I will say, that one of the best examples of ditching legacy expectations they pulled off in 5e was advantage/disadvantage. Just for the heck of it I was happened to glance back at some 4e mechanics... and sweet juibilex the number of stacking modifiers caused by *everything* was insane. - ThreadSky

robertbrydon.bsky.social • 13 days ago

I will say, that one of the best examples of ditching legacy expectations they pulled off in 5e was advantage/disadvantage. Just for the heck of it I was happened to glance back at some 4e mechanics... and sweet juibilex the number of stacking modifiers caused by *everything* was insane.

Comments

mnemex.bsky.social•13 days ago

Yep! 4e was an improvement on 3e in many ways (not having 12+ different categories of stacking modifiers for each attribute was a good one) but with all the real time modifiers changing all the time, combat was math exercise.

But the Avenger mechanic was hella fun and became Advantage.

mnemex.bsky.social•13 days ago

Just Advantage/disadvantage is arguably too flat; we saw that with the DNDOne playtest where they tried to make everything Adv/Dis, and..but what does the second support get to do? But it fits well into bounded accuracy and makes the first support you get really impactful.

robertbrydon.bsky.social•13 days ago

As a gameplay thing, just having the one mechanic is worth it -- the more possible modifiers, the more possible math and mental overhead of checking for them -- and pressure to try and achieve them as often as possible. Advantage not stacking is good, since it means you don't have incentive to try.

robertbrydon.bsky.social•13 days ago

And another reason editions become glorious messes is the never ending need to sell new books. No matter how well you playtest the core rules, some later book with less testing will toss in something cool and thematic and not realize/care how it will affect other stuff.

*Glares in Silvery Barbs*

mnemex.bsky.social•13 days ago

Yes, this. 4e is great to look at for this because it was so compressed; the first wave of books was filling the gaps (str paladin *cough* *cough*, but eventually it just gets to be a Lot, and then there's Essentials, which...who was asking for this?

5e, Strix/Tasha's is the tipping point.

mnemex.bsky.social•13 days ago

And I really like a lot of them. But Silvery Barbs is massive fun but everyone wants it (I've refrained, somehow), the weapon damage feats are tax feats, and the magic implements just raise the bar for everyone.

5e promises that you don't need magic bling. But who doesn't want a +2 sword?

robertbrydon.bsky.social•13 days ago

Again some of that feels knee jerk rejection of 4E. The way the scaling *required* magic items inflation as you leveled rubbed people the wrong way (and was kind of dumb, just bake it into the level up if you need to) but that made 5e sensitive to any kind of "mandatory" treasure.

robertbrydon.bsky.social•13 days ago

Also gets into why CR is hard... magic items are either not very relevant, which doesn't feel good, or matter. And if they matter, then is CR 11 for a group that is decked out, or one with very little?

Honestly part of why I like lower level stuff, easier to balance.

robertbrydon.bsky.social•13 days ago

It is telling that Adventurer's League has to have very strict banding on magic items per level (minimum and maximum) to function. But those assumptions aren't clearly delineated in MM or published adventures the same way.

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply