General question here about balance in 5E... Is anyone else having issues in this version with creating balance in combat or the DC for things like traps or locks? Two examples...
I have a player who created an Elf/Fighter who uses a bow. During character creation she rolled an 18 for DEX. The Elf ability score increase (Dex increases by 2) takes this to a 20 DEX giving her a +5 Modifier and then proficiency with a longbow (+2 Prof bonus). Then with her Fighting Style she took Archery giving her a +2 Attack Bonus with ranged weapons... This is a +9 to Hit at 1st level with a +7 to Damage???
This is at level 1... It makes it hard to create balanced encounters for the group because I have an elf who is throwing out massive damage and basically doesn't miss unless she rolls a 1. Meanwhile the rest of the party is fighting at an average ability.
The other issue is in the Rogue department. I have a character who is playing a gnome/thief. He has a Dex of 17 (+3) Prof Bonus of (+2) with Expertise in Thieves Tools that makes it a +4 giving him a +7 to abilities like opening locks. To make matters worse I have a Cleric in the party who drops Guidance on him that has the potential of making it a +11 on a good roll. So basically having a lock with a DC of less than 20 is pretty much worthless in my game.
I'm just wondering if anyone else is running into this and if so how are you addressing these issues. It makes it hard to fill an encounter with monsters because I have one character who is chewing through them and everyone else who can't hit them or gets the snot kicked out of them or I have doors/chests/traps that have to be DC20 or better otherwise the gnome just laughs and blows through them.
First: Rolling for stats can cause this, nothing to do about it other than not allowing this and using the 27 points system.
If you discover that locks need at least a DC of 20, use locks with a DC of 25 or 30...
Make it so that it's a challange to open them. It isn't fun for anyone if ALL locks can be opened at the first try.
Clinthulhu wrote:
One correction... The Elf/Fighter has a +5 to Damage not +7 that was a typo on my part...
I have done a few things to up the "Challenge" in combat. Monstes are using cover and moving around a lot more to get into melee with her so she isn't just in the back spanking them all day. I like the idea of locks that need specific keys or conditions. I have used them before but hadn't included any in my current campaign yet because we are only 4 sessions into the adventure. We are all pretty much relearning the rules at the moment coming from 3.5 or earlier editions.
More than anything I just wanted to see if these numbers were something that others had seen before.
Hi, the plus to damage is only +5 because you can't add your prof. bonus to damage only the ability modifier which is +5 for 20 DEX.
But yes that's quite good. Use ambushes to get to the archer quickly, using dash and hiding for example.
Some tough fighters sitting in tress jumping the archer when he/she is under them or add some equally good archers on your side... give your side 3/4 cover etc. etc.
Don't use normal locks all the time, use magical means and let your mage shine a bit or use the classic speaking door knob/face riddles to open something.
Just some ideas 
I would say that your issue arises because you are expecting the game to be a particular difficulty when it is designed not to be that difficult (except for when it is) - by which I mean that you are expecting picking locks to be a challenge for an expert in the task even when the locks are not anything special, while the game is expecting that if a lock is challenging for an expert to pick it is because it is a particularly exceptional lock.
Your combat concerns are similar - that elf has the absolute greatest skill at archery that can be had, and you are expecting it to be difficult for him to hit his targets even when they aren't extremely well protected in some way.
Basically, you are looking at a character like Robin Hood, Legolas, or Bard of Lake Town and expecting their arrows to be off-target frequently.
To interject an idea that many people never seem to consider: Raising the DCs so that the difficulty matches what it would be if the player had a lower bonus is the same as looking that player right in the face and saying "You're elf doesn't get to have a 20 Dexterity - drop it down to 12, or you can drop it to 16 and pick a different fighting style." Part of the fun of having a character be really good at something is that they are really good at that thing - I suggest not taking that away from your players. Instead, you should embrace it - highlight their prowess in that area by describing how easy such a task is for one of such skill, and then provide them opportunities to put their prodigious skills to more difficult test, rather than pretending that they are perfectly average and adjusting difficulty so that they believe it is true.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Also keep in mind, the Archer now has max Dex... he isn't getting any better at that. Is an extra +2 hit /+2 damage significant? oh yeah... but it isn't game breaking. and it will balance out some as they go up in level.
Same with the lock picking.... even with point buy, the rogue could get a +9 with Guidance.... not that much worse than the +11. Usually it means he beats that DC15 lock by 9, instead of only by 7.
To help put it in perspective... the if the archer had 16 Dex, and was fighting an AC 15 creature, he would be doing 5.1 hp per round. With the 18 Dex, that goes to 7.3 hp per round. Now, that is a pretty big jump percentagewise, but its still only 2.2 hp per round. That may be impressive when fighting Kobolds and goblins, but even CR 1/2 gnolls have 22 hp.... CR2 Ogres have 59! (Full disclosure, it helps more against High AC creatures, but still not going to change the encounter that much.)
I am against high starting stats, not becuase its unbalanced, but because it limits the improvements the characters can get as you go along.
Clinthulhu wrote:
Clinthulhu wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
In 5e, it is possible to get really good at certain thing, whether it is accurately shooting arrows, opening locks, moving around stealthily and hiding repeatedly during combat, etc. One way to react to this is to raise the challenge level (or try to nerf the ability in some way), and people have discussed the issues with that. I think it would be sensible to design some encounters where there is one really hard to hit monster so that the party has to be a bit tactical and put the elf on it.
But regarding the locks, it's okay if locks are simply something that your party doesn't have trouble with. Unless you are in a combat or time-pressured in some way, most of the time a party is going to just keep trying to open a lock until it opens, so absent some pressure, all locks are basically pickable unless the DC is impossibly high.
In my game, the PCs had certain things that they were very good at -- specifically, being stealthy, noticing traps, opening locks, and identifying magic items. Then, at some point, a couple of the players wanted to play different PCs for a while, and it was convenient story-wise for their old PCs to go off and do something else for a time. All of a sudden, they had trouble identifying magic items (no one had the identify ritual), noticing traps, trouble with locks, and no ability to sneak. Of course, they could do other things awesomely that they couldn't do before. I think this experience made everyone appreciate what it means to have a PC that is really good at something. It also is cool for the players, I think, to know that their choices are meaningful.
My advice is a two-pronged approach, something both the players and DM can work on from their own respective roles.
First, we have to take a look at the "goals of play," the "win conditions" if you will, for D&D 5e as outlined on page 2 of the Basic Rules. Paraphrased, no matter what else occured, if you had a good time and created a memorable, exciting story as a result of play, you win! It stands to reason that if you don't achieve those two goals of play, you lose. So as players, when it comes to making a decision, we have to ask ourselves: "Is this going to lead to a good time for everyone at the table?" and "Is this going to help create an exciting, memorable story as a result of play?" If the answer to either of those question is "No," then the decision we're contemplating isn't good enough and we should do something else instead. When we think of things this way, it's not enough to simply do "what my character 'would' do." It's not enough to choose the most efficacious, optimal tactic or strategy. Those things might lead to a good time and the creation of a memorable, exciting story, but it's often just as likely that they won't. So our friend the archer needs to think about this a bit... if applying arrows to every problem is outshining everyone else and leading to the same weekly tale of "Elf Kills Everything with Arrows While Friends Watch," then it's time for her to try out some other tricks.
Next, it's on the DM to present situations that are challenging and where reducing everything to 0 hit points can be a way to solve the problem, but isn't the only way and - in some cases - isn't the best way. Some other fine folks have given you advice along these lines above so I'll not be redundant. But I will point you to the "Content I Created" part of my signature and encourage you to read some of my adventure scenarios for examples of what we're talking about. Most are short-form encounters that don't take much time to read and may give you some ideas. As you consider new ways of presenting challenges, remember the goals of play - to have a good time and create a memorable, exciting story as a result of play. After all, your goals are the same as the players when playing D&D.
As to the locks situation, it's hard to see what it is you want. More failure, I guess? I entreat you to examine your goals here. Raising the DC doesn't increase the challenge. It just means you have to roll higher and that's not actually challenging to the player. You need to look to the fictional situation for the challenge, especially in light of the fact that if there are no time constraints in your adventure, the character can automatically succeed, no roll (see DMG page 237, "Multiple Ability Checks"). This goes to how you narrate failure. If a character can fail at a thing and then just keep doing it over and over with no penalty until they suceed, then the adjudication is going awry. So when it comes to locks, consider a failure condition of progress with a setback or cost: "You get the lock open, but not fast enough to get ahead of the gnolls who enter the room and attack..." or "You get the lock open, but it was loud and the orcs on the other side of the door are ready for you..." or "You get the lock open, but it's busted now, so the door can't be secured..." or "You got the lock open, but now there's evidence of your presence here..." or "You got the lock open, but your thieves' tools are ruined."
When the players and DMs agree to and work toward achieving the goals of play, issues like game imbalance tend to just go away.
Good luck.
Tactics for dealing with the archer;
- use minions; guys with 1 HP and a low-damage attack. You get more guys to throw at him for a given XP budget.
- only use an Assassination attempt AFTER you introduce an intelligent recurring villian and Archer stomps on the guy's plans several times
- get him into an "artillery duel" against a bunch of wimpy opponents.
- high-AC enemies (what's the highest-possible at his level?) who charge in to melee with him
- a pair of archers with orders to stay Hidden, Ready an Attack Action, and wait for somebody on Team Hero to use a ranged attack; shoot that guy (who will be the Archer)
- get him into a small space (20x20 room?)
- bows and arrows don't get you off RMS Titanic. Give the group a non-combat challenge (such as a swim across a river).
- Give him a chance to shine, too: Archery contest for accuracy, winner gets a quiver full of Magic Arrow +1. Other contestants built by point-buy method. One has a backstory like William Tell.
- cover and concealment can force a stand-off. He still may be the only guy with a chance to hit anything, but he also might run out of arrows first.
- attack from every direction so there is no "back" to stay in. He's still a Fighter of course, so he can be tough to take down.
- he IS a Fighter. Have a gladiator challenge him to a fist-fight !
- Monk 3+ can catch an arrow in mid-air and throw it back at him
+7 to hit at level 1!
As others have said, rolling a 18 and starting with DEX:20 pretty will just outshine other characters. But they also won't progress. Admitidly it'll likley be level 8 before "normal" characters catch up with 20 in a stat.
The 15,14,13,12,10,8 array and point buy both cap at 15 for a good reason, TMK there isn't a way array/pointbuy characters can get higher than 17 in an ability score at Level 1.
I'd argue it's far less than a 18 was worth in 2E.
Another thing is that I think the +2 to Archery fighting style is mainly to compensate archers for firing into melee.
Compared to 3E and similar 5E is very kind to players trying to shoot into a melee (and I'm happy with this) but an easy to miss rule is that often targets in melee will have half cover.
A target with half cover has a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws.
A target has half cover if an obstacle blocks at least half of its body.
The obstacle might be a low wall, a large piece of furniture, a narrow tree trunk, or a creature, whether that creature is an enemy or a friend.
Hijacking this a little to talk about intra-party parity and game balance.
I have an affection for rolling up a character old school style. But, I don't like unfairness.
I am considering the following fix.
Everyone rolls as shown in the rules then.
Look at the total net bonuses from ability scores. The character with the highest set of ability score bonuses remains the same (gets nothing).
For each point lower than the best, other memeber of the party get +1 Inspirations per day.
Basically this means n times per day the character with the lower ability scores gets the advantage. Call it luck or what have you. The majority of the time the player with the best ability scores will be doing better, but every now and then the lower scoring person gets a bonus.
What do you think?
Since rolling up characters old-school style produces results that are fundamentally unfair, you're in for a pickle.
I would suggest avoiding looking at ability modifiers and instead look at point-buy equivalent.
That said, the most elegant solution I've seen is to have everyone roll, and then decide which player's rolls get used for everyone's characters.
I've been working on another one that I haven't adapted to 5e yet - it was built for 3.5, where the standard point-buy was 25, but 4d6-drop-lowest worked out to an average of 28 (but a rather high spread), and 4d6-drop-lowest with PHB rerolls worked out closer to 32. There, my suggestion was to give you the choice between point-buy 25, or 4d6-drop-lowest-with-rerolls, but if you picked the dice, you had to play them in order. You got a stronger character overall, but had no control over what that character would excel as, nor would you be able to fine-tune the result. A similar adaptation could probably work for 5e, but I'll need to analyze how the dice fall with regards to the new point-buy costs.
Rolling up characters is fundementally fair.... though the results are often uneven.
Malzerious, check with your players.... do they want to roll? Do they care if they are not all even? I have played for a long time, and for most of that the starting stats were not all even; not a big deal. Happens in real life too... you work around it.
If you do stick with inspiration, I would max it at 1. One is plenty, and otherwise it gets kind of hard to track. And you will have to adjust when they get stat boosts, etc....
Plus, bonuses are not all equal, the difference between a dump stat 8 and a dump stat 10 is slmost meaningless.
Coredump00 wrote:
Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
Perhaps a ranking of ability scores totals, and then some kind of off setting benifit for those under Rank 1.
That would not be too hard to measure, and provides incentive to go with the randomness.
In my limited experience, 34years of gaming, most players CLAIM that they don't care about fairness, but in play, most seem to care.
Malzerious wrote:
I think folks are heading into the territory of using fair and fairness when they mean a more precise term such as equal or equality, and it is important to remind everyone that while being equal is often also being fair that being fair does not require being equal.
Relevant example: everyone having the same options to generate ability scores with is fair - even if their resulting scores are inequal by chosen metric of measurement.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
Coredump00: "Thats like saying a card game is unfair, because one person wins and one person loses. The *game* is fair... the dice rolling if fair... the results may not be equivalent. That has nothing to do with a process being fair or not."
On the issue of fairness versus equality.
It appears you are using fairness in the sense of "Pure Procedural Justice" Card Games are a good example, assuming everyone plays by the same rules, those rules are known, and no one cheats,the outcomes are irrelevant.
I was using it in the sense of Perfect Procedural Justice. (Using Rawlsian language here) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_justice
Perfect procedural justice has two characteristics: (1) an independent criterion for what constitutes a fair or just outcome of the procedure, and (2) a procedure that guarantees that the fair outcome will be achieved.
So while everyone rolling dice satisfies the second criteria, it does not satisfy the first. By the second standard only, drawing characters from a hat with on 20th level, and 4 1st level would also be fair, but no one would really want that.
A point buy system satisfies both, but it lacks the randomness that provides uncertainty and excitement. Rolling for stats helps people see their characters are real beings that are not just their creations. It encourages creativity, in particular by suggesting interesting backgrounds. My fighter has a high wisdom, but lowish constitution. How can I explain that? What sort of person gets into the trade with those stats. Maybe she was groomed for a successful fighting career but then was stircken by a disease that nearly killed her. Now weakened she struggles on. I think a little randomness can be inspirational.
The independent criterion I am suggesting is somewhat subjective "everyone feeling useful, getting to share the spotlight, having satisfaction with their characters..." but it is independent.
That said. When one player is going to shine above the others in the daily grind, like the fighters versus the wizards. It is cool for the Wizards to have their moments (when they cast their mighty spells). Similarly a weaker character can get some recompense for being statistically weaker with the occasional boon. My suggestion of Inspiration was that it was fairly easy to add without over burdening the systems with more rules. The benefit is noticeable and significant when it is used, even if it isn't a game breaker in the long term.
Coredump00 wrote:
Malzerious wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
As well as following the great advice in this thread, make sure you also provide opportunities for the character to shine.
There should be a few encounters where that elven archer is just awesome! Killing things all over the place, making trick shots, shooting the bad guy from long range in the middle of the "mouahahah you can't get me" gloating, that sort of thing.
Not every encounter should be like this, but if there are no encounters where a character shines then the player is going to get dispirited and feel left out and discriminated against.
Also, something no-one seems to have mentioned for toning down the character - ammunition. An archer who has run out of arrows is someone with a subpar quarterstaff.
Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
Noctaem wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
CFK wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
Vahnyu wrote:
1) well, damn. 1296 it is.
2) I think the order doesn't really come up to it, considering it was a comparison.
3) Yep, I got that. The second calculation was looking on the 'as bad as' case
4) No that's fair, I think I skipped a sentence there or two. The probability of both showing up would probably be dependant on the number of players, I guess, but if the likelihood of rolling 5 stats 14 or more is about the same as the likelihood of rolling 5 stats 11 or less, then it would be at about 0.49% chance of occuring. Perhaps even more.
Coredump00 wrote:
Greenstone.Walker wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
Malzerious wrote:
CFK wrote:
Well, turned into an interesting thread with all of the number % things listed...
With your orignal post, just don't panic. As was mentioned, the elf has tapped out the DEX stat now.
Just remember to play the bad guys smart! Use cover! Use those special abilities! I terrorize my players with the ability of goblins to hide! They are now 4th & 5th lvl, and I can still give them a solid run for their money with a just a handful. If the archer is laying waste, the bad guys will know it and do what they can to neutralize the elf. Hey, he may pull it off and win! That's a hero! Buff the encounter a bit, a extra foe or two to rush in as re-enforcements!
I have a character who rolled up a charcter, and the DICE GODS WHERE WITH HIM! He's good in somethings, and average in others. It lets him shine!
Also remember, ranged attacks are at DISADVANTAGE when they attack a target next to them! Rush that archer! Go for a grapple! If the archer goes to flee without the DISENGAGE, light him up!
With the lockpicking, some good comments have already been made. I personally would not raise the DC. Try some of the othe options posted earlier. Also, I don't care how good the lock picking skill is, if the door is braced on the other side, its not going to open.
Enjoy the game, I'm having a blast with 5th Edition!
There's no crying in D&D.
dungeondude wrote:
jonathonhawke wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Life clerics do pretty well with low stats.
mellored wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Each table should have their own method of determining when rolled numbers are too high or too low. Why would we even want the book to set some kind of rule for invalidating arrays? That's a playstyle/preference thing and should be completely within the purview of the DM (hopefully with at least some input from the players).
The PHB doesn't say anything about re-rolling in the section on generating ability scores (pp 12-13)
ChrisCarlson wrote:
OoftaMeg wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
That actually brings up something that I've found interesting about D&D over the years.
If you ask people, many of them would say that they remember ability score generation being more harsh in the old-school versions of the game - including that people thing 3d6 for each score rolled in order with no adjustments or mitigations was the default even when it wasn't - and that rolling methods got more lenient as the editions moved on. But if you go back and actually look at the facts, they often tell a different story.
AD&D 1st edition having multiple methods listed for rolling and outright saying that you should let players get a character they'll be happy with, and they'll probably need at least two scores at 15+ in order to have a good enough character, while the most recent editions have listed a single method and only occassionally bothered to mention that some characters generated by that method might be unsuitable for actual use.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
jonathonhawke wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Since your character is not his stats, then I'd say there's nothing wrong with portraying your character in any way you like. While the PHB provides suggestions about what high and low ability scores mean, in regards to your PC's appearance and personality, it does not, infact, speak in dictating terms. Meaning that they are just that, suggestions, not written in stone. At the end of the day, the only thing the Abilities and scores are for is to determine success in tasks that would actively require said abilities, to wit, everything listed or directly related in Chapter 7. A character with low Intelligence can still be a genius tactician with sharp deductive ability, provided that the player herself can enact those things, but recalling things that haven't been stated in the campaign before would be another matter altogether.
On the other side of the fence, a high score of Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom, does not preclude you from playing your character as a bumbling idiot.
And honestly, personally speaking I would neither call anything above 6 as being deficient, nor anything bellow 15 as particularly great.
Vahnyu wrote:
Orethalion wrote: