god I love it when people baselessly dunk on different mechanics. Mechanics aren't the issue, its how the game uses them and whther or not the players actually understand them.
Reminder: In D&D it's the target numbers that are bell curved for a flat die to be rolled against.
This is the original idea for, perhaps, the very core of a "role playing game" - to generate a set of stats using 3d6 then checking against them with a d20. I concede that when done correctly it results in somewhat more consistent results per-character than a dice pool checking system like GURPS and when done incorrectly can seem arbitrary
That consistency is where extrapolating bonuses and penalties associated with certain points on the bell curved stats that were then further extrapolated to other numbers like armor class and difficulty class but there is still a bell curve under there somewhere that can be dug out - assuming you roll your D&D stats, I just got into a big debate in the previous AD&D thread arguing in favor of using standard arrays / point buys for stats.
Well, it certainly makes sence. But a) it is not implemented in the release, b) the difference in poorly rolled attributes and good ones is vast. It would be the same as roll under mechanics. Each 1 of the attribute is basically +1 to modifier.
Interestingly the way they calculated bonuses and penalties attached to stats in AD&D was closer to acknowledging that, depending on specific stat - and bonuses from different stats for different applications were different too, rather than being the now-standard +1 for every 2 points above 10. The tables reflected how the designers believed different amounts of statistical advantage translated to actual tacit advantage in the "real world" or fantastic reality.
>and bonuses from different stats for different applications were different too, rather than being the now-standard +1 for every 2 points above 10
Explain, because I've long wondered what the point of odd-value attributes is, and have wondered if there was some purpose in early editions that has been lost.
The point of odd-value attributes is simplicity. It's easier for players to remember and, ultimately, it's easy for DMs to keep track of than multiple different bonuses associated with different stats being employed in different ways.
IN THEORY all these adjustments are supposed to just be moved to a different place, e.g. when determining DC for certain tasks or making up variable results tables but any way you slice it, using +1 for every 2 points above 10 is chunky and puts ever greater weight on stacked bonuses - but players were already heinously abusing stacked bonuses even at the end of 2e so when Wizards did the desperately needed 3e reorganization it was like "frick it" and became more a matter of accepting the way players were playing, codifying it and trying to mitigate it. 3e used a Magic mentality of Keywording categories of bonuses and only letting the greatest of any particular category to be added and 5e sort of tries to do that but dumbs it down even more using so-called "bounded accuracy" and turning many bonuses into "advantage" that's easier for players to swallow only getting once. Until they supersede that with explicitly exceptional circumstances like Elven Accuracy for example (double advantage) or Luck Dice or other stuff like that.
It's just a constant slippery slope that keeps getting shored up with slightly different mechanics every decade or so after you shore it up five or six times it starts getting hard to see clearly in hindsight but my philosophy is that we should try to stand on the shoulders of giants.
>and have wondered if there was some purpose in early editions that has been lost.
There was a purpose. Attribute bonuses were geometrical instead of linear because it was assumed that an attribute of 18 was vastly superior to an attribute of 16 (as it was vastly rarer to roll on character creation) whereas an attribute of 14 was not that much greater than... 12 so their bonuses were closer. In modern D&D the distance between 18 and 16 and 14 and 12 are the same and *that* is what gives power to the d20 to become a clown die.
Reminder: In D&D it's the target numbers that are bell curved for a flat die to be rolled against.
This is the original idea for, perhaps, the very core of a "role playing game" - to generate a set of stats using 3d6 then checking against them with a d20. I concede that when done correctly it results in somewhat more consistent results per-character than a dice pool checking system like GURPS and when done incorrectly can seem arbitrary
That consistency is where extrapolating bonuses and penalties associated with certain points on the bell curved stats that were then further extrapolated to other numbers like armor class and difficulty class but there is still a bell curve under there somewhere that can be dug out - assuming you roll your D&D stats, I just got into a big debate in the previous AD&D thread arguing in favor of using standard arrays / point buys for stats.
>In modern D&D the distance between 18 and 16 and 14 and 12
I wouldn't go that far. Normal 5e point buy can get you three 14s but it's impossible to get a single 18 at character creation without a +2 from race
9 months ago
Anonymous
The distance in bonus. A 18 vs 16 is just a +1 to rolls which is the same edge 16 has agains 14. It actually baffles me that point buy emulates the geometric progression of a dice roll when having 18 vs 16 in a given attribute is just the same marginal 5% increase in competence.
9 months ago
Anonymous
I know that there is an opportunity cost for each attribute's "worth" to a given class (eg. to a Wizard 18 Int and 12 Wis vs 16 Int and 14 Wis is a no brainer that the first spread is better) so that is "why" point buy is balanced the way it is, but it is still dumb.
9 months ago
Smaugchad
They tried to mitigate that with "bounded accuracy" which was just an out-the-gate bell curved umbrella over all difficulty classes (including armor classes) but that just moved the weight over the HP totals (which are out of control in 5e, including healing mechanics) creating the "damage sponge" effect that players pick up on. But really that's mainly because players don't want high lethality - and I guess theoretically they don't need to be very smart to see for themselves how if high HPs is a problem, high lethality is the solution. You rarely see 5e tables implementing that very simple solution of drastically reducing HPs starting at a certain level/HD, wherever they want the "tutorial" training wheels to start coming off.
9 months ago
Anonymous
>they don't need to be very smart to see for themselves how if high HPs is a problem, high lethality is the solution
5e wasn't made for smart people.
9 months ago
Smaugchad
You don't have to be dumb to want to feel powerful either - it's just a hard pill to swallow that if the monsters need to be weaker your character needs to be equitably weakened. Players not wanting to swallow that pill is the entire slippery slope that has slid every edition. On some level it's probably better that the way 5e is built makes it so fricking obvious that HP bloat is where most of the extra 1's got carried over into but there's equivalent issues sooner or later in every edition. It's just a result of human beings playing the game.
9 months ago
Anonymous
I don't understand how anyone is supposed to "feel powerful" in a !game where they have to beg daddy DM for everything and anything can be changed or thrown out the window for any or no reason at all.
It's also quite stupid that people still pay money for D&D books when the creator said you don't even need them for the purpose they're printed.
These pills are so hard to swallow that they're outright ignored or deflected whenever I bring them up.
9 months ago
Smaugchad
You don't HAVE to. 5e is really a very functional skirmish combat game that also functions well enough extrapolated into a generic ruleset. I personally wouldn't play very long under a DM who over-exercised DM fiat but in those DMs' defense, a huge amount of the crunch in 5e has been moved over to their shoulders in the interest of keeping it accessible to players. I'd like to believe the vast majority of 5e DMs are open to explaining their rulings considering the rules are exponentially easier to look up than they were back in the day.
9 months ago
Anonymous
>You don't HAVE to
Sure, you can just hope that daddy DM will supply the non-casters with whatever magic items they'll need mid to high level, and the casters can just hope they get rests at the right time so they have their spells available for when they're needed.
Or, you could just play an actual game, one you made yourself as encouraged by words such as "you don't even need the books", "rewrite what you don't like", and "all RPGs are guilty of this".
The morons can stay with 5e, because they're so lacking in self-awareness and actual intelligence doing the things D&D's creators and they themselves suggest make them irrationally angry.
9 months ago
Smaugchad
> you can just hope that daddy DM will supply the non-casters with whatever magic items they'll need mid to high level
There are treasure tables and you don't NEED to have the exact optimal items to be effective > the casters can just hope they get rests at the right time so they have their spells available for when they're needed
Holy shit if there's one thing glaringly wrong with 5e it's that resource recovery from rests are far too GENEROUS and the "Adventuring Day" guideline is completely unrealistic.
While you and your friends might subjectively prefer some game you threw together more than whatever wrong impression some inexperienced DM gave you of D&D, I can assure you it will be objectively worse.
9 months ago
Anonymous
My shits are objectively better than D&D you fricking tasteless moron
9 months ago
Anonymous
>Sure, you can just hope that daddy DM will supply the non-casters with whatever magic items they'll need mid to high level
It's not my fricking job, it's your fricking job to take the initiative and go adventuring for either the materials to craft the item you want or to find it. Get your rear in gear if you want cool shit, same goes for casters, if you want a specific spell wizardshitter you have to go find a spellbook or scroll that has it and make the roll. >the casters can just hope they get rests at the right time so they have their spells available for when they're needed.
Or, hear me out, they could be conservative with their spell usage and make preparations to ensure they can get the rest they need when they need it. I'm not just going to give anyone a nap because they want it, you can't just take a breather in a hostile area. >Or, you could just play an actual game, one you made yourself as encouraged by words such as "you don't even need the books", "rewrite what you don't like", and "all RPGs are guilty of this".
I could, and at this point I mostly do, because I've basically touched every major mechanic in 5e at this point including all the classes and subclasses as well as many feats. I tried making my own fantasy system, classless point buy, it wasn't as good. Too janky, a pain to prep for. >The morons can stay with 5e, because they're so lacking in self-awareness and actual intelligence doing the things D&D's creators and they themselves suggest make them irrationally angry.
Projection.
9 months ago
Anonymous
>I don't understand how anyone is supposed to "feel powerful" in a !game where they have to beg daddy DM for everything and anything can be changed or thrown out the window for any or no reason at all.
That's literally every TTRPG. Rule 0, and rulings not rules. The GM has free reign to throw out and change any rules they want, whenever they want. If you argue otherwise, you're an entitled playerleech who has never GM'd a game in their life and who doesn't care about the RP in RPG and just wants to do buildhomosexualry.
You feel powerful because you aren't bound by arbitrary rules and restrictions, if you want to try something you're free to try - there's no garuntee you'll succeed, but rather than the GM going "No, you can't do that, you don't have the right feat/power/perk/whatever" the GM can say "okay, roll this check" if it's plausible your idea could work and better yet say "no, that won't work" if your idea is moronic and makes no fricking sense.
The only people who hate the idea of the GM having any power to okay or deny things is either someone who plays with randos and deserves all the shit he gets, including shitty power tripping GMs who don't understand what the ability to modify or ignore rules is for, or they're a min-maxing powergaming buildhomosexual who is malding that the GM nerfed the OP bullshit they found online and/or not letting them persuade the king into handing over his crown with LE EPIC NATTY 20! Anyone else understands that the GM being able to bend or even break the rules of the game when they want is a good thing.
>PLAY A BETTER GAME
Every game has problems, some games are easier to fix than others. It's easier for me to run a hacked to shit 5e for high fantasy than it is to fix all the issues I have with previous editions or its current contemporaries such as SOTDL and PF2e.
9 months ago
Anonymous
Why don't you just use more monsters with more interesting powers and tactics?
9 months ago
Smaugchad
5e has considerably reduced the variety of special abilities that monsters have. For example in previous editions many, many varieties of monsters were immune to nonmagical weapon attacks. I used 5e.tools the other day to just grab one for an example I was posting and discovered there's exactly one monster in all of Canon 5e with immunity to nonmagical attacks. Another major peeve of mine is that creature type has been reduced to just a flag. No longer to certain types of creatures (e.g. Undead) all share certain qualities (e.g. Immunity to Mind Affecting Spells). The exact same adventure with the exact same monsters will be noticeably less dynamic in 5e than in any previous edition other than 4e.
9 months ago
Anonymous
A dice roll is not a geometric progression. It's not a progression of any kind.
9 months ago
Anonymous
The point is to reduce the benefit and therefor the necessity of pure min-max. Increasing a stat you use a lot is better than increasing a stat you use less often and when it’s just a 1 to 1 trade off between the two you are heavily incentivized to just completely dump the less used stat.
9 months ago
Anonymous
Seems like something someone would do who was trying to rollplay they're charactor incase of roleplaying
9 months ago
Anonymous
>rollplay
There's no such thing. "Rollplay" is a empty slur invented by thespiangays so that they can feel superior to players who are better at coming up with sound strategies and clever plans.
9 months ago
Anonymous
I agree but D&D already does this in character creation with point buy.
The purpose in 3e (the beginning of "modern" dnd) was that it allowed extra granularity on minutia stats like carry capacity, how long you cam hold your breath, etc
Remember also that in 3e you got to increase a stat by +1 every four levels IN ADDITION to feats and lots and lots of races had +/- 1 to a stat. It was mostly a concession for the sake of the bell curves stat distributions, but still let you make characters a little better at something without just giving them +1 to stat. 15 strength is objectively better than 14, even if only a little bit
In 5e there is no point.
Not how D&D was played originally, either you had percentages or roll under d6 skill and morale etc was 2d6 check, you only had very minor amount of bonuses at the start as well.
THACO was something Gygax crew lifted from naval wargames back then, not based on man to man combat.
Nobody said that Schizo, if you look at your OD&D (white box) and basic/expert (B/X) (or BECMI) sets or AD&D you'll find this to be the case throughout TSR publications of D&D. What you are talking about is D&D 3.0.
What I'm talking about is having six ability scores generated by a bell curve (3d6) against which a flat probability d20 is rolled to check for success or failure
No edition of D&D ever worked like that without an optional rule.
There is no rolling under an attribute score on 1d20 in 3LB or AD&D. It's a suggested optional rule in a throwaway paragraph at the end of BX, but it's not core in any version of Basic either.
You're imagining that the roll-under mechanic used for the DSG/WSG non-weapon proficiencies (OA's nwps were roll over a target number like modern D&D), BECMI general skills, and 2e non-weapon proficiencies -- all explicitly optional rules -- was also some sort of core ability check mechanic in the TSR editions. It wasn't. Ever.
Technically, dice rolling is a skill. Knowing what side is up before you roll, tossing at a consistent force, angle, and surface elasticity will usually give you consistent results.
It's when you add elements like shaker cups, dice towers, etc. that the results become less predictable, though in the case of towers, I've heard cases where dropping it in with the same face up yields the same result.
>That one homosexual at the table who Drops the die from a quarter inch off the table and lightly spins it and pretends that he's rolling
I'm so glad he overdosed.
The d20 is extremely immersive when it comes to combat rolls because it is great at emulating the chaotic nature of battle. The problem starts when you use it for skills.
You use a (de)escalating DC for it. Let's say your character has a skills bonus of 7 and the DC for a skill check is 15.
Everytime he rolls for the check he can either succeed or not.
If he succeds he adds -5 to the skill check and roll again until the DC check is below his bonus (7), that's when he succeeds.
If not he adds +5 to the skill check and roll again until the skill check is out of reach (28), that's when he fails.
If he has a critical sucess the test moves to -10
If he has a critical failure the test moves to a +10.
In game: >I try to convince the guard to let us pass immediately because we have an urgent meeting with the landlord. >Although, you know the palace is expecting mercenaries today, the guard has no reason to not check in with his superiors before letting you pass, this is a difficult task (20). Roll Persuasion or Intimidation. >My character has +10 to persuasion, I rolled 16. >All right your argument seems convincing thus far, roll again (15). >I rolled 4... >As you continue your history the holes in it are becoming evident, the guard is growing suspicious, roll again (20). >I rolled 20, bringing the DC below my bonus. >By pure chance, you mention the names of the guard superiors, because of that your argument and the way you're conducting yourself, it makes the guard be at ease, he agrees to let you pass but he's ecorting you. >FRICK! Can I try to convince him to stay? >... >... >Sigh... roll persuasion or intimidation (25).
It would be for specific instances when you want a skill challenge to represent a back-and-forth. It's honestly almost RAW but because he's admittedly an ESL he's describing it weirdly. It's a DC20 to gain the opportunity for a DC15 to gain opporunity for a DC10 with stepback failure and a floating breaking point according to the character's skill.
While d20 is more swingy, because it has a larger gradient towards low-middle-high, it somewhat makes up for that. Additionally, it's faster to add up bonuses onto it.
The typical counter response to d20 is 3d6, which adds more stability, but you slow the game down because every roll is more numbers to add. This is why the dice are d6 in general. You could add more stability to d20 by just adding more, but you'd be adding more and higher numbers and slow the game down even more.
The best is obviously to use true d100 because you can add even more bonuses into it!
(I actually have one of them, and can say that it rolls like shit and sparks constant arguments on if it rolled 3 or 69)
Pisses me off on multiple levels. Our LGS group's That Guy is all about his D&D Beyond app and it constantly rubs me the wrong way and makes me dislike the app even more than I already did.
It's okay for the GM for general use. For real life sessions, I have a laptop with FoundryVTT open and the session prepared there so I can roll creatures features and substract health, but I roll important rolls, contested checks and auch in the open. For players, use physical ones, always.
Die in OP is clearly a spindown which means all its high values are clumped up in one end of it and low values in the other end. You shouldn't use dice like that for rolling, they're insufficiently random.
You either fail or succed on d20 systems. There's no difference between rolling 10 or 15 if the DC was 5. You still have 80% chance of passing the test, if you have 10 checks in your session with all of them being DC 5 the most likely result is that 8 tests will be sucessfull.
>B-but the Wizard could lift big rock and the Barbarian not.
Seems like the barbarian wasn't strong as he thought he was, had he a bonus of plus five, he could've done it.
No, there's NO CRITICAL SUCCESS or CRITICAL FAILURES in skill checks. If the big rock DC was 21 the wizard could never lift it.
Also, skill checks are only for actions where adrenaline is running high and you can only do it once. If you make the barbarian roll to lift big rock in a situation where he can just try it multiple times you are moronic, just treat it as he rolling 20 and move on.
The d20 is fine, brainlets.
Also advantage/disavantage >>>>> 3d6
>conflip braindead anon appears
I was wondering where you would be. You always post the dumbest post possible in any thread about resolution mechanics. Like clockwork.
>No cap homies thinkig using a 3d6/2d10 for fail/pass be better than d20 because of le ebin bell curve.
It's even stupider because they don't realize that in the hands of a competent DM the 3d6 is a inferior tool since you can't properly gauge fail/success chance like you can with a d20.
Have TN roll under 13 with 3d6? You are most likely always going to succeed, 16? Yeah its almost impossible for you to fail, 17? Yuppers again only one possible way to fail which is 6+6+6 result.
Then you put a modifier of just 1 point and it becomes a 5%.
Wow, so much hassle, and for what?
Now I can't gauge the DCs properly, doesn't seem like a good trade to me.
If I want to delve into the 1%s so much, then why don't I just use a d100 then?
There's literally no reason to use a 3d6 over a d20 but autism or a psychotic need for control.
>There's literally no reason to use a 3d6 over a d20 but autism or a psychotic need for control.
"I want people stacking modifiers to get diminishing returns to encourage branching out."
It's hard to imagine for D&D brains, but games with mostly consistent results from rolls allow you to actually plan things. Which then means that an actually failed roll becomes much more important, because your plan could actually rely on that roll succeeding, and it didn't.
You can get 99.75% with D20 all you have to do is roll-to-confirm critical fails if a noncritical 1 would have passed and do "complication"
>its almost impossible for you to fail
So why roll at all then? It seems the point of it all here is just self-deception, to think you're badass for succeeding the rolls but having removed all the actual risk of failure. (Much like all of those roll-for-stats systems that layer on re-rolls, alternatives, drop-lowest etc until you're basically guaranteed to get what you want.)
You could have auto success system in place for those types of games even d20 (3.0) allows you to automatically succeed at DC of 10 or less vs environment if I remember right as long as you don't have penalties stacked.
Which is why d% and 2d6 as systems are better because of the swings to the randomness and why GURPS sucks dick in combat and becomes a slap fest competition.
It's hard to imagine for D&D brains, but games with mostly consistent results from rolls allow you to actually plan things. Which then means that an actually failed roll becomes much more important, because your plan could actually rely on that roll succeeding, and it didn't.
Also just to clarify, in GURPs you don't really get positive modifiers that easily and have to spend points to specialize in single skills so it sort of balances this frickery out and you don't start with an ability higher than 12 usually for the two abilities that matter.
>you can't properly gauge fail/success chance like you can with a d20.
I've seen this argument here before. From an butthole who modifies rolls based on what he feels the odds of success should be, instead of what the difficulty modifiers are supposed to represent. Example: I want this player to have a 50% chance of success, regardless of his skill level.
Not the die's fault or even the system's fault because it tells you what the different DCs are supposed to mean.
Bad DM was claiming one of the advantages of d20 was the ease of adjusting difficulty levels on the fly to set the odds of success at whatever they feel like at the moment.
That's fine.
It suits its purpose when used for games.
Truth. It swings too hard.
Only with moronic pass/fail mechanics.
god I love it when people baselessly dunk on different mechanics. Mechanics aren't the issue, its how the game uses them and whther or not the players actually understand them.
Mechanics are the issue.
That would be 90% of RPGs.
just roll good morons
luck is a skill
>wanting to forgo the feel of rolling actual dice on an actual table
colossal gay boot him immediately
Reminder: In D&D it's the target numbers that are bell curved for a flat die to be rolled against.
This is the original idea for, perhaps, the very core of a "role playing game" - to generate a set of stats using 3d6 then checking against them with a d20. I concede that when done correctly it results in somewhat more consistent results per-character than a dice pool checking system like GURPS and when done incorrectly can seem arbitrary
That consistency is where extrapolating bonuses and penalties associated with certain points on the bell curved stats that were then further extrapolated to other numbers like armor class and difficulty class but there is still a bell curve under there somewhere that can be dug out - assuming you roll your D&D stats, I just got into a big debate in the previous AD&D thread arguing in favor of using standard arrays / point buys for stats.
Well, it certainly makes sence. But a) it is not implemented in the release, b) the difference in poorly rolled attributes and good ones is vast. It would be the same as roll under mechanics. Each 1 of the attribute is basically +1 to modifier.
Interestingly the way they calculated bonuses and penalties attached to stats in AD&D was closer to acknowledging that, depending on specific stat - and bonuses from different stats for different applications were different too, rather than being the now-standard +1 for every 2 points above 10. The tables reflected how the designers believed different amounts of statistical advantage translated to actual tacit advantage in the "real world" or fantastic reality.
>and bonuses from different stats for different applications were different too, rather than being the now-standard +1 for every 2 points above 10
Explain, because I've long wondered what the point of odd-value attributes is, and have wondered if there was some purpose in early editions that has been lost.
The point of odd-value attributes is simplicity. It's easier for players to remember and, ultimately, it's easy for DMs to keep track of than multiple different bonuses associated with different stats being employed in different ways.
IN THEORY all these adjustments are supposed to just be moved to a different place, e.g. when determining DC for certain tasks or making up variable results tables but any way you slice it, using +1 for every 2 points above 10 is chunky and puts ever greater weight on stacked bonuses - but players were already heinously abusing stacked bonuses even at the end of 2e so when Wizards did the desperately needed 3e reorganization it was like "frick it" and became more a matter of accepting the way players were playing, codifying it and trying to mitigate it. 3e used a Magic mentality of Keywording categories of bonuses and only letting the greatest of any particular category to be added and 5e sort of tries to do that but dumbs it down even more using so-called "bounded accuracy" and turning many bonuses into "advantage" that's easier for players to swallow only getting once. Until they supersede that with explicitly exceptional circumstances like Elven Accuracy for example (double advantage) or Luck Dice or other stuff like that.
It's just a constant slippery slope that keeps getting shored up with slightly different mechanics every decade or so after you shore it up five or six times it starts getting hard to see clearly in hindsight but my philosophy is that we should try to stand on the shoulders of giants.
>and have wondered if there was some purpose in early editions that has been lost.
There was a purpose. Attribute bonuses were geometrical instead of linear because it was assumed that an attribute of 18 was vastly superior to an attribute of 16 (as it was vastly rarer to roll on character creation) whereas an attribute of 14 was not that much greater than... 12 so their bonuses were closer. In modern D&D the distance between 18 and 16 and 14 and 12 are the same and *that* is what gives power to the d20 to become a clown die.
sums it up nicely.
>In modern D&D the distance between 18 and 16 and 14 and 12
I wouldn't go that far. Normal 5e point buy can get you three 14s but it's impossible to get a single 18 at character creation without a +2 from race
The distance in bonus. A 18 vs 16 is just a +1 to rolls which is the same edge 16 has agains 14. It actually baffles me that point buy emulates the geometric progression of a dice roll when having 18 vs 16 in a given attribute is just the same marginal 5% increase in competence.
I know that there is an opportunity cost for each attribute's "worth" to a given class (eg. to a Wizard 18 Int and 12 Wis vs 16 Int and 14 Wis is a no brainer that the first spread is better) so that is "why" point buy is balanced the way it is, but it is still dumb.
They tried to mitigate that with "bounded accuracy" which was just an out-the-gate bell curved umbrella over all difficulty classes (including armor classes) but that just moved the weight over the HP totals (which are out of control in 5e, including healing mechanics) creating the "damage sponge" effect that players pick up on. But really that's mainly because players don't want high lethality - and I guess theoretically they don't need to be very smart to see for themselves how if high HPs is a problem, high lethality is the solution. You rarely see 5e tables implementing that very simple solution of drastically reducing HPs starting at a certain level/HD, wherever they want the "tutorial" training wheels to start coming off.
>they don't need to be very smart to see for themselves how if high HPs is a problem, high lethality is the solution
5e wasn't made for smart people.
You don't have to be dumb to want to feel powerful either - it's just a hard pill to swallow that if the monsters need to be weaker your character needs to be equitably weakened. Players not wanting to swallow that pill is the entire slippery slope that has slid every edition. On some level it's probably better that the way 5e is built makes it so fricking obvious that HP bloat is where most of the extra 1's got carried over into but there's equivalent issues sooner or later in every edition. It's just a result of human beings playing the game.
I don't understand how anyone is supposed to "feel powerful" in a !game where they have to beg daddy DM for everything and anything can be changed or thrown out the window for any or no reason at all.
It's also quite stupid that people still pay money for D&D books when the creator said you don't even need them for the purpose they're printed.
These pills are so hard to swallow that they're outright ignored or deflected whenever I bring them up.
You don't HAVE to. 5e is really a very functional skirmish combat game that also functions well enough extrapolated into a generic ruleset. I personally wouldn't play very long under a DM who over-exercised DM fiat but in those DMs' defense, a huge amount of the crunch in 5e has been moved over to their shoulders in the interest of keeping it accessible to players. I'd like to believe the vast majority of 5e DMs are open to explaining their rulings considering the rules are exponentially easier to look up than they were back in the day.
>You don't HAVE to
Sure, you can just hope that daddy DM will supply the non-casters with whatever magic items they'll need mid to high level, and the casters can just hope they get rests at the right time so they have their spells available for when they're needed.
Or, you could just play an actual game, one you made yourself as encouraged by words such as "you don't even need the books", "rewrite what you don't like", and "all RPGs are guilty of this".
The morons can stay with 5e, because they're so lacking in self-awareness and actual intelligence doing the things D&D's creators and they themselves suggest make them irrationally angry.
> you can just hope that daddy DM will supply the non-casters with whatever magic items they'll need mid to high level
There are treasure tables and you don't NEED to have the exact optimal items to be effective
> the casters can just hope they get rests at the right time so they have their spells available for when they're needed
Holy shit if there's one thing glaringly wrong with 5e it's that resource recovery from rests are far too GENEROUS and the "Adventuring Day" guideline is completely unrealistic.
While you and your friends might subjectively prefer some game you threw together more than whatever wrong impression some inexperienced DM gave you of D&D, I can assure you it will be objectively worse.
My shits are objectively better than D&D you fricking tasteless moron
>Sure, you can just hope that daddy DM will supply the non-casters with whatever magic items they'll need mid to high level
It's not my fricking job, it's your fricking job to take the initiative and go adventuring for either the materials to craft the item you want or to find it. Get your rear in gear if you want cool shit, same goes for casters, if you want a specific spell wizardshitter you have to go find a spellbook or scroll that has it and make the roll.
>the casters can just hope they get rests at the right time so they have their spells available for when they're needed.
Or, hear me out, they could be conservative with their spell usage and make preparations to ensure they can get the rest they need when they need it. I'm not just going to give anyone a nap because they want it, you can't just take a breather in a hostile area.
>Or, you could just play an actual game, one you made yourself as encouraged by words such as "you don't even need the books", "rewrite what you don't like", and "all RPGs are guilty of this".
I could, and at this point I mostly do, because I've basically touched every major mechanic in 5e at this point including all the classes and subclasses as well as many feats. I tried making my own fantasy system, classless point buy, it wasn't as good. Too janky, a pain to prep for.
>The morons can stay with 5e, because they're so lacking in self-awareness and actual intelligence doing the things D&D's creators and they themselves suggest make them irrationally angry.
Projection.
>I don't understand how anyone is supposed to "feel powerful" in a !game where they have to beg daddy DM for everything and anything can be changed or thrown out the window for any or no reason at all.
That's literally every TTRPG. Rule 0, and rulings not rules. The GM has free reign to throw out and change any rules they want, whenever they want. If you argue otherwise, you're an entitled playerleech who has never GM'd a game in their life and who doesn't care about the RP in RPG and just wants to do buildhomosexualry.
You feel powerful because you aren't bound by arbitrary rules and restrictions, if you want to try something you're free to try - there's no garuntee you'll succeed, but rather than the GM going "No, you can't do that, you don't have the right feat/power/perk/whatever" the GM can say "okay, roll this check" if it's plausible your idea could work and better yet say "no, that won't work" if your idea is moronic and makes no fricking sense.
The only people who hate the idea of the GM having any power to okay or deny things is either someone who plays with randos and deserves all the shit he gets, including shitty power tripping GMs who don't understand what the ability to modify or ignore rules is for, or they're a min-maxing powergaming buildhomosexual who is malding that the GM nerfed the OP bullshit they found online and/or not letting them persuade the king into handing over his crown with LE EPIC NATTY 20! Anyone else understands that the GM being able to bend or even break the rules of the game when they want is a good thing.
>PLAY A BETTER GAME
Every game has problems, some games are easier to fix than others. It's easier for me to run a hacked to shit 5e for high fantasy than it is to fix all the issues I have with previous editions or its current contemporaries such as SOTDL and PF2e.
Why don't you just use more monsters with more interesting powers and tactics?
5e has considerably reduced the variety of special abilities that monsters have. For example in previous editions many, many varieties of monsters were immune to nonmagical weapon attacks. I used 5e.tools the other day to just grab one for an example I was posting and discovered there's exactly one monster in all of Canon 5e with immunity to nonmagical attacks. Another major peeve of mine is that creature type has been reduced to just a flag. No longer to certain types of creatures (e.g. Undead) all share certain qualities (e.g. Immunity to Mind Affecting Spells). The exact same adventure with the exact same monsters will be noticeably less dynamic in 5e than in any previous edition other than 4e.
A dice roll is not a geometric progression. It's not a progression of any kind.
The point is to reduce the benefit and therefor the necessity of pure min-max. Increasing a stat you use a lot is better than increasing a stat you use less often and when it’s just a 1 to 1 trade off between the two you are heavily incentivized to just completely dump the less used stat.
Seems like something someone would do who was trying to rollplay they're charactor incase of roleplaying
>rollplay
There's no such thing. "Rollplay" is a empty slur invented by thespiangays so that they can feel superior to players who are better at coming up with sound strategies and clever plans.
I agree but D&D already does this in character creation with point buy.
Which is quiet broken
The purpose in 3e (the beginning of "modern" dnd) was that it allowed extra granularity on minutia stats like carry capacity, how long you cam hold your breath, etc
Remember also that in 3e you got to increase a stat by +1 every four levels IN ADDITION to feats and lots and lots of races had +/- 1 to a stat. It was mostly a concession for the sake of the bell curves stat distributions, but still let you make characters a little better at something without just giving them +1 to stat. 15 strength is objectively better than 14, even if only a little bit
In 5e there is no point.
Not how D&D was played originally, either you had percentages or roll under d6 skill and morale etc was 2d6 check, you only had very minor amount of bonuses at the start as well.
THACO was something Gygax crew lifted from naval wargames back then, not based on man to man combat.
Chainmail is not D&D, delineated largely by D&D having numeric skills for checking outside combat.
Nobody said that Schizo, if you look at your OD&D (white box) and basic/expert (B/X) (or BECMI) sets or AD&D you'll find this to be the case throughout TSR publications of D&D. What you are talking about is D&D 3.0.
What I'm talking about is having six ability scores generated by a bell curve (3d6) against which a flat probability d20 is rolled to check for success or failure
No edition of D&D ever worked like that without an optional rule.
There is no rolling under an attribute score on 1d20 in 3LB or AD&D. It's a suggested optional rule in a throwaway paragraph at the end of BX, but it's not core in any version of Basic either.
You're imagining that the roll-under mechanic used for the DSG/WSG non-weapon proficiencies (OA's nwps were roll over a target number like modern D&D), BECMI general skills, and 2e non-weapon proficiencies -- all explicitly optional rules -- was also some sort of core ability check mechanic in the TSR editions. It wasn't. Ever.
The bonuses are far too small if this is your argument, and the DCs far too high.
D&D's a swingygame.
I own that die, I use it for really important rolls.
>Immersion-proof.
As in unsinkable? That's most plastic dice.
People blame DnD's problems on an innocent icosahedron
This.
The D20 can actually be incredibly effective, when applied properly.
Contrarians complain about every facet of anything that's popular.
are there non-luck dies?
Technically, dice rolling is a skill. Knowing what side is up before you roll, tossing at a consistent force, angle, and surface elasticity will usually give you consistent results.
It's when you add elements like shaker cups, dice towers, etc. that the results become less predictable, though in the case of towers, I've heard cases where dropping it in with the same face up yields the same result.
>That one homosexual at the table who Drops the die from a quarter inch off the table and lightly spins it and pretends that he's rolling
I'm so glad he overdosed.
skill is not the opposite of luck
No, but it is separate from luck.
Post your craps winnings.
The d20 is extremely immersive when it comes to combat rolls because it is great at emulating the chaotic nature of battle. The problem starts when you use it for skills.
Here's the actual fix, but I'm a dirty ESL.
You use a (de)escalating DC for it. Let's say your character has a skills bonus of 7 and the DC for a skill check is 15.
Everytime he rolls for the check he can either succeed or not.
If he succeds he adds -5 to the skill check and roll again until the DC check is below his bonus (7), that's when he succeeds.
If not he adds +5 to the skill check and roll again until the skill check is out of reach (28), that's when he fails.
If he has a critical sucess the test moves to -10
If he has a critical failure the test moves to a +10.
In game:
>I try to convince the guard to let us pass immediately because we have an urgent meeting with the landlord.
>Although, you know the palace is expecting mercenaries today, the guard has no reason to not check in with his superiors before letting you pass, this is a difficult task (20). Roll Persuasion or Intimidation.
>My character has +10 to persuasion, I rolled 16.
>All right your argument seems convincing thus far, roll again (15).
>I rolled 4...
>As you continue your history the holes in it are becoming evident, the guard is growing suspicious, roll again (20).
>I rolled 20, bringing the DC below my bonus.
>By pure chance, you mention the names of the guard superiors, because of that your argument and the way you're conducting yourself, it makes the guard be at ease, he agrees to let you pass but he's ecorting you.
>FRICK! Can I try to convince him to stay?
>...
>...
>Sigh... roll persuasion or intimidation (25).
This seems like it would get impractically time-consuming very quickly.
It would be for specific instances when you want a skill challenge to represent a back-and-forth. It's honestly almost RAW but because he's admittedly an ESL he's describing it weirdly. It's a DC20 to gain the opportunity for a DC15 to gain opporunity for a DC10 with stepback failure and a floating breaking point according to the character's skill.
I thank god every single day for dungeons and dragons filtering almost every single out of any decent game.
Imagine having to play with the morons in this thread lol.
While d20 is more swingy, because it has a larger gradient towards low-middle-high, it somewhat makes up for that. Additionally, it's faster to add up bonuses onto it.
The typical counter response to d20 is 3d6, which adds more stability, but you slow the game down because every roll is more numbers to add. This is why the dice are d6 in general. You could add more stability to d20 by just adding more, but you'd be adding more and higher numbers and slow the game down even more.
The best is obviously to use true d100 because you can add even more bonuses into it!
(I actually have one of them, and can say that it rolls like shit and sparks constant arguments on if it rolled 3 or 69)
How do you guys feel about a player who wants to use a dice roller app/website instead of physical dice?
Pisses me off on multiple levels. Our LGS group's That Guy is all about his D&D Beyond app and it constantly rubs me the wrong way and makes me dislike the app even more than I already did.
It's okay for the GM for general use. For real life sessions, I have a laptop with FoundryVTT open and the session prepared there so I can roll creatures features and substract health, but I roll important rolls, contested checks and auch in the open. For players, use physical ones, always.
Why would I ever allow physical dice? Do you want your players to cheat?
You shouldn't use spindown dice for rolling.
This.
Die in OP is clearly a spindown which means all its high values are clumped up in one end of it and low values in the other end. You shouldn't use dice like that for rolling, they're insufficiently random.
You either fail or succed on d20 systems. There's no difference between rolling 10 or 15 if the DC was 5. You still have 80% chance of passing the test, if you have 10 checks in your session with all of them being DC 5 the most likely result is that 8 tests will be sucessfull.
>B-but the Wizard could lift big rock and the Barbarian not.
Seems like the barbarian wasn't strong as he thought he was, had he a bonus of plus five, he could've done it.
No, there's NO CRITICAL SUCCESS or CRITICAL FAILURES in skill checks. If the big rock DC was 21 the wizard could never lift it.
Also, skill checks are only for actions where adrenaline is running high and you can only do it once. If you make the barbarian roll to lift big rock in a situation where he can just try it multiple times you are moronic, just treat it as he rolling 20 and move on.
The d20 is fine, brainlets.
Also advantage/disavantage >>>>> 3d6
>least braindamaged dnd apologist in this board
Pool d6 systems > anything else
Just flip a coin > anything else
roll a marble > anything else
>conflip braindead anon appears
I was wondering where you would be. You always post the dumbest post possible in any thread about resolution mechanics. Like clockwork.
>strawmam, deflection, projecting.
Not a single argument, I accept your concession.
CORRECT!!!
so roll 1d12 plus 1d8
Rolled 11 + 1 (1d12 + 1)
Hope I didn't fug up the dice rolling formula.
Rolled 8 + 11 (1d8 + 11)
Aw fug, I did. You can't roll two different dice here.
Ok, so let's take the 11 from the d12 roll and just use it a modifier for the 1d8 roll.
>No cap homies thinkig using a 3d6/2d10 for fail/pass be better than d20 because of le ebin bell curve.
It's even stupider because they don't realize that in the hands of a competent DM the 3d6 is a inferior tool since you can't properly gauge fail/success chance like you can with a d20.
Have TN roll under 13 with 3d6? You are most likely always going to succeed, 16? Yeah its almost impossible for you to fail, 17? Yuppers again only one possible way to fail which is 6+6+6 result.
Then you put a modifier of just 1 point and it becomes a 5%.
Wow, so much hassle, and for what?
Now I can't gauge the DCs properly, doesn't seem like a good trade to me.
If I want to delve into the 1%s so much, then why don't I just use a d100 then?
There's literally no reason to use a 3d6 over a d20 but autism or a psychotic need for control.
>There's literally no reason to use a 3d6 over a d20 but autism or a psychotic need for control.
"I want people stacking modifiers to get diminishing returns to encourage branching out."
This is why Untyped modifiers will always be superior Typaled modifiers.
You'll have to explain these terms as this is the first time I see them.
3d6 only goes up to 99,5%
Why not use 3d100 drop both highest and lowest and go into the 99,99%+?
You can get 99.75% with D20 all you have to do is roll-to-confirm critical fails if a noncritical 1 would have passed and do "complication"
>its almost impossible for you to fail
So why roll at all then? It seems the point of it all here is just self-deception, to think you're badass for succeeding the rolls but having removed all the actual risk of failure. (Much like all of those roll-for-stats systems that layer on re-rolls, alternatives, drop-lowest etc until you're basically guaranteed to get what you want.)
You could have auto success system in place for those types of games even d20 (3.0) allows you to automatically succeed at DC of 10 or less vs environment if I remember right as long as you don't have penalties stacked.
Which is why d% and 2d6 as systems are better because of the swings to the randomness and why GURPS sucks dick in combat and becomes a slap fest competition.
It's hard to imagine for D&D brains, but games with mostly consistent results from rolls allow you to actually plan things. Which then means that an actually failed roll becomes much more important, because your plan could actually rely on that roll succeeding, and it didn't.
>TN 17
>Rolling for 99,5% chance
Also just to clarify, in GURPs you don't really get positive modifiers that easily and have to spend points to specialize in single skills so it sort of balances this frickery out and you don't start with an ability higher than 12 usually for the two abilities that matter.
only if the gm is tight on starting points allocation especially dips
meanwhile, in shadowrun, you can buy hits at a rate of 4 dice per hit, without even rolling anything.
>shadowrun
>buy hits
getaload of this 4rry+ homosexual
>you can't properly gauge fail/success chance like you can with a d20.
I've seen this argument here before. From an butthole who modifies rolls based on what he feels the odds of success should be, instead of what the difficulty modifiers are supposed to represent. Example: I want this player to have a 50% chance of success, regardless of his skill level.
>Bad DM is the die fault
I see where you're coming from, but the die is innocent.
Not the die's fault or even the system's fault because it tells you what the different DCs are supposed to mean.
Bad DM was claiming one of the advantages of d20 was the ease of adjusting difficulty levels on the fly to set the odds of success at whatever they feel like at the moment.
le bell curve is lucklet cope, gays will roll just as badly on any other dice
>Still complaining about d20
Black folk, degree of success and d100 have been a thing for even longer than First edition.
Only homosexuals bad at math or morons who don't understand roll under don't know its objectively better.
>using a single die
>using a single large die
disgusting.
I'm going to have an additional die for each +1 I have.
GURPS is just superior to DND, it do be that simple.
It is literally built different ;^).