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PeterWeller posted:It was -1 to all rolls in 2E. Also, their cool gear melted. That's the penalty in the weird 2.5ish Skills and Powers book. The Drow from the 2e Complete Book of Elves have harsher penalties. In any light greater than torches or Continual Light (which includes "bright sunlight"), they get -2 Dex, -2 to Attack, and opponents get +2 to save against their spells. If they're away from the Underdark for two weeks (they can be underground / inside and still be away from the underdark), they lose one special power per day starting with the most powerful, and lose their magic resistance at some high rate like 10%/day. They also have to get 20% more xp to level up, and all their cool gear melts. It's downright dickish to Drow, but most players I knew at the time who wanted to be a Drow were powergaming dicks. So balance, I guess?
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Sep 21, 2013 00:07
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AlphaDog posted:That's the penalty in the weird 2.5ish Skills and Powers book. Like I said, you have to make sacrifices if you want to be Drizzt. Speaking of, I read The Companions. I, of course, enjoyed it, especially because it brought the band back together. It sets up a lot of villains across the Realms, and leaves me wondering if Netheril will survive the Sundering. All in all, more evidence that 5E FR is Ultimate Realms.
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Sep 21, 2013 03:29
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I haven't been keeping up, is there some sort of automated character creator for 5th Edition? Any good excel spreadsheet/program/website?
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Sep 21, 2013 05:38
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Fozzy The Bear posted:I haven't been keeping up, is there some sort of automated character creator for 5th Edition? Any good excel spreadsheet/program/website? Definitely not. Since the game is still in playtesting, no one would put the effort in since the rules aren't final yet. That said, the playtest packet itself comes with a fillable pdf character sheet. I've always found those convenient.
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Sep 21, 2013 07:39
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What do you guys think of Rogues in this packet? Their combat prowess seems kinda lovely since they're the only non-caster to not get an Extra Attack. I guess the idea is that their big sneak attack dice make up for that. At least now they're attacking at full 'proficiency' I guess? Also the Assassination Rogue Style's Infiltration Expertise and Impostor are hella 
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Sep 21, 2013 08:00
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I'd lost of this thread for a couple of months, but it sounds like the last play test rules don't sound that bad?
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Sep 21, 2013 08:01
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The last couple of packets have been just meh rather than outright terrible.
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Sep 21, 2013 08:08
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Dick Burglar posted:What do you guys think of Rogues in this packet? Their combat prowess seems kinda lovely since they're the only non-caster to not get an Extra Attack. I guess the idea is that their big sneak attack dice make up for that. At least now they're attacking at full 'proficiency' I guess? They were already pretty terrible to play as in the early levels last packet. They are literally using the same HP base/progression as the Wizard in both packets.
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Sep 21, 2013 09:00
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Comstar posted:I'd lost of this thread for a couple of months, but it sounds like the last play test rules don't sound that bad? Though I've not read them myself, my understanding is that they're "better, but still not 'good'"
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Sep 21, 2013 09:13
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I would characterize the recent playtest packets as half-assed 13th Age. I've played a barbarian in both systems and they are almost identical in combat. If you took out the "story game" and 4e elements from 13A, they would be nearly identical. I guess it's poetic that they are ripping off their bastard children. It's not a bad game, it's actually pretty good for my group because we've stopped playing full casters entirely. It's still not enough to get me to purchase it for 100 bucks and switch from my currently played edition of D&D. Rosalind posted:No other edition, as far as I'm aware of, have this much of a negative trait for drow sunlight sensitivity. Other editions had it, sure, but it's never been this extreme. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 10:00 on Sep 21, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 09:57
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Babylon Astronaut posted:It's fine. What the harsh penalties are for is that Drow wandering around outside the Underdark is supposed to be rare. You really shouldn't play them outside of an Underdark-centric campaign. Or the game could leave it up to individual GMs to decide what races they want to allow at the table rather than using pass-agg penalties to "teach" players how to have proper D&D fun but what the hell do I know?
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Sep 21, 2013 10:09
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That's legit, but we're talking about D&D with its cache of old, pointless tropes. Personally I'd say pick an ability score, give it +2 and call yourself whatever the hell you want, but they have to tie mechanics and fluff together a bit more than I would like. The default Drow role is either evil child stealing elves that come out at night from their underground kingdom, or a protagonist in adventures in said underground kingdom. D&D has never been about enabling free-form character generation, it has always been pick a role, then play it. Reskinning is cool, homebrewing whatever kind of fantasy creature you want to be is cool, but neither is going to sell forty dollar hardcovers with Dungeons and Dragons on the cover. "Just do what you want" is never going to be part of the core product. In short: verisimilitude Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 11:03 on Sep 21, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 10:51
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Babylon Astronaut posted:That's legit, but we're talking about D&D with its cache of old, pointless tropes. Personally I'd say pick an ability score, give it +2 and call yourself whatever the hell you want, but they have to tie mechanics and fluff together a bit more than I would like. You can still tie your mechanics and fluff together in a way that isn't really stupid, it's not like asking someone to conjure up a unified field equation. They don't "have" to do this particular thing, nobody's pointing a gun to their heads, the implementation is dumb and there are better alternatives. Some of them were posted here in this thread. quote:The default Drow role is either evil child stealing elves that come out at night from their underground kingdom, or a protagonist in adventures in said underground kingdom. D&D has never been about enabling free-form character generation, it has always been pick a role, then play it. Correct me if I'm wrong but Drizzt is pretty much the most famous Drow and maybe the most famous D&D thing ever to exist and while I haven't ever actually read the novels my impression is they aren't full of Drizzt staying underground all the time except for when he goes out onto the surface and consequently whiffs every attack he makes because the sun's in his eyes. And those stories sell a lot more copies than any 40 dollar D&D hardcover ever has. So 
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Sep 21, 2013 12:59
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"You can't play what is bar none the most popular character to ever come out of D&D" does not entirely make for a good sales technique. It would, however, please the grognards.
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Sep 21, 2013 13:53
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Comstar posted:I'd lost of this thread for a couple of months, but it sounds like the last play test rules don't sound that bad? We've been "running Next" for the past 4 sessions, but the adventure - Murder in Baldur's Gate - is so system neutral it's hard to make a solid analysis of the rules in play.
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Sep 21, 2013 14:48
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It turns out Barbarian Rage had a stealth nerf in addition to the stated changes. It now ends early at the end of your turn if you have not taken any damage since your last turn. DM is spreading out the attacks and the couple guys on you missed? Too bad.
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Sep 21, 2013 17:36
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Yeah because when I get mad I know I calm down after just 6 seconds unless I get wounded. Who can possibly stay angry at people trying to kill you for longer than a few seconds?
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Sep 21, 2013 17:44
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Kai Tave posted:ACorrect me if I'm wrong but Drizzt is pretty much the most famous Drow and maybe the most famous D&D thing ever to exist and while I haven't ever actually read the novels my impression is they aren't full of Drizzt staying underground all the time except for when he goes out onto the surface and consequently whiffs every attack he makes because the sun's in his eyes. And those stories sell a lot more copies than any 40 dollar D&D hardcover ever has. So The earlier novels do make a point of his light sensitivity, but he's never crippled bt it. But gently caress you for wanting to play him, munchkin! 
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Sep 21, 2013 17:56
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Comstar posted:I'd lost of this thread for a couple of months, but it sounds like the last play test rules don't sound that bad? It's okay. It's kind of like AD&D+, at this point; it's playable, and it certainly looks like D&D, but it has no clear sense of direction and it's still full of bad math, weird unpolished bits and things that make you go "Wait, what the hell?".
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Sep 21, 2013 21:45
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:It's okay. It's kind of like AD&D+, at this point; it's playable, and it certainly looks like D&D, but it has no clear sense of direction and it's still full of bad math, weird unpolished bits and things that make you go "Wait, what the hell?". I'm a bit of a newbie to tabletop rpgs, but wasn't AD&D not playtested? Which would make comparing it to the playtested new edition...well, have interesting implications about the quality.
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Sep 22, 2013 00:32
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isndl posted:It turns out Barbarian Rage had a stealth nerf in addition to the stated changes. It now ends early at the end of your turn if you have not taken any damage since your last turn. DM is spreading out the attacks and the couple guys on you missed? Too bad. That's actually a buff. It now ends if you didn't take damage OR attacked a creature. It used to just end if you didn't attack.
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Sep 22, 2013 02:18
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PeterWeller posted:Like I said, you have to make sacrifices if you want to be Drizzt. Kai Tave posted:Correct me if I'm wrong but Drizzt is pretty much the most famous Drow and maybe the most famous D&D thing ever to exist and while I haven't ever actually read the novels my impression is they aren't full of Drizzt staying underground all the time except for when he goes out onto the surface and consequently whiffs every attack he makes because the sun's in his eyes. And those stories sell a lot more copies than any 40 dollar D&D hardcover ever has. So It's been a long time since I read those books, but I want to say that Drizzt's ranger-god lifted the (worst of?) the penalties shortly after he first emerged onto the surface world, because he knew Drizzt was ~such a nice guy~?
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Sep 22, 2013 02:34
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PleasingFungus posted:It's been a long time since I read those books, but I want to say that Drizzt's ranger-god lifted the (worst of?) the penalties shortly after he first emerged onto the surface world, because he knew Drizzt was ~such a nice guy~? From what I remember it wasn't even that - he just like, blinked a few times, and after one or two days he was fine. Light blindness should only really effect drow when they immediately emerge in the sunlight after using their super elf vision or whatever. The fact that a drow who is born above ground and literally never goes into the Underdark is still blind in daylight is bizarre at best. D&D fiction is filled to the brim with above ground living drow because, well, drow are really popular. I get that disallowing that is "traditional" because D&D is nothing if not really terrible at advertising itself, but "traditional" does not equate to "smart" or "good." Again, imagine a product that advertised itself on "And, you can't actually play the most popular character(s) in this setting without taking huge penalties forever!" Can you think of any other industry that would run that?
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Sep 22, 2013 03:08
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ProfessorCirno posted:From what I remember it wasn't even that - he just like, blinked a few times, and after one or two days he was fine. D&D is still getting over "certain races are only good at certain things." When I was working on an eladrin concept the other day for 4E it was kind of stunning how few classes they are actually a good fit for in the RAW. This is a race that traces directly back to Tolkien.
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Sep 22, 2013 03:14
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ritorix posted:That's actually a buff. It now ends if you didn't take damage OR attacked a creature. It used to just end if you didn't attack. Had they had used 'and' instead of 'or', I would agree. But as written it means that if either clause is true, your Rage ends. Just another one of those cases where RAW and RAI disagree.
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Sep 22, 2013 03:26
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Wouldn't the use of AND mean that, to maintain a rage, you had to both attack and take damage each turn? Because that seems far worse.
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Sep 22, 2013 03:44
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No, because their phrasing is that Rage ends if conditions are met. The exact wording:quote:Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early at the end of your turn if you have taken no damage since your last turn or if you haven’t attacked a creature since then.
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Sep 22, 2013 03:48
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Covok posted:I'm a bit of a newbie to tabletop rpgs, but wasn't AD&D not playtested? Which would make comparing it to the playtested new edition...well, have interesting implications about the quality. The sense I get from AD&D is actually the opposite--that it came about from play more than it did from design. It's basically OD&D with a bunch of weird house rules tacked on. AD&D is just weird because they were just transitioning from that "oh hey, we found something that is really fun--let's perfect the fun things about it" phase to the "oh wow, RPGs have limitless possibilities--let's encourage roleplaying by forcing players to spend a month of in-game time training outside of the campaign every time they want to gain a level" phase.
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Sep 22, 2013 03:55
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ProfessorCirno posted:"You can't play what is bar none the most popular character to ever come out of D&D" does not entirely make for a good sales technique. Who knows, maybe there's a feat called "Surface Drow" or something that lowers the penalty, or negates it. quote:Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early at the end of your turn if you have taken no damage since your last turn or if you haven’t attacked a creature since then. This wording is pretty explicit that it end if 1) You have taken no damage OR 2) You haven't attacked a creature. Not both, that would use AND wording.
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Sep 22, 2013 05:09
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When you are raging, if you haven't taken damage since your last turn, you must attack a creature during your turn, otherwise your rage will end at the end of your turn. In any case, the maximum duration of your rage is one minute (10 rounds). It isn't that hard, Wizards. Edit: I still don't understand why they would even want the "Take damage during your turn" condition.
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Sep 22, 2013 06:38
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DalaranJ posted:Edit: I still don't understand why they would even want the "Take damage during your turn" condition. It's not damage during your turn, it's since your last. It's a way to make it so that you can do support poo poo during your turn instead of attacking if you were hit before your turn began.
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Sep 22, 2013 06:51
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Namagem posted:It's not damage during your turn, it's since your last. It's a way to make it so that you can do support poo poo during your turn instead of attacking if you were hit before your turn began. Ah, yes. Potions require a standard action in this system.
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Sep 22, 2013 07:04
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I just want to say, going to other forums and watching the same people that demanded 3e style multiclassing now hate it for the same reason they wanted it is absolutely amazing. I mean they still demand it; they just don't want the "wrong people" benefiting from it. Free open easy access multiclassing for RP reasons: mandatory. Free open easy access multiclassing for gaming reasons: the worst thing in gaming ever, must be stopped at all costs. The difference between these two:
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Sep 22, 2013 08:27
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ProfessorCirno posted:The difference between these two: The only moral multiclassing is my multiclassing.
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Sep 22, 2013 12:53
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OtspIII posted:The sense I get from AD&D is actually the opposite--that it came about from play more than it did from design. It's basically OD&D with a bunch of weird house rules tacked on. Maybe it wasn't AD&D then, maybe it was a different edition. I just remember hearing that one of the editions wasn't playtested due to an insane owner's regulations. ProfessorCirno posted:I just want to say, going to other forums and watching the same people that demanded 3e style multiclassing now hate it for the same reason they wanted it is absolutely amazing. I mean they still demand it; they just don't want the "wrong people" benefiting from it. If they wanted open access multiclassing for RP reasons, couldn't they just say they had experience with that other class in their background story? If they want to play a wizard who has some prior experience as a thief, couldn't they just say they do and bring it up from time to time? Maybe put some of their skill points in thief skills like sleight of hand and stealth? I mean I can understand wanting that to have mechanical weight, but, if you go too far with it, game balance issues are inevitable. It's hard enough as it is to balance one class roughly against another in a trpg. Making it so a humongous number of possible class combinations exist essentially makes it impossible to ensure rough balance. Maybe not at launch day, but a few weeks down the line when everyone knows the uber character combinations.
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Sep 22, 2013 15:57
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Covok posted:Maybe it wasn't AD&D then, maybe it was a different edition. I just remember hearing that one of the editions wasn't playtested due to an insane owner's regulations. AD&D 2e was fabled for having playtesting banned because it was thought of as just playing during work hours. quote:If they wanted open access multiclassing for RP reasons, couldn't they just say they had experience with that other class in their background story? If they want to play a wizard who has some prior experience as a thief, couldn't they just say they do and bring it up from time to time? Maybe put some of their skill points in thief skills like sleight of hand and stealth? And this is why they hate 3e multiclassing, because they know how open it is for abuse. But they also demand it, because 3e is "their D&D" and by god they must stick with it come hell or high water.
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Sep 22, 2013 16:03
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ProfessorCirno posted:From what I remember it wasn't even that - he just like, blinked a few times, and after one or two days he was fine. Nah, it's a much bigger deal than that. It's a reoccuring issue throughout the Icewind Dale trilogy, and in the Dark Elf trilogy, he spends about a month adjusting to it when he first gets to the surface, and doesn't really learn how to deal with the problems it causes until he gets trained by Montolio. It doesn't come up anymore in the Legacy of the Drow series, but that takes place almost entirely in the Underdark. To be clear, just because it's a deal for my favorite guilty pleasure, doesn't mean I think it should be a deal for your PC.
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Sep 22, 2013 18:27
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Yeah, that kind of thing works fine when you're reading about a dude's fish out of water experience. It also works fine in a game when it's everyone's fish out of water experience. But if you have one guy suffering severe disadvantages in bright light and everyone else trucking along fine then either the drow player is going to be useless in a decent chunk of scenarios or any campaign with a drow player is going to be all about minimising the inconvenience to Mr Drow. It's passive-aggressive "you're playing it wrong" design of the worst kind. You'd think their centuries-old culture would have invented sunglasses by now.
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Sep 22, 2013 18:38
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Splicer posted:Yeah, that kind of thing works fine when you're reading about a dude's fish out of water experience. It also works fine in a game when it's everyone's fish out of water experience. But if you have one guy suffering severe disadvantages in bright light and everyone else trucking along fine then either the drow player is going to be useless in a decent chunk of scenarios or any campaign with a drow player is going to be all about minimising the inconvenience to Mr Drow. It's passive-aggressive "you're playing it wrong" design of the worst kind. Project Ray-Ban ran into one fatal problem: they melt.
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Sep 22, 2013 19:29
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Races of the Dragon, pg 123 posted:Sundark Goggles: The smoked lenses of these goggles block light. They are typically fixed into a band of canvas that clasps together at the back to keep the goggles from falling off. Sundark goggles negate the dazzled condition experienced by a creature with light sensitivity while in bright illumination. As a side effect, they grant the wearer a +2 circumstance bonus on saving throws against gaze attacks. A creature wearing sundark goggles can't use a gaze attack, since other creatures can't see its eyes. Creatures without low-light vision or darkvision that wear sundark goggles take a -2 penalty on Search and Spot checks. For the low price of 10 gp, drow, kobolds, orcs and medusas can have fewer problems in their lives.
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Sep 22, 2013 19:44
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