DM Help The Accomplishing Nothing Problem [Archive] (2024)

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Malimar

2024-06-13, 09:41 AM

So we are all aware of an unfortunate thing about 5e, somewhat reduced in this edition from previous editions but still an issue, or rather two related things:
If you are in combat and get hit by an effect that temporarily takes you out of the fight and you fail your save, you are about to spend an amount of real-world time potentially measured in hours doing nothing. That's a recipe for player disengagement at best.
If you cast a high-level spell and your target makes their save, not only have you wasted your Action, you have blown one of your main limited daily resource, and accomplished nothing to show for it.

What can we houserule as a solution? To brainstorm:
I've seen a suggestion that the DM allow the choice of taking some downside (possibilities include: a level of exhaustion) as a lesser effect if a player fails a save against an incapacitation effect.
I've seen one person who houserules that you can spend a hit die to reroll a save (either immediately, perhaps as a reaction, or perhaps as a bonus action), which I would correspondingly extend to spend a hit die to make an enemy reroll their save.
There is a plethora of available hit dice at high levels, so perhaps specifically let you spend a number of hit dice equal to the spell level of the effect involved to get/force a reroll.
Perhaps combine the above: spend one or SL hit dice and take a downside, in order to get/force a reroll.
Do we make it just let you gain advantage/force disadvantage, or make it additional to advantage/disadvantage?
Perhaps this doesn't just apply to saves. If you swing your sword and miss, should you have the option to spend a hit die/take a level of exhaustion or whatever/spend your bonus action to get a reroll on your attack? If your foe swings their sword and hits, should you have the option to spend a hit die/take a level of exhaustion or whatever/spend your reaction to force a reroll? Where do we draw the line? Do we need to?
Thoughts?

Easy e

2024-06-13, 10:00 AM

Some really interesting thoughts here.

Another scenario where you are sitting out for long periods of time is when you are reduced to 0 HP. Do you think that needs some tweaks or updates as well?

Sounds like your group is not that into the "Challenge" of the game, and is more looking for something else. What are they looking for? Character-arcs? Cool plot twists? Exploring stuff? That might help us craft other options that would work at your table.

gijoemike

2024-06-13, 10:01 AM

This isn't a problem.

We want our abilities and effects that do something other than deal damage to actually matter. In the matter of the effect taking you out of the fight, in game time it is less than 5 minutes in most cases. The real problem is a round of combat at your table is taking a long time. What is the size of the party, how long is the average time someone uses to take their combat round?

IF a given person takes 2 minutes to take their combat round, they would still be sitting around for hours doing nothing as everyone else is taking their turn. In the case of successfully avoiding the effect they just take 2 minutes to do something every 20 minutes of combat. This results in a whopping 6 mins of activity per hour. The problem isn't what you think it is. Also, who cast the leave you out of the fun spell? Oh the GM made that choice.

How is that any different from the enemy having fire immunity and you cast fireball? Or using a 1/2 save spell to learn the enemy has evasion? If a save doesn't mitigate any effect what is the point of having a saving throw? Swinging a sword and missing is a payoff of someone having a decent defense. Spending a hit die weakens an already weak area of the game. Also, the player decided to cast a spell that was be amazing or do absolutely nothing. The player is at least partially at fault. The entire game design is bounded. A high roll on a d20 save means no effect for the majority of spells.

If you want rerolls take the feat Lucky. There are ways in game to get retries, their are racial powers that let you get small bonuses or rerolls.

Blatant Beast

2024-06-13, 10:44 AM

Many of the debilitating effects in 5e include a Saving Throw at the end or start of the target's turn to end the effect.

There are only a handful of powers, (such as Banishment or Plane Shift), that offer only a single saving throw, with no chance later to end the effect.

One houserule, that I use, is I allow people with Inspiration to spend their Inspiration on other people's behalf, at no action cost.

There are also a host of spells and abilities like the Artificer's Flash of Genius abilities that can give a boost to a single Saving Throw roll. I personally, place a high value on those type of abilities, precisely for their use on "Save or Suck dice rolls".

HoboKnight

2024-06-13, 10:45 AM

Not a problem. This is what challenge is about. With challenge and some uncertainty removed, you eviscerate the game of joy at success, too.

stoutstien

2024-06-13, 10:55 AM

The issue is turn/round resolution length. It's a none issue if you are getting back around to them before the tension is lost.

NichG

2024-06-13, 11:16 AM

The design pattern I use for my own systems is that abilities (or outcomes) that fully take away someone's agency are restricted to finishing moves only - e.g. something like a Dominate Person effect would be a reaction you could use on dropping a target to zero hp with some other effect, in order to take them over rather than kill them or knock them out (this makes more sense in systems built more around escalating wound checks than a resource bar, avoiding the 'why do I want to control someone with 0hp?' sorts of issues, but just think of it conceptually...).

There are two other broad categories of abilities. Light Debuffs and Severe Debuffs. Generally speaking, light debuffs don't offer the equivalent of a saving throw or defense or hit roll - if you're spending your action on it, you can just apply it and it works. Even to crowds. These are things along the lines of 5-15% penalties, reduction in movement speeds, increase of costs, reduction of resistances or immunities, etc.

Severe Debuffs basically are anything that make a certain course of action pretty much useless, but you can still take other actions. Being unable to cast spells, being unable to make a basic attack, being unable to move, etc. Either these will have some kind of ability of the target to 'nope' it (generally at some resource cost rather than just rolling a save, but the resource cost might depend on something like a saving throw) or they will be designed to offer a choice. So instead of implementing Paralysis as 'you can't take actions', it could be something like 'while under this effect, every time you take any physical action suffer 2d4 points of Dexterity drain, and at 0 Dexterity you're KO'. Fear might be 'you cannot move towards or take offensive actions against the source of your Fear, and if at all possible you must stay at least 30ft away from it, but you can freely choose how to run away, help others, go after another target, etc as you like'. For short-lived effects these could be quite harsh in the consequences if you do the forbidden action like 'if you attack the source of this effect while it applies, you die with no defense or mitigation possible'.

Basically the design idea is that non-damage mid-combat effects should shape the space of choices possible rather than just directly prevent choice.

So just go through 5e and rewrite all the status conditions and spells and the saving throw system, no big deal!

Darth Credence

2024-06-13, 11:53 AM

You left off an important possibility - everyone get comfortable with enjoying watching fellow players playing, and stop getting worked up about the possibility that you may not be doing something every second.

This is, to me, a fundamental problem with modern RPGs. Maybe it existed back in my younger days as well, but I just didn't have the internet to see people complaining. But when I was a player back in AD&D days, I knew perfectly well there would be times when I was doing nothing. I usually played wizards, and in AD&D, that meant for a long time you had a few big moments a day, and then did nothing of note the rest of the time. (At least until you got to the point that you were the one carrying the group.) And that was fine! I spent a lot of combats learning what the other PCs could do, what their tendencies were, and how to make my character work better with theirs. I also took time to cheerlead for them, oohing and ahhing when they did something cool, wincing at their injuries, and otherwise just having a good time playing with friends, even if I was "out".

This can still be done. If everyone would just stop thinking that if their character isn't doing something, then they should just check out. My game, when it happens, the other players listen attentively to what is going on with others. We recently had a really close to a TPK - everyone was down except one character, and that character was the one the enemy was specifically gunning for. Everyone else just kind of got in the way and made sure to protect them. They went down one by one, until the last one was left standing, and they were trying to get away. So we had a stretch where that one PC was all that was left, and they were trying to sneak out through the forest, knowing if the enemy found them and closed in, it would be over. Incredibly tense, and everyone else was on the edge of their seats watching as the one left pulled every trick they had to get away (succeeding in the end). They could have, of course, decided that once their characters were down they would pull out their phones and start playing Candy Crush, and then it would have been just me and that player finishing out the scene. But why would they do that? Why would they ignore someone they are at least friendly enough with to spend hours at a time playing games with?

The only answer I can come up with to that why boils down to they don't actually consider the people at the table friends or even friendly acquaintances, but simply game pieces in a game that is all about them, and they are doing what I do when the computer is taking its turn in Civilization. If that's the case, I would prefer those people find a computer RPG and play against a computer that will not care when they do that, and stop playing in my groups' games.

Mastikator

2024-06-13, 12:13 PM

The issue is turn/round resolution length. It's a none issue if you are getting back around to them before the tension is lost.

This. It should not be an hour until it's your turn again.

Segev

2024-06-13, 12:22 PM

From a player engagement perspective, you could either make sure everyone has a backup NPC to have come in to do something when they can't otherwise take a turn, or, if you trust your players not to met game your monsters into submission, you can give control of one or more monsters to the otherwise out player and let him beat up the other PCs with it.

Crusher

2024-06-13, 12:28 PM

The issue is turn/round resolution length. It's a none issue if you are getting back around to them before the tension is lost.

Agreed. The issue is *not* that a player is stunned/paralyzed/whatever for 3 rounds. The problem is that 3 rounds of combat takes 40+ minutes to get through.

The players *like* having time to consider their options and do a little bit of in-fight coordinating when deciding what to do. Except when they're incapacitated and see how long it makes everything take, then they hate it. But that instantly goes away as soon as they can act again. /shrug

Ionathus

2024-06-13, 01:03 PM

<snip>...Why would they ignore someone they are at least friendly enough with to spend hours at a time playing games with?

You're right about needing to learn to cheer for the rest of the table and accept that TTRPGs require you to share the playtime.

But there's no need to ascribe a moral failing to it. Some people just take awhile to "get" it.

Dark.Revenant

2024-06-13, 01:13 PM

I posit that there are actually three true problems, most of which have been touched on already in the thread:

Indefinite disabling effects (e.g., Banishment) that bypass ablative resources (e.g., Hit Points),
excessive round lengths that steadily increase with each level,
and backwards Saving Throw scalinga poor implementation of "bounded accuracy".

All three of these items compound together. #1 would not be a problem by itself, but it becomes a problem because of #2 and #3.

#2 is mostly caused by the nature of 5e's encounter balance, which more-or-less mandates that the opfor (opposing forces) needs to be comprised of additional creatures in order to contend with the players' increasing powers. Single, legendary opponents don't work well out-of-the-box in 5e, especially at higher levels. Eventually, even a pair of tough opponents won't be enough; the opfor needs an entire tactical spectrum in order to handle skilled/powerful players. As the complexity qualitatively increases, the complexity also quantitatively increases, making combat take more and more time.

#3 is probably the biggest single issue, however. As time goes on, the players' saving throw bonuses largely do not keep up with the opfor's saving throw DCs. At level 1, you're expected to have a +5 in your "good" save and a -1 in your "bad" save. At level 20, this generally increases to +14 in your "good" save and +2 in your "bad" save, assuming you have some means of gaining a blanket ~+3 to all of your saving throws (such as via Bless or a Potion of Heroism, rounding up). Some classes offer additional bonuses to these saves, but those classes (Artificer, Bard, Monk, Paladin, and certain subclasses) are in the minority.

At level 1, you'll generally be facing something like DC 13. That's a 65% success chance for the "good" save and 35% for the "bad" save.

At level 20, you'll generally be facing something like DC 21potentially a little lower (like 1719) and occasionally much higher (like 2427). That's... still a 65% success chance for the "good" save and now only 15% for the "bad" save.

Essentially, you're making backwards progress. Saving throws become far more dangerous at higher levels and only a few classes are given tools to overcome them. The qualitative severity of failing saving throws tends to increase with level, as well, so this means more people will be sitting out more of the fight more often, for a longer period of time, as you get deeper into a campaign.

Is there a fix for this? Honestly, probably not an easy one. Old editions of D&D used an entirely different method for saving throw scaling, which essentially just enforced a low chance-to-succeed at level 1 and a high chance-to-succeed at level 14, across the board, for every class (the most dramatic curve being for the Fighter). It would be quite difficult to adapt 5e to use that kind of saving throw system.

Evaar

2024-06-13, 01:18 PM

I'm not sure it's that severe a problem that it requires a fix. However, Pathfinder 2e has managed a better balance of this in my opinion.

First thing you need to know about PF2E is everyone's turn is composed of three actions, and anything you might want to do takes at least one action (most spells take two). Many conditions remove actions, and of those conditions the primary differentiation is in the way they are removed - some drop automatically over time, some require additional saves, some require an action to remove.

Second is that a "critical success" or "critical failure" is whenever you beat or fail a target number by 10 or more.

Third is that all save effects have four possible resolutions - critical success, success, failure, and critical failure. Most spells have no effect if the target critically succeeds their save, some effect if the target succeeds, a stronger/longer lasting effect if the target fails, and a hugely debilitating effect if the target critically fails.

Finally, some spells are marked with the "Incapacitation" trait which means an enemy that is higher level than you has their save result improved by one stage. This means that while a spell might completely disable a standard enemy, a boss is guaranteed to take a lesser effect and won't be trivialized. Basically the equivalent of D&D's Legendary Saves, but less binary.

And that's really it. Because the actions available to you are less binary, the conditions are less binary, and the spell results are less binary, you have far fewer binary results. There's a lot more agency over general gameplay, as the game also includes a multitude of options for stacking penalties or bonuses to various rolls. (Say you're planning to cast a spell targeting the enemy's Will save, your group's Swashbuckler can improve your chances by using their Bon Mot feat to drop a snarky quip that will impose a -2 penalty to the enemy's Will for a round.)

The problem here is that this can't be easily imported to 5e. You'd have to rework several core systems as well as every single spell. The upside is that they're wayyyyyy less to track in D&D, and it's far friendlier to newer players who tend not to have a lot of patience for stuff like "You actually can't use that spell scroll because you moved with one action, pulled it from your pack with your second action, and it requires two actions to cast, so you'll have to wait until your next turn. Also remember that the spell is giving you a +2 status bonus to your AC, which won't stack with the +1 status bonus you're getting from the party's Champion."

Rukelnikov

2024-06-13, 10:22 PM

I wholeheartedly agree.

Unoriginal

2024-06-14, 08:51 AM

If a game doesn't have the possibility of failure, it's not a game I would enjoy playing.

Spending a turn accomplishing nothing once from time to time is what makes all those turns spent accomplishing something worthwhile.

KorvinStarmast

2024-06-14, 11:09 AM

So we are all aware of an unfortunate thing about 5e, somewhat reduced in this edition from previous editions but still an issue, or rather two related things:
If you are in combat and get hit by an effect that temporarily takes you out of the fight and you fail your save, you are about to spend an amount of real-world time potentially measured in hours doing nothing. That's a recipe for player disengagement at best.
That's a player problem, and specifically, it is an attitude / mental approach to a game problem.

If you cast a high-level spell and your target makes their save, not only have you wasted your Action, you have blown one of your main limited daily resource, and accomplished nothing to show for it.[/list] The enemy doesn't want to get blinded or paralyzed or power word stunned either.

What can we houserule as a solution? We don't need to. Where time will be well spent is in working on the attitude problem. It's a people thing.

What can one do when one's PC is, for example, held. (Besides making a saving throw at the end of your turn and likely subtracting hit points as you get hit). (I had one battle where I failed to get un-held on Hold Person for 4 straight rounds. Yeah, it sucked, but I didn't cry about it).

1. Pay attention to what the other players are doing.
2. Take notes. After the session some of the things you observed the opponent or your party members doing might be worth revisiting.
3. Think about what you'll do, and then have an action plan in place for, when you get un-held; beats sulking.
4. If one is charmed rather then held, lean into the role play rather than fighting it.
5. Offer to help roll dice for the DM. (I usually do this when I drop to 0 HP or get killed in combat, based on long experience).
6. Describe your PCs struggles against this vile magic which is impacting them.
Many more things one can do besides bemoan one's fate.

Not a problem. This is what challenge is about. With challenge and some uncertainty removed, you eviscerate the game of joy at success, too. True also.

The issue is turn/round resolution length. It's a none issue if you are getting back around to them before the tension is lost. Indeed. If the DM and the players keep the pace moving, this is even less of a non problem than before.

I posit that there are actually three true problems, most of which have been touched on already in the thread:

and backwards Saving Throw scalinga poor implementation of "bounded accuracy".

Yeah, it's a mechanic that has bugged me since we started playing this edition in 2014, and I'll confess to still finding it a bit annoying. But I have learned how to live with it, and to seek measures to mitigate it within the skill/feat/feature/spell system. it informs how often I take "resilient X" as a feat.

If a game doesn't have the possibility of failure, it's not a game I would enjoy playing.

Put in a slightly war gamey sense: the enemy gets a vote. The enemy wants to hold you still and have his mooks pound you into jelly.

Mastikator

2024-06-14, 12:49 PM

If a game doesn't have the possibility of failure, it's not a game I would enjoy playing.

Spending a turn accomplishing nothing once from time to time is what makes all those turns spent accomplishing something worthwhile.

If you attack and miss, did you accomplish anything? If you cast a save or suck and the enemy make their save, did you accomplish anything?

Absolutely this. It's not a win if failure isn't a possibility.

Easy e

2024-06-14, 01:00 PM

I expected this response from this forum 100%. However, it is clear that his group is looking for something different than what many of the posters here want. Therefore, is it still a player problem or are we "Badwrongfun"ing the OP?

Hence, why I asked what does his group want out of the game if it is not challenge? Perhaps the challenge is a secondary concern for the OPs group? As the action movie stars, they know they are going to cut through a horde of mooks, the question is how are they going to do it, not if they will be able to do it.

In short, the OP's group probably wants to answer a different in-game question than if they will do it. The answer for them is yes. They maybe more interested in how, when, where, or why in their games? However, which question they are interested in answering would be helpful to understand how to proceed with the OPs question.

Ionathus

2024-06-14, 01:34 PM

Good points here. It could be less about the failure itself and more about how the failure feels, or if it's jarring with the rest of the campaign's/table's tone. The same failed check can feel neutral (or even interesting) versus infuriating depending on how the DM narrates it and how it feels in the moment, at the table.

I know other systems handle failure differently -- MotW at least (and I think other PbtA games but I don't know how universal those mechanics are) always pushes the game forward even on a failure, and you get experience for failing. So even if you didn't do what you set out to do, something still happens even if it's a bad thing. That can often feel better than "you wasted your turn and literally nothing changed as a result."

Not saying that one is better than the other, just that failure can feel different depending on your playstyle and system.

Darth Credence

2024-06-14, 02:10 PM

It is also clear from what I quoted of the OP that the question is not about their group, but that they think it is a fundamental problem with the system that will be agreed upon by enough that they don't even need to qualify it as some portion of the player base. If one starts off saying that X is a fundamental problem, but most see it as not a problem at all, why would people focus on what they can do for OP's game, rather than talking about the game as a whole?

OP could have said, "Our table has a problem with this aspect..." or something like that, and the answers would have been quite different, I'm sure. I know mine would have been because I would have been looking at it as advice to help a specific table rather than begging the question of whether PCs being subject to such effects is a problem.

It isn't badwrongfunning someone to respond to the question they have asked and give advice based on that. You ask what to do about the fundamental problem of not being part of the game, you will get a bunch of answers about speeding up turns or embracing watching your fellows. If you ask about how a table that doesn't like that can deal with it, you'll get answers like eliminate those types of spells from the table, give players legendary resistance so they can automatically pass some saves if they choose, or whatever.

Unoriginal

2024-06-14, 02:40 PM

When one opens with "we are all aware X is a problem", they better a) be sure everyone agrees or b) be ready to see people disagree with X being a problem.

Easy e

2024-06-14, 03:19 PM

This thread did get me thinking a bit. It is funny to me that tons of other games have a resource you can spend to avoid failure that is universally available, but D&D does not.

- Shadowrun - Dice Pools (Combat, Karma, Magic, etc)
- Avatar - Shift your balance
- Monster of the Week - Luck
- Legend of the 5 Rings - Void Points
- Essence 20 - Story Points

I am sure folks can think of others too? Benies in Savage Worlds? Meta-Currency in 2d20? Those examples might be more situational?

The closest thing D&D has is Advantage/Inspiration which is available situationally, and is sometimes locked behind Class/Feats/Levels. Then, it is just a re-roll as opposed to extra dice or success levels. It is not a "Universal" resource, but situational.

Evaar

2024-06-14, 05:16 PM

This thread did get me thinking a bit. It is funny to me that tons of other games have a resource you can spend to avoid failure that is universally available, but D&D does not.

- Shadowrun - Dice Pools (Combat, Karma, Magic, etc)
- Avatar - Shift your balance
- Monster of the Week - Luck
- Legend of the 5 Rings - Void Points
- Essence 20 - Story Points

I am sure folks can think of others too? Benies in Savage Worlds? Meta-Currency in 2d20? Those examples might be more situational?

Willpower for all the World of Darkness games, Stress (if I recall correctly) for Blades In The Dark...

But D&D does have things like this, they're just more incremental and scattered around the system. The Lucky feat, any number of reroll features, Bardic Inspiration, Flash of Genius, Hero Points if you're using that option, etc etc etc. Anything says "When so-and-so fails such-and-such roll..." could be considered as part of that category. It's just less common for the result to be "it succeeds" and instead says either you reroll or add a finite bonus.

Skrum

2024-06-14, 08:52 PM

I don't think adding a ton of different ways to succeed even on failures is the answer here. If the goal is to rarely, if ever, have players lose their actions, I think the DM should 1) not use these types of abilities in favor of damage or "partial" conditions like mind whip or blinded, and/or 2) set the DCs to be extra low. Giving the players a ton of ways to "actually, I succeed" can make it damn near impossible to challenge the players when the time is right for that.

I tend to think (1) is pretty important. Not to say that the players should never be removed from the fight, but in general, the DM shouldn't be barraging them with those effects either. They should be reserved, perhaps, for very dangerous, thematically climactic fights.

That said - I do think there's a lot of merit to having all characters be proficient in all saves. Saves would scale more appropriately, there'd be less of a gap between good saves and bad ones, and effects that allow a save at the end of each round would be less likely to last several rounds at a time.

NRSASD

2024-06-15, 06:07 AM

So OP, I have a solution but you might not like it. Unlike the majority of posters here, I wholeheartedly agree with your observations, but went one step further.

My goal was to remove any mechanics that cause players to be knocked out of the game, but not to reduce the difficulty or challenge of the encounter because overcoming difficulty is amazing. Forcing someone to skip their turn sucks, cause we all lead busy lives and cannot dedicate more than 3 hours a week to this.

My solution is pretty drastic, but has been working well. Takes a lot of homebrewing and violently guts the core mechanics of 5E though.

Step one is to tweak all save-or-suck saving throw spells. None of them should immediately disable a character (disabling after 3 rounds is fine) and all of them should have a brief deleterious effect even on a save. Try to avoid blanket numerical penalties and go for options that incentivize different options.

For example, the hold person spell. On a pass, your movement is halved for one round. On a fail, your movement is halved and at the end of your round you get a second save to avoid locking up completely. The movement reduction ends when the caster loses concentration or you have saved twice in a row.

This way, the player has a chance to respond to their imminent paralyzation. Additionally, their spell is never a wash if the target makes their save.

Step 2 involves replacing death saves with a finite amount of permanent life points and making death irreversible without a quest, but that takes a bit more to explain and strongly dictates the tone of the game.

Step 3 involves replacing action/bonus action with the pathfinder 2 3-action system, but that is a whole different kettle of fish and are you even playing D&D at that point? I honestly do not know, but that is what I am doing these days!

TL;CR I agree with OP and have a solution. Hope you brought your surgical scrubs because we need to do a full body blood transfusion.

JonBeowulf

2024-06-15, 05:30 PM

If the only real threat to the PCs is loss of HP, then what's the freaking point of the game? "Let's walk around being heroic and not worry about anything because we have tons of HP, great AC, and a Life Cleric. Nothing can ever defeat us!"

Boring AF.

A fight that's supposed to be dangerous had better feel dangerous and battlefield control should not only be available to the players.

If you've got a player who can't handle a failed saving throw, they have a much deeper issue to sort out. Do they rage quit Monopoly because they got sent to Jail and missed a turn?

Also, putting a time limit on player turns changed everything for everyone at my tables. Do your thing quickly or you Dodge and we move on. Like someone said above, some of us only have a few hours a week and I'm not going to let one player waste everyone else's time.

Mastikator

2024-06-15, 09:01 PM

For (1) I think it's important to remember that you're not removed from the fight just because your character is paralyzed. In fact I think it should be the opposite, when a PC fails their save against Hold Person the enemy should pounce, it's a free advantage and a free melee crit. The player should not feel bored when they're paralyzed, they should feel fear.

For the (3) point, I do not think that all players should be proficient in all saving throws. PCs should have strengths and weaknesses. The DM needs a vector to target the players when the time is right, and a shield to target to remind the players that they are strong.

Blatant Beast

2024-06-15, 09:19 PM

A system intention that PCs having strengths and weakness, does not have to mean that one's effective ability in weak areas grows worse over time.

3e and 4e had three Saving Throw types, 5e has five types of Saving Throws.
5e allowing a bonus of half of a PC's Proficiency Bonus on non proficient saves is an easy fix that at least starts to address the problem, of bad saving throws that never get better.

Skrum

2024-06-15, 09:56 PM

Getting hit with a paralyze and then getting curb stomped doesn't have to be "unfun." It can, as you point out, be incredibly tense and fun. But in the longer arc of a game, if a player frequently loses actions, loses turns, and is otherwise prevented from making positive contributions, it can absolutely be frustrating.

Brawling in the middle of the field and then getting nabbed by hold person, and then watching your teammates try to break the concentration of the caster to save you? Yeah, likely tense and fun.

Losing initiative and failing a save to Suggestion and being told to run away from the battle as fast as possible? And then when it finally breaks, you spend X amount of turns running back, likely just in time for the battle to end? I struggle to imagine a situation where that's fun. It's just annoying. Shrewd play from the DM, but there's nothing tense about that. You're just out of the fight.

My position is the DM should be aware of the difference between these two situations, and not just think it terms of what's the best way to "beat" the characters. The point of the game is to have fun. Taking their turns away with save or suck spells is, IMO, something to sprinkle in with a light hand - it's not something that should be thrown at the characters constantly.

That's all well and good, but I don't think what you're saying is reflective of the math involved. Unless a paladin or artificer is involved, a character's saves are either "about 50/50" or "very likely to fail." I have never felt strong making a flat saving throw; just lucky. For me, it takes additional abilities, like adv against poison or being a hexadin to feel strong about saves.

JonBeowulf

2024-06-16, 04:36 AM

Brawling in the middle of the field and then getting nabbed by hold person, and then watching your teammates try to break the concentration of the caster to save you? Yeah, likely tense and fun.

The "very likely to fail" in particular is....often jarring, and can drift into "well the DMs decided to just negate me now." Hitting a barb or fighter with an Int save, for instance. Giving all characters proficiency on all saves would at least give a sense of competency reflective of a professional adventurer.
I counter this entire argument with "choices have consequences". Players build their characters to be strong in some areas at the expense of other areas. They know this from the very beginning. Complaining that intelligent enemies are targeting the weaknesses they explicitly built into their character is beyond lame. It's like the owner of a Hummer complaining about how often they have to fill the fuel tank.

You did it to yourself, so deal with it.

If you don't like that the game has character weaknesses in the first place, go play a different game.

stoutstien

2024-06-16, 08:03 AM

This thread did get me thinking a bit. It is funny to me that tons of other games have a resource you can spend to avoid failure that is universally available, but D&D does not.

- Shadowrun - Dice Pools (Combat, Karma, Magic, etc)
- Avatar - Shift your balance
- Monster of the Week - Luck
- Legend of the 5 Rings - Void Points
- Essence 20 - Story Points

I am sure folks can think of others too? Benies in Savage Worlds? Meta-Currency in 2d20? Those examples might be more situational?

IMO there is way too many reroll and result manipulation options already.

The issue with beanies is it saps the tension from the dice roll itself and kill pacings. What's the point of rolling dice if those results aren't the actual results?

Universal versions are even worse unless it fits the specific world logic. Just some generic options feels like they are admitting that something's off in the system but they don't want to take the time to actually fix it so they give you a redo instead.

Now this isn't to say that you can't include this style of feature. It's just the timing of its use is critical. The best place is near the very beginning so you're using it as an alternative resolution to rolling the dice. Post roll options really should just be a flat shift in results (miss -> hit, fail->success) and they should be extremely rare and included in such a way that they are incapable of being grabbed on the cheap. The more isolated the better because it's a powerful feature so it should be iconic to one type of roll for one class/archetype.

In short- don't waste time using a random outcome mechanic (dice) if you don't want to deal with the range of results it entails.

Skrum

2024-06-16, 08:06 AM

I counter this entire argument with "choices have consequences". Players build their characters to be strong in some areas at the expense of other areas. They know this from the very beginning. Complaining that intelligent enemies are targeting the weaknesses they explicitly built into their character is beyond lame. It's like the owner of a Hummer complaining about how often they have to fill the fuel tank.

You did it to yourself, so deal with it.

If you don't like that the game has character weaknesses in the first place, go play a different game.

(Lol here we go again...)

So what exactly is a barb, rogue, fighter, and sorcerer supposed to do about Int and Wis saves? Seriously, what? Hope to roll very high and put a 14 in both, both of which are off-stats for them? That of course will give them a +2 in the save, it will never scale higher, and eventually they'll be facing DC 18 or more. 25% chance of success. But sure, they "choose that." Ok.

This always goes exactly the same; someone comes along to pound the table about build choices but makes no effort at all to contend with the actual rules and options of the game.

Slipjig

2024-06-16, 08:30 AM

So what exactly is a barb, rogue, fighter, and sorcerer supposed to do about Int and Wis saves? Seriously, what?

Hang out with characters who can cast Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Silvery Barbs, and (Greater) Restoration? Or hang out with characters who buff their saves?

D&D isn't a solo game, and it's characters aren't supposed to be able to handle everything by themselves (a few can, but that's generally due to bad game design choices, particularly caster power creep).

If you want your PCs to be capable solo adventurers, sure, you'll need to make everybody proficient at everything. And, TBF, a lot of the fiction that informs this game is 100% about a single hero, so I don't think that illegitimate, it's just not the way the game is set up.

Or, as a DM, don't repeatedly target those save-or-suck effects at the most vulnerable characters. Spread the love, and give your PCs a chance to show off their strengths (the "shoot arrows at the Monk once in a while" rule).

JonBeowulf

2024-06-16, 08:39 AM

Hang out with characters who can cast Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Silvery Barbs, and (Greater) Restoration? Or hang out with characters who buff their saves?

If you want your PCs to be capable solo adventurers, sure, make everybody proficient at everything.

Or, as a DM, don't repeatedly target those effects at the most vulnerable characters. Spread the love, and give your PCs a chance to show off their strengths (the "shoot arrows at the Monk once in a while" rule).

Thank you!

Feeling awesome is earned. You don't get it by simply showing up, you get it by persevering and overcoming obstacles. It's not the DMs job to make the players feel awesome. The DMs job is to give the players opportunities to feel awesome. Success and failure is part of the game.

5e is already D&D on Easy Mode. We don't need Creative Mode where the only dangers are drowning, falling off a cliff, or falling into lava.

Amnestic

2024-06-16, 09:14 AM

Hang out with characters who can cast Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Silvery Barbs, and (Greater) Restoration?

My cleric just got hit by a DC24 Psychic Scream. The (intelligent) caster correctly identified counterspell range and moved out of it before casting, since PS has a 90ft range and CS only has 60. As the only one in the party who can cast Greater Restoration, my cleric's outta luck. It's an instantanteous spell, so no dispel magic either. And the save is impossible, because I already bought Resilient Constitution (which saved me from some other issues elsewhere) and you can't have more than one Res-feat.

She's got advantage on all magic saves thanks to a spellguard shield, but Advantage on a -1 doesn't really help vs. DC24. We do have a paladin, but it's pretty tough to have them hanging around within a 10ft radius of me for multiple turns on end when I have to roll a nat 20 to end it when there's still a fight going on and they're getting tossed too and fro themselves.

Oddly, I didn't spec my forge cleric into 18 or 20 Intelligence to be able to make the save naturally. Couldn't find the ability score improvements anywhere! But I'm sure it's my fault for - as a cleric - taking Resilient Constitution instead of Resilient Intelligence, which is definitely something every optimiser would recommend I do.

It's a 9th level spell. I get that, it should be 'powerful'. But that's not particularly fun to get hit by what's effectively a "no-save, you're 'dead'". Worse, to be honest, since death is easier to fix than a stun.

In this instance I'm not that fussed: It's a playtest, once the fight's over in 2-3 rounds I'll be right back in the game, win or lose. Were this not a playtest, I'd be essentially out of the campaign until they could cart my character back to a friendly cleric that can happen to cast 5th level spells, if they even exist. Could be quite some time, really.

Skrum

2024-06-16, 09:30 AM

Yeah, y'all act like the barb having +3 to wisdom saves instead of +0 means the barb will never fail a wisdom save again.

My current character is a yuan ti fighter. Dex based. Because I'm a responsible gamer, he has 12 in each Int and Wis, and I spent starting gold on a stone of good luck. That means he has +2 Int and Wis saves, and advantage on saves vs spells.

His chance to resist a DC 18 hold person? 43%. Despite my build choices, I'm still more likely to fail that save than succeed.

I'm basically fine with this; his chances are at least a lot better than 10 wis orc barb (15%). But acting like the current math is saves is Utterly Perfect, Beyond Reproach and anyone who'd like to see saves not so brutally unscaling wants nothing bad to ever happen to their character, ever.... Yeah that's not it.

Slipjig

2024-06-16, 09:53 AM

Is there a statblock that has Psychic Scream? Or is your DM throwing opponents built using PC rules against you? PCs are built using different rules than opponents, and that's intentional.

And even if your DM is throwing 9th level spells at you, Psychic Scream has several broken elements (90' range, insta-kill with nothing short of a resurrection bringing you back due to the exploding head, the fact that it doesn't have a duration so the stun can last forever if the DC is over 20). None of these are that big a problem when it's a high-level PLAYER'S one big effect for the day. But it's a pretty messed up thing for the DM to be throwing at the players.

schm0

2024-06-16, 09:55 AM

I don't really think these things are a problem. We are playing a game of dice, where the dice dictate the outcome of the actions the characters take. If I wanted to play in a game where there were no bad outcomes for my character, I'd probably go looking for one. 5e D&D isn't that game.

In either case:

If I'm taken out for a few rounds as a player, I'll become more invested in what my teammates are doing, hopefully helping me to get back in the game as soon as possible. Pouting about it isn't very helpful. Does it suck? Yeah. That's the point.
If I cast a high level spell (or any leveled spell for that matter) and it fails to connect, then I will grit my teeth, exhale, and end my turn. Does it suck? Yeah. That's the point.

Neither of these situations are bad for the game or even bad mechanics, IMHO. I'd even go so far as to argue that both scenarios are a fundamental part of balancing the game. The former scenario is going to be baked into the CR of whatever creature they are facing, and in turn it affects encounter balance. And the latter scenario just represents the built in risks that are inherent to balancing the mechanics and resources of spellcasting.

Amnestic

2024-06-16, 10:59 AM

Is there a statblock that has Psychic Scream? Or is your DM throwing opponents built using PC rules against you? PCs are built using different rules than opponents, and that's intentional.

Any archmage statblock? Or just any statblock the DM adjusts.

But also, for some officially printed ones, Asmodeus has a DC24 1 minute int-save stun. Levistus has a DC23 one too. Greater Tyrant Shadows have a lair action for DC22 cha-save 1 minute stun.

And yeah, they're pretty high CR...but such is life when looking at high DCs.

Slipjig

2024-06-16, 11:33 AM

Any archmage statblock? Or just any statblock the DM adjusts.

But also, for some officially printed ones, Asmodeus has a DC24 1 minute int-save stun. Levistus has a DC23 one too. Greater Tyrant Shadows have a lair action for DC22 cha-save 1 minute stun.

And yeah, they're pretty high CR...but such is life when looking at high DCs.

An Archmage's level 9 spell is Time Stop. If the DM chooses to swap out the spells on the default statblock, they need to remember that not all spells are created equal. Some of the spells that are already questionably-balanced for PCs are absurdly borked when an NPC has them, and Psychic Scream is a prime example of that.

I mean, the other three examples you provide are not as good as Psychic Scream, and the CRs on those opponents are 30/22/22. There's no way a CR 12 baddie should have that power.

I know some people will howl that "anything available to the players is fair game for the DM!", but that's just not how the game is designed.

Unoriginal

2024-06-16, 11:42 AM

So what exactly is a barb, rogue, fighter, and sorcerer supposed to do about Int and Wis saves? Seriously, what?

The same thing the Wizard, Artificier, Bard, etc are supposed to do about STR and CON saves.

Get hit by them.

but makes no effort at all to contend with the actual rules and options of the game.

Why should anyone contend with the actual rules and options of the game?

Having some saves being gaping vulnerabilities is a feature, not something to contend with.

Not everything is a problem to solve, and certainly not for free. Your characters have to live with their bad saves, or find things that let them counter bad saves and pay the cost for those things.

There's no way a CR 12 baddie should have that power.

I know some people will howl that "anything available to the players is fair game for the DM!", but that's just not how the game is designed.

More to the point, CR is calculated by averaging the offensive and defensive options of the NPC.

So it's not that a NPC shouln't have Psychic Scream, but that if you take a statblock that's already CR 12 and add Psychic Scream to it, it's no longer a CR 12 statblock.

Skrum

2024-06-16, 11:45 AM

There's no way a CR 12 baddie should have that power.

I think you're agreeing with us here, at least directionally. Think about it: "that's too high of a DC, with too punishing of an effect." Ergo, PCs should be expected to resist effects more often, and not be as crushed by them when they fail.

What's the two most basic ways to achieve that? Reduce the DC of the effects, or....boost the saving throws of the PCs.

I think the game would benefit from a PCs good and bad saves not being so far apart. Having +2 or +3 on a save is still more likely to fail to than not - but they're not entirely incompetent either. And more importantly, when actual resources are spent (paladin aura, bless, adv, etc) the character is now *likely* to succeed. As opposed to spending resources to get to 30% chance of success.

Segev

2024-06-16, 12:29 PM

I don't know about anyone else, but when my character is in danger and I can do nothing but hope that a die roll I have no control over succeeds, I am not afraid. I am frustrated. That doesn't mean the disabling effects are not important and should notice there, but it does mean that scoffing at that frustration is counterproductive.

One way to mitigate it is to allow plenty of table-talk over strategy, even though it may metagame heavily: players who are engaged and able to make suggestions for tactics are at least not sitting bored and tempted to open a web browser while they wait for those with agency to either help them participate or ensure they can actually pack up and go home since their character is beyond salvation.

Another thing to try is to ensure there is some sort of backup the player has access to. Some way to either have agency over their predicament, or at least another creature to play. This is not an easy problem, but is something to perhaps consider when it comes up.

Amnestic

2024-06-16, 01:27 PM

The same thing the Wizard, Artificier, Bard, etc are supposed to do about STR and CON saves.

Get hit by them.

How often does a failed Strength save take you out of the battle permanently in the way a failed mental save can/does? Usually, it'll be damage. It might push you around. It might knock you prone. It's not going to paralyze or stun. Chances are it won't even incapacitate.

If ancient red dragons had a DC24 strength save or stunned for 1 minute attached to their tail attack, the comparison would fit better, but when the difference between a successful and a failed strength save is ~40 damage at level 20, whereas the difference between a successful and failed intsave is "you're out of the battle"? ehhhh.

Consaves are a mixed bag - often just damage, occasionally debilitating, but also often the secondary stat for casters (as they are for martials!) as opposed to strength/int/cha, which are less-then-tertiary.

So it's not that a NPC shouln't have Psychic Scream, but that if you take a statblock that's already CR 12 and add Psychic Scream to it, it's no longer a CR 12 statblock.

Right, but grand scheme that won't change much, 'cos chances are if they couldn't make the save at level 11, they also probably can't make it at level 20, which others have pointed out. There's a few it does change for - monks, rogues for wis saves - but all the little tricks you can pick up to help each other come online sooner than that.

Slipjig

2024-06-16, 02:04 PM

Eh... not really. I said that the right way to counter low saves is generally to have help from your party members. If an enemy caster is dropping a Save-or-Suck on the Fighter (let alone the whole party), that's a great time for a Counterspell.

Psychic Scream was offered up as something where none of those normal defenses work. And he's right: it has several characteristics that, given to an enemy caster, are straight-up broken... which is why AFAIK no published monster stat blocks include this spell.

I do think there are some places where saves could use some fine tuning, as we've discussed in previous threads. From what you've written previously, the players at your table normally stack up the most OP combos published in this edition, so your table regularly plays Deadly+++ to offer them a challenge. That's fine (in fact that sounds awesome), but it's no surprise that the classes that the classes with the smallest amount of power creep have a hard time keeping up in that environment.

Blatant Beast

2024-06-16, 04:05 PM

One can not Counterspell the Frightful Presence of a Dragon.
More importantly, essentially, the "rely on your friends" response necessitates certain party composition.
If the Fighter relies upon a Cleric or Paladin to eliminate the effects of Frightful Presence, then you sorta have to have one in the party.

This also makes it much easier to death spiral a party....just kill/incapacitate the crucial linchpin.

So many people jump to the conclusion that people pointing out that your Off Saving Throws effectively become worse over time, are a bunch of 'snowflakes' that do not want a challenge.

uhhh wrong....many are people that play in high level tough games, and have frickin noticed a problem.

KorvinStarmast

2024-06-16, 04:39 PM

When one opens with "we are all aware X is a problem", they better a) be sure everyone agrees or b) be ready to see people disagree with X being a problem. Indeed. When one gets a response like easy's - which boils down to play another system - that hardly helps the conversation. Given that this board has hosted a variety of optimization hobbyists, one would hope that the OP would be looking for ways to mitigate the "my saves at high level means I am still in danger" issue from those who have dug into the depths of this game system. Spells like Intellect Fortress do a nice job of giving a PC or a team, or part of it, advantage on all three mental saves. Mind Blank does a fine job of protecting a PC from certain magicks directed at the intellect.

The fact that confronting Tier 3 and Tier 4 foes is dangerous is not a problem, it is a feature of the game. Also, at that point in the game a variety of magical items, consumables, and class features kick in which can mitigate the risks.

This particular saving throw system was explicitly put into the game so that a high level character still feels as though adventuring is dangerous because... it is dangerous.

It's a feature not a bug.

While I have for ten years not cared for the way saves don't improve with C Level as they did in AD&D and the Original game, I have figured out a few ways around it. Why? I changed my attitude, my approach, from whining about it - which I had done plenty of during the first few years I played in 5e - to Problem Solving.

A system intention that PCs having strengths and weakness, does not have to mean that one's effective ability in weak areas grows worse over time. Teamwork is one way to mitigate that.
5e allowing a bonus of half of a PC's Proficiency Bonus on non proficient saves is an easy fix that at least starts to address the problem, of bad saving throws that never get better. But they didn't. Not going to disagree with your proposal, given my preference for the OD&D approach of global improvement of saves as one goes up, by the way. It "feels" fight to me but that's based on my experience with that system. 5e is its own system.

Last night our single wizard was subjected to a Feeblemind spell about half way through a Tier 4 combat with a Lich(+) third party opponent who had numerous spell casting allies and melee minions in the mix. Had he failed the save we'd have had a good chance to (1) lose that battle, and (2) as a consequence not stop the ritual that was going to result in a demon weapon laying waste to a town/city.
It was tense.
When he rolled that saving throw it took using Inspiration to get a success. Close call.
We were in round 9 of the combat before we were in a position to defeat the lich thing. (Who it turns out had 5, not 3, Legendary saves). :smalleek: Both he and some of his minions had counterspell, OBTW.

In either case:

Slipjig

2024-06-16, 06:59 PM

No, but dragonfear is hard-countered by Heroism (1st level spell), Calm Emotions (2nd level spell), Heroes' Feast, and the paladin aura (among others). Unless the party has no idea they'll be facing a dragon, the fear is trivial to counter. A prepared party has a tool to counter most challenges.

And sure, if you ignore basic party composition you'll be much less effective than a well-rounded party, and may struggle in some level-appropriate encounters. A football team that puts ten quarterbacks and one defensive safety on the field is going to have a rough time, but that doesn't mean the rules of the game are defective.

Skrum

2024-06-16, 07:41 PM

So, to create two extremes -

1) monster effects do not offer a saving throw. They all automatically succeed. Effectively, DCs is infinitely high.
(you want difficulty?? think the game should have real stakes, and that adventuring should be hard? have I got the game for you!)

2) players are immune to effects. They all automatically succeed. Effectively, saving throws are infinitely high.
(think it's frustrating getting taken out of combat? think it slows down the game to get CC'd? have I go the game for you!)

I don't think anyone here is arguing in favor of either of these extremes. I.e., we all think gameplay should come with a mix of failures and successes, and we're just disagreeing over what the correct mix is.

My base, most basic opinion? I think the floor on saves is too low, and the "build cost" of raising saves is incredibly punishing. That is, if a class does nothing to boost a low save, their chance of success with that save is going to approach 0%. The cost of improving it, if there's a way to do it at all, is extremely high, or just entirely out of the player's hands. I don't think this good game design (mainly for the lack of agency), and could be improved upon pretty easily.

Ideally, I'd like to see the floor on saves be somewhere in the 25% range. 75% chance of failing a save to finger of death or banish or eyebite? That's plenty scary lol. I'm tensed, rolling that save. But it's also high enough that if I play prudently (make sure to stand in the paladin's aura), and the cleric is protecting the party (bless), my chance of success climbs over 50%. That to me is the correct reward for having the right party, working together, etc etc etc.

As it stands - in t4, that base 25% might be 10%. or 0%. And then even if I do "the smart thing" (paladin's aura, bless), I'm rewarded with...yeah I'm still probably getting hit by that spell. That doesn't feel good.

NichG

2024-06-16, 10:50 PM

So, to create two extremes -

The thing is, I think both of those extremes can be satisfied in the same design. It sounds paradoxical, but the idea is that difficulty or challenge comes from making decisions which ultimately lead to success or failure rather than having immediate random punishment or reward happen. E.g. you could design a game where there is no chance, no d20 roll. Everything you are permitted to do just happens. Everything your enemies are permitted to do just happens. But what matters as far as challenge is the accumulated consequences of those happenings, and you have decisions to make up until the moment everything is over.

In that sort of picture, the more you screw up (or the better your enemies do due to random chance), the more desperately you have to figure out how to use the agency you have to reverse the tide. That means that the more things go wrong, the more engaged you have to be to pull off a victory. To me, that's the ideal design point.

On the other hand, if a failure means you lose agency then you have a death spiral/train wreck sort of situation where you feel a strong impetus to act but your ability to act has been removed. That's deeply unsatisfying, so at least IMO its not a good design target. Something where e.g. you can't participate in a combat, but the outcome of the combat is clearly 'the party wins' is like a worst case. It essentially comes right out and says 'your involvement never really mattered'.

Just to Browse

2024-06-16, 11:27 PM

The issue is turn/round resolution length. It's a none issue if you are getting back around to them before the tension is lost.

Voicing another +1 for this opinion. Any solution to this problem (other than speeding up the game) is going to create all sorts of negative side-effects.

KorvinStarmast

2024-06-17, 07:28 AM

The GM doesn't have ultimate control over combat speed, but they have the most control out of anyone at the table, and I think they'd benefit more from learning how to speed up combat than from planning house rules. Plus eleventy for how you presented that thought. It matches my experience from the 5e DM side of the screen.

For NichG: if the answer is "design another system" I don't think it answers the mail for the vast majority of players. :smallcool:

Ionathus

2024-06-17, 08:57 AM

Amen. I spent the entire final fight of a campaign stunned once. The BBEG used Power Word, Stun on me in the first turn, and I blew three CON saves despite having an above-average modifier. I never got to act. I'd be pretty damn impressed with anyone who can have the "right" attitude about completely missing a Grand Finale like that.

If the only real threat to the PCs is loss of HP, then what's the freaking point of the game?

At a guess...loss of HP. :smalltongue:

HP is there to serve a purpose. It's an indicator of how much you're ****ing up and a warning to change up your tactics or re-assess your options. You make choices throughout the course of a fight, including the choice to stay in combat at 1/2 health, and those choices affect your HP, which can ultimately put you in the ground and end your involvement in the fight.

My main problem with save-or-suck effects is that they bypass all of this and strip players of that tradeoff and that choice. If I die because I took a risky move in the middle of combat, when I was at a quarter health, but I knew that I could potentially save the party with a big reckless action? That's a lot more rewarding to me than "an enemy across the map casts something and now you can't do anything, also no there was no practical way for you to mitigate this."

Players are their choices, especially in time-sensitive scenarios like combat. And their choices are precious, because they might only get to make a handful of them in an hour of playtime if the combat is complex and the DM has (par for the course :smallcool:) bitten off more than they can chew. There are a million less-absolute status effects and environmental hazards that prompt further choice from the PCs they affect. There are limitless ways you can throw challenge and danger at your players without stripping them of their choices.

Not to say paralysis, stun, insta-death, or similar effects should be banned. DMs would be well-advised to think carefully about how they're used, though.

NichG

2024-06-17, 09:00 AM

Plus eleventy for how you presented that thought. It matches my experience from the 5e DM side of the screen.

For NichG: if the answer is "design another system" I don't think it answers the mail for the vast majority of players. :smallcool:

IMO everyone designing campaigns should be designing systems or at least learning how to. Especially in a rulings over rules environment. There's a lot of crossover and it gives perspective on how to want things from your game - e.g. how to be intentional about the effects of elements you add and remove, rather than feeling like you have to have things some way because of what's written or what's traditional or what you've seen other groups do.

Start small and begin by using custom monsters where you write the abilities to be challenging but in a way that the challenge isn't in how it removes characters from the fight. Or with combats that have failure conditions other than a TPK, like a king of the hill scenario or race to a leverage point or even a bodyguard mission (though careful of that, it's oft hated).

Then you get comfortable enough to introduce homebrew items, spells, even classes with their own subsystems.

Then you can start getting into the guts of the game if you like.

And ultimately you can write your game engines from scratch and it's no big deal.

I think it's more useful than 'git gud' or 'like it or leave it' anyhow...

KorvinStarmast

2024-06-17, 09:01 AM

There are limitless ways you can throw challenge and danger at your players without stripping them of their choices. The green dragon doesn't want to be stunned either, in world. If there isn't the chance of failure there is no success.

Skrum

2024-06-17, 09:15 AM

Not to say paralysis, stun, insta-death, or similar effects should be banned. DMs would be well-advised to think carefully about how they're used, though.

I agree with this entire post, but this point especially pertains to the OP's question. A DM designing a combat is designing for the entertainment of all involved. That generally means not hard CCing one or more players on a regular basis, as not getting to play the game is not very fun.

The green dragon doesn't want to be stunned either, in world. If there isn't the chance of failure there is no success.

Difficulty and failure do not hinge on characters getting stunlocked. The point is using hard CC should be done with prudence, and the DM needs to consider "ok what if this works; several characters fail their save to mind blast, and continue to roll low and can't break it." Throwing these kinds of effects around willy-nilly, without consideration, is going to inevitably lead to someone drawing the short end of the RNG stick and not getting to do anything for large portions of combat. And that's a really big feel-bad in many cases.

Blatant Beast

2024-06-17, 09:31 AM

For NichG: if the answer is "design another system" I don't think it answers the mail for the vast majority of players. :smallcool:

One does not need to "design another system", WotC only needs to make some tweaks....the type of tweaks that would be easy to do in a revision. (What comes out this year?..a revision.)

The Guarded Mind ability of the Psi Warrior is a good example of abilities that can be sprinkled around that precisely address some of the concerns from the original post.

Guarded Mind, has no Action Economy cost, (it is a 'free' action), but the ability itself does have a small resource cost, (it can be spammed, but not infinitely), and eliminating the Charmed or Frightened condition on one's self is a nice ability for warriors to have.

Abilities like Guarded Mind, in my opinion and experience, make it easier on a DM, both in planning Encounters and running them. A DM can be less concerned with Encounter Balance, when they know that individual PCs can take care of certain conditions on themselves, and by themself.

One subsystem that I think has made a large impact on how the cleric class plays, is the ability of PCs to spend HD to heal during a Short Rest. A cleric no longer has to be a heal bot, with nearly all their spell preparations being devoted to healing spells.

Spreading out self directed Condition negation abilities, could also provide some ease for the cleric class as well. Despite the Cleric class being powerful, the class according to DBB data, seemingly is the least played class.

Some of that might be due to aesthetic concerns, (many people probably do not want to RP a cleric), but some of the reluctance might be based off the, (somewhat erroneous), belief that clerics have to spend all their time and resources dealing with healing and conditions in 5e.

NichG

2024-06-17, 09:48 AM

Those DC 20 saves then are still 60hp damage hits when they land, which is a big chunk - this isn't just something you're going to use to nope out of everything. And if the target of these effects has too low of a HP count, they can't nope out of it anyhow, so its not like this automatically means that a heal cycle makes someone immune to non-damage ways of breaking the heal cycle. 60hp seems too little a price to pay? Make it 4 or 5 times DC, make it additionally inflict Exhaustion when you do this, etc.

It's not the most elegant solution, definitely feels bolted on, but hopefully it demonstrates that you can still have challenge without having rocket tag.

Easy e

2024-06-17, 10:20 AM

Just to be clear @Korvin I did not say "play another game". My point was that other games have a feature, that D&D 5E keeps locked up to situational options. This is a legacy design choice from the class/level approach to D&D. Many other games do not have these same features, and perhaps the problem the OP talks about is a real thing, if other games have a Universal way to try to help avoid doing nothing.

I expected that the OPs original observation would lead to some very "strong" reactions from this board. The observation was counter-to what a lot of players here claim to want in their RPG experience. That's fine, but no need to claim "badwrongfun" which has been pretty strong in this thread from some players, while others are engaging more on the critique itself.

My point is that the OPs experience can be a problem for some players, and we should engage in the premise of their thread instead of fighting against it.

Unoriginal

2024-06-17, 10:36 AM

HP is there to serve a purpose. It's an indicator of how much you're ****ing up and a warning to change up your tactics or re-assess your options.

Hard disagree here.

Losing HPs is not an indicator that you're ****ing up. And while HP loss is a warning, it's a warning of how dangerous the foes are, not necessarily that you have to change what you're doing.

5e isn't one of the RPGs where any damage going through your defense is either a major handicap to subsequent combat actions or an alarm bell that you need to scram.

If an actual fight happens (that is to say, a fight against foes who can fight back), 5e PCs are supposed to get hurt.

JonBeowulf

2024-06-17, 11:15 AM

HP is a resource like any other. If you go through 3 combats without losing any, then I think you're the one who's ****ing up and letting the rest of your team take hits they shouldn't be taking. I'd think the same of a spellcaster who didn't cast any leveled spells.

Ionathus

2024-06-17, 11:41 AM

The green dragon doesn't want to be stunned either, in world. If there isn't the chance of failure there is no success.

A DM designing a combat is designing for the entertainment of all involved. That generally means not hard CCing one or more players on a regular basis, as not getting to play the game is not very fun.

Agreeing with Skrum here. Korvin, I'd argue that while the green dragon should absolutely feel like an intelligent, thinking creature, its role in the fight is different than the PCs. Players are limited in their scope of control. They can decide what their PC does, and at most maybe some NPC retainers or hirelings who they've been put in charge of. But that's where their control of the fight ends.

By contrast, the DM has near-limitless control. If the green dragon gets stunlocked, the DM can decide a second green dragon flies in to rescue them. Obviously that's an extreme example and you shouldn't just throw that stuff in carelessly, and monsters (whether boss or minion) should make for an appropriate challenge based on the context. But a stun on the BBEG only removes some of the DM's options, whereas a stun on a PC removes all of that player's options.

I mean, a really simple house-rule that just cuts the gordian knot would just be: "When failing a save against an effect that would apply a status condition, a character (or monster) can choose to instead take 3 times the save DC in hitpoint damage to avoid the effect unless that would take you below 0hp."
...
It's not the most elegant solution, definitely feels bolted on, but hopefully it demonstrates that you can still have challenge without having rocket tag.

I like this vein of discussion. My biggest complaint with 5e after six years playing it is that a weird, isolated chunk of it is based on flat-out negation.

The majority of the combat is a decent tactically-minded experience where you have to care about positioning and whittling down opponent health, paying attention to damage types, managing your own health, and weighing the tradeoffs of each action. Fireball is stronger on some creatures than others, but it's guaranteed to do a moderate amount of damage in most cases.

And then every once in a while, somebody just breaks out something that basically negates a whole chunk of the fight. Counterspell and Dispel Magic are the biggest offenders in my experience, but paralysis effects and teleportation effects can cause the same feeling. Depending on the situation, it can sometimes feel like an entire other game system has been bolted on. The effect (or the removal of another effect) is basically unavoidable unless you have one or two very specific counters (i.e. the only solution to stop a Counterspell is another Counterspell, thus negating the effect; or staying out of range of Counterspell, thus negating its use entirely). It pushes parties to get their hands on those specific counters, which means that they default to negating an enemy's scary spell effect from happening, which I'd argue is less interesting than finding a creative solution for overcoming the new challenge the enemy's spell introduces.

Note that I'm talking about the party casting Counterspell and not the enemies...that's because I almost never use Counterspell or Dispel Magic on my players. I know it's part of the game but I've never enjoyed taking away their toys. It's not interesting and it's not dynamic. Negation is boring. Mitigation is far more preferable in my experience. I want more mitigation mechanics, where you can use a reaction to reduce Fireball damage by casting a water-based spell defensively for example. Systems that reward clever play or give you tools to respond dynamically to a scenario. I really like the Concentration mechanic because it gives you an obvious "fail state" and a clear counterplay for dangerous enemy spells, by doing the thing that the rest of the system is designed for -- getting into position and dealing damage to them.

Darth Credence

2024-06-17, 12:00 PM

Does anyone ever, as a player, decide not to use a save or suck spell on the BBEG to not interfere with the DM's fun? If the DM told you that they have fun running long combats where everyone gets to use multiple skills or abilities, including the DM with the enemy, would you willingly not use save or suck spells so the DM never ends up in this position?

Ionathus

2024-06-17, 12:03 PM

Hard disagree here.

Losing HPs is not an indicator that you're ****ing up. And while HP loss is a warning, it's a warning of how dangerous the foes are, not necessarily that you have to change what you're doing.

5e isn't one of the RPGs where any damage going through your defense is either a major handicap to subsequent combat actions or an alarm bell that you need to scram.

If an actual fight happens (that is to say, a fight against foes who can fight back), 5e PCs are supposed to get hurt.

I was being flippant: I didn't mean "****ing up" to pass judgment on player or PC. Some amount of damage is inevitable in many cases. What I meant is that HP is a better and more granular way of reflecting the danger of a situation than "rocket tag, save or suck" instant KO moves. HP loss is a good mechanic, because it acts as a countdown timer for the PCs. It gives them a relative understanding of danger and how long they can last. "Hey, you just took half your health in damage last turn, maybe that spot you're in is too dangerous for you and you should reassess your tactics (OR stick to your guns and roll the dice on your survival if you think it's important enough!)"

As example, here are two "final boss fights" of campaigns I've been in as a PC. See if you can spot the difference:

Example 1 (mentioned upthread too). I'm a level 12 Druid and I take zero damage in the fight. I get tagged by Power Word, Stun in the first turn. I spend three turns whiffing the CON save despite having above-average CON for my build. Bad luck -- it happens. The BBEG is dead before I can contribute meaningfully to the fight.

Example 2. I'm a level 4 Barbarian and we're fighting a wizard and his spiders (guess the module!). Two of my fellow PCs get caught in spiderwebs, which limits their options but doesn't eliminate them. I spend the whole fight weighing the risks and opportunity costs of trying to free them, of rushing forward, of holding back, of using Reckless Attack, etc. My HP is whittled down and throughout the fight I have a relative idea of how much trouble we're in. My final action is making a desperate all-out attack with Reckless Attack even though I have low HP, and I ultimately drop and go down to my final death save before stabilizing.

I was happier making those death saves as a dying 4th level Barbarian than I was making CON saves on an unharmed, triple-that-level Druid. As I was making that final save, with death (basically -- 45%) a coin flip away, I was so invested and excited. My PC was on the verge of death, but it was a death I had chosen. I'd earned that death through my actions and the risks I knowingly took. A far more rewarding roll, in my book.

HP is a resource like any other.

Yep, exactly! This is the point I was trying to get across but you worded it much better.

Ninja Edit:

As a player, I find myself shying away from save-or-suck because it's usually less interesting for me, too! I'd rather do a cool move and a bunch of damage than cancel out the entire fight -- feels more rewarding.

As a DM, I find my players dropping insta-win conditions on my monsters constantly. It always flusters me (in a good-natured way), and my players really enjoy that. I enjoy getting outplayed/surprised by my players too -- most of the time, at least! -- so it's fun to play along, complain in a funny way, and let them have the win. Usually. My players are also pretty good about the unspoken distinction between "small time" and "big time" NPCs, and they usually won't invalidate an enemy if they can tell it's building to a fun fight.

KorvinStarmast

2024-06-17, 12:25 PM

I understand the differences in role, thanks. Been at this a while.

Note that I'm talking about the party casting Counterspell and not the enemies...that's because I almost never use Counterspell or Dispel Magic on my players.

Our DM does it and we don't complain about it. It's part of the problem to solve, part of the challenge to overcome. Our DM also uses Disintegrate and Finger of Death. The enemy wants to kill you.

If you want to avoid LTH cheese of people shooting out of it, cast dispel magic. Problem solved BUT a spell slot expended for the monster/NPC.

I have promised my brother to never go pure cheese again. We did it once. It was funny/fun once.

The wizard and my warlock did a one-two Sickening Radiance / Spherical Wall of force around a red dragon (we had the luck of our initiative being close but we chose to use his readied action after my spell being cast to avoid a Legendary action disrupting concentration... and the result is that if you have a hundred saving throws to roll that con save is gonna get missed a few times and dead dragon. We were not near its lair (it was out and about) so we got no treasure from it besides a few fangs and scales and claws that were cool trophies. And as far as we know, there's a really pissed off mate/spouse who will probably figure out who did it ... so there may be some payback later on in the campaign.

It surprised everyone but me and the wizard player who set it up.

What was the outcome, table wise?
All adult and ancient dragons are now spell caster variant in my brother's stable. Most of them have dispel magic - based on the few we have encountered since then. His Ancient Copper (who is an ally of ours) has sending. She nags our party about things from long distance now and again. She and her three young children helped us a few times after we did her some favors. And our bard wrote a song about her which pleased her mightily.

Ionathus

2024-06-17, 12:48 PM

I understand the differences in role, thanks. Been at this a while.

I didn't mean to imply you didn't.

It's part of the problem to solve, part of the challenge to overcome. The enemy wants to kill you.

You said "without failure, success is meaningless" and I was responding how the removal or reduction of "save or suck" does very little to change that. The enemy still wants to kill you and is more than capable of doing so, in any number of interesting ways. I just find it more interesting for both me and my players to complicate their choices rather than remove them.

Our DM also uses Disintegrate and Finger of Death.

That's why I said that I don't enjoy using it as a DM -- everyone's free to have their own tastes. Lots of people have plenty of fun playing with those mechanics, but I prefer other toys in the vast GM toybox.

Our DM does it and we don't cry about it.

I keep seeing people push this "cry about it" narrative in this thread. I know it's not your intention, but it gives the impression that you conflate players who scream and rage and berate until they get their way with players who share feedback when they don't enjoy a session.

KorvinStarmast

2024-06-17, 12:53 PM

Skrum

2024-06-17, 01:05 PM

Our DM does it and we don't complain about it. It's part of the problem to solve, part of the challenge to overcome. Our DM also uses Disintegrate and Finger of Death. The enemy wants to kill you.

If you want to avoid LTH cheese of people shooting out of it, cast dispel magic. Problem solved BUT a spell slot expended for the monster/NPC.

My point isn't to never use them. I've hit a level 7 rogue with a Finger of Death. It was a cool moment.

My point is to be prudent and intentional about their use. Save them especially dangerous moments, and if the lock or effect is the type to potentially take someone out of an entire fight, have a plan for that too.

I almost always play martials, so I usually don't have access to save or suck. But when another player lands something devious on the BBEG, and effectively ends the fight? Not my favorite moment. I want to maximize the moment, maximize the tension, fight them to the bitter end, etc. I think it's something of an unfortunate part of the game that the best spells are often quite binary, "if this works, the fight kinda ends, if they doesn't work, the caster wasted their action and slot."

I think the game would benefit from offensive spells having more of a damage + effect, save to reduce the damage by half and avoid the effect model.

shinakuma2

2024-06-17, 01:45 PM

I know 4th Edition is considered a dirty word by many, but one of the things 4e did that I liked was that big daily abilities were usually damage plus an effect of some sort on a hit, or half damage (and occasionally a reduced effect) on a miss.

That way, your best moves weren't "wasted" on a miss/save.

Easy e

2024-06-17, 02:08 PM

Of course I would. The DM is a player too.

In fact, I had a fairy character who could fly. I tried really hard not to abuse the ability and make the DM have to do a lot of special prep beyond the module they wanted to run and to treat me like other PCs.

Once other PCs started to gain the flying ability, then I leaned into it a bit more too.

Ionathus

2024-06-17, 02:20 PM

That is fair feedback. Complain would have described it better. I'll go and edit that response. Tone was off.

Thanks for clarifying, yeah that makes a lot more sense to me!

That way, your best moves weren't "wasted" on a miss/save.

Yeah, I've never played 4e, though I've read the sourcebooks and have seen a lot of conversation about how it played -- one of the complaints I've seen is that it was a little too "balanced": a lot of the janky edges had been sanded off and it lost some of the flavor and unpredictability of things like 3.5e. Not sure if that's true but it's a complaint I've seen several different times. How does that hold up to your playing experience?

I like the feeling of a system where most of the time you have a good chance of doing something. At the same time, I wouldn't want all the moves to feel "samey", which is another complaint I heard about 4e. I want fights in D&D to feel dynamic and a little unpredictable, and the things I've heard about boss battles in 4e were that they were more predictable, more like grinding down a massive health bar by juggling a series of repetitive moves. Much like an MMO boss raid.

Again, I know that's a cliched critique of 4e so I'm really curious to hear the experience you had playing it!

Just to Browse

2024-06-17, 02:36 PM

That way, your best moves weren't "wasted" on a miss/save.

3e did a lot of save-for-partial-effect stuff as well, particularly in its later years. Shame that didn't become more common.

greenstone

2024-06-17, 08:14 PM

My character in a game has just learnt banishment, so I will be having this conversation with the GM next week.

In a previous game where I was the GM, I used force cage on a character, and regretted it. We discussed it, and as a group agreed not to use multi-round incapacitation effects.

Missing one turn and making a saving throw at the end of the turn is not as bad. After all, it's how the jail works in Monopoly and few people complain about that.

Witty Username

2024-06-17, 08:19 PM

On the OP,
I agree that speed of play is partially a player responsibility, and that may be a good first point of attack.
I think you may be better off reducing the number of hard control effects if it is still an issue after trying the first one.

On saves,
I do think saves could use some tune up.
The Green Dragon example highlights this, the dragon has substantially better saves and legendary resistance despite having a significantly smaller role at table to a PC.
Most casters I think are fine as they have multiple ways to either continue participating or mitigate negative conditions directly.
More direct combat characters, especially melee, have the two fold problem of both not having these tools as well as being easier to target with such effects.

A strength save is a good example, most effects will fail to disrupt a caster from the outset, while a fighter could be removed from combat due to the restrained condition. And the fighter is more likely to be in close combat due to the nature of the beast. And even if both of those line up effects like misty step could render the issue a simple set back for the caster.
And this is the Stronger end of the fighter's saves, something like charmed, frightened or such could easily target a weak save and all of these issues are still at play.

Ionathus

2024-06-18, 08:02 AM

After all, it's how the jail works in Monopoly and few people complain about that.

Of course not. There are so many other things in Monopoly people could better spend their time complaining about! :smallbiggrin:

Sorinth

2024-06-18, 10:51 AM

Personally I don't really get the argument, if you choose to cast a save or suck spell and the enemy saves I just don't see how that is unfun or that you wasted your turn. Without failure there can be no success. That said I have no problem with a save or suck spell that still did something when the target saves so long as it's balanced for it's level, and it's worth noting these spells already kind of exists. Compare Grease to Tasha's Hideous Laughter, both have the same fall prone if you fail the save, but Tasha's has a better on fail effect since it also incapacitates, but Grease is still doing something even on a successful save, creating the difficult terrain which often forces an enemy to waste an action to Dash even when they succeeding their saving throw. Should there be more CC spells that provide something even on successful saves? Maybe, but it's also a choice you've made to gamble on a powerful effect if you land the spell and nothing if luck is against you, if you are worried about doing nothing then use a different spell.

On the flip side of your PC losing their turn from a bad save, I sort of get it if you are out for the whole combat, but if the combat went 6 rounds and I lost 2 turns from being targeted by Hold Person that's not going to make it unfun to me, if anything it's probably going to raise the tension and excitement of the combat as a whole because taking a PC out of the battle even temporarily can swing the fight towards becoming deadly.

NichG

2024-06-18, 01:20 PM

Random failure is not the only kind of failure that can exist. Would chess be a better game if every move, there was a 10% chance that actually your intended move just didn't happen and instead you go back to your opponent's turn? Or, would D&D be better if whenever you tried to move, for each square you move you had to roll a dice and there was a 10% chance that instead you just lose 5ft of movement and stay where you are?

A system where everyone's average rate of landing an attack is 20% isn't a more challenging game than one where everyone's average rate of landing an attack is 80%, it's just more swingy and spaced out with filler.

Sorinth

2024-06-18, 01:51 PM

I'm not a chess fan and to each their own but yeah I would probably would enjoy chess more if there was an element of chance added to it. As for losing your movement in D&D, there are combats where that type of stuff does happen such as a fight while climbing a cliff or while swimming across a river or someone casting the Grease spell and yes it's part of the fun.

NichG

2024-06-18, 02:08 PM

I don't mean, you can't move some places without risk because the terrain conditions have changed as a result of someone else's action. I just mean you're walking across the room, randomly sometimes you make it 15 feet and sometimes you make it 30 feet.

Random failure *itself* is not challenging gameplay. The possibility of being navigated into a failure state due to bad choices on your part and good choices on your adversaries' parts leads to challenging gameplay. Randomness and arbitrariness are not in of themselves challenge, and someone wanting to make things less swingy is not automatically asking for things to be made easier. They're asking for the difficulty to be more about their ability to find the narrow paths of right choices that ultimately lead to victory, instead of the fact that sometimes the dice just say 'its your turn to fail this time'.

Snakes and Ladders is a game with lots of random failure. Once you realize that you have nothing at all to do with your failure or success, it ceases to be *difficulty*.

Sorinth

2024-06-18, 02:37 PM

Snakes and Ladders is a game with lots of random failure. Once you realize that you have nothing at all to do with your failure or success, it ceases to be *difficulty*.

And an enemy passing their save and so your turn is "wasted" or your character failing their save and not being able to take their turn aren't random failures either.

When the complaint is that enemies should fail more so that you don't waste your turn spending a spell slot that did nothing and at the same time your character should have ways to automatically pass their own saves and that the DM should avoid using spells/creatures that have save or suck spells but the players should be free to use that stuff then it pretty clearly isn't about random failure or being swingy it's about feeling powerful. At best you could say they want enemies to be a puzzle to solve by doing the right moves in the right order instead of being an interactive challenge.

KorvinStarmast

2024-06-18, 02:39 PM

D&D isn't chess. Poor choice of comparison.

The complaint in the OP seems to hinge somewhat on the dislike of uncertainty. "I want to be in control!" is a sentiment I see expressed in a lot of different ways when the d20 system frustrates people.

NichG

2024-06-18, 03:17 PM

And an enemy passing their save and so your turn is "wasted" or your character failing their save and not being able to take their turn aren't random failures either.

That's also a false equivalency. Again in chess, its not a 'puzzle to solve by doing the right moves in the right order' because the adversary also gets to make decisions. 'Can I move this pawn?' is never the question or source of uncertainty, its 'will my enemy spot the trap?'.

People, including me, have proposed solutions to the OP's problem that: are not just 'chess', do not reduce the challenge, but do reduce the swinginess. Have things that would normally be binary pass save do nothing/fail save take the unit of the field do something lesser even when the save is passed, and rather than focusing design around taking the unit off of the field entirely and immediately instead do things like - present a choice of staying on the field but with drastically increased vulnerability especially to longer-term consequences, drastically change the space of viable actions for the target, put the target in a perilous set of more difficult decisions that mean character death if they (or their party members) don't manage to address the peril rather than just continuing to fight as normal, more directly impact the objectives of what the fight is there to achieve rather than focusing on 'clear all the enemy units then act with impunity', etc.

These solutions don't involve reducing the challenge. Many involve increasing the *meaningful* challenge by creating even more decisions that have to be made and made correctly by one or even all players, rather than removing decision power from a player - its not challenging to sit there and wait for the fight to be over. Some would make the PC side feel less powerful (due to PC/monster asymmetry, effects which are like 'this character will die after the fight if people don't stop what they're doing now and save them' are much more disadvantageous to recurring characters than for one-offs who are expected to die anyhow), etc.

Sorinth

2024-06-18, 04:15 PM

The false equivalency is pretending that D&D has random failures for trying to walk across a room. You can't move a pawn if there's a piece in the way, you can't walk across the room if you failed your save against hold person.

Like I said in the first post you quoted, I have no problems with having CC spells that do something even on a successful save, and you don't even have to re-invent the game because those type of spells already exist.

Witty Username

2024-06-20, 12:54 AM

Wanting ones choices to matter isn't a bad thing.

Hard removal isn't a thing 5e requires, on the contrary alot of save or suck and save or die effects have been removed from the game or significantly limited.

I personally prefer it that way, but also acknowledge that requires some mitigation. Failure isn't meaningful unless there is a chance of success.

Taking 180 damage in a turn without a save or attack roll made for an intense combat. But
1) I be a little crazy and have no fear of death
2) the DM recognized that we have a rather specific party that could handle that
3) that was a thing that we never did before and more than likely never do again

Vahnavoi

2024-06-20, 04:45 AM

If something takes a player out of a game for an extended period, it is okay for that player to go take a break, or quit if they can't be brought back by the end of a session. These are natural breakpoints. A player doesn't have to hang around doing nothing. A player doesn't have to remain 100% engaged when they aren't being engaged.

This is presuming there truly is nothing to do at the table. As others have pointed out, this is often false. There is still a game going on. It may be fun, even vital, to spectate, so that if the player gains an opportunity to rejoin the game, they can do so from an informed position, without need for recaps. Those are the most basic activities, but there are many others possible: drawing or documenting the fight, giving advice, helping other players with book-keeping, generating a new character (in case of death), etc..

Yes, having to wait for your turn may suck, but if you're waiting for your turn for hours in a tabletop game played in person, somebody is doing something wrong. Incapacitating effects with their durations measured in rounds should not lead to this. If turns are taking too long, put them on the clock and simplify combats so they can actually be solved on the clock. Use less opponents, use less abilities per opponent, roll dice in bulk, be willing to pass (especially enemy!) turns, etc..

None of the above are solutions to losing a gamble. Losing a gamble, such as missing on an attack roll and doing no damage, is not the same as doing nothing! Negative accomplishments are still accomplishments. Whenever a player spends a resource, whether that be actions, spells slots, hit points or whatever, to roll a die to reduce their enemy's play power, it's a bet made with some odds. Losing the bet means the player loses play power, altering the odds of follow-up bets in their enemy's favor. Failure to acknowledge this will lead to mechanics that unnecessarily stack the deck in the player's favor, without really increasing expressive potential of the system. For example, turning misses into half-damage hits effectively just shifts average damage per round upwards. The same overall effect would be achieved by increasing to-hit modifiers on the player's side, decreasing AC on the enemy's side, increasing damage of succesfull attacks on the player's side, using enemies with less hitpoints, etc.. At best, half-damage hard caps duration of fights, removing possibility of the betting process running forever by chance... but this is rarely an actual problem to begin with. Or rather, if every combatant is stuck making low % bets for an extended period, somebody is again doing something wrong.

Pay attention to what NichG, above, is saying. Simply making the odds for favorable pay-offs low, doesn't make a game more challenging or interesting. The actual challenge for the player is choosing the best betting strategy for the pay-offs they want - the process and formula for doing so can be the same regardless of what the specific odds are. For example, if my choice is between a sword strike that will kill an opponent 56% of the time versus a spell that will stun them for 46%, what changes if the odds are lowered to 30% and 20%? What is supposed to make this decision more challenging, more interesting, more anything?

Lowering odds of success on some front only leads to changes in strategy and gameplay when other options become more appealing in comparison. This leads to a pervasive game design flaw when game difficulty is only thought of in terms of probability: a game is made "harder" by reducing a player's odds all around. This means relative positions of chance-dependent strategies remain the same: no-one benefits from changing what they're doing, now everyone's just stuck doing so for longer.

Ionathus

2024-06-20, 08:26 AM

Is it wanting to be in control, or is it wanting the choice you make to feel like the most important factor in its outcome?

A big gripe I have with the D20 system is that its modifiers are so small that they only make a difference in aggregate. On each individual check, when you have an equal chance of rolling anywhere between 1 and 20, that +3 isn't worth a fart in a hurricane. So it works fine enough in combat, where you're gonna be rolling hundreds of attacks over an average campaign, but if you have a fairly niche skill like Animal Handling it can be hard to work enough ability checks into the sessions to get a decent spread of rolls. And that's without getting into how subjective different DMs are about what they call a roll for, which just adds to the arbitrary feeling of the system.

It's not a big gripe, grant you, but it's definitely felt by all my players and myself at times.

And note that has very little to do with "challenge" or "PCs being in control." The monster still gets a turn and a vote. You can still challenge your players and endanger them just as direly. It's just that, in a less swingy system, the danger is a lot more likely to come from the monster's actual dangerousness rather than blind luck.

Sorinth

2024-06-20, 09:02 AM

Is it wanting to be in control, or is it wanting the choice you make to feel like the most important factor in its outcome?

It's not a big gripe, grant you, but it's definitely felt by all my players and myself at times.

Sticking to combat, you chose to cast a save or suck spell that does nothing if an enemy passed their save instead of a spell that does do something on a successful save. So your choice was important and mattered regardless of whether the enemy passed or failed their saving throw. The risk vs reward was built into the choice you made.

And yeah it's very clearly a question of power/control when you want your stuff to work more often but the enemies stuff to work less often. If you want something less swingy then it also has to be less swingy for the monsters which is the opposite of what the OP wants.

Witty Username

2024-06-20, 09:44 AM

Especially because 5e tends to not have many of these kinds of spell anymore. It is entirely a choice to use them in the first place.

There are some caviots here. Being counterspelled into oblivion, or stonewalled due to a high save or condition resistance on your short list of control abilities (more on monk and battlemaster type problems) isn't really a thing 5e expects to happen, we can see this in the jump from 3.5 where sneak attack could be negated by some monsters. 5e has done away with most of this stuff but a few have kept in. But there is an easy answer to just not use those things.

Essentially, should have taken a different action, fair. The more it gets to, should have played a different/better class, issues start to arise.

Blatant Beast

2024-06-20, 09:55 AM

Part of the issue is the "D20 System" itself. A die twenty, by it's very nature, is going to result in a wide variance between the highest and lowest roll.

Breaking away from the D20, and embracing dice combinations other than icosahedron based resolution die rolls can preserve nearly the same range of expression as a D20 roll without the same degree of variance.

The 1e AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide started off with a two page primer on die shape and probability, and D&D used to more prominently feature other die sizes as part of it's resolution mechanics.

Pigeonholing D&D as being a "D20 System", unfortunately, precludes some relatively simple fixes that can make an impact on variance.

Legendary Resistance on creatures, coupled with the fact that most PCs tend to only have one spell slot of 6th level and higher, is a recipe for some degree of disappointment.

"oops, I did not memorize the statblocks of every creature, and now I wasted my best spell...wesa going to die".

I do enjoy nuance, and Legendary Resistance certainly directs players to have a very nuanced and mechanically educated playstyle, but that is probably not something that fits with a group that plays D&D casually.

Vahnavoi

2024-06-20, 10:18 AM

All using d20 means is that your odds move around in fractions of twenty. It is trivial to routinely give players 19/20 chance on rolls, there is just bizarre insistence on putting anything important on lower odds. Using a bell curve distribution won't save you from poorly selected target numbers.

Amnestic

2024-06-20, 10:32 AM

Wonder how much you'd have to mess with the underlying maths to change it from a d20 game to a d6 game.

Vahnavoi

2024-06-20, 10:42 AM

Wrong question. It's trivial to move from d20 + modifiers to 3d6 + modifiers or 4d6 + modifers. The question is about how closely you want to preserve existing odds versus how you want to change them.

Amnestic

2024-06-20, 10:44 AM

I'm not saying to 3d6 or 4d6. I'm saying to 1d6.

Sorinth

2024-06-20, 10:45 AM

I will say there's a case to be made that a casters spell save DC should be based on spell level. Having your high level spell slots being more likely to land and your lower level ones are less likely could be an interesting tradeoff. Perhaps replace proficiency bonus with spell slot level and see how that goes.

tchntm43

2024-06-20, 10:47 AM

The best way I can think to start my response is that the current version of the game, which has evolved for decades, is that it's trying to appeal to all types of players to the highest average possible, which means appealing to no type of player 100%. It is a series of game design choices built on trade-offs. For example, the advantage/disadvantage system is a simplification on the older systems that would stack +/- effects. Some players miss those older systems and have issues with advantage, but it's not enough to keep them from enjoying the game, so that's an example of a carefully calculated tradeoff that was probably the correct decision.

D&D is not the only game where there are issues with "disabling effects", which many players considered detrimental to the fun of the game. Magic: the Gathering, for example, has long had controversy between players who want to completely abolish "counterspell" type cards or land destruction cards or any other cards that negate or lock down the other player's ability to do things, and other players who argue that these things add variety to the game and that removing them would greatly hom*ogenize gameplay and make it less interesting.

For D&D, I don't know where the true balance is, but it's a similar issue. Players want to be able to do things that cause hostile monsters to effectively lose their turns in combat, they just don't like having it done back at them, but the game has as a general principle that monsters should be able to do most things that player characters can do (aside from getting death saves).

And on the issue of how long turns take... there was a big change at some point between 2e and 5e (the only versions I've played so I'm not sure when) where initiative and turn order procedure greatly changed. It used to be that, at the beginning of a round, each player had to announce what their characters were doing. There was one piece of game time where all players were making these choices simultaneously. Players would then roll initiative for the round and those choices would execute in order. Now, players make their characters' decisions as their turn comes up. It means there is no more simultaneous decision making. This makes it take longer to do. But as with other things, it's a decision of trade-offs. They found that players didn't really like getting locked into decisions that, by the time their turns came up, were no longer the optimal decisions.

Vahnavoi

2024-06-20, 11:03 AM

I'm not saying to 3d6 or 4d6. I'm saying to 1d6.

Slightly less trivial, since you need to divide most numbers by 3.33 and do some rounding, though in some ways going from one flat distribution to another flat distribution needs less tweaking than going from flat distribution to a curved distribution. Again, though, the question is less about how difficult this is and more about how closely you want to preserve existing odds versus how much you want to change them.

Sorinth

2024-06-20, 11:28 AM

I would caveat the bolded with the principle that 5e expects the DM to customize the game to suit the table. You see it very clearly in the talk about travel where the DMG straight up says stuff like if you don't like playing out travel/wilderness exploration/tracking food/etc... then just narrate that part and jump into the action that you and your group do like. So for example if you or your play group doesn't like effects that deny actions then it's probably something to talk about and agree on at session 0.

Daphne

2024-06-20, 11:37 AM

The solution is to make saves work like in the playtest before they added proficiency to the game and borked saves progression: there are no proficiencies in saving throws and DCs are 10 + relevant modifier.

Dark.Revenant

2024-06-20, 01:37 PM

That still has a similar problem. Monsters scale up from ~+2 to +10 modifiers for primary stats and players scale up from ~+2 to +5 modifiers for primary stats, and remain at around ~+1 for secondary stats. The reverse progression is still there if you take Proficiency out.

Amnestic

2024-06-20, 02:03 PM

Guarantees no impossible saves though! Well, mostly. Magic items can still do it.

rel

2024-06-21, 01:14 AM

The most common reason for being removed from play is hitting zero HP. The most common reason for not achieving anything with an action is failing to hit with an attack roll on a normal attack.

Any fix will need to address these two points.

How about the following to cover all HP / attack related issues:
A missed hit now deals half damage and doesn't apply riders like poison.

Immunity now halves damage twice and renders you immune to incidental damage (so the fire elemental doesn't take damage from a burning building but a fireball still does something).

The PC's have a combined health pool equal to the sum of all their health values. Damage they take comes off the pool, healing they take goes on the pool. They can track their own temp HP.
If the pool hits zero the PC's retreat and fail to achieve whatever they were trying do.

I'd recommend addressing more esoteric effects case by case, effectively house ruling them as they come up.
But if you want a simple blanket rule how about the following:
If a PC is the subject of an effect that removes their ability to act at the start of their turn, it is removed. If this happens then they take Hit Dice x 1D4 damage at the end of their turn if the encounter is not over. (So a 5th level character starts their turn paralysed. They can't act so the paralysis is removed and they take their turn. At the end of their turn the fight isn't over so they take 5D4 damage which goes onto the party HP pool, possibly forcing a retreat).

If a PC expends a resource (like say a spell slot) and fails to achieve anything at all (for example due to good enemy saving throws) the closest enemy takes (Hit Dice / 2 + 4) D3 damage (4D3 at level 1, 6D3 at level 4 or 5, 9D3 at level 10 or 11, etc).

That should get you everything you need, and seems pretty clean to boot. Make sure you ban counterspell and antimagic field and happy gaming!

Blatant Beast

2024-06-21, 08:44 AM

Do you think it is trivial for 12 year old performing art magnet school students that have had no formal training on probability?

The target audience for D&D is no longer Caltech post docs...:smallbiggrin:

Many adults have a difficult time with probability calculations, let alone children.

Skrum

2024-06-21, 10:01 AM

The most common reason for being removed from play is hitting zero HP. The most common reason for not achieving anything with an action is failing to hit with an attack roll on a normal attack.

I don't agree with this analysis. Depending on enemy, a failed wisdom save can take someone out of a fight at any moment. Before they act. In round 1. In round 2. Taking hit point damage, that's definitely correlated with later rounds, after the character had already gotten several turns. Yes occasionally someone gets blitzed, but that's unusual.

Further, going down swinging is an entirely different vibe than failing a save. If I jump into the thick of it and go to zero, I feel a good deal of agency even though I'm now down. If I fail to the dragon's fear aura and can't approach and I'm left throwing javelins at disadvantage for the first 3 rounds, that's awful.

Also, being at zero is one of the most addressable problems to have. Healing word namely, but a billion other healing options too. That is not the case with most status conditions or spell effects.

rel

2024-06-21, 11:32 AM

The most common reason for being removed from play is hitting zero HP. The most common reason for not achieving anything with an action is failing to hit with an attack roll on a normal attack.

Any fix will need to address these two points.

How about the following to cover all HP / attack related issues:
A missed hit now deals half damage and doesn't apply riders like poison.

Immunity now halves damage twice and renders you immune to incidental damage (so the fire elemental doesn't take damage from a burning building but a fireball still does something).

That should get you everything you need, and seems pretty clean to boot. Make sure you ban counterspell and antimagic field and happy gaming!

Also, being at zero is one of the most addressable problems to have. Healing word namely, but a billion other healing options too. That is not the case with most status conditions or spell effects.

Well, perhaps we're playing the game differently.

Now, if you're worried about conditions and status effects specifically, and my first suggestion of adhoc houserules (underlined above) is too much effort, while my second suggestion of a blanket rule (underlined in the second spoiler text block above) doesn't offer enough defence, I suggest the following variation:

At the start of a PC's turn the player may invoke Freedom to Act.
This grants the PC an immunity to all things that currently affect the PC that can prevent, constrain, or reduce the effectiveness of the PC's actions. The effects themselves don't disappear the PC simply gains a immunity to them and any identical effect from the same or a different source until the end of the encounter.
At the end of any turn in which Freedom to act is invoked for the PC, they take their hit dice X 1D3 points of damage.
As Freedom to Act originates from the player, effects that prevent the PC from taking actions, making choices, or otherwise activating abilities do not prevent its use.

Ionathus

2024-06-21, 03:15 PM

You're off on a completely different topic than what my comment was about. I was talking about how swingy a d20 is, and how a PC's modifier frequently doesn't make any difference to the outcome -- even if it averages out across numerous checks, in each individual roll it's a high degree of uncertainty.

And "you want your stuff to work more often but the enemies' stuff to work less often" is not even close to my point of view. I want combats where everyone's an active participant, and the enemies are dangerous, and we win or lose based on our choices -- not because we made stupid choices but kept winning the dice lottery on a 20-point swing.

Also, being at zero is one of the most addressable problems to have. Healing word namely, but a billion other healing options too. That is not the case with most status conditions or spell effects.

Emphasis mine. Agreed with everything you said and especially the bolded part, which articulates my feelings about this dynamic really well.