Thursday, May 17, 2012

A Curious Answer...

The good folks at Wizards hosted a live chat on Weds to talk about 5e.

Here's a quote from Mike Mearls that made me scratch my head:


11:04
Mearls: 
Hmmm... let's see. I've been DMing mostly, and the rules have changed a lot over the past few days. Probably the funniest thing was guest starring as a librarian in a playtest game at DDXP. Also, I got to test the DR rules when the players had to cut open a dead wererat's stomach to find a gem it had swallowed. That was not how I expected to test those rules.

OK, I've highlighted the part that seems strange to me.

Are they actually rolling dice to see if some character can cut open the stomach of a rat?  Are they actually rolling dice to see if they can find the gem that is inside said rat?

Whaaaaa?

I'd love to know more.  I must be missing something here...

14 comments:

Aaron E. Steele said...

It's a puzzlement, to be sure. 5E is sounding less and less appealing to me.

burnedfx said...

More baffling to me is that they HAD to cut open the stomach.

Shouldn't the players have a say?

Pontifex said...

Why the hell do you need to make rolls to cut open a dead opponent's stomach. Unless it is a fucking dragon or something, there should never be a problem cutting open the stomach of a dead enemy. What kind of game are you playing in where the GM makes you roll to do this? Damn.....

Color me puzzled as well.

Tenkar said...

it's a painful chat to read ;)

it could be something to do with the system having auto successes, but maybe mike had to set a DR number to see if they could surpass the number needed for auto success.

or it could have been a testing of the Dire Rat rating system - too early to tell ;)

James Maliszewski said...

Doesn't "DR" mean "damage reduction" or something similar in WotC D&D? Or is this a new coinage unique to 5e?

Tenkar said...

i'm guessing Difficulty Rating James.

or Dramatic Rating...

or Dysentery Rating...

Anonymous said...

>>5E is sounding less and less appealing to me.

It's WotC making it. That should have been a dead give away.

Anonymous said...

As James says, DR is Damage Reduction. (At least in Pathfinder, so from 3/3.5). Maybe they were rolling damage to beat the armor on the dead wererat, which is they way I might have done it when I was twelve and DMing for the first time.

Wow. The nostalgia of it all!

But, yeah non of that makes sense to me. Even if it does make sense MM's inability to communicate that is worrisome.

Anonymous said...

As others have noted, DR stood for Damage Reduction in 3e, and I believe in 4e as well. (I don't know where my 4e books are, so I can't check...) For those unfamiliar with the mechanic, DR is what replaced "can only be hit by silver (or magical or whatever) weapons". In the case of wererats and other lycanthropes, they ignore a good deal of the damage from each hit unless it comes from a silver weapon. So I suspect that what Mearls is talking about is requiring someone to roll damage while trying to cut open a dead wererat with a non-silver weapon (because they have to do enough damage to beat the DR) rather than just letting them do it automatically. It's an odd ruling, to be sure (I'd rule that the magic that causes the DR goes away when the lycanthrope dies), but not a totally nonsensical one. And I seriously doubt that they HAD to cut open the stomach, but they probably wanted to, to get at the gem. After all, wouldn't you?

burnedfx said...

@morganmay

And I seriously doubt that they HAD to cut open the stomach, but they probably wanted to, to get at the gem. After all, wouldn't you?

That's not what he said and I don't believe I'm being nit-picky. If he can not be clear about a simple example, how can he possibly be clear about anything else?

This is not an isolated incident.

SAROE already put this much more eloquently: Even if it does make sense MM's inability to communicate that is worrisome.

Anthony Simeone said...

I think everyone is hanging on MM's every word with these chats and such. Let's all just wait a couple more days for the playtest to start, and we can all stop guessing and start playing...

burnedfx said...

Drance, you're such a killjoy. ;]

Erin Smale said...

Dude. It's like "Isle of Dread" all over again.

Jim said...

@Erin -- now I have to go re-read Isle of Dread to see what you mean... :)