DDN Blog: Ranger Design Goals

With what we have seen of backgrounds and themes the more I read about these design goals, the more I wonder if D&D would just be better served as a point buy-like system in the vein of Dresden Files, Exalted, Shadowrun, etc, where you accrue XP and spend it on things or increase existing things.

Plenty of people have stated that the paladin could work as a theme, or some combination of cleric and fighter, as otherwise unique features like detecting/smiting evil could be picked up via feats, and to a point I am inclined to agree.

The ranger seems to be in a similar spot, as a lightly-armored warrior and/or rogue with lots of nature-oriented skills could fit the bill fairly well. This is still the area of the game that concerns me: just how different are all these classes going to be? What will a ranger bring to the table that cannot be picked up via another class?

Well…here is what we got so far:

The ranger is a wildnerness hunter and tracker.
This was kind of a big deal in 3rd Edition, because there was a Tracking feat that you had to take for some reason. I think it was that it allowed you to make Spot/Wildnerness Lore checks to find tracks, but it might have just been to notice ones over a specific DC (kind of like how only rogues could find traps with Spot DCs over 20). 4th Edition made no such restriction, allowing anyone to use Nature/Perception to notice tracks.

I am hoping that no one is barred from trying to track things, and instead rangers just gain a bonus instead of being part of an exclusive club. I am happy that it sounds like they are going to use 4th Edition’s bonus damage mechanics instead of prior ones.

The ranger is a warrior.
Rangers have pretty much always stuck with light armor for the Dexterity bonus, so no surprises there. They had less hit points than fighters, so I wonder if they will have more than usual or some way to reduce/ignore damage. I do not care for the whole two-weapon/archery bit, but at least it sounds like a theme and not a class feature; trying to qualify for two-weapon fighting was a pain in 3rd Edition, and while 4th Edition made it actually feasible and worthwhile, it still required making a new class feature over and over.

The ranger is a protector.
Huh. I have never known rangers to be the tanking type, so I wonder if this means that they can interrupt attacks or actually get in the way of them. If the latter, I wonder how it will differ (or improve) from the Defender theme. I am guessing that at least they will have some benefit against poisons, foraging, making shelters, and so on.

Rangers are friends with wild creatures.
Good with animals, but animal companions are not assumed. It also sounds like that they can have more than one, and they are better off for it.

These are good goals for evoking the ranger archetype as we know it in D&D, with the sort-of exception of access to druidic magic. I would prefer to see this as a class feature choice, but would also be fine having it be something that can be gained through multiclassing or a feat.

On the surface though I am not seeing much to differentiate it from a fighter with an Archery/Two-Weapon theme and some nature skills, except for the Hunter’s Quarry-like class feature. Yeah they get pets, but that sounds like it could (and should) be a background benefit or feat option.

DDN Blog: Sword +1, Flame Tongue

I spent yesterday reading through the playtest documents for D&D Next, and will post my initial impressions sometime this weekend. For now though I am trying to play catch up with some previous blog entries, starting with this one (for the record, the earliest magic item I can recall nabbing was a two-handed sword +1, +2 versus undead).

I do not get where Schwalb is coming from. He opens up by stating that acquiring a sword +1, flame tongue felt unique and important, and was like owning a piece of D&D. Is he saying that because it was a hard-coded item in the game, like a maul of the titans, something that the authors invented? Is he saying that magic items have become somehow less important or evocative because a DM in 3rd and 4th Edition could simply append the flaming trait to any melee weapon they want, instead of just a longsword?

I prefer the game to provide the DM with the parts necessary to build their own magic items, rather than rely on what the publishers give us, so option 1 holds absolutely no appeal to me at all. Good DMs will just invent their own things anyway, so by not informing us of what being fire does for a weapon just makes us have to work harder to disassemble and apply it to something else. Providing us with examples and guidelines will both help prevent doling out over-powered creations, while at the same time allow DMs to do this if they want.

I also want item creation rules, as I think that crafting magic items should be something that the characters can aspire to do. It does not have to be something easy to come by or assumed. It can be more complicated than using magic dust or shelling out gold; the characters might have to adventure far and wide to figure out how to make something, gather the materials, and possibly even find the right conditions. I want characters to be able to forge their own legends if the story allows or even demands it, not just hope to stumble upon an existing one.

The short of it is to give both DMs and players the parts to play with, without assuming that everyone must play with them.

DDN Blog: Paladin Design Goals

Between playing an unhealthy amount of Diablo 3, spending the weekends out of the house, and a more recent article on hit points and healing surges, I had almost forgotten about paladins.

I am glad to see that paladins will follow codes that reflect on their deity. Having a singular code regardless of god was kind of silly, and I would love to see codes for paladins of a gnome god (Garl, I think?). I like that paladins of neutral and evil gods will still stick around, too. My only complaint is that I would also like to see paladins that champion causes, though given that gods tend to have portfolios it would probably be an easy thing to re-skin and flavor.

I loathed detect evil in past editions for its ability to simultaneously overcome and be overcome by the plot magic items/spells. The new direction seems to be a vague, strange disturbance in the force, as opposed to a distinct radar ping (or aura). I like this. The paladin gets the notion that something is afoot, but does not know the precise source. As someone on RPG.net put it, “the paladin gets to hear the background music”. The bit on smiting implies that a paladin will not be wasting smites, which is also nifty.

Paladins have always major access to weapons and armor, as well as immunity to fear, so the third point is nothing new. I liked how 4th Edition paladins could shield and take hits for allies, which also seems to be sticking around for the good guys at least.

And last but not least, they still seem to be getting lay on hands, divine magic, and have the option to summon a horse. The spells diverge from what a cleric gets, which was how it worked in 3rd and 4th Edition, and summoned mounts might grant kicker effects to other mounts. I guess boosting the stamina and speed of other horses is good for traveling. The bit on turning demons along with undead is nice, though I think clerics should get that, too.

DDN Blog: Skills and Task Resolution

“Characters get four things–skills or traits.” 

This model kind of reminds me of a combination of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons and Exalted, in that skills grant a flat bonus to a variety of related things, but you can opt to nab other things if you want. A workshop was specifically mentioned, but I could also see something like influence, followers, a familiar, and more. Not sure about languages. They would have to be pretty darned useful, or other things less so, to make them a compelling choice. This–along with wizards getting at-will spells without having to burn a feat, themes granting at-will spells, and the potential for a variety of magic systems (daily, power- and point-based, etc)–has been one of the few rare things to get my psyched for 5th Edition.

I like that they are not super specific like 3rd Edition (Climb, Jump, Swim, Knowledge skills, and Use Rope come to mind), but instead somewhat vague like in 4th Edition, allowing for more player input and creativity. Given that the DC’s for many things at 1st-level was very low (like, 12-13), I often did not have the issue of players checking their sheets for the best modifier and trying to rationalize an application. I think that, if anything, it was that players were used to seeing massive bonuses of potentially +11 and assuming that it was the norm. Hopefully with skills only conferring a +2, at least initially, will help break that habit.

I think that I would like to have seen things like what Rob calls active and passive skills divvied up, which is something I recall happening in 3rd Edition Shadowrun; players had two pools of skills. Or maybe one was knowledges? I do not remember, really. Basically everyone got to spend things on both sets. Regardless, I really dig this movement of making characters more dependent on their ability scores instead of skill modifier. I think it will help encourage players to at least try things that they normally would not.

We will see what happens next week when the playtest finally starts.

DDN Blog: Goblins Only Care About Your Axe

As I said in a previous blog post, sometimes a fight is just not worth the effort of stopping the game to draw out a tactical map. I cannot imagine the amount of time I have spend drawing maps and juggling Dungeon Tiles, whether it was for a hunting party of kobolds in the forest south of Winterhaven, a handful of undead lurking within the catacombs under Shadowfell Keep, or for the final confrontation against Kalarel, his undead guardians, and a life-sapping portal.

Out of those, the only time a map really made things cooler was the showdown with Kalarel, and given my experiences running A Sundered World—fighting clockwork horrors in Shom, fleeing from a gith-mounted red dragon and bladeling raiding party, and taking on a possessed Autocthon while riding an ancient blue dragon—I am fairly certain it would have still been really awesome without it.

I am not sure how I buy into the player mentality of “its on the map, kill it”. When running Age of Worms in 3rd Edition, this was not a problem, even though I would draw the map as they explored the dungeon. Really if there was a map, I used it, and they never complained. Maybe it is because there were not a lot of things to interact with, and the fights were over a lot quicker? Most of what I recall from the first was just walls and maybe some furniture. Occasionally there was difficult terrain or something that they did not want to step in, like brown mold.

The point is that drawing maps “back in the day” seemed to have been a lot easier than it is now, and given that they never really went off the map it probably did not feel like an investment that they were passing up. I keep mentioning to them that I would like to run the through Age of Worms using 3rd Edition, just to see what they like and do not like. I would be curious to see how they handle exploration-based mapping.

Anyway I have hundreds of minis and a lot of Dungeon Tiles, and given that my issues were more centered around the expenditure of time (how much have I wasted drawing maps and pondering terrain features and effects for trivial things?), I am glad that they are considering methods to reduce the time shifting between both “modes”, as well as defining abilities to work with either.

Legend & Lore: Rogue Design Goals

I guess according to Twitter it was supposed to be the wizard’s turn to show off her design goals, but the rogue *ahem* stole the spotlight.

Ultimately the design goals can be condensed into two key points: rogues do not fight fair, and they are skilled. So, very, very skilled.

The first part I have no problem with, and has basically always been there from the start. In older editions I guess thieves had to work a bit more in order to get their backstab off, but it was probably relatively cooler given that ability scores did not do much to affect melee attack and damage output.

In other words, landing one big attack without much of a risk of getting caught was better than trying to go toe-to-claw with a big monster.

This was made easier to pull of in 3rd and 4th Edition, as all you really needed was to flank a monster. 3rd Edition made it a bit riskier, partly because there were plenty of monster types that were immune to critical hits (and therefore sneak attacks), but mostly because there was no way for a fighter to actually defend you from a monster should it decide to turn its attention to you.

4th Edition reduced the damage quite a bit, but opened up the floodgate on what was fair game, and with fighter-types being actually able to keep monsters off of you, it was easier to get into the fray without much fear of retribution…not that rogues did not have tricks of their own to get away when that happened.

From the sounds of things it looks like rogues are somewhat receding back to 3rd Edition, with a more rapidly scaling sneak attack an emphasis on waiting for an opportune moment. I would like to see 4th Edition’s flexibility maintained, so that players can make a thief-type, swashbuckler-type, or even a street thug-type depending on their tastes.

As for skills, they will apparently be able to reach a higher degree of mastery than other classes in a given skill. Since the statement lacks a qualifier for either skills or classes, I take this to mean that if they want to be better at Arcana than a wizard, or know more about Religion than a cleric, they can.

This mastery extends to them performing feats that while not technically magical, certainly seem so. The only magical-ish think mentioned was slipping through shadows, the idea that a rogue could spin a lie so complex that even magic would be hard-pressed to unravel is pretty appealing. To top it off, the article states that they will be able to do so without “much exertion”, and that “luck and chance play no role in determining success”.

On one hand I can kind of see where they are coming from, as back when rogues were called thieves they were one of two classes that had more than a handful of skills. As editions progressed they became one of the classes that got the most skill points or trained skill choices. In order words there is a reason why they are commonly labeled the “skill-monkey”.

On the other hand–if the article is to be believed–I do not particularly like the idea of a rogue being able to transcend any class in any skill they choose. Lots of stuff I do not have a problem with, but I think that wizards should be head of the class at wizard-type skills like Arcana, extraplanar knowledge, alchemy, etc, and that rangers and druids should be the best at nature and what-have-you.

Ultimately I am curious to see how both goals play out, though I am a bit wary of the latter. But, hey, that is what a playtest is for.

DDN Blog: Wizards with a License to Kill

A previous blog post on background and themes made it pretty clear that backgrounds and themes are just going to be respective packages of skills and feats, though other information drops hinted–or could at least be interpreted–that they might confer other benefits as well.

This post states that themes and backgrounds “also give a character class access to the feel that’s traditionally been in the keeping of another class”. It then explains that in prior editions if someone wanted to play a spy that they would probably start as a rogue, or at least multiclass into rogue as soon as possible.

I can agree with this statement–though not with the one about a wizard of any edition acting like a spy, especially “to great and wonderful effect”–because rogues get a lot of skill points/trained skills that make them ideal at sneaking, lying, and information gathering. So, yeah, if any class can pick any skills then it opens up a lot of concepts that you might be unable to easily and/or reliably realize. It also clarifies that classes must have a core identity and mechanics that are fundamental to that class.

In other words this sounds like “classes give you class features”. I wonder if feat choices will let you pick up class features from another class, like in 4th Edition, or boost logical/thematic/iconic combinations of two or more other classes, like fighter/wizards, rogue/assassins, druid/barbarians, ranger/druid/paladins, etc.

Ultimately what I take away from this short post is still that backgrounds and themes largely exist to speed a player through character creation. What I do not know for sure is the order of operations; you can pair of any background and class, but what about themes? From the sounds of the slayer theme I guess that classes will at least have specific theme options, which I liken to sample character builds from 3rd and 4th Edition, though I could also see them having generic or broad themes that are largely applicable to multiple classes.

What I am curious about is if backgrounds will do more than just dole out skill bonuses. For example, will the spy background provide a network of contacts? Will themes only determine your feats, or will they also provide other benefits like they did in 4th Edition? Does a wizard with the farmer background still have access to Arcana, or whatever a wizard uses to deal with magic stuff? Can a fighter start with the slayer theme, but then move more into the realm of archery if the campaign direction warrants it?

DDN Blog: Avoiding Choice Traps

My first thought of reading this blog post is, “Huh…I really should rerun finish Age of Worms!” I got my 3rd Edition group up to Shadows of the Spire (I think that is what ti is called), and it just feels like a darned shame to just leave them stranded in the jungle. The horrible, worm-infested jungle… Maybe after I wrap up A Sundered World I can get them to go back and try 3rd Edition, if for no other reason than to houserule it up and see what we like/hate about it.

Anywho, feats.

Feats are basically a game currency that you can spend to increase increase your numbers (ie, Weapon Focus or Toughness), add additional things to something (that warlord feat that lets you add your Charisma modifier to you inspiring word, and another I think lets allies make a save, too), or give you an entirely new thing to do, or eat least another way of doing something else (that eladrin feat that lets you fey step to dodge something).

My question is that if each class is supported by different pillar ratios, then why would each feat need to be applicable to all of them? Presumably if I play the game without feats it will work out just fine (if a bit harder), so why not continue making feats that cater to different pillars? Lets say that a player starts out with a fighter with the slayer theme. She is all about combat, but a few sessions in discovers that the game is more exploration- or “roleplaying”-oriented. Given that the math is purported to also be flattened, why can she simply not grab a level in an “exploration” type class (ranger, rogue, druid, etc) and/or retrain a feat?

Additionally it is not like feats have to be limited to one-or-all pillars; you could have feats that provide a benefit to one, all three, or just two on a case-by-case basis. This avoids the designers having to uniformly shoehorn a set number of benefits into a feat. Players who want something complex can take a feat that gives them an entirely new thing to do (like a skill power), while players that want to keep things simple can just nab a “+2 to two things” feat.

I guess that makes my answer “something else”; have feats do what you want, or even need, them to do. You do not need to set restrictions on them. I do not know how feats will differentiate themselves from class features (especially given that in some instances they sound very much like class features), but I liked what they did in past editions. I just think there should be less of them, and that the designers should think very carefully before giving us stuff like 3rd Edition’s Toughness (one-time hit point bonus of three) or Cometary Collision (ready an action to charge a monster that also charges).

DDN: Tone & Edition

I find Rob’s proposal and reasons for adding race frequency to the game very…odd, to say the least, especially with 5th Edition’s purported goal of unifying all the editions. Tagging races as common, uncommon, rare, or whatever does nothing to inform the DM how these might fit into her campaign. It just sets a bar. A bar whose only purpose seems to be passive-aggressively enforcing someone’s idea of what races we “should” be using.

What makes this proposed mechanic even more bizarre is that 2nd Edition saw the introduction of numerous campaign settings that included more exotic races, such as: half-devils, half-angels, half-elementals, half-organic walking shapes, bug-people, half-dragons, bird people, hippo-men, and more. This begs the question, if tieflings are rare, but I am running Planescape, do I tell players that the common and uncommons are okay, plus tieflings? I guess I could just say common, uncommon, and rares are all good…but then what about warforged? Kalashtar?

And then there are the DMs that create their own campaigns. What if I create a world where tieflings and dragonborn are the most common races to be found, doing that whole war between Bael Turath and Arkhosia bit? What about a campaign that is largely restricted to mountains, with dwarves, minotaurs, genasi, and the odd warforged here and there (built by dwarf artificers I guess)?

I get that Rob grew up being exposed to certain media, and so prefers his game one way. Other players did not, or do not like the same things. Arbitrarily labeling races that he was “shocked” to see as being in 4th Edition’s first Player’s Handbook–while still ignoring the gnome write up in Monster Manual, I might add–as rare seems like he is both pushing an agenda and making assumptions about the game world, as opposed to the 5th Edition mantra of giving us the tools and then getting out of the way.

Ultimately this rule has no purpose or benefit. At best it is harmless; good DMs are just going to ignore it and give their players footnotes on what they can and cannot play in a homebrew campaign, and if issues arrive then hopefully they will come to a mutually fulfilling conclusion. Even in published campaigns DMs might still just ignore racial restrictions, such as if a player provides a compelling reason or the group comes to the realization that it is their game and they can do what they want. At worst it is hazardous for new groups, whose DMs might needlessly enforce it in a misguided attempt to “play by the rules”.

I think the only thing that needs to be done is to add a footnote somewhere in the rules, that gives DMs that for some reason need it the “go-ahead” to ban/create content for their table.

DDN Blog: Resilient Heroes

It’s good to see that the vast majority are in favor to at least some form of limited self-healing. Personally I had grown tired of relying on the casters to keep the game going last edition, and 4th Edition made it easier–I would daresay possible–to manage without a healer at all, or at least without having to burn through cash stocking up on healing potions and wands (the latter of which required characters to spend ranks on Use Magic Device).

The thing is that if hit points do not–and never did–simulate physical trauma, then there is no reason to severely cripple their “natural” recovery rate. 2nd Edition did this at 1 point per day, though 3rd Edition allowed you to get away with 1 per level, so long as you got a full day’s rest. A Heal check might have been involved, as well.

Healing surges provide a nice, solid mechanic for giving players an idea of how much more punishment they can endure, as well as providing a resource that could feasibly be used for other things, such as fueling rituals and/or abilities. For example, what if sorcerers got at-will spells, but no encounter or daily magic, and instead had to spend healing surges. This could work for other spellcasters, representing them becoming exhausted. It would also work for martial types.

Some players claim that healing surges can strip out the drama of a situation, since players can crawl out of a pile of rubble and “magically full-heal”, but this does not seem much different from just having a cleric spam cure whatever wounds until the character is topped off (or drinking a bunch of potions). Heck, give her a few levels and she can just conjure up free food and water, and also instantaneously alleviate ability score damage and level drain (assuming the characters did not burn cash on items that can do all that, anyway).

Things that might help is preventing characters from using all the surges that they want. After a battle characters might be able to spend just one, or could only spend enough to get to a certain percentage (say, bloodied value or 3/4s or something). An extended rest would allow them to exceed this amount, but to avoid a lengthy nap resetting all their stats to full, you could also cap the recovery rate. So, fighters might get 4 + Con modifier back, wizards 2 + Con modifier, or characters might only get back their Con modifier (so tough characters still recover faster). This way characters would still want to be stingy with their hit points and not just blow through surges willy nilly.

There could also be rules for extended injuries, so characters could suffer penalties for taking critical hits (perhaps in lieu of extra damage, similar to that mechanic in Dresden Files that lets you keep going, but at a cost). Things that healing surges cannot fix. I think this would work for grittier games, even going so far as specifying what sort of injuries that curing spells can fix (something I remember from 2nd Edition). The balancing act would be making it so that an injury is cumbersome, but not adventure-stopping. I would also like to avoid the whole ability damage fiasco of 3rd Edition; just give me flat penalties so I do not have to go back and re-factor my attacks, damage, skills, etc.