DnD 5E and FATE Accelerated
Jul. 3rd, 2015 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackDnD 5e
A while back I bought the 5e DnD ("DnD Next" or "DnD") player's handbook and just now have been reading through it. I actually really like it.
It reminds me of 3.5 but streamlined, with a few of the good aspects of earlier editions and 4e. That's about what I wanted out of DnD!
Many of the combat rules are simplified a bit, but look about equally balanced. Progression is simplified -- feats are more powerful, but optional, you can take them instead of a stat increase. Thus they do more to define your character and less to "here's a feat-tree you have to take".
There's no separate saves, you make a "dex save" or "con save". Your character has a single proficiency bonus which scales with level from +2 to about +5, which is added to everything you character is good at (weapons they're proficient with, skills they're trained with, etc).
They've added some fluff to the front page of the character sheet (personality trait, ideal, bond, flaw) and a suggesting for getting temporary mechanical advantage when your flaw comes into play. I have ideas for those bits up, to focus people further on the bits that actually come up in play (whether they matter mechanically or not).
The classes and races are similar to 3e -- there's the classic races (human, elf, dwarf, halfling) and further races (tiefling, dragonborn, gnome, half-orc) which don't automatically exist in all settings.
Like 4e, all spellcasters have a few infinite use cantrips which function as their standard attack options. I like that all characters have something specific to do in combat. And like 4e, fighter has some abilities beyond "hit it with my axe" to bring into play in combat -- although not many, I think that could be beefed up.
It reverts to generally winging the exact physical layout rather than using a battlemap. Which I like because combat is simpler and faster. Although I admit, it does remove some of the good effects in 4e, that there were many more tactical options for the party to work together, other than "we all hit it repeatedly".
The general power level is flatter between 1st level and 20th level, even more so than 4e. I think this is probably good, since it's almost impossible to balance things at both ends, but it does potentially mean less variation. But it has good effects that a character a few level higher than you" feels like "an adventurer like you, but more experienced" not "a demigod". And that there's less artificial scaling where every PC gets regular stat boosts to increase to-hit and damage-per-second and armour-class -- as does every monster.
It seems like, 1st level is really a tutorial level (although actually, I'd like an EVEN SIMPLER introduction for some newbies) where characters all have stuff they can do, but some of the key class features kick in at second level (eg. rogue has backstab damage at first level, but gets a free disengage/hide action from second which is nearly as class-defining). 4th or 5th feels like a typical point for experienced 3.5e players.
In addition to flattening the power level, the magic-item economy is gone. The classes are designed to be balanced mostly as-is, with a minimum amount of gold and almost no magic items. So you can run a low-magic campaign where the only magic is PC and NPC spellcasters, and add a magic sword for effect when it seems dramatic, not assume that everyone is carting around cartloads of +1 stuff else they're unplayable.
I think it could sensibly by used to run either an old-school "kick in the door and take as much treasure as you can before you die" session or a "mostly about roleplaying with some combat" session which are the sorts I enjoy the most.
4e is probably better for tactical combat -- I like that in theory, but never find it works well for me in practice.
Has anyone actually tried 5e?
FATE core and FATE accelerated
I've also been following a couple of people's suggestions and reading about FATE. IIUC it's based on ideas from FUDGE, based on a very freeform mechanics-light structure. Ideal for "here's a wacky idea about X" or "here's an existing setting (Dresden Files) with clear flavour but vague on specifics, can we adapt that to a game" and producing setting and character sheets with minimal write-up and no need to spend ages trying to balance PC activities.
Basically it sounds really fun if you want an adventure without tactical combat at all (there's still some tactics, but not based primarily on characters specific abilities).
Although some people apparently flounder if they're used to DnD -- there's definitely a "everyone should choose things that are appropriate, not always what would be most effective for the character". (Like Dogs-in-the-Vineyard, it seems it's more fun to pick character traits which come up about half the time -- but some people find it hard to resist arguing that they ALWAYS apply.)
Has anyone actually tried any of the editions of FATE?
A while back I bought the 5e DnD ("DnD Next" or "DnD") player's handbook and just now have been reading through it. I actually really like it.
It reminds me of 3.5 but streamlined, with a few of the good aspects of earlier editions and 4e. That's about what I wanted out of DnD!
Many of the combat rules are simplified a bit, but look about equally balanced. Progression is simplified -- feats are more powerful, but optional, you can take them instead of a stat increase. Thus they do more to define your character and less to "here's a feat-tree you have to take".
There's no separate saves, you make a "dex save" or "con save". Your character has a single proficiency bonus which scales with level from +2 to about +5, which is added to everything you character is good at (weapons they're proficient with, skills they're trained with, etc).
They've added some fluff to the front page of the character sheet (personality trait, ideal, bond, flaw) and a suggesting for getting temporary mechanical advantage when your flaw comes into play. I have ideas for those bits up, to focus people further on the bits that actually come up in play (whether they matter mechanically or not).
The classes and races are similar to 3e -- there's the classic races (human, elf, dwarf, halfling) and further races (tiefling, dragonborn, gnome, half-orc) which don't automatically exist in all settings.
Like 4e, all spellcasters have a few infinite use cantrips which function as their standard attack options. I like that all characters have something specific to do in combat. And like 4e, fighter has some abilities beyond "hit it with my axe" to bring into play in combat -- although not many, I think that could be beefed up.
It reverts to generally winging the exact physical layout rather than using a battlemap. Which I like because combat is simpler and faster. Although I admit, it does remove some of the good effects in 4e, that there were many more tactical options for the party to work together, other than "we all hit it repeatedly".
The general power level is flatter between 1st level and 20th level, even more so than 4e. I think this is probably good, since it's almost impossible to balance things at both ends, but it does potentially mean less variation. But it has good effects that a character a few level higher than you" feels like "an adventurer like you, but more experienced" not "a demigod". And that there's less artificial scaling where every PC gets regular stat boosts to increase to-hit and damage-per-second and armour-class -- as does every monster.
It seems like, 1st level is really a tutorial level (although actually, I'd like an EVEN SIMPLER introduction for some newbies) where characters all have stuff they can do, but some of the key class features kick in at second level (eg. rogue has backstab damage at first level, but gets a free disengage/hide action from second which is nearly as class-defining). 4th or 5th feels like a typical point for experienced 3.5e players.
In addition to flattening the power level, the magic-item economy is gone. The classes are designed to be balanced mostly as-is, with a minimum amount of gold and almost no magic items. So you can run a low-magic campaign where the only magic is PC and NPC spellcasters, and add a magic sword for effect when it seems dramatic, not assume that everyone is carting around cartloads of +1 stuff else they're unplayable.
I think it could sensibly by used to run either an old-school "kick in the door and take as much treasure as you can before you die" session or a "mostly about roleplaying with some combat" session which are the sorts I enjoy the most.
4e is probably better for tactical combat -- I like that in theory, but never find it works well for me in practice.
Has anyone actually tried 5e?
FATE core and FATE accelerated
I've also been following a couple of people's suggestions and reading about FATE. IIUC it's based on ideas from FUDGE, based on a very freeform mechanics-light structure. Ideal for "here's a wacky idea about X" or "here's an existing setting (Dresden Files) with clear flavour but vague on specifics, can we adapt that to a game" and producing setting and character sheets with minimal write-up and no need to spend ages trying to balance PC activities.
Basically it sounds really fun if you want an adventure without tactical combat at all (there's still some tactics, but not based primarily on characters specific abilities).
Although some people apparently flounder if they're used to DnD -- there's definitely a "everyone should choose things that are appropriate, not always what would be most effective for the character". (Like Dogs-in-the-Vineyard, it seems it's more fun to pick character traits which come up about half the time -- but some people find it hard to resist arguing that they ALWAYS apply.)
Has anyone actually tried any of the editions of FATE?
no subject
Date: 2015-07-03 04:28 pm (UTC)I came pretty close in four and a bit years in secondary school, and while that was nominally weekly during term time, it was interspersed with other people's games in other generic fantasy settings, bits of Judge Dredd, quite a lot of Talisman and embarrassingly much teenage drama, so it probably took a lot less than half the sessions. And I know I'd manage it better now, I could probably have whacked more than 10% off the running time just by banning summoning spells. (Summoning a couple of small earth elementals to help fight a band of goblins slows things down a little. "This round I will summon a warrior angel with half a dozen special abilities, and next round a brass dragon with half a dozen other special abilities, and next round a titan with more special abilities again, to fight the Big Bad and his set of henchmen with all their special abilities" just turns into a quagmire.)
The first couple of Pathfinder Adventure Paths run level 1 to 20, at the fastest advancement rate 3.5 supports or the even faster default Pathfinder rate; the next few run 1 to 17 or so on the grounds that the very top end has relatively few players interested in it and also tendency to turn into a morass. I have looked through some of those and thought about them in detail, as both
But someone pointed out in 3.5e, it's not so much like "level 1 is Pippin, level 20 is Aragorn", it's more like "level 1 is Pippin, level 5 is Aragorn, level 20 is Manwe wrestling Morgoth personally".
That feels like a bit of an exaggeration to me; certainly the latter would feel more like the kind of thing you'd want to be a fair way into the old 2e Immortals rules (which I never got to DM) than your regular characters capped at level 36.
But Pippin->Aragorn seems plenty for 95% of epic journeys.
I suppose so. I'd like to be able to cap out at a Hercules or Cuchulainn scale, myself. Have rules that reasonably support "nigh-demigod cutting through army of mooks to reach arch-villain" without having to roll for each and every orc along the way, sort of thing.
Pippin->Manwe is beyond most people's conceptual scope, difficult to cram into a setting without breaking the settting, and the mechanics which are fun for modelling "Manwe wrestles Morgoth" are often _different_ to the mechanics that are fun for modelling "Pippin wrestles gollum", not just "the same, but everyone does +200 damage".
Agreed entirely with your third point, and I've yet to see a system that felt to handle that scale really well at all, let alone in ways that flow organically from lower levels; Eternity Publishing (which is one guy, who unfortunately seems to have named his company after how long it takes him to get anything done) has some very high-level stuff that feels to me just from reading like 70% of an excellent game. (The other 30% being either incomplete, or really really strange.) As for your first, I don't feel I have a sample size to judge either way; as for characters that powerful breaking the setting, that to my mind is what Outer Planes are for.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-04 12:38 pm (UTC)Sorry, I think I am exaggerating a bit with the range of 3e, I think what you say is basically reasonable, but I think it made sense to narrow the range, and it's possible they've gone too far, but I still like that they have.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-06 01:23 am (UTC)In retrospect, I wince some at how derivative it was and how very much better I could do today, given world enough and time.
How often are you hoping to be able to play ?
no subject
Date: 2015-07-06 11:36 am (UTC)I wince some at how derivative it was and how very much better I could do today, given world enough and time.
I symapthise with that a lot. But I think that's basically inevitable -- no-one is born knowing how to GM (or any other skill) and you generally learn by trying and improving. You only know better because you DID try. If you didn't wince it would mean you never tried, or never improved :)
How often are you hoping to be able to play?
I really don't know, most probably my interest will flame out in a little bit. I think the most realistic goal is to establish a simple one-shot I can use with people who have little experience, so I can practice GM'ing, and have an evening introducing people to roleplaying which is worthwhile even if it doesn't go further.
If it did go further, I'd like a regular play session (maybe once a month? possibly once a week but probably not), maybe as a world scattered with one-shots that can naturally be chained together ("Most of your party were satisfied with their loot from the ruined temple and didn't want to set out so soon, but the Gifa Redaxe and Sorilea gathered some more companions in town and vowed to beard their ertwhile antagonist in her lair..." :)) but I don't know what would actually work well.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-06 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-06 03:04 pm (UTC)I wasn't sure if I could do that, but it was in my mind as something to potentially transition into if an occasional one-shot works. I imagined having a world where players _could_ just go and explore, filled with background politics, mini dungeons, etc. And organising sessions implicitly in that shared world, at first just "lets do the mini-plot for this mini-dungeon", but that if it becomes a regular thing, players can express their own preferences for exploring things, or I can fill out simple plots with encounters stumbled into on the way, etc.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-06 03:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-06 03:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-06 05:51 pm (UTC)Are you planning on players having consistent characters, or getting to have new sets of characters in different adventures ? The latter can be fun if people want to explore different types of characters, and there's nothing like the expression on the face of a player when they realise the powerful wizard whose tower they are clearing out is the character they moved on from playing a few games ago.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-07 01:14 pm (UTC)Are you planning on players having consistent characters, or getting to have new sets of characters in different adventures ?
I haven't thought about it, but similar campaigns sound to have used a mix, encouraging players to develop a character so there's some continuity of plot between different parties, but allowing different characters when it seems interesting (or to play with different level parties).