Apples & Oranges (2024)

One of the gripes I have with the design of 5e is how incongruous it is.

The example that immediately jumps off the page to me is how armor progression is essentially attribute-based for light armor users (or unarmored builds), but is money/loot-based for heavy armor users. Would it be so undesirable to just have heavy armor AC improve with STR, the way light armor AC improves with DEX?

Likewise, I find this same problem when you compare (for example) an archery Fighter build vs. a Warlock eldritch blast build. Right off the bat, the Fighter has the clear advantage, from being able to take a +2 to hit with their fighting style, and already adding +DEX to ranged weapon damage -- whereas the Warlock needs to spend "class feature currency" to gain +CHA to their eldrtich blast damage, and no comparable way to increase their hit chance.

Where the Warlock pulls ahead, is the fact that they deal force damage right out of the gate; again, the ability to deal "magical" weapon damage, or non-mundane types of damage as a Fighter comes down to loot... which in itself either comes down to plot contrivance (in the case of a published adventure) or outright DM fiat. At levels where resistance to mundane weapon damage becomes more ubiquitous, a Fighter without an appropriate magical weapon will see their damage fall off substanstially.

The odd thing about it is, the solution is already in the game, in other places; as a 6th level Monk, "your unarmed strikes count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage." A rogue with the Soulknife archetype can deal psychic damage basically at will, from 3rd level. Likewise for Paladins, "By 11th level [...] Whenever you hit a creature with a melee weapon, the creature takes an extra 1d8 radiant damage" in addition to the push-button radiant damage they can do with Divine Smite, or other types of magical damage they can deal with their buff spells. It's also pretty easy for Wizards or Sorcerers to have at least two different "flavours" of damage from their cantrips alone.

The question I find myself asking is, what is the point of this type of design?
We saw some steps forward with 4e, such as making sneak attack not care about the anatomy of your target in order for it to work. And the distinction between piercing/bludgeoning/slashing weapons had more to do with qualifying for feats than resistance/immunity. But at later levels, this cat-and-mouse game started to creep in, where ongoing damage started at 5 and resistance started at 3, with both scaling up over the tiers of play. We also see this kind of thing in Diablo 2, where after a certain point in the patch history, all paladins became spellcasters because dealing magical damage was more effective than buffing your sword swings -- and that's to say nothing of the fact that Diablo games are fundamentally about gathering more and better loot, whereas (in my opinion) D&D should not be.

I guess at the core of my meanderings is this opinion: it doesn't work. Designing some classes (and their progression) around their attributes and class features, while others are effectively designed around the loot they find...? It doesn't work for TTRPGs. You need to pick a lane in terms of your designs, and stick with it; if a class fundamentally can't function without specific loot or gear, then those items need to be made into class features instead. And if you're going to build a resistance/immunity mini-game into your combat, it's probably best done as a mechanism by which you allow one party member to shine; the double-edged sword with that is you essentially pigeon-hole your designs around the assumption that all parties must be composed a certain way, or there will be enemies they either can't win against, or will struggle a lot harder to deal with.

This is why TNP has always been built around the concept that "all damage is created equal." This helps with a lot of the abstraction, including things like base damage dice; whether a Fighter is dealing 1d6 damage with a shortsword or a quarterstaff or a scimitar is irrelevant. When looking back at my previous designs, added damage types created additional effects, such as poison damage ignoring damage reduction from armor, or cold damage causing penalties to speed and initiative; I think this is a lot better way to handle this sort of concept, within a table-top setting.

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Next post is due up on May 5th, so check back then for more!