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I'm going to assume that more complete grid combat rules will be in the DMG, and then added in to the basic rules PDF, but the fact that we can't see anything until November (or October? I can't remember) is pretty lovely.
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Aug 11, 2014 20:45
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treeboy posted:"Adding traps to a dungeon that deal AoE damage" is not rebalancing the game. It's standard dungeon design, one that a company of skeletons will be triggering and eating the full brunt of as they brute force their way to the end. Yet again, the wizard gets to force the game to adapt to him better than anyone else. Who cares if the wizard got to the end of the dungeon with only a dozen skeletons and no surprise round. That's a ton of damage the party didn't take, and even with a dozen skeleton archers it's much more than a fighter can ever hope to affect the game world.
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Aug 11, 2014 20:45
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eth0.n posted:The mechanics of the skeleton army are still problematic. 44 d20 rolls per round is beyond dumb into hilarious. Yeah, I was assuming some basic houseruling to make mobs of ten or twenty skeletons for sanity's sake.
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Aug 11, 2014 20:46
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Don't worry guys the next module will have stats for a Swarm of Undead.
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Aug 11, 2014 20:48
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And introduce zombies, which are just like old skeletons but get advantage in packs.
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Aug 11, 2014 20:52
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moths posted:And introduce zombies, which are just like old skeletons but get advantage in packs. actually i believe Animate Dead can raise zombies as well, you'd just need a corpse instead of a bone pile
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Aug 11, 2014 20:53
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I was referencing how they replaced the broken rats they fixed with broken kobolds that have the same fault. 
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Aug 11, 2014 20:55
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ah...k Long Rest rules kind of prevent the wizard from doing this skeleton trick, especially ad nauseum. "A character can't benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period..." Assuming you have rested and have all your spells, you could summon 100 skeletons but not control them for more than a day, and you would be tapped for spells that day (plus whatever you recover from Arcane Recovery). I suppose you could potentially stay up for 25 hours after having rested, summon them, then rest and regain spells for 8hrs. But that would only work once since the skeletons must be re-controlled *before* their 24hr limit is up. If you spent the spells on doing other things then the skeletons would crumble or go bezerk or whatever they do when you don't control them. Also Animate Dead is specifically called out for being evil in the Basic rules.
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Aug 11, 2014 21:03
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Were I to do Necromancy in the context of 5E, it would be its own class, and basically be my Fighting Man but with undead followers, and blasty magic (but necro themed) instead of martial fighting. Getting that many minions, each with their own actions, plus the incredible magic a Wizard gets, is simply beyond absurd.
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Aug 11, 2014 21:05
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Skeleton ahead, therefore hurrah for skeleton!
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Aug 11, 2014 21:07
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Ok so a quick update on skeleton 101: The wizard can command infinite skeletons under his control with his bonus action, so ordering them around to surround the dragon at max range with bowfire isn't hard The skeletons persist until destroyed, every 24 hours the wizards must recast the spell (At a more efficient rate) to control them (1 spell controls 3 skeletons at a 3rd level slot, +2 for each slot after that) Skeletons are armed with bows and swords, and gain + the Proficiency of the necromancer to damage and + Summoning necromancers wizard level as HP You can easily give them advantage with otto's irresistible dance, which gives you at least 1 set of actions of pure advantage because the save can only be forced by the dragon spending an action action to try (which he will auto succeed but still, he didn't attack that round)# Again, I haven't ever talked about a 100 skeleton army, 4 spell slots for 20 skeletons is really cheap, bumping that up to 40 only takes 3 more spell slots, My personal method would be wake up bright and early, cast control spells, then short rest to use arcane recovery to regen some slots, run around with your army
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Aug 11, 2014 21:10
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Seriously, though,Jack the Lad posted:Another cool fact: by contrast, if you are a Ranger, ordering your (1) Animal Companion to attack consumes your action. This just completely loving floors me. And what are they going to do, make skeletons require concentration? Make skeletons unable to attack unless you spend your main action telling them to? It's all one big gently caress.
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Aug 11, 2014 21:12
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edit: ^^^ the animal companion thing actually surprises me more than anything in this whole argument. I don't think the skeleton army is that big of a deal, but the fact that your Bear Buddy can't attack separately is dumb. I would actually wait till you got to wherever you were going to use them (assuming a lair of some sort) since there'll likely be some bones around somewhere and then you don't have to worry about potential travel time conflicting with the summoning/control scheduling
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Aug 11, 2014 21:13
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mastershakeman posted:Rolling 2d20 100 times for your army of kobold skeletons would be amazing Don't worry guys, this won't take long!  Repeat ad infinitum. Ferrinus posted:Skeleton ahead, therefore hurrah for skeleton! D&D NEXT - Game ahead, Weakness: Wizard Honestly, this whole broken skeleton thing looks a lot easier to pull off than the Pun-Pun build and it's rules-legal.
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Aug 11, 2014 21:16
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The skeleton thing does show how powerful a fighter is, 2 level 3 spells and 2 level 4 spells / day
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Aug 11, 2014 21:18
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Man, I wonder if a party of four fighters or a party of four necromancers would require more GM intervention and specific design to fit them.
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Aug 11, 2014 21:38
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Kai Tave posted:Pushing things to ridiculous extremes with cheese is a part of the D&D experience though. I mean, white room arguments are extremely tedious, granted, but the fact is "I summon my horde of skeletons to zerg rush the boss" isn't really some radical outside-case scenario and doing poo poo that then forces the gameplay to suddenly be all about you whether it's by skeleton-ganking the dragon or by engaging in a drawn-out argument with the GM over how many skeletons can fit in the dragon's cave or the fact that skeletons should totally be immune to fear because it's dumb otherwise or the GM having to tailor every encounter to take 44 skeleton minions into account is exactly the sort of thing that people should be prepared for if they want the "classic D&D feel" because that's it right there. Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the New Edition is at hand. The New Edition! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of ENWorld Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with dragon body and the head of a wizard, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards the publishers to be born? Laphroaig fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Aug 11, 2014 |
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Aug 11, 2014 21:46
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So I had a crazy idea: Given that the core ideas behind Next aren't totally stupid, but mostly the class implementation that leaves a lot to be desired... how hard would it be to just sort of... come up with a bunch of SA-approved home-cooked classes for Next? I realize that's a lot more work that most of the negative people are willing to put in, but what do you think would need the most work? Fighter is clearly dull as hell and needs some actual class features. The Wizard subclasses are all broken as poo poo. I think they should be broken out into their own thing and made into their own classes, and Wizards should probably just be banned. Any other navel-gazing thoughts? I'm really tempted to do some rewrites.
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Aug 11, 2014 21:49
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Mendrian posted:So I had a crazy idea:  Still, if you can find enough nerds with too much time on their hands it's certainly doable. Get someone to redo monster math, too.
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Aug 11, 2014 21:56
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Mendrian posted:So I had a crazy idea: There was a good fighter posted a few pages back.
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Aug 11, 2014 21:56
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Mendrian posted:Any other navel-gazing thoughts? I'm really tempted to do some rewrites. There is a thread for this, but suffice to say, the first question you want to answer is one of theme. Who is this game for? What type of games will be played using this system? I'd take a handful of good ideas from D&D Next, and from other D&Ds, and from other games, but I wouldn't use D&D Next with a binder of houserules. What would be the point? Granted, you are right: this edition seems to have been designed from the ground up to be "The D&D you play with a binder full of house rules; so its YOUR D&D."
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Aug 11, 2014 21:57
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Mendrian posted:So I had a crazy idea: It wouldn't be hard. Keep the wizard around, though. If anything, there needs to be a "generalist" wizard - that's my favorite archetype to play, I don't like having to double down on fireballs or mind control or whatever. (Maybe the abjurer or conjurer fill that need as written? I haven't read them)
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Aug 11, 2014 22:00
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Honestly it would probably be easier to take the good ideas from and tack them onto a compatible systems. Do 13th Age or Legend have any use for Advantage/Disadvantage or Concentration?
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Aug 11, 2014 22:01
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treeboy posted:
So your suggestion for balancing an encounter where a necromancer fights a dragon is to not have a dragon there to fight? I thought it was Dungeons and Dragons, not Dungeons and Empty Rooms.
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Aug 11, 2014 22:08
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Mormon Star Wars posted:So your suggestion for balancing an encounter where a necromancer fights a dragon is to not have a dragon there to fight? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHbtcvk_KBs
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Aug 11, 2014 22:16
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So here's a thing. If you're a necromancer with a transmuter buddy and lots of time on your hands (which of course you do because you'll both live forever) he can transmute the kingdom's garbage into skeletons, which you animate into an army of heroic dragon genocide. Your friend the fighter can look on enviously, and donate his skeleton when he eventually dies. Your ranger friend can spend his actions ordering his companion around, until it dies and becomes another skeleton. This is the best edition, brb burning every other RPG I own.
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Aug 11, 2014 22:17
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treeboy posted:I don't know if they purposefully planned for this potential to exist, but it's hardly effective, though admittedly pretty funny. Fun fact: The dragon physically cannot surprise the party in it's own layer, so long as they believe it is still waiting for them Even if it does, it's only attack to murder the skeleton army is a line attack, all the wizard has to do is have the skeletons hide around a corner then pop out when needed (even if they take up space they can do this by firing through eachothers squares/area they can draw LoS this way) All of your plans also completely bone a fighter trying to kill him too just as an FYI, which makes this comparison all the more apt Also if I really assume the dragon is going to throw a lightning breath my way I can easily block with force spells to just wait it out then in one turn volley and bring my shield back up Edit: An addendum, transmuters do not grant eternal life, they grant youth until you die.
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Aug 11, 2014 22:18
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Stormgale posted:Edit: An addendum, transmuters do not grant eternal life, they grant youth until you die. Yeah, for that you have to True Polymorph into a younger and/or immortal form (or use Magic Jar to hijack one).
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Aug 11, 2014 22:29
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Wait how does that work? You die of old age as a 20-something?
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Aug 11, 2014 22:35
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Nihilarian posted:There's nothing wrong with the idea, except in that it requires work. This is where I am with my take on a good Fighter. It was fun as a quick thought experiment, but making it into a real class would take a lot of effort. It's effort I'd rather put towards finally getting my own game into a releasable state. I added a Creative Commons license to my work, so if anyone else wants to build upon it, feel free. There's just too much that's bad in 5E for me to want to put effort into adding good bits to it. For example, I made my Fighting Man to compete with Wizards. But then, turns out, a Necromancer largely outclasses it, mostly because I put an ounce of thought into making minions that weren't insane to actually run at a table.
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Aug 11, 2014 22:38
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So what we're actually seeing here with the skeletons is, of course, the exact same problem as we saw before with the 36d20 rats and the 20d20 kobolds. Actually representing every member of a horde as a separate character with their own initiative total and attack roll is stupid. If, on the other hand, "rampaging horde of skeletons" was treated in the same way as is "lake of fire" or "nest of writhing vines", everything would be fine. On the wizard's turn, a spell attack is made vs the AC of everything engaged with the skeletons, who also count as difficult terrain or whatever. The attack does a couple d6s on hit. If the wizard is using Concentration to direct the skeletons, they deal more damage or whatever. Also, if the wizard is, at the same time, actually attacking you, you only take the best of whatever the skeletons deal and whatever the wizard deals. After all, any effort the wizard uses to blast you with fire is effort they're not using to puppeteer their skeletons.
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Aug 11, 2014 22:42
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Mormon Star Wars posted:So your suggestion for balancing an encounter where a necromancer fights a dragon is to not have a dragon there to fight? I think that's sort of the traditional role of the GM when dealing with intelligent monsters; make decisions for them that allow them to react to tactics used by the players. I mean, if you're a reasonably intelligent creature, and someone's creating an army to attack you with, one option might be to arrange not to fight them while they have the army handy.
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Aug 11, 2014 22:43
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I, a dragon, have no chance against a single necromancer and the resources he can personally muster. Time to flee my hoard.
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Aug 11, 2014 22:44
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100 Skeletons can carry 15,000 lbs of gold and treasure per trip from the hoard to the carts and wagons you have waiting outside, too. e: Actually you just open a portal to your Demiplane and put it all in there, but still. Skeletons are multi-purpose! Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Aug 11, 2014 |
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Aug 11, 2014 22:50
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seebs posted:I think that's sort of the traditional role of the GM when dealing with intelligent monsters; make decisions for them that allow them to react to tactics used by the players. I mean, if you're a reasonably intelligent creature, and someone's creating an army to attack you with, one option might be to arrange not to fight them while they have the army handy. This isn't really a case of the monster reacting to tactics by the characters though so much as a case of the GM being made to react to dumb yet perfectly rules-legal tricks by the players. As people have pointed out several times now, beyond whether or not 44 skeletons can beat up a dragon in a white room isn't as relevant as the fact that a player being able to summon 44 skeletons forces the GM to reevaluate every fight and dungeon and whatever in the context of a player's roving skeletal army. Meanwhile the Fighter can make an extra attack, something something three pillars. The point isn't "woe is me, the unstoppable skeleton army will lay waste to all my carefully constructed encounters!," it's the fact that this sort of discussion simply doesn't exist around something like the Fighter. Also Ferrinus is right in multiple respects and I cannot believe that of all the things Next decided to eschew in its quest for True D&D Feel that sensible swarm rules was one of them.
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Aug 11, 2014 22:51
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Kai Tave posted:This isn't really a case of the monster reacting to tactics by the characters though so much as a case of the GM being made to react to dumb yet perfectly rules-legal tricks by the players. As people have pointed out several times now, beyond whether or not 44 skeletons can beat up a dragon in a white room isn't as relevant as the fact that a player being able to summon 44 skeletons forces the GM to reevaluate every fight and dungeon and whatever in the context of a player's roving skeletal army. Fair enough, that certainly does seem like a significantly larger skeleton army than I would have expected to be available. It's significantly larger than I think you could have done reasonably in previous editions. Although in practice, I think you'll run out of bodies pretty fast.
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Aug 11, 2014 23:01
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Just to clarify, 44 skeletons is as many as it takes to kill the Adult Blue Dragon in one round, on average. A level 20 Wizard can actually raise 108 skeletons by blowing his spells on it (and then resting for 8 hours to get them back and raising as many more as he likes before setting out to fight the dragon).
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Aug 11, 2014 23:06
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eth0.n posted:This is where I am with my take on a good Fighter. It was fun as a quick thought experiment, but making it into a real class would take a lot of effort. It's effort I'd rather put towards finally getting my own game into a releasable state. I added a Creative Commons license to my work, so if anyone else wants to build upon it, feel free. I like your class, but it doesn't say "Fighter" to me, it's more of a Marshall or Captain class. I think to have a Fighter that belongs in the same game as the Wizard and remains a single person you'd either have to come up with a bunch of things a mythical hero could do (knock a mountain down, physically wrestle the concept of Old Age, outrun the concept of Thought) and arrange them into a spell-level-like structure, or just tell the player that every so often they need to come up with a Herculean solution to a problem and it will just work. If you try your solution directly against a monster it gets a save, but if you just want to say, run up a 200 foot cliff in a single round or jump over a castle that just happens. Maybe you just take the spell list and anything you can conceive of as being done by a mythical hero, this class can do that. The trouble is coming up with a way to do this that scales as you level up.
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Aug 11, 2014 23:13
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Jack the Lad posted:Just to clarify, 44 skeletons is as many as it takes to kill the Adult Blue Dragon in one round, on average. Okay, assume he has the 108 skeletons available to use to animate. At that point, great, he's got a huge supply of skeletons... now what? He's got no higher level spells (because he blew them on animating his army), and skeletons are not super powerful, and they are light on things like maneuverability. Do they have decent to-hit numbers?
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Aug 11, 2014 23:15
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seebs posted:Okay, assume he has the 108 skeletons available to use to animate. At that point, great, he's got a huge supply of skeletons... now what? He's got no higher level spells (because he blew them on animating his army), and skeletons are not super powerful, and they are light on things like maneuverability. Do they have decent to-hit numbers? He has all his spells as far as anyone knows, since you can just rest for 8 hours and get them back.
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Aug 11, 2014 23:16
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