Orcs isn't an army but it is enough to kill your 5E character well through the game. This is actually a really huge problem given the source material. It's also a huge problem because the fluff for 5E itself keeps telling you crazy wrong things that will get you killed. On page 36 of the DMG it describes the sort of adventures 11th level characters should go on. It says you are "set well apart from the masses" and the "fate of nations or even the world" depends on your adventures where you "construct fortresses" "found guilds, temples, and martial orders" and "broker peace between nations or lead them into war". If you play the game they tell you to it will get you fucking killed because your concept is perpetually locked at one of the less powerful fellowship members. If your concept isn't "one of the weaker Fellowship members" your concept is not supported because this scene will get you fucking killed



Acceptable concepts in 5E are: Shitty fighter, Shitty ranger, Shitty barbarian, Shitty Rogue, OK Bear Druid, OK Blastlock or amazing Wizard or Cleric.

[Username17]

So does this thread have a point other than to repeatedly bemoan bounded accuracy? Because judging by the title it's supposed to be about archtypes that aren't supported. And unless you're going to make the hilariously stupid comment that "No archtype is supported, because no archtype can kill armies" I see no particular reason to continue going on about bounded accuracy.

Remember when you tried and failed to make a Ninja in this stupid system to prove us all wrong? Remember how your example failed like three different ways and then you slunk off with your tail between your legs?

Yeah, your failure to defend this hunk of garbage is still very much part of this conversation. It's just right now we happen to be talking to fearsomepirate because he seems to be having problems dealing conceptually with the math of repeated die rolls. And also with maglag because he's apparently incapable of distinguishing the numbers "many" and "many many."

If you want to jump in and have another go at defending your earlier stance that there "are too" well supported character types in 5e other than "minion master" then by all means go ahead. I take it as given that you are now attempting to convince everyone to bury the thread that you are instead conceding that point.

-Username17

[Chamomile]

So, to answer the thread question, the archetypes D&D 5E doesn't do well are those that aren't minionmancers and people that don't die to the local militia of Podunk, Fantasyland.

The archetype I played in 5e was cunning sorcerer. My class feature is not my spells, which I use only in occasional combat encounters that I participate in solely because I don't want to be too much of a dick to the GM. My actual class feature is the +10 bonus to persuading people to join my army.

[TiaC]

edit 2: So the more egregious complaints aside, the big thing for me is that the size restriction seems to reinforce the fundamentally low-level aesthetic of the edition. Instead of 3.x's thing where things could organically grapple bigger things as their grapple bonus improved for whatever reasons, now you're just arbitrarily capped at one size bigger than you. Also, it still doesn't inhibit attacking or casting, which both sharply limits its utility and makes me wonder what the hold even looks like.

It's not new.

[quote="3.5 SRD]You automatically lose an attempt to hold if the target is two or more size categories larger than you are.[/quote]

There were ways around this of course, but they were quite rare.

[NineInchNall]

The 20 = Hit mechanic introduced by 3rd is one of the biggest offenders. If you give everything a minimum 5% chance to hit, then you either have to band-aid the system or have higher-level monsters be vulnerable. 3rd patches the problem with DR, confirming crits, high regeneration, and trivializing loot. 5e just embraces the problem, makes no real attempt to patch it and says, "Okay, so high-level monsters are vulnerable to a couple hundred low-level characters. That's part of the game now." I think I'm talking myself into thinking Nat 20 = Success was a terrible decision, and they should have stuck with AD&D's 18 + Beat By Five.

Wat.

No matter what number a character needs to hit, a roll of 20 is always considered a hit and a roll of 1 is always a miss, unless the DM rules otherwise. Under most circumstances, a natural 20 hits and a natural 1 misses, regardless of any modifiers applied to the die roll.

[Maxus]

The 20 = Hit mechanic introduced by 3rd is one of the biggest offenders. If you give everything a minimum 5% chance to hit, then you either have to band-aid the system or have higher-level monsters be vulnerable. 3rd patches the problem with DR, confirming crits, high regeneration, and trivializing loot. 5e just embraces the problem, makes no real attempt to patch it and says, "Okay, so high-level monsters are vulnerable to a couple hundred low-level characters. That's part of the game now." I think I'm talking myself into thinking Nat 20 = Success was a terrible decision, and they should have stuck with AD&D's 18 + Beat By Five.

Wat.

No matter what number a character needs to hit, a roll of 20 is always considered a hit and a roll of 1 is always a miss, unless the DM rules otherwise. Under most circumstances, a natural 20 hits and a natural 1 misses, regardless of any modifiers applied to the die roll.

Not to mention higher level monsters have DR more often than not.

That couple hundred peasants with bows literally can't hurt that red dragon or balor.

[rasmuswagner]

The 20 = Hit mechanic introduced by 3rd is one of the biggest offenders...and they should have stuck with AD&D's 18 + Beat By Five.

Consider this a learning experience in how AD&D was a shitty system and everything you remember as making sense is actually your old house rules.

This discussion has definitely convinced me the low-level monsters are better-tested than the high-level ones. No way did they intend for a cheesy Fly + Acid Splash spam to kill a Tarrasque. I'll have to come up with suitable house rules as my party approaches higher levels.

"I can fly" is always going to beat "I got mad sick melee attacks brah". Good luck coming up with a houserule fix to that. Adventure designers tend to "solve" it by making troll closets and insisting you need to go into them.

[Grek]

If you want to jump in and have another go at defending your earlier stance that there "are too" well supported character types in 5e other than "minion master" then by all means go ahead. I take it as given that you are now attempting to convince everyone to bury the thread that you are instead conceding that point.

Remember when I said the level 10 example was a, you know, example? And that I'd make a ninja at any level you cared to name, as soon as you named one? And remember how you failed to name a level? And instead went off on a tangent about how it can't kill lots of mooks and therefore is not worth considering?

Yeah, that's why I haven't posted a new version of the ninja build. Because all of the arguments in this thread are either A] dishonest falsequoting, or B] "BOUNDED ACCURACY MAKES MY BUTT HURT"

[RelentlessImp]

To be fair, Grek, you've never fucking submitted any goddamned math while the others have. Why don't you stop being made of sticks and straw and actually, you know, contribute rather than screaming "NUH-UH!" at the top of your lungs at people who are willing to engage your idiocy?

[tussock]

I thought my original note, that 5e does not support high level concepts, was pretty good. That's a lot of conceptual space it doesn't cover.

Sláine killed three hundred and thought it not too many. But he started his early comics just killing three and thinking it not too many. It's a comic character based on Cú Chulainn, who also killed hundreds in his warp spasms. Woad-armoured guy with an axe.


The mechanics discussion is fine. 5e makes high level monsters "hard" by having them do a big heap of damage to single targets or very small areas, while taking half damage from peasants. But that doesn't work, only the big Dragons can really cover enough area with damage to get far at all against mass attacks (and a reminder that mid-level PCs can have mass attacks of pretty high quality just by being Necromancers), and then it's so much damage that all but the highest level PCs are slaughtered at the same time.

---

18+ and beat by 5 is from Combat & Tactics, the 2.5 books. It's their system for getting a crit, but you still hit anything on a 20.

5e does have mass combat rules on their website, but it's just where your 10 guys roll vs big things once at advantage for double damage, while taking effectively 10x damage from the big solo (each round representing 10). It basically serves to let boss things kill twice as many peasants, while randomly changing who wins other theory-battles by randomly spiking the damage outputs.

[fearsomepirate]

The highest AC in the 5E MM (that I'm aware of) belongs to the Tarrasque at CR 30. Getting rid of autohit on 20 makes no sense in the context of 5e. None at all.

Right, I'm not suggesting get rid of autohit as a house rule. I'm saying if it had never been introduced in the first place, there would never have been this problem of a tradeoff between either making monsters more complicated, or making them less dangerous

If you go back through any of these 3.5 monsters that you've done the math for and remove the DR, you'll find the numbers of mooks you need for the same job aren't much more than a factor of three off from 5e, because 5% always hits. To me, 20 archers vs 60 archers isn't an earth-shaking change. DR stacks a tiny chance to damage on top of that, which is why you need thousands of 3.5 archers to do what 20 5e archers can, and that's what everyone is complaining about. The other issue is cantrips. These are an issue because there's a cantrip to bypass every immunity, and they have infinite use.

I think the solution is very simple. If you want to recapture earlier editions' sense of threat for a given monster, you simply need to give it immunity to nonmagical damage and 0-level spells (or, in the case of of the Tarrasque, make it reflect Acid Splash and Ray of Frost). The Rakshasa already has both of these traits.

Do this, and every exploit relying on cantrip spam or a few hundred mooks is negated.

[deaddmwalking]

I believe that your 'cure' is worse than the disease.

Further, I think that you're considering DR a panacea but discounting other abilities. Sure, DR is a pretty effective way to make sure that mooks don't kill Demon Lords, but that's not the only way.

I happened to pick a monster at random. The Nalfeshnee.

Other than the DR 10 which isn't great, it also has the ability to Greater Teleport, so if it were outclassed, it could easily escape (even with no DR). But it has some other abilities. The Dazing Aura (Smite) could really cause problems for 1st level creatures... But it doesn't have the ability to kill dozens instantly. But it can also summon a Glabrezu with 50% chance of success, and his unholy blight will straight-up murder all the commoners.

When you run these contests 100 times (without DR) and you find that the commoners win a handful of times, it doesn't prove that these are not threats that the PCs should handle - kings can't risk losing their entire army for a 10% chance of success. And dragons can't risk attacking the village for a 10% chance of success. In 5e, the results appear completely inverted from 3.x; but again, the fluff doesn't support that. The fluff pretends that monsters are scary and villagers will not attack it - but in reality a half-dozen of them with bows stand a good chance against most of the Monster Manual.

[erik]

Just some of the 5e problems are lack of DR, lack of support for pushing things off RNG, and lack of battle changing abilities. Pretty much as ddm noted above. It is not just so simple as slapping level-appropriate DR on everything. I probably would rate that as a gross improvement though a fairly pathetic method since it beats having to rewrite monstrous manuels from scratch. And note it will have to apply to pcs too.

[fearsomepirate]

I believe that your 'cure' is worse than the disease.

Pretty much every 3.5 CR > 18 monster that people have cited as broken in 5e has enough DR to be immune to low-level NPCs in 3.5. DR is an obvious kludge to protect against low-level things, but I've always found it an annoying, pointless kludge. 3.5 heroes can buy any weapon they want, so they can just buy whatever magic-infused weapon they need to hit the baddie. Might as well just give it immunity. Literally the only function of DR at that point is to say, "Commoners can't hit it." If that's the issue, just go ahead and give it immunity (which a good number of high-CR monsters already have in 5e).

Flying cantrip spam probably is only an issue for non-burrowing ground-pounders with no ranged attacks that are frequently found alone outdoors, which as it turns out consists of maybe two or three 17+ monsters.

I happened to pick a monster at random. The Nalfeshnee.

The 5e Nalfeshnee is CR 13, so given its resistances, damage output, and teleportation, I don't think that's in the range where I'd modify it. No, it's not as powerful as the 3.5 version. It's strong enough it would very foolish for a group of villagers to march out and challenge it (if we care this much about off-table events, Nalfeshnees don't wander about alone).

[Username17]

Pretty much every 3.5 CR > 18 monster that people have cited as broken in 5e has enough DR to be immune to low-level NPCs in 3.5. DR is an obvious kludge to protect against low-level things, but I've always found it an annoying, pointless kludge. 3.5 heroes can buy any weapon they want, so they can just buy whatever magic-infused weapon they need to hit the baddie. Might as well just give it immunity.

How come all your ideas are so bad?

Switching from AD&D's "+1 weapon to hit" to 3.5's "DR 15/Magic" is not pointless. It's not a kludge. It's a fucking advance. It makes things simpler. It solves arguments. It makes things less stupid in a hundred ways. You are scratching your balls and asking why we don't roll back the clock to 1977 and make everything shittier for no gain at all. Seriously. You're asking that. Outloud. As if you expect that there isn't an answer.

Why are all the things you think dumb?

-Username17