Dungeons & Dragons

In case you were wondering what kind of impact playtesters can have on 3rd Edition, here is an example of playtester feedback and the resulting changes to the rules document. What you're seeing here is the "before" and "after" versions of the rules. Sandwiched in between is the excerpt from the playtesters' report that helped convince us to make the change.

Early this year we sent out a draft of the system for awarding experience points—the cornerstone of what has turned into Chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, which deals with the topic of "Rewards." The draft contained a big table that summarized the XP values for defeating monsters of various Challenge Ratings, depending on the average level of the PCs in the party. What we wanted, first and foremost, was feedback on how accurate the numbers were.

David Darnell went farther, giving us some advice to try to make sure we didn’t overlook any of the ways that a PC might be able to earn experience points:

"I like the system you sent me as far as it goes. What do you mean by defeat? Must PCs kill monsters to get XP? Does completing their mission while avoiding the monsters count as "defeating" them? I do give XP for the monsters in a setting (both killing and avoiding) and try to set up the number and power levels to give a good challenge to the PCs. I usually give less for avoiding a monster than slaying it, but your average PC lives longer by avoiding combat once in a while. I feel D&D is a roleplaying game, not just a combat/strategy game. So I usually give XPs for good roleplaying and for adding to the group’s fun while staying in character."

David’s concerns are fully addressed in Chapter 7 of the DMG, which contains a section of about 1,000 words on the subject of "story awards"—ways in which PCs can earn experience points without necessarily defeating, or even encountering, monsters.

Because it’s impossible to quantify the situations in which "story award" or "roleplaying award" XPs might be given out, we can’t write rules to dictate exactly how a DM should handle this type of reward. But we do advise DMs to encourage their players to do more with their characters than just have them run around the countryside fighting every monster of NPC they meet.

This installment of "Playtesters at Work" is different from all the ones that have come before it, because in this case David Darnell's feedback has to do with the new version of the DUNGEON MASTER's Guide.

A select few of the groups that playtested the Player's Handbook were also given a draft of the DMG to look at. That book isn't as rules-intensive as the Player's Handbook, but of course it's still important to get all the details right. Following are a couple of small observations from David's group that alerted the design team to the need for a little fine tuning.

Observation from David Darnell’s playtest group:

"In the second chapter in the section on NPC classes: Under the Adept table in the description of Spells per Day you say 'Bonus spells for adepts are based on Wisdom.' But under Class Features, the last sentence reads: 'Bonus spells are based on Intelligence."

"I think Wisdom makes more sense. Which is correct?"

"Also in the second chapter under Advancing Levels, you've written: 'A character in the desert can learn swimming (unless she spends time at an oasis).' I believe that should be can't or can not learn swimming. :-)"

From the revised rules:

Of course, David's feedback is right on both counts.

Bonus spells for an adept are indeed based on Wisdom, not Intelligence. The contradiction in the text was fixed.

And, concerning swimming in the desert: This is the sort of mistake that can be difficult to catch during proofreading. Even though the difference between "can" and "can't" is only one letter and an apostrophe, the difference in meaning is considerably larger than that. The relevant piece of text in the DMG now reads as follows:

"According to the rules in the Player's Handbook, characters pick up a new skills and feats as they go up in levels. In your campaign, however, you can require that a character can't learn a new skill or feat that he hasn't been exposed to. For example, a character in the desert can't learn swimming unless he spends time at an oasis."

The preliminary version of the design draft contained rules for how to adjust a character's ability scores as the character got older. As you can tell from the comment David Darnell's group sent in, some of the information was contradictory and thus confusing.

Observation from David Darnell’s playtest group:

At the bottom of page 10 of 14 in chapter 7 it says: "When he reaches old age, his physical abilities all drop, while Intelligence and Wisdom increase again." The line for old age on the next page reads: "**-2 Str, -2 Dex, -1 Con, +1 Wis." Which of these are correct-does Intelligence go up or not at "Old Age"?

From the revised rules:

The system for adjusting ability scores to account for advancing age is now simpler and more sensible.When a character reaches middle age, all of his or her physical ability scores (Str, Dex, Con) decrease by 1 point, and his or her mental ability scores (Int, Wis, Cha) increase by 1 point. At old age, physical scores are decreased by 2 more points and mental scores again increased by 1. When a character reaches venerable age (70 years for a human, for instance), physical ability scores decrease by another 3 points and mental scores increase by another 1 point.)

As a racial benefit, humans were given an extra 4 skill points during character creation.

(This rule was designed to take into account the fact that humans are more versatile than members of other races, and was meant to induce players to create human characters when otherwise they might have chosen to create a character of some other race.)

Observation from David Darnell’s playtest group:

"We feel that humans do not get enough bonuses to make up for what the nonhumans get—the system is slanted toward nonhumans. We feel that if humans received 2 extra skills at 1st (above what they get now) and an extra skill every 3 levels, that would make up for what they lose by not being nonhuman."

From the revised rules:

As racial benefits, humans now receive the following:

1 extra feat at 1st level, because humans are quick to master specialized tasks and varied in their talents.

4 extra skill points at 1st level and 1 extra skill point at each additional level, since humans are versatile and capable.

(This change isn’t exactly what David’s group suggested we do, but it does accomplish the same goal—making human characters balanced in relation to characters of other races, and giving players a couple more good reasons to play a human rather than a nonhuman.)