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6 months ago ::
Dec 20, 2012 - 7:46PM
#11
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Date Joined:
Aug 21, 2009
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I believe damage is out of control because levels 11 though 20 are scaling at the same rate as levels 1 though 10, when instead there should be dramatically diminishing returns.
At levels 19 or 20, I don't need to be doing more damage than I did at level 10. I need to be decapitating people and knocking back crowds. 9th Level wizard spells don't have to do twice the damage to a single target that a 5th level spell does. It needs to do 5th level damage to an army.
High level play is a different game.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 20, 2012 - 8:46PM
#12
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Date Joined:
Jun 28, 2006
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I know alot of people hate 4e, and I wasn't its biggest fan either, but it did do some things right. Sneak Attack started at +2d6 and only went up to +5d6 at 21st level. Fireball, a 5th level spell, did 5d6 + Int mod damage. Meteor Swarm, a 29th level spell, did 8d6 + Int mod. damage. The damage scaling in 4e is something they really should use as a model in Next.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 21, 2012 - 11:11AM
#13
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2012
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The damage scaling in 4e is something they really should use as a model in Next.
Agreed. For everything 4E did that I absolutely hated, it still had quite a few hidden gems in there. Damage scaling is one (though HP totals are another matter entirely).
Ritual spells were also great.
The metagame is not the game.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 24, 2012 - 9:26PM
#14
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Date Joined:
Jul 10, 2008
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One thing on Asmodeus, since so many people are using him as an example. He wouldn't face off an entire party of heroes by his lonesome... it's not like he's making toast one evening in his batrobe all alone when suddenly four to five heroes bust into his kitchen and beat the living crap out of him... no, rather he'd have been alerted way before the heroes even arrived and made the required preperations like trapped floor tiles, stuff that summons creatures if it breaks, magic circles that trap those who step on them, invisible and hidden allies all over the place, possibly an illusion of himself to throw the heroes off balance... he knows he's not up to a straight out brawl, so he will use every advantage he can get and he will fight dirty albeit honorably since he's a devil and not a demon. And then when the heroes are at his mercy, he'll offer them a deal that they really can't refuse 
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6 months ago ::
Dec 29, 2012 - 7:21PM
#15
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Date Joined:
May 12, 2012
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One of the things I dislike about martial damage dice is that they kind of undermine the weapon damage itself. I know this is perhaps a weird complaint but it just doesn't seem right. It's as if the innate power of the fighter does the multiple d6 of damage while the blade itself does the same d8 etc. Idk, maybe there's some kind of reasoning behind this, e.g. "it's not the blade that does the damage but the force applied to it's momentum". Another thing I dislike about the martial damage dice is the fact that players have to keep track of what various things they can spend the dice on and it makes fighting seem like 'shopping'. What I mean is that it's counter-immersive imho to 'spend' dice to use maneuvers that could just be like they were before in 3e and 4e (i.e. use at-will, once per encounter, once per day etc.) Personally, I find it easier to remember that I have a feat I can use once per day or a feat that is in effect passively that provides a constant bonus to something that is recorded on the character sheet (making it so that I don't even have to remember it). Martial damage dice is an interesting idea but imho it creates unnecessary dmg inflation and I think the one card that D&D has up its sleeve when compared to videogames is that it boils damage down to a small and tidy number that makes sense. I'm sure D&D will never get to the ridiculous '99,999' points of dmg, like the Final Fantasy series but even at this stage I think it would be wise to limit damage and HP to relatable and tangible numbers. By this I mean that a hit point or a point of damage should signify something, not just be one of dozens that can be freely distributed and disposed of. This feeling is what bounded accuracy got right. The sense that a small increase actually raises the percentage by a notable amount. Similarly, a +2 to damage could be really cool if the bad guy had say 30 HP. Of course those numbers are just made up on the fly but my point is that 'powerful and dangerous' doesn't necessarily mean 'lots of big numbers'. That's when the effects of inflation set in, and HP and dmg literally lose their value (that's inflation for ya). Sorry for ranting. I just had to get my point across. Feel free to correct me.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 30, 2012 - 2:14AM
#16
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Date Joined:
Aug 16, 2007
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I just went through D&D Next for the first time in the past days, and decided to re-start an old campaign with them. So far I like the old D&D flavor I am getting from them... I went straight to playing with level 12 characters. I had to read and re-read the rules around martial dice multiple times to make sure I was not mistaken (btw, I would have liked to see a chapter in the How to play combat section about those).
My multiple readings seemed to confirm that Martial dice are used and recovered every turn, which stroke me as overpowered, with on top of that the +10 damage once per turn at level 12. I still could not believe I was reading right. My players either.
So until further verification, I decided to use them across the span of a battle rather than a turn, much like the Encounter powers of 4th Edition.
I found in this thread the confirmation that my multiple readings seem to be, in fact, correct.
Of course, I am only starting and obviously using home rules already, but my current raw impression after a few days of rules reading, catching on D&D Next without prior knowledge of it, and one game with only two players, is that I agree with the OP.
I like the idea behind them a lot, but I think giving those out once per turn simply will not trigger the kind of choices expected from the players. there is very little reason to not go for full damage 99% of the time, the tactical considerations are by far not worth the lost of extra damage to lead to rapid demise of foes. If the martial dice and martial damages needs to be managed across a longer period of time, then players have to make more significant choices for each combat.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 30, 2012 - 4:02AM
#17
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Date Joined:
Sep 20, 2012
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I agree with the OP. some bounded damage may perhaps be in order (although I must admit, exaggerated results is one of the sinful pleasures of high level play). I read for a really good fix in this article. criticalwits.info/2012/12/27/article-dd-... The author is proposing to replace Martial Damage Dice for everyone with Weapon Damage multiplier which would eliminate the weapon becoming unimportant at high levels. At this point of playtest there is no meaning in taking a 2handed weapon since you sacrifice a +1 AC for a higher die that soon becomes irrelevant.
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6 months ago ::
Dec 30, 2012 - 3:46PM
#18
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Date Joined:
Aug 13, 2001
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Does anyone know why everyone gets BOTH damage dice and the damage bonus? I'm only theorycrafting at the moment (the only packet I've actually playtested was the second), but it looks like overkill from here and that seems to be where the problems in this thread are coming from.
I've noticed a tendency on WotC's part to throw in two or three different mechanics to accomplish the same goal in places where any one of them (in this case I'd go with the dice) would do. Rogues being better at skills in the second packet was a major offender; this time around, scaling up martial damage appears to have a similar kind of overkill built in.
Jeff Heikkinen
DCI Rules Advisor since Dec 25, 2011
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6 months ago ::
Dec 30, 2012 - 3:54PM
#19
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2009
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Does anyone know why everyone gets BOTH damage dice and the damage bonus? I'm only theorycrafting at the moment (the only packet I've actually playtested was the second), but it looks like overkill from here and that seems to be where the problems in this thread are coming from.
I've noticed a tendency on WotC's part to throw in two or three different mechanics to accomplish the same goal in places where any one of them (in this case I'd go with the dice) would do. Rogues being better at skills in the second packet was a major offender; this time around, scaling up martial damage appears to have a similar kind of overkill built in.
My guess is that they wanted damage to keep scaling but they didn't want to have people end up having 12d6 at level 20 (both because that's a lot of addition and because that's a lot of dice to fuel manuevers with).
<Ioun> they're apparently making a MolIsCool pp
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6 months ago ::
Dec 30, 2012 - 4:34PM
#20
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Date Joined:
Dec 21, 2011
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I just went through D&D Next for the first time in the past days, and decided to re-start an old campaign with them. So far I like the old D&D flavor I am getting from them... I went straight to playing with level 12 characters. I had to read and re-read the rules around martial dice multiple times to make sure I was not mistaken (btw, I would have liked to see a chapter in the How to play combat section about those).
My multiple readings seemed to confirm that Martial dice are used and recovered every turn, which stroke me as overpowered, with on top of that the +10 damage once per turn at level 12. I still could not believe I was reading right. My players either.
So until further verification, I decided to use them across the span of a battle rather than a turn, much like the Encounter powers of 4th Edition.
I found in this thread the confirmation that my multiple readings seem to be, in fact, correct.
Of course, I am only starting and obviously using home rules already, but my current raw impression after a few days of rules reading, catching on D&D Next without prior knowledge of it, and one game with only two players, is that I agree with the OP.
I like the idea behind them a lot, but I think giving those out once per turn simply will not trigger the kind of choices expected from the players. there is very little reason to not go for full damage 99% of the time, the tactical considerations are by far not worth the lost of extra damage to lead to rapid demise of foes. If the martial dice and martial damages needs to be managed across a longer period of time, then players have to make more significant choices for each combat.
In the sessions I've DMd and played in so far we also feel that damage is definitely too high, especially for the fighter and rogue. Combat Expertise dice are fun to roll, but they pile on damage in a hurry, and they become basically an "at will" power that does not balance with spellcaster attacks/options over the adventuring day of 4 or more encounters. I feel really bad for the wizard who uses Ray of Cold and rolls a 1, 2, 3 or 4 on the 10 sided die. I also feel bad for the cleric that uses Spiritual Weapon (as a spell) and hits for only 1, 2, 3 or 4 points of damage, or even Lance of Faith doing just 4, 5 or 6 points of damage. At 4th level, the rogue and fighter in our group were routinely doing 15 + points of damage each time they hit.
I like the idea that you have about making Expertise Dice an encounter resource rather than a recharge each turn. Let the rogue or fighter decide when to use them for best effect and rewrite the Sneak attack rule as well. Either that or cap the amount of dice a PC can use for attack damage and parry/protect absorbtion...maybe a PC can only use 1 die for extra damage and 1 die for parry/protect at levels 1-10...then 2 die for attack or parry/protect at levels 11-15, and then 3 die for attack or parry/protect at levels 16-20. Basically, WotC should experiment with the concept more.
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