So, I’ve spent the past days gleefully nerding out over at the D&D “Future Releases” forum. Holy crap, you can just swim in the nerd-rage over there. 3E fans and 4E fans are at each others’ throat about what “is” D&D [Like, there's a whole faction over there proclaiming the 4E Warlord class to be "iconic" D&D. Seriously. A class that's been in exactly *one* edition of D&D, and the shitty one at that.] Meanwhile, the grognards — those folks still playing AD&D, or AD&D 2E, or even Basic Edition — sit on the sidelines and snipe their little digs in about how neither edition is D&D.
It’s almost like we all think we’re fighting a war, and someone will “win” the right to design 5E.
But everyone needs to remember that D&D 5E has already been started. A basic core ruleset has already been playtested and will appear at D&DX [which I'd kill to attend]. And its lead designer, Monte Cook, has been talking about his vision of D&D since September, when he took over the Legends & Lore column from Mike Mearls.
Anyone who thinks that what Monte Cook is describing in these columns isn’t some sort of hint about 5E (which he must have already been working on, since the game was already reportedly playtested for people outside WotC in December). So I plan on spending some time between now and D&DX predicting — seeing what Cook’s words might reveal about what’s already in 5E.
Take, for example, his first column, where he lays out his philosophy for how skills should work. Here’s the key passage Cook writes:
Imagine, then, if the rules of the game allowed each character to have a “rank” that indicated how perceptive they were, and if all the hidden things had a rank as well. You could quickly and easily compare the ranks. If the character’s rank was equal to or higher than the rank of the secret door or other hidden thing, he could find it if he took the time, because it was easy for him. No die roll needed. He can just do it because he’s very perceptive. If the rank of the hidden thing was higher, though, he could still try to succeed at a die roll. It’s challenging, but not impossible (the sweet spot, if you will). And if the difficulty rank was a lot higher, it would just be impossible, and again there’s no need for the die roll. The DM just says “you don’t find anything.” Quick and easy. And best of all, if the player told the DM that his character was doing exactly the right thing-—checking the statue’s teeth to see if one moved-—the DM could easily grant him a bonus to his rank and make what was impossible to find, possible. Player ingenuity rewarded.
Hey, look at that — we just got a preview of how Perception is going to work in 5E. You have a rank, and the thing you’re trying to do has a rank, and in the normal course of play you either have the skill to Percieve something, or you don’t. Actively trying can grant a bonus ranking, meaning that the player who role-plays the situation benefits from engaging in storytelling.
It’s a balance between the 3E skill mechanic, which was granular mastery based on a skill bonus to a particular kind of perception (Spot, Search, Listen) that needed to be added to a dice roll every time; and the 4E mechanic, which is a static “you’re either trained or you’re not” mechanic that doesn’t really allow for player differentiation. It’s a neat idea, IMO.
Now, will this be applied to “skills” of all kinds? My thought would be yes. So, if I have, say, an Advanced rank in Blacksmithing, then I can make certain things. But if crafting a suit of special magic armor requires that I have Expert skill in Blacksmithing, then I won’t be able to do that … unless I “actively try”, which might mean I spend a month of in-game time carefully crafting that suit of armor. By extension, it may mean that items will have ranks as well — after all, if I’m a wizard, I probably don’t have *any* skill in Blacksmithing. I’ll need some Expert Blacksmith to do it for me, and that suit of armor, crafted by an Expert Blacksmith, will inherently be better than a plain old suit of armor crafted by the Basic-level smith in the village down the road.
Yeah, I’m speculating at this point. But I’d rather speculate based on thing s recently written by the lead designer of 5E, than engage in pointless faction wars.
[Armor clip art obtained from Treasure Cards Clip Art]
3 Responses to “Monte Cook’s Vision of D&D 5E”
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I’d like to point out that just as the Wizard was previously called the Mage, the Rogue the Thief, the Fighter the Fighting-Man, and the Cleric the Priest, the Warlord was called the Marshal in 3.5e. So it’s not been in only 1 Edition, but 4e HAS made it an iconic and essential class, filling in a major character archetypal gap. If you’re trying to tell people not to fight this war, you shouldn’t fuel the flames by calling 4e the Shitty Edition. A lot of people who would otherwise agree with you and be similarly excited by your content here on this blog would get turned off by statements such as these.
That all said, I’m very excited by this look into how skills may work. I’ve always felt skills were some of the weakest links in 4e’s game, since the game forces you to focus on specific knowledge fields, while adventurers are almost more likely to draw on have many different types of knowledge. Only the Bard really succeeds at portraying this in 4e, and only with a particularly powerful feat added on (Bard of All Trades, essentially making all skills at least one point away from being trained).
In the skills you are trained in, the character feels too powerful, because success is too easy, while your character feels like a dofus in other skills. Essentially, 4e’s skill system forces players to min-max, which may appeal to CharOp’s sensibilities, but doesn’t do much for feeling realistic for many characters.
In addition, the scaling of skills and difficulty classes, means that there is never a true challenge, and never true successes, because even as you get better with certain skills, the difficulties for those same skills get harder. Sure, you might find the occasional challenge that involves a skill challenge much below your level, like a locked wooden door in a paragon-tier dungeon, but it’s very unlikely: there’s no real reason for the DM to include a challenge that much lower.
In a system with only a handful of skill challenge levels, and one that values real successes, you might be able to feel like you have real meaning in your skills. This is one area I’m excited about Monte Cook’s vision for 5e, even if I’m a bit skeptical in terms of other issues.
I can’t help it. I really do dislike 4E that much. I will try to better moderate my snarks in the future.
The iconic classes are the 4 in Heroes of the Fallen Lands – three of which have been in every edition and the fourth in all be the original.
The Warlord/Marshall is a niche class that is not necessary and certainly not iconic.
The are plenty of things in 4e that are weaker than the way it handles skills, bad as that is.
The best thing about D&D to me was the different classes had different mechanics which were suited to the class, and helped you become immersed in the character. Such immersion id what I look for from a RPG.
Using the same mechanics for all classes threw that away, and the design of most powers also forced out of character thinking. That was so bad that there isn’t a single class in the PHB that I consider playable.
4e essentials showed that they have recognized at least part of the problem, and the Fighter(Slayer) looks playable with only minor changes.