|
Lord Twisted posted:Wow this thread is more negative than I thought it would be! I wanted to ask for a recommendation from people who've done the plastering and stuff for this. You might like Legend. IIRC, it started off as 3.5 houserules before the guys doing it realized they had enough to make a book themselves. I've never had a chance to play it, but I read through it a couple years ago and liked what I saw. A lot of fiddly, complicated stuff got simplified, and casters aren't any more powerful than the other classes.
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 12:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 21:39 |
|
|
Lord Twisted posted:Wow this thread is more negative than I thought it would be! I wanted to ask for a recommendation from people who've done the plastering and stuff for this. fwiw, despite odd decisions on the part of the designers, and some...interesting...math, I really have enjoyed everything I've played in 5e so far. I think a lot of the griping that's going on is due to a couple key reasons. 1) SA loves 4e generally, and while it also has its drawbacks and high points in design, a lot of the 5e/Next development felt needlessly dismissive of all those legitimate progressions in 4e. 2) A lot of posters were (rightfully) hoping that 5e would push D&D beyond where its been before, taking elements of AD&D, 2e, 3.x, and 4e and creating something new and interesting. Instead we've gotten something closer to a retro homage akin to the Mustang redesign in 04. It's new and interesting, but feels more like things we've done before than something new and original. Many I think see it as a huge missed opportunity. I remain pretty positive about this edition despite its flaws, combat is quick and fun (they got rid of dumb rules like sheathing taking an action), Advantage/Disadvantage is a very elegant mechanic, skills are simplified and proficiency is a neat idea. I'm incredibly curious about Concentration for casters and its effects in gameplay, and there's a surprising amount of 4e to be found but its "seasoning" rather than the "meat" of the design. Finally they seem to be pushing feats into the area I always felt it should've been: legit options for changing how your class might play or react to given situations, rather than just a +1 with longswords. There's some weird math, questionable class balance (insofar as wizards serve a broader, less well-defined role in 5 than in 4), but you don't need perfect maths to have an enjoyable game. At the very least you could spend $12 to pickup the starter set and give the included adventure a whirl. edit: slight grammar and clarity treeboy fucked around with this message at 12:52 on Jul 15, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 12:47
|
|
|
Nihilarian posted:started off as 3.5, A lot of fiddly, complicated stuff got simplified, and casters aren't any more powerful than the other classes.  Math Team and over 175,000 fans of D&D?
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 13:13
|
|
|
so i'm already considering homebrewing a Fighter Archetype which would focus more on tanking/warlording than the 3 that are apparently in the PHB (Champion, Weapon Master, Eldritch Knight). I was thinking mechanics centering around mark-like abilities (no full on taunt, but punish monsters that ignore you), and granting extra reactions to other players might be cool. The only thing holding me back from at least laying conceptual groundwork is the fact that they've said dick about what kinds of options feats grant you in customizing your gameplay experience. At least one of the playtests had some pretty beefy martial feats. edit: for instance, the latest public playtest had "Tactical Warrior" as an option, but there's no telling if that survived as a feat or is planned for future class options. It'd be nice if they at least gave us a list of feats or something. treeboy fucked around with this message at 13:47 on Jul 15, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 13:39
|
|
|
mirthdefect posted:Does anyone have a copy of the starter set who isn't in North America? I'm in NZ and everything got pushed back (as of this morning, the 15th) to the 25th. Book Depository (UK) has it listed as available but not being actually published until the 25th. Australian websites still seem to be listing it as a pre-order but often with no date attached. The game came out today in AUS (multiple places in Melbourne had it). None of the WoTC places had it till today. Played the first part of the adventure. The cleric was man of the match, constantly hitting when the fighter, mage and thief would all miss, and when they would hit, the cleric would roll max damage that round instead. Both her spells were needed to heal the thief from 0 hp. Hopefully part 2 will involve some role playing with NPC's and some operational choices. It took 90 minutes or so to make characters from scratch as we read the rulebook, and finished the final fight of the 1st part in 3.5 hours. One of us was completely new to roleplaying, and I don't think the 1st part is a particularly good introduction though 
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 14:04
|
|
|
Yeah, my FLGS opened up specially for today. Cleared out most of the cave in the adventure with everyone seemingly happy running pre-made characters. Wizards are cool and it's fun to finally be that guy who ends every encounter early. Never getting a chance to rest however made it obvious how sucky cantrips are. Going to get a longbow asap. Edit: oh yeah, and DM was rolling all monster damage dice. Gets brutal fast. Cassa fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Jul 15, 2014 |
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 14:11
|
|
|
Cleric was MVP of the playthrough here in the PBP forums, so the C of CoDZilla seems well in place.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 14:18
|
|
|
Littlefinger posted:That sounds suspiciously like D&D Next. Are you saying that these guys just outnexted D&D Next in their free time, as a hobby project and without the help of a fabled
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 14:25
|
|
|
To be fair the Cleric there was pure luck. But Clerics are a good class though nowhere near as powerful as they used to be.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 15:14
|
|
|
i think the most frustrating part of this whole thing is the gradual drip of their rollout. I just want the loving PHB so i can start to piece together a campaign then bitch and moan about the lack of DM support and Monster variety
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 15:19
|
|
|
Comstar posted:It took 90 minutes or so to make characters from scratch as we read the rulebook, Hold on, what? This was a part of the game that I thought Next would surely improve over 3rd/4th. What took so long?
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 15:48
|
|
|
DalaranJ posted:Hold on, what? This was a part of the game that I thought Next would surely improve over 3rd/4th. What took so long? My guess is custom Backgrounds.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 16:05
|
|
|
Lord Twisted posted:I want something more focused on roleplay and not hideously slow combats like 4e. The basic ruleset seemed cool and fairly simple. However I saw people talking about Pathfinder - how easy is that to pick up seeming as me and my players have only ever played 4e? Is it cheaper/less complex/better supported?
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 16:40
|
|
|
DalaranJ posted:Hold on, what? This was a part of the game that I thought Next would surely improve over 3rd/4th. What took so long?
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 16:58
|
|
|
DalaranJ posted:Hold on, what? This was a part of the game that I thought Next would surely improve over 3rd/4th. What took so long?
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 17:05
|
|
|
Thanks for the help guys. Dungeon world looks pretty fun and simple so we might try that!
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 17:15
|
|
|
treeboy posted:fwiw, despite odd decisions on the part of the designers, and some...interesting...math, I really have enjoyed everything I've played in 5e so far. I think a lot of the griping that's going on is due to a couple key reasons.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 17:36
|
|
|
And a few more tweets:quote:@ChameleonX4d : Is Eldritch Knight Fighter in PHB? Does it get actual spells/spell slots? Is it restricted to melee like the 4e Swordmage?
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 17:44
|
|
|
What kind of stuff did the ~consultants~ veto?
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 17:44
|
|
|
Lord Twisted posted:Thanks for the help guys. Dungeon world looks pretty fun and simple so we might try that!
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 17:47
|
|
|
Lord Twisted posted:Thanks for the help guys. Dungeon world looks pretty fun and simple so we might try that! To be honest, much as I like 4e, anything I can do in that system can be done with greater simplicity and ease in DW. Then trying 5e after playing in DW for a few months was like getting punched in the face with tedium and poor balance. Doubt my friends & I will bother with D&D in any form again (still like 4e for pbp though).
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 18:36
|
|
|
Generic Octopus posted:To be honest, much as I like 4e, anything I can do in that system can be done with greater simplicity and ease in DW. Then trying 5e after playing in DW for a few months was like getting punched in the face with tedium and poor balance. Doubt my friends & I will bother with D&D in any form again (still like 4e for pbp though). Did you use the latest rules for 5e?
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 18:39
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:Did you use the latest rules for 5e? Yes.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 18:42
|
|
|
So it seems the first set of minis is being released today along with the general release of the Starter Set.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 20:10
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:To be fair the Cleric there was pure luck. But Clerics are a good class though nowhere near as powerful as they used to be. What? Sorry, were you there? I just see you dropping one-line disagreements all over this thread and it's not clear to me that you were at either of the playtests being discussed where the Cleric was the MVP. If you weren't there, how the hell do you come in here saying poo poo like that? We get that you like the game but you don't have to unskew the playtest reports for us. We're not babies - we know that it's just a couple of anecdotes and we can draw our own conclusions without your speculative non-contributions. If you were there, and you were simply stating what you witnessed, then I'm sorry for accusing you like this. My bad.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 21:23
|
|
|
Was talking about thisquote:game came out today in AUS (multiple places in Melbourne had it). None of the WoTC places had it till today. This was largely due to luck. He was hitting and getting max damage all the time. I had a similar case in my game (but it was the Rogue instead.)
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 21:37
|
|
|
DalaranJ posted:Hold on, what? This was a part of the game that I thought Next would surely improve over 3rd/4th. What took so long? Choosing customer backgrounds mostly, and having to read the rules on what skill/weapon/armour/spell X does. Now that I'm familiar with the rules making a character (and having a copy of the basic rules for myself, we needed another copy printed out) I would expect it would take probably about 20 to 30 minutes. I choose the pre-packaged equipment list's, which still take a bit of time to write it all down. The time would cut to 10 minutes if there was an online program to fill in all the details for you. The Cleric was MVP also for having the highest armour class in the party (the fighter was playing as a barbarian with a big axe, so didn't have the +2AC from a shield) and was actually using the dwarf cleric from the pre-made characters, as she was totally new to roleplaying. The fighter would often charge in (like any good barbarian would) and go very low in hits, and the cleric would still be standing there unhit and swinging her warhammer and rolling 20's, 8's and seeing goblins fail their dodge roll from her cantrip. The Godz were on her side the entire way. I really need to get the spells printed on cards, having to look up the rule book every time for "what does spell Y do" was very time consuming. I would buy spell cards from WoTC in a heartbeat.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 22:36
|
|
|
Oh lordy. Just got the starter set. Spells in stat blocks need to die in a fire. There's too drat many monsters with them.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 22:49
|
|
|
Yeah, I got it as a slightly belated birthday present in the mail today. I'm going to run it on the forums, I think, just not sure in what format or how I should do applications since I want to use the pregens.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 23:29
|
|
|
RPZip posted:Yeah, I got it as a slightly belated birthday present in the mail today. I'm going to run it on the forums, I think, just not sure in what format or how I should do applications since I want to use the pregens.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 23:33
|
|
|
dwarf74 posted:Oh lordy. Just got the starter set. 3? Because there only appear to be 3 and two of them are just Wizards.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 23:39
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:3? Because there only appear to be 3 and two of them are just Wizards.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 23:44
|
|
|
What exactly do you mean by "spells in stat blocks?" Are you referring to the monster simply having spells or how it's formatted?
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 23:48
|
|
|
dwarf74 posted:Yes, 3/15 or whatever is too drat many. Hell, 1 is too drat many. 3 out of 26 Covok posted:What exactly do you mean by "spells in stat blocks?" Are you referring to the monster simply having spells or how it's formatted? The former I bet.
|
|
#
?
Jul 15, 2014 23:59
|
|
|
Covok posted:What exactly do you mean by "spells in stat blocks?" Are you referring to the monster simply having spells or how it's formatted? It's monsters having spells in their stat blocks so you have to go look-up the spells whenever you want to have the monster cast them. It's a big annoyance that inflates combat time because you have to flip through the book, especially if you don't have every spell and its basic function memorized so therefore you're not exactly sure which one you want to cast.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 00:01
|
|
|
It's Personally not a big deal to me (If you don't memorize them you can always write them down as well) as the ones in the starter set have pretty simple spells that are rather easy to remember. Besides there won't be nearly as many monsters with spells in the statblock as their used to be.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 00:07
|
|
|
I agree that it's bad design. It's not only bad, it's bad without a good reason to justify it. We've seen monster design that just replaces spells with monster abilities before, it's fast, easy, keeps the bloat of the spell block away from an entirely different bloat, and makes it easy for monsters to have custom spells. And the argument for the other side is generally "Well it's not that bad" or "You can always memorize the spells." It also leads to that unnecessary devotion to sensible monster design I can't stand. An enemy wizard designed to die in a fight only needs to have the few attacks he'll use that fight. Taking the time out to mention he can also cast Light and Heat Metal is wasteful. If you are designing an adventure where a factor of the story revolves around the enemy wizard being able to cast Light, he'll be able to, with no regard to if it's included in the book's spell list. So why bother? Just give him a missile-y thing, and a blasty thing, and a shieldy thing, as needed. The less flavor the better, so that it's easy to quickly reskin him from an ice wizard to a fire sorceror on the go.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 00:27
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:Besides there won't be nearly as many monsters with spells in the statblock as their used to be. What do you base this statement on?
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 00:44
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:Besides there won't be nearly as many monsters with spells in the statblock as their used to be. You have no way of knowing this. Listen, please. 5e is a bad game. This does not mean that you are bad for liking it, and it does not mean that people cannot have fun with it, but it is a bad game. It is poorly designed and written. Its math is hosed in all sorts of ways, and even if it wasn't it does nothing to assist the player in understanding the math, or the reasons things do things. Part of this is because a central tenet of its design is that things should "feel" right. They are not there for the purposes of balance, nor for any other reason other than that "they feel like they should be there." They may only feel this way to the developers, but since they do the developers believe that they can get away without explaining things, because if they could intuit them everyone else should too! In addition, the system reintroduces caster supremacy. You can argue all day about damage or spell slots or whatever, but the core thrust of it is that there's nothing that a wizard or a cleric can't do. They have so many more options than everyone else already, and we haven't even gotten the first actual book. This creates an imbalance in the amount that each player actually gets to play the game, and makes magic users the focus of the party, dictating when rests happen and why. This isn't even getting into the monster that this is to DM because of the weird design decisions, which the rest of the thread has gotten into just fine. It is for these reasons and others that this game isn't very good! It doesn't mean that you can't like it for what it is, it doesn't mean that you can't try to make it work, but arguing that it is well designed and being passive aggressive and saying "well I had fun playing a fighter" will not get anyone anywhere. Hope this helps!
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 00:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 21:39 |
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:Besides there won't be nearly as many monsters with spells in the statblock as their used to be. How could you possibly judge it from the playtest or the free basic rules or the starter set or the unerrata'd rulebook or the first round of errata? I'm sure the finished product will fix this stuff we really can't know and we have to wait and see.
|
|
#
?
Jul 16, 2014 00:47
|
|
