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jackMost new editions of DnD come with ideas where I think "oh, that's a good idea" at the time, but it's hard to see more clearly whether they actually made things good or not.
5e introduced Advantage and Disadvantage. Basically, if you're attacking or attempting something similar in any advantageous situation, from hiding, or attacking someone impaired, or a long list of other scenarios, you get advantage -- you get to roll two d20 instead of one and choose the better. It also "turns on" some special abilities like the rogue's backstab. Disadvantage is the same but you have to choose the worse.
At first, I thought it sounded sort of gimicky and simplified. In 3.5e those would all be a +4 or a -4 or something, and would stack, and that felt real-er somehow, maybe because it's just what I'm used to.
But even though I still haven't had a chance to play much, the more I thought about it, the more I'm interested in it. I thought about the probabilities and what's interesting is that it never makes something possible or impossible, it basically halves the chance of succeeding or failing. But that actually simplifies a lot of things, it means you don't need to worry about the action being pointless or automatic, but it will *always* make it easier or harder.
That makes it easier to apply in a range of situations without worrying about the fine detail too much. And as someone pointed out, it allows a lot more free-form combat. If someone wants to swing on the chandelier, you don't have to respond, "ok, but it won't actually help", you can easily say, "sure, acrobatics check DC 15, if you succeed you'll have advantage". If they take some out-of-combat action that should help them but you're not sure how much -- advantage is probably appropriate.
In particular, 5e reduced the size of many modifiers relative to the range of a d20 dice, so many more things are within the "possible, whether likely or not" range not "always unless you roll a 1" or "never unless you roll a 20". That means, the number of +4 bonuses has to be strictly limited or players will go from "balanced" to "basically always hit" with the right shenanigans. But advantage/disadvantage doesn't have that problem, the underlying chance is the same.
I don't quite like the hack that "advantage and disadvantage cancel out" but it's probably necessary.
Vulnerability and resistance are similar, they double and halve the amount of damage dealt. That means you can have monsters or characters which care about particular damage types, but never be in a situation where it's trivial or pointless to fight.
Balance for what timescale
I struggled to put this into words, but it seems like old editions of DnD were balanced for a campaign. There are all sorts of rules that only make a difference if you expect to play the same character through all the levels, classes that are weaker early on but stronger later or vice versa. More like roguelikes than most modern roleplaying sessions.
3.5e is more balanced for a day. You recover many of your resources each night. Throughout a day, you need to judge how many spell slots and similar resources to expend and still have some in reserve. But you're not really expected to do that between days: "we had a really lucky first session so now we'll have an easier time in following sessions" whether because you found some good magic swords or found a clever way to bypass the orc army, or whatever, is the exception not the rule. And honestly, the GM should probably fudge things so each day has about the same amount of interesting challenge, not set up a campaign you play fifty sessions of and let good or bad outcomes affect the next dozen sessions -- that's fine, but it's not what 3.5e is made for.
4e is balanced for a single encounter. As much as people try to say otherwise, most of the polish goes toward ensuring that each encounter is a tactical match for the party. Just like a 2e party might shy away from a too-deadly dungeon but a 3.5e party assumes the dungeon is balanced for them, a 3.5e party might choose which encounters they can handle, but a 4e party is expected to just find all encounters at the "fun challenge" level.
4e does this very well, and I know people who've found it works fine for all the other aspects of roleplaying, but for me it just doesn't work well. It's great at tactical combat if that's what you want. But being focused on particular encounters means that the rest of the story is warped around them: it's hard to have any sneaking in anywhere or dramatic negotiating, if you always have to end in the same fight anyway.
5e zooms out to 3.5e scope again, which suits me well. I'd be interested to play an old-school campaign too, but I probably don't have time.
5e introduced Advantage and Disadvantage. Basically, if you're attacking or attempting something similar in any advantageous situation, from hiding, or attacking someone impaired, or a long list of other scenarios, you get advantage -- you get to roll two d20 instead of one and choose the better. It also "turns on" some special abilities like the rogue's backstab. Disadvantage is the same but you have to choose the worse.
At first, I thought it sounded sort of gimicky and simplified. In 3.5e those would all be a +4 or a -4 or something, and would stack, and that felt real-er somehow, maybe because it's just what I'm used to.
But even though I still haven't had a chance to play much, the more I thought about it, the more I'm interested in it. I thought about the probabilities and what's interesting is that it never makes something possible or impossible, it basically halves the chance of succeeding or failing. But that actually simplifies a lot of things, it means you don't need to worry about the action being pointless or automatic, but it will *always* make it easier or harder.
That makes it easier to apply in a range of situations without worrying about the fine detail too much. And as someone pointed out, it allows a lot more free-form combat. If someone wants to swing on the chandelier, you don't have to respond, "ok, but it won't actually help", you can easily say, "sure, acrobatics check DC 15, if you succeed you'll have advantage". If they take some out-of-combat action that should help them but you're not sure how much -- advantage is probably appropriate.
In particular, 5e reduced the size of many modifiers relative to the range of a d20 dice, so many more things are within the "possible, whether likely or not" range not "always unless you roll a 1" or "never unless you roll a 20". That means, the number of +4 bonuses has to be strictly limited or players will go from "balanced" to "basically always hit" with the right shenanigans. But advantage/disadvantage doesn't have that problem, the underlying chance is the same.
I don't quite like the hack that "advantage and disadvantage cancel out" but it's probably necessary.
Vulnerability and resistance are similar, they double and halve the amount of damage dealt. That means you can have monsters or characters which care about particular damage types, but never be in a situation where it's trivial or pointless to fight.
Balance for what timescale
I struggled to put this into words, but it seems like old editions of DnD were balanced for a campaign. There are all sorts of rules that only make a difference if you expect to play the same character through all the levels, classes that are weaker early on but stronger later or vice versa. More like roguelikes than most modern roleplaying sessions.
3.5e is more balanced for a day. You recover many of your resources each night. Throughout a day, you need to judge how many spell slots and similar resources to expend and still have some in reserve. But you're not really expected to do that between days: "we had a really lucky first session so now we'll have an easier time in following sessions" whether because you found some good magic swords or found a clever way to bypass the orc army, or whatever, is the exception not the rule. And honestly, the GM should probably fudge things so each day has about the same amount of interesting challenge, not set up a campaign you play fifty sessions of and let good or bad outcomes affect the next dozen sessions -- that's fine, but it's not what 3.5e is made for.
4e is balanced for a single encounter. As much as people try to say otherwise, most of the polish goes toward ensuring that each encounter is a tactical match for the party. Just like a 2e party might shy away from a too-deadly dungeon but a 3.5e party assumes the dungeon is balanced for them, a 3.5e party might choose which encounters they can handle, but a 4e party is expected to just find all encounters at the "fun challenge" level.
4e does this very well, and I know people who've found it works fine for all the other aspects of roleplaying, but for me it just doesn't work well. It's great at tactical combat if that's what you want. But being focused on particular encounters means that the rest of the story is warped around them: it's hard to have any sneaking in anywhere or dramatic negotiating, if you always have to end in the same fight anyway.
5e zooms out to 3.5e scope again, which suits me well. I'd be interested to play an old-school campaign too, but I probably don't have time.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-26 11:24 am (UTC)But it's a common problem that people don't realise that or aren't good at it -- most published adventures ignore the problem entirely and expect the GM to cheat somehow, they don't even say things like "if the combats have been unusually easy/difficult, maybe adjust the difficulty of this combat".
I wonder if you happened to have some offputting experiences that have made other adventures feel a bit futile in advance. "Feeling obliged to min-max" is a problem I've heard of elsewhere, from having played adventures that have inadvertently treated the charcters quite poorly
requires having someone who has the material, is willing to teach it, and is good at teaching or to the point where someone gets into the hobby, and that is particularly tough to find in any hobby or sport.
Yeah, sadly good point. I forget that most people will learn from an "average" group, which may be ok but probably not great (and usually muddle through well if they happen to gel well with the group and the playstyle, or get put off if they don't).
no subject
Date: 2019-01-26 04:09 pm (UTC)Some part of being a player in a campaign is wanting to feel successful enough that even if there are failures along the way, they don't suddenly become plot-important later. The kind of thing where "oh, having that vorpal sword we couldn't steal earlier would make this a lot easier, but it's not going to be impossible to do this." Instead of "oh, you encounter a group of guards that could only be hurt by that vorpal sword you failed your rolls on earlier! There's no way to go back now, so your characters are going to die and there's nothing you can do about it."
I feel that a lot of adventure modules as written shade toward the latter, and either rely on the GM to emphasize enough that they really need to keep at trying to get that vorpal sword because it will be important later, or to not care whether the characters go up in smoke and some other characters need to be produced.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-27 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-27 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-28 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-01-28 02:47 pm (UTC)