In my opinion, 5e's Battle Master Fighter is hands down the worst design of the core classes and archetypes. It's not that it suffers from being underpowered (that award goes to the Way of Four Elements Monk), is counterintuitive (that'd be the Beast Master Ranger), or has a crippling design bug (hello, Wild Magic Sorcerer), its' that of all the classes, it suffers the most egregiously from dissociated mechanics.
For the most part, 5e's done a very good job of clawing back from 4e's dissociated design, which is why the earlier game was frequently derided as feeling like a video game. There are largely 3 kinds of resources:
1. Magical power, mostly in the form of spell slots.
2. Physical stamina, such as a barbarian's rage or a fighter's action surge.
3. Durability, mainly in the form of hit points.
The Battle Master's Combat Superiority Dice don't really fall into any category. They can't be stamina, because they can be used to heal allies or order them to attack, and they're not magical, either. They're completely dissociated from the character and his fictional world. They're not the only example, of course. There's no apparent reason bards can't inspire people more often. The expansions have even more dissociated mechanics, such as the Purple Dragon Knight's ability to share his Second Wind, or Cavalier special attacks being limited by his strength modifier.
But overall, Battle Master is the worst. The class works fine as written, but I don't particularly like having them at the table. They add a weird flavor to the game. You've got your monk channeling ki, your wizard exhausting his magical energy, your barbarian pushing himself to his physical limits, and your battle master...spending superiority dice. It's just weird, and doesn't really fit the tone of the game.
Sunday, July 29, 2018
Saturday, July 7, 2018
5e Goodness: Demon Lords
5e's "bounded accuracy," meaning that stats no longer shoot to infinity, was initially one of the most questioned parts of the system. I feel like overall it was a strong decision, as adding huge numbers to a 20-sided die roll broke any sense of intuition I had about previous WotC editions (is +23 to attack a lot?). It's not flawless, but keeping the numbers in a defined range makes design problems tractable. I recently got Out of the Abyss, and comparing this book's stats for Yeenoghu, Demon Prince of Gnolls, to his Book of Vile Darkness (3.5) version I think really shows the strengths of 5e design.
The problem with the left is I don't know what those numbers really mean. I know how high +16 to attack is. It's "the rogue is toast if this bastard gets close." This is because the absolute highest base AC goes with magic items is 29 (+3 shield, +3 plate, ring & cloak of protection, +1 Armored style). But how high is +55? Is Yeenoghu auto-hitting his attacks? Or do magic items get you over 60 AC by the time you're ready to fight toe-to-toe with Yeenoghu? I mean, I guess they must...but then this highlights the absurdity. Roll a number from 1 to 20...then add 55.
Come on.
Second thing was that to type this up at all, I had to refer to three different sources for the BoVD version. In 3.0, monsters are loaded up with tags that you have to look up. Yeenoghu has "tanari'i traits" and "outsider traits." This is in addition to his feats (most of which are really common, like Power Attack, but still, there's potentially a lot to look up). 5e has everything right there in the stat block.
Now, the 3.0 Yeenoghu obviously can't even be approached by low-level heroes. They wouldn't be able to hurt him, and he'd auto-hit them to death. Additionally, he has spells to ensure he has minions, a fear aura, and a whole bunch of other crap. All this is based on the assumption that the DM is just a fleshy computer who can't figure out on his own that the "Demon Prince of the Gnolls" ought to have, uh, gnolls with him, or that you shouldn't have sessions where a minor deity starts off with a thousand longbowmen shooting him simultaneously with enchanted arrows. There is basically a lot of stupid math to prevent silly edge cases that don't happen in real games. This is ironic for a game where the Fighter is fundamentally broken as written.
But how badass is the 5e version? Well, he isn't invincible, and the point of bounded accuracy is acknowledging that he doesn't need to be because nobody runs D&D as a simulation. Honestly, the number of people who care whether or not you can drop a monster from the book into an artificially constructed scenario like 900 9th-level monks or something and have it work out "logically" is vanishingly small. If the DM decides to send you spelunking into the lair of the gnoll prince at 10th level, you're going to get TPK'd and not really care if you did 102 damage before you all went down.
Instead of making Yeenoghu fearsome by making all his numbers super big, he hits really hard, has riders on his hits that will annihilate moderate-level parties quickly, and has a number of useful spells. With all that considered, the guy is fully capable of downing any character of 14th level or below in a single action, and even a 20th-level wizard isn't going to last a round toe-to-toe. Like his 3rd edition predecessor, he's got a few tricks up his sleeve other than "beat the crap out of you," including "everybody save vs fear, DC 17" (hey, DC 17 means something to me!) and "teleport to wherever I want if you guys are trouble."
So 5e dispenses with theorycraft nonsense in order to keep numbers sensible and monster stat blocks readable, and relies on the DM to not be a total idiot to make it all work.
Stat
|
3.0
|
5e
|
Hit Dice
|
33d8+363 (511)
|
24d12+192 (348)
|
Initiative
|
+13
|
+3
|
Speed
|
40’
|
50’
|
AC
|
42/24/33
|
22
|
Saves
|
+29/+27/+25
|
+9/+10/+15/+3/+14/+2
|
Attack
|
+51/+46/+41/+36 (+4 vs good)
|
+16 (x3 flail, x1 bite)
|
Damage
|
1d12+24
|
2d12+9 (flail) 4d10+9 (bite)
|
Resistance
|
DR 15/+6, 10 acid/cold/lightning
|
Cold, fire, lightning, spells
|
Immune
|
Fire, poison
|
Poison, mundane weapons
|
The problem with the left is I don't know what those numbers really mean. I know how high +16 to attack is. It's "the rogue is toast if this bastard gets close." This is because the absolute highest base AC goes with magic items is 29 (+3 shield, +3 plate, ring & cloak of protection, +1 Armored style). But how high is +55? Is Yeenoghu auto-hitting his attacks? Or do magic items get you over 60 AC by the time you're ready to fight toe-to-toe with Yeenoghu? I mean, I guess they must...but then this highlights the absurdity. Roll a number from 1 to 20...then add 55.
Come on.
Second thing was that to type this up at all, I had to refer to three different sources for the BoVD version. In 3.0, monsters are loaded up with tags that you have to look up. Yeenoghu has "tanari'i traits" and "outsider traits." This is in addition to his feats (most of which are really common, like Power Attack, but still, there's potentially a lot to look up). 5e has everything right there in the stat block.
Now, the 3.0 Yeenoghu obviously can't even be approached by low-level heroes. They wouldn't be able to hurt him, and he'd auto-hit them to death. Additionally, he has spells to ensure he has minions, a fear aura, and a whole bunch of other crap. All this is based on the assumption that the DM is just a fleshy computer who can't figure out on his own that the "Demon Prince of the Gnolls" ought to have, uh, gnolls with him, or that you shouldn't have sessions where a minor deity starts off with a thousand longbowmen shooting him simultaneously with enchanted arrows. There is basically a lot of stupid math to prevent silly edge cases that don't happen in real games. This is ironic for a game where the Fighter is fundamentally broken as written.
 |
| 3.0 is tougher than he looks. |
But how badass is the 5e version? Well, he isn't invincible, and the point of bounded accuracy is acknowledging that he doesn't need to be because nobody runs D&D as a simulation. Honestly, the number of people who care whether or not you can drop a monster from the book into an artificially constructed scenario like 900 9th-level monks or something and have it work out "logically" is vanishingly small. If the DM decides to send you spelunking into the lair of the gnoll prince at 10th level, you're going to get TPK'd and not really care if you did 102 damage before you all went down.
Instead of making Yeenoghu fearsome by making all his numbers super big, he hits really hard, has riders on his hits that will annihilate moderate-level parties quickly, and has a number of useful spells. With all that considered, the guy is fully capable of downing any character of 14th level or below in a single action, and even a 20th-level wizard isn't going to last a round toe-to-toe. Like his 3rd edition predecessor, he's got a few tricks up his sleeve other than "beat the crap out of you," including "everybody save vs fear, DC 17" (hey, DC 17 means something to me!) and "teleport to wherever I want if you guys are trouble."
 |
| 5e art took a step up. |
So 5e dispenses with theorycraft nonsense in order to keep numbers sensible and monster stat blocks readable, and relies on the DM to not be a total idiot to make it all work.
Thursday, July 5, 2018
The 5e Skinner Box
I've been experimenting with running AD&D adventures using the 5e rule set, but with the older XP tables. Just having a slower leveling pace so changes the nature of the game that it's kind of shocking to go back to the old, I mean new, way.
5e is something of a Skinner box. It's not as aggressive as a video game, but if you're playing by the book, players expect to level up every 2 to 3 sessions. As a result, they're always thinking about the next feat they're going to grab or spell they're going to learn. Many players, when they draw up a level 1 character, are already thinking about what they're going to have at level 10 or even level 20!
This is fine enough for the "storybook campaigns" WotC is selling now, where a year of gaming is supposed to take you from level 1 to 15 or so, but it has a number of unfortunate consequences.
A direct effect of this is that the low-level game just doesn't last long. Goblins and orcs aren't problems the PCs ever have to think about for too long, because after they've cleared a single tower of goblins and cleared one abandoned mine of orcs, they've leveled up so far that they're barely even interesting threats anymore. Consequently, you really can't do too much with the classic "horde" monsters before it's time to move on and start fighting giants.
A second effect is that you often don't spend enough time at lower levels to really do much with your spells and abilities. I played a Bard in a campaign once, and despite having a fairly small spell list, there were a few spells I never used, and quite a few more that only got used once or twice. This wasn't because they were bad spells so much as spells like Animate Objects and Leomund's Tiny Hut get used almost every session, while a good use for Suggestion may come up once or twice before getting much more interesting spells.
Anyway, I've found that spending more time at lower levels results in the base of the character sheet getting a lot of exercises, and enough time getting spent with orcs, hobgoblins, and bugbears for the players to really get to know them. We may never see level 15, but the old way has its merits.
5e is something of a Skinner box. It's not as aggressive as a video game, but if you're playing by the book, players expect to level up every 2 to 3 sessions. As a result, they're always thinking about the next feat they're going to grab or spell they're going to learn. Many players, when they draw up a level 1 character, are already thinking about what they're going to have at level 10 or even level 20!
This is fine enough for the "storybook campaigns" WotC is selling now, where a year of gaming is supposed to take you from level 1 to 15 or so, but it has a number of unfortunate consequences.
A direct effect of this is that the low-level game just doesn't last long. Goblins and orcs aren't problems the PCs ever have to think about for too long, because after they've cleared a single tower of goblins and cleared one abandoned mine of orcs, they've leveled up so far that they're barely even interesting threats anymore. Consequently, you really can't do too much with the classic "horde" monsters before it's time to move on and start fighting giants.
A second effect is that you often don't spend enough time at lower levels to really do much with your spells and abilities. I played a Bard in a campaign once, and despite having a fairly small spell list, there were a few spells I never used, and quite a few more that only got used once or twice. This wasn't because they were bad spells so much as spells like Animate Objects and Leomund's Tiny Hut get used almost every session, while a good use for Suggestion may come up once or twice before getting much more interesting spells.
Anyway, I've found that spending more time at lower levels results in the base of the character sheet getting a lot of exercises, and enough time getting spent with orcs, hobgoblins, and bugbears for the players to really get to know them. We may never see level 15, but the old way has its merits.
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