Episode 10: D&D Next Final Playtest
This Episode: D&D Next Playtest, Cease and Desist Orders, Off Topic Rambling
The D&D Next Playtest has come to an end. Tim and Chrispy take a look at how the game has changed and what they can expect from the final version, but mostly just mess around.
This Episode Also Known As: “What were we talking about again…?”
Podcast: Download
How would you guys feel about the proficiency bonus being split into combat/skills/magic?
I wouldn’t like it! I think that numerical bonuses to die rolls are a pretty poor way of making classes feel like they play differently. If you have a +2 to something, that makes you 10% more likely to succeed on a d20 roll – which means it only makes a difference one out of every ten times you roll the die, too. Not only that, but crippling the chance of success for characters to perform outside their role discourages people from having atypical character concepts. A fighter is going to have a better Strength score than the wizard almost every time anyways – having different combat numbers layered on top of that is a layer of complexity that only serves to punish rather than reward. The classes are better differentiated by giving them unique abilities that help them in their role – sure, a wizard with an 18 Strength will hit just as often as an 18 Strength fighter, but the fighter gets a d10 hit die, multiple attacks, better weapon proficiencies… if a player wants to be a greatsword-swinging wizard so bad that they put an 18 in Strength and take the Great Weapon Master feat, there’s no sense in ruining their fun by trying to cripple them with poor combat numbers.
That being said, alternative scaling proficiency bonuses would be really easy to implement in your home game, thanks to D&D Next’s particularly modular and homebrew-friendly nature. Try it in your home game – if you find that it really does add something to the game or makes the game work more like how you want it to, then by all means keep doing it, and let us know!
(And sorry for the late response!)