D&D 5: Six at Twenty?

This one hit me by surprise, D&D 5 has a notion of bounded accuracy, and click on the link for the original design information. I will spare you the details, go read the article.

What this means is your to-hit from level adjustments starts at +2 at 1st level, and only goes up to +6 at 20th level. It's kinda like saying D&D 5 is a five level game spread over twenty levels. I know, major change time here. This reminds me of the D&D 3.5 E6 variant, where levels are capped at six, and the CR 7-12 monsters are the epic monsters.

The reasoning is to-hit should never be something that modifies DPS - level-based DPS should be the modifier. To-hits in the game stay the same while damage goes up. Similarly, DCs should always remain the same and hover around what first level characters can deal with.

One thing about the above linked article just rubs me the wrong way, the assumption that the DC of a locked door needs to go up just because the characters are now higher level. Um, it doesn't, we all live in a 20th level world, and the DCs of doors should be what they should be. 

That super-strong door at low level should be a piece of paper to a high-level character. 

I dislike it when referees arbitrarily scale difficulty based on character level because it removes the accomplishment of having those high scores and levels in the first place. It's a problem with adventure design and the ratings of doors in the game, not the system. The world does not 'level up or down' with you, not mine, at least - let heroes be heroes.

There is a problem with this in risk versus reward as pointed here on the Neuroglyph Games site blog - a great post you need to read. Low-level creatures are still a threat, but their experience point reward is not matching that threat. The CRs for anything below party or character level are not reflective of their true threat.

It feels like a breaking of the CR system as we know it, and it changes things considerably. Lokiare over on RPGNet did some math and found encounters could be thrown out of whack by the simple addition of a low-level creature or two, this is the difference of going from a win to a TPK. A group of mid-level character can take out the toughest creatures, and a group of 100 townspeople can likely take out anything.

There's also a lower-level tangible reward thing going on here with players fighting large groups of low-level creatures and not being properly rewarded for the challenge presented. There's another great post over on the RPGSite that hints it may be very easy to get ahead of the curve by min-maxing the few AC and defense options you have available. It highlights a potential exploit when a system is designed so tightly.

To-hits have been tightly reined in, ability scores capped, and modifiers limited to a tightly-allowed range. Granted, damage is where they are scaling things for pure player power, and that hasn't changed. The whole system feels very tight, the numbers reigned in, and it's probably a natural progression of things.

There's a feeling thing going on here too. I like my Godzillas to be invulnerable behemoths that stomp villages. I like my characters to be the Godzilla stoppers that they should be. There is a clear power-level difference between this game and other incantations of D&D, here this is a lower-powered world where level 1 goblins could be a threat to level 20 characters. A level 20 D&D 5 character is going to splat anything he or she touches, but invulnerable defenses against low-level creatures are a thing of the past here.

It is another huge change to consider when converting over worlds and campaigns to this system, or even developing new ones. If the toughest dragon in the world is all of a sudden vulnerable to any king's army - that changes things. I can't write a story that contradicts the rules as written, so it's important to understand the power level and feeling of a game's systems to be able to adjudicate current and past events, and write a believable history as the characters would experience things when they play.

If you're thinking you can start playing with the same set of Pathfinder, D&D4, or D&D3 assumptions about monster power and threat levels you will be surprised at the changes here. You need to understand these in order to start getting a feel for how D&D 5 worlds work, how high-level villains operate (likely secretly with large groups of lower level creatures), and what happens when that dragon walks up to that town.