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Otto's has a 30ft range. If the necromancer can sneak up to the dragon with a company of skeletons with 0 to Stealth, it deserves to die. Also things can use their action to Dodge while dancing to cancel out the advantage the spell grants. Animate dead requires a bonus action to order skeletons, and they don't do anything but defend themselves unless you've ordered them. They also need to stay within 60ft to receive orders. So the one-round dragon KO only works with surprise on the dragon or having the skeletons and the wizard beat it initiative. Magic Jar is a Charisma save now. Also I wouldn't want to be catatonic 100ft from a Tarrasque. It'd probably kill you and your stupid jar.
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Aug 12, 2014 01:10
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slydingdoor posted:Otto's has a 30ft range. If the necromancer can sneak up to the dragon with a company of skeletons with 0 to Stealth, it deserves to die. Also things can use their action to Dodge while dancing to cancel out the advantage the spell grants. They have a +9 on Charisma saves as well and the power to ignore the failed saving throw anyway.
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Aug 12, 2014 01:14
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Gort posted: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... The OD&D/BECMI/AD&D/2e fighter doesn't "remain a single person", which largely contributes to them not sucking at higher levels. They end up with (e: in 1e and 2e at least) ~150 armed followers some of whom are low level PC classes, and a mid level sidekick. This only changed in 3rd edition, so it's not like most of the game's lifespan didn't have fighters implicitly running around with small armies. This kinda ties into the Necromancer discussion. If summoned skeleton minions are staying in the rules, there's no reason not to let the fighters have their small army back. NO WAIT THAT'S A WARLORD OR SOMETHING NOT A FIGHTER A FIGHTER IS ONLY EVER ONE BIG DUMB GUY AND gently caress WARLORDS. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Aug 12, 2014 |
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Aug 12, 2014 01:17
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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? Actually I was riffing more off the 2nd Community D&D episode where the guy they were headed to kill didn't wait for them while they were outside fighting each other
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Aug 12, 2014 01:18
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The Dragon has like a 22 Passive perception. I highly doubt the army of skeletons will catch it off guard.
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Aug 12, 2014 01:27
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An army of skeletons isn't going to catch the dragon off guard, it's just going to kill the dragon or force the dragon to run away like a huge cowardly baby.
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Aug 12, 2014 01:35
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Ferrinus posted:An army of skeletons isn't going to catch the dragon off guard, it's just going to kill the dragon or force the dragon to run away like a huge cowardly baby. Right, the skeletons don't need surprise or even initiative. There's no way the dragon can take enough of them out in one round - I'll do the math properly tomorrow to demonstrate. Tarrasque: The Magic Jar change is a pain, but it can't reach or effect anything in the air, so you can just fly above it and keep casting spells until it eventually fails enough to use up its bonuses. Sorc with Heighten Spell might be good to cancel out the Advantage.
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Aug 12, 2014 01:38
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Ferrinus posted:An army of skeletons isn't going to catch the dragon off guard, it's just going to kill the dragon or force the dragon to run away like a huge cowardly baby. Or the dragon uses it's 90' long lightning breath and fries everything in the corridor leading up to its inner sanctum as soon as they open the door with a readied action because an Army of skeletons has been running amok in its lair. edit: and yes, for clarity, the wizard has now screwed over his whole party by trying to be a meta-gaming smart rear end. I don't believe in adversarial DM'ing, the purpose of a DM is to enable fun adventures and players to feel awesome, but part of that is also semi-reasonable responses to outside stimuli from intelligent creatures. Especially creatures who are renowned for building confusing and dangerous secret bases. treeboy fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Aug 12, 2014 |
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Aug 12, 2014 01:38
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Apparently since Ranger was the class that was super broken in the 4E PHB, we just had to make it the biggest piece of hot garbage in 5E. (Edit: It's actually pretty badass that Ranger was/still is the overpowered class in 4E.). And wizards are super overpowered already, but this surprises exactly 0 people who have been even remotely following the development of this game.
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Aug 12, 2014 01:39
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treeboy posted:Or the dragon uses it's 90' long lightning breath and fries everything in the corridor leading up to its inner sanctum as soon as they open the door with a readied action because an Army of skeletons has been running amok in its lair. I agree that's a likely solution but it just illustrates the kind of all-or-nothing, bullshit-PC-problem-meets-equally-bullshit-DM-solution stuff that high level magic entails. It is not a coincidence that the answer you came up with to the issue of a bunch of skeletons instantly slaying a dragon was to wholly and immediately remove the player's whole strategy. It's a lose lose situation and it satisfies nobody.
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Aug 12, 2014 01:43
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I'll be honest here, if you replaced the Fighter class with "Mob of Skeletons", with you gaining even more skeletons for each level, I would love it. Giant wall in your way? Skeleton ladder. Need to cheer up some townsfolk? Welcome to the Skeleton Circus, one night only. Trapped dungeon? That's alright, I got skeletons to spare. Need to sail a boat? Skeleton crew. Being your own army of skeletons would give you almost as many options as being an actual wizard.
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Aug 12, 2014 01:48
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Mendrian posted:I agree that's a likely solution but it just illustrates the kind of all-or-nothing, bullshit-PC-problem-meets-equally-bullshit-DM-solution stuff that high level magic entails. It is not a coincidence that the answer you came up with to the issue of a bunch of skeletons instantly slaying a dragon was to wholly and immediately remove the player's whole strategy. It's a lose lose situation and it satisfies nobody. Or the players exercise even a modicum of sensibility and recognize perhaps brute forcing your way through encounters has unintended consequences outside of DM dickery. My solution wasn't "poo poo gotta FIX THIS" it was "that's not nearly as effective as you'd think it would be because <reasonable intelligent creature behavior>" and some pretty breezy approaches to resting rules and enemy abilities. Honestly the "summon dozens of skeletons" approach is, if anything, more endemic of a video game mindset where enemies you can see idly sit there while their buddies are slaughtered because you happened to be outside some pre-determined aggro range.
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Aug 12, 2014 01:50
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Gort posted: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. I for one welcome our new necromantic overlords. I'd be down for playing in a party full of nothing but necromancers. It'd make for an amusing gimmick and I'd love to see just how badly everything starts to fall apart at the seams.
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Aug 12, 2014 01:56
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treeboy posted:Or the dragon uses it's 90' long lightning breath and fries everything in the corridor leading up to its inner sanctum as soon as they open the door with a readied action because an Army of skeletons has been running amok in its lair. Hmm, not so sure about that one. In fact, it seems like a 90' line is an absolutely terrible weapon for dealing with a mob of creatures, even a tightly-packed mob of creatures. Maybe if the dragon had been lucky enough to be born red it'd be in better shape, but honestly I'm not too optimistic about its chances either way because it's not like the skeletons can't just spread out. I mean, I guess if the dragon is literally going to hide in its cave, sitting on a rocking chair and cradling a shotgun in its lap while it stares with beady eyes at its lair's one entrance, waiting in terror for what it knows is its one shot to defeat the enemy that its entire dungeon has been specifically constructed to thwart, refusing to come out until it's absolutely sure that the threat it simply cannot handle in a straight fight has been dealt with...
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Aug 12, 2014 01:58
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treeboy posted:Or the players exercise even a modicum of sensibility and recognize perhaps brute forcing your way through encounters has unintended consequences outside of DM dickery. My solution wasn't "poo poo gotta FIX THIS" it was "that's not nearly as effective as you'd think it would be because <reasonable intelligent creature behavior>" and some pretty breezy approaches to resting rules and enemy abilities. I find it funny how you keep bringing saying this is absurd, but seriously, 4 spells dude to make 20 skeletons doesn't seem like much for a level 16 wizard to do... gently caress if that really is that absurd why is it an explicit option for me to do?
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Aug 12, 2014 02:02
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treeboy posted:Or the players exercise even a modicum of sensibility and recognize perhaps brute forcing your way through encounters has unintended consequences outside of DM dickery. My solution wasn't "poo poo gotta FIX THIS" it was "that's not nearly as effective as you'd think it would be because <reasonable intelligent creature behavior>" and some pretty breezy approaches to resting rules and enemy abilities. You're really freaking out over your game having something broken in it, dude.
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Aug 12, 2014 02:02
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Astus posted:I'll be honest here, if you replaced the Fighter class with "Mob of Skeletons", with you gaining even more skeletons for each level, I would love it. Giant wall in your way? Skeleton ladder. Need to cheer up some townsfolk? Welcome to the Skeleton Circus, one night only. Trapped dungeon? That's alright, I got skeletons to spare. Need to sail a boat? Skeleton crew. Locked door? Skeleton key.
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Aug 12, 2014 02:02
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Ferrinus posted:Hmm, not so sure about that one. In fact, it seems like a 90' line is an absolutely terrible weapon for dealing with a mob of creatures, even a tightly-packed mob of creatures. Maybe if the dragon had been lucky enough to be born red it'd be in better shape, but honestly I'm not too optimistic about its chances either way because it's not like the skeletons can't just spread out. Isn't this literally what dragons do? I've not read all the fantasy in the world, but constructing horrifying hoards then sitting there waiting for people to show up and die to a well placed fire/acid/lightning/whatever is sorta the modus operandi of the species. ProfessorCirno posted:You're really freaking out over your game having something broken in it, dude. nope, just absolutely boggled at the extents to which people go to prove it's The Worst.
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Aug 12, 2014 02:03
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treeboy posted:I don't believe in adversarial DM'ing This: quote:Or the dragon uses it's 90' long lightning breath and fries everything in the corridor leading up to its inner sanctum as soon as they open the door with a readied action because an Army of skeletons has been running amok in its lair. Sounds exactly like adversarial DM'ing to me. Also, this is becoming the Fighter vs. Wizard 3E thread. Why are we arguing about the specifics of this stupid skeleton army when it's the issue of narrative control, not the specific method?
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Aug 12, 2014 02:03
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Just have the fighter at the front of the skeleton line holding a big lightning rod. Then your skeletons are sure to get there.
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Aug 12, 2014 02:04
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treeboy posted:nope, just absolutely boggled at the extents to which people go to prove it's The Worst. Hey you going to stop ignoring me? Is 20 skeleton archers that overpowered or bending the game? Edit: As for your corridor + lightning breath There are at least 3 ways off the top of my head to advance into that corridor without the dragon able to do poo poo to the skeleton army
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Aug 12, 2014 02:05
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Astus posted:I'll be honest here, if you replaced the Fighter class with "Mob of Skeletons", with you gaining even more skeletons for each level, I would love it. Giant wall in your way? Skeleton ladder. Need to cheer up some townsfolk? Welcome to the Skeleton Circus, one night only. Trapped dungeon? That's alright, I got skeletons to spare. Need to sail a boat? Skeleton crew. I'm not trying to harp on this, but if you just replace "skeleton" with "soldier", this is very very similar to how higher AD&D/2e fighters play. e: Especially the point about having almost as many options as a wizard. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Aug 12, 2014 |
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Aug 12, 2014 02:06
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Good drat now I want a hive mind of skeletons class. As you level you can gain more skeletons. Contra with built in side quests. We list 50 guys time to rob a graveyard. After gaining enough game people will bring their dead to live on in the afterlife with honor by joining up. Soon you'll start the bone economy, buying up relatives and creating a value implicit in the bones.
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Aug 12, 2014 02:08
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2e was the best e in a lot of ways. But now when the fighter loses all his friends, there's someone to rip out their bones and keep the party rolling.
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Aug 12, 2014 02:09
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treeboy posted:Isn't this literally what dragons do? I've not read all the fantasy in the world, but constructing horrifying hoards then sitting there waiting for people to show up and die to a well placed fire/acid/lightning/whatever is sorta the modus operandi of the species. Dragons chill on their treasure until they get bored, hungry, or angry, and then they come out and wreck poo poo. I mean, unless a wizard whose level is in the mid teens is around. Then they turn into PC-class paranoiac schemers, apparently.
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Aug 12, 2014 02:09
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moths posted:2e was the best e in a lot of ways. I'll admit, I am sad that Leadership-ish stuff didn't return (that i've seen). I've never heard of Fighters actually rolling around dungeons with their armies, but i've heard more than one story about using it as a narrative control "we siege the castle" that kinda thing. edit: Stormgale posted:Hey you going to stop ignoring me? Is 20 skeleton archers that overpowered or bending the game? I actually think the overall mechanic is kinda poorly designed (as evidenced by the disagreement) and suffers from no clear cut short term limits. It would actually work a lot better as something that didn't need to be refreshed but summoned a small group of undead and required concentration to maintain control. treeboy fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Aug 12, 2014 |
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Aug 12, 2014 02:12
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treeboy posted:I'll admit, I am sad that Leadership-ish stuff didn't return (that i've seen). I've never heard of Fighters actually rolling around dungeons with their armies, but i've heard more than one story about using it as a narrative control "we siege the castle" that kinda thing. There is nothing in the 1e/2e rules to prevent the fighter from taking his whole drat army with him wherever he goes. It'd leave his castle completely undefended, but he can do it if he wants. The ~20 "elite" followers he gets in 2e are explicitly called the fighter's "personal bodyguard". Why would you go on a dangerous expedition and leave your personal bodyguard behind? The BECMI rules more or less encourage you to use your followers as a detect traps spell. e: If you've never heard of the fighter taking his dudes into places, I suspect you played with groups that had an implicit agreement not to do that (along with maybe avoiding playing summoner wizards ? I dunno, that was a common sorta-houserule in the 90s). Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Aug 12, 2014 |
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Aug 12, 2014 02:18
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AlphaDog posted:There is nothing in the 1e/2e rules to prevent the fighter from taking his whole drat army with him wherever he goes. It'd leave his castle completely undefended, but he can do it if he wants. The ~20 "elite" followers he gets in 2e are explicitly called the fighter's "personal bodyguard". Why would you go on a dangerous expedition and leave your personal bodyguard behind? right, but in the design of this edition it doesn't feel intentional, rather unintended consequences of lax design
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Aug 12, 2014 02:22
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treeboy posted:right, but in the design of this edition it doesn't feel intentional, rather unintended consequences of lax design Honestly, that's the saddest part of this whole discussion. Some poor sap is going to realize that their necromancer can animate a whole army of skeletons to fight that ancient dragon, and that encounter will either start with the entire army being roasted on the first turn or the dragon getting shot by a hundred arrows shot by a hundred skeletons and dying way too fast and either way it's going to be a horrible disappointment for somebody. All because Wizards didn't think that any of this would be a problem.
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Aug 12, 2014 02:35
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And really, this would have been obvious with any quality playtesting whatsoever. The first thing a player looks at is "how far does this go" and the 5e answer has consistently been "check with your DM but I wouldn't allow it."
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Aug 12, 2014 02:40
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moths posted:And really, this would have been obvious with any quality playtesting whatsoever. The first thing a player looks at is "how far does this go" and the 5e answer has consistently been "check with your DM but I wouldn't allow it." No, the correct answer is "You can only locate X piles of bones with the appropriate amount/size/whatever of bones needed to Animate skeletons" it's not a fantastic solution, but it mitigates the extremes and is probably what they had in mind when designing the ability.
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Aug 12, 2014 02:47
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treeboy posted:No, the correct answer is "You can only locate X piles of bones with the appropriate amount/size/whatever of bones needed to Animate skeletons" That's exactly the DM not allowing it. What is your "No" disagreeing with?
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Aug 12, 2014 02:52
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thespaceinvader posted:gently caress me, after the goodness of 4e, this just looks like An army of 100 shortbow-wielding skeletons led by a 20th-level necromancer can kill the Tarrasque in 9 rounds, assuming they can get enough Magic Weapon spells cast. And the tarrasque can kill 3 buff skeletons every round!
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Aug 12, 2014 02:52
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seriously, if there's ONE THING that everyone agreed was good it was 4e monster blocks, they're so USABLE. This is just a mess.
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treeboy posted:No, the correct answer is "You can only locate X piles of bones with the appropriate amount/size/whatever of bones needed to Animate skeletons" Except that pushes off the recognition of it being that broken onto the DM. Who may not recognize it. And even if they do, it's the same-old, same-old: either you let the Wizard be OP like RAW says, or you start being a jerk to them in order to keep them in line.
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Aug 12, 2014 02:53
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How awesome would it be if the dragon just kamikazed the necromancer and left a bunch of skeletons to stand there for 24 hours before being freed. Then the skeletons "wake up" on top of a dragon's hoard, bling themselves out and build halloween town. Once the dragon corpse rots away they find the wizard's spellbook beneath it and one of them starts to read it... Honestly if someone wants to bet it all on Animate Dead, let 'em. They'll get tired of babysitting the dumb things after they try it once, and even if it ends up being OP, I doubt it'd be fun enough to take over every session. At least in 5e the player won't have to sink their whole character into a one trick pony. They can just be a wizard once their done messing around with their skeletons, finding all the components, arming them all, learning how to deal with troops that can't propagate orders and need to stay within 60ft of you, etc.
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Aug 12, 2014 02:54
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^^^ If someone actually tries this I would be that would be the practical outcome.eth0.n posted:That's exactly the DM not allowing it. What is your "No" disagreeing with? I misread it as him suggesting the answer would be not allowing it at all, to any extent. Daetrin posted:Except that pushes off the recognition of it being that broken onto the DM. Who may not recognize it. And even if they do, it's the same-old, same-old: either you let the Wizard be OP like RAW says, or you start being a jerk to them in order to keep them in line. Yup! Like i said, not great, or ideal, or something you constantly want to be thinking of, but it mitigates the extremes.
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Aug 12, 2014 02:56
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dwarf74 posted:Good news! Well the Necromancer will have no spells slots if he has 100 skeletons out. So I don't think he will get too many magic weapon spells cast on the skeletons. Also for some reason I am just imagining a 20 level necromancer with his army of skeletons and his party of adventures saying with this we can beat evil blue dragon. They head off to his lair (In the canyons in the dessert as that is were Blues live.) Suddenly the Dragon snipes the wizard with his lightning breath and starts laughing as the skeletons now with out a master are now hostile to the rest of the party even if they get the Wizard back up.
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Aug 12, 2014 03:02
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treeboy posted:Yup! Like i said, not great, or ideal, or something you constantly want to be thinking of, but it mitigates the extremes. OK? So, what, exactly, are you actually disagreeing with? I doubt there's a single person in this thread that doesn't agree that a DM can mitigate bad game rules. That bad game systems can still result in fun gaming sessions, even non-ironically. Is this purely a tone argument? That our tone is just too down on the game? Do you not actually disagree with the substance of what's being said? Do you not understand that most discussion is about the various features of the game, how they are bad, and how they could be designed better, by the professionals who designed the game, and that saying "DM can fix it" purely means that it is, in fact, a problem? A coherent, generally-applicable houserule that makes 5E better would at least be useful. Stating that DM-fiat arbitrary-arbitration can fix X is obvious and useless. MonsterEnvy posted:Well the Necromancer will have no spells slots if he has 100 skeletons out. So I don't think he will get too many magic weapon spells cast on the skeletons. Not if he rests immediately after casting them. Which why wouldn't he, unless the DM throws some arbitrary bullshit his way? And if you're going after a Tarrasque, is scrounging up enough +1 bows really going to be that difficult, if the DM isn't, again, just making up bullshit specifically to keep the Wizard in check? eth0.n fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Aug 12, 2014 |
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Aug 12, 2014 03:06
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So i ran the scenario past my group to see how they'd feel about lightning to the face. This was the response: "Angry at you? nah, that makes sense, we'd be pissed at the wizard who would likely encourage the barbarian to go first, somehow survive the TPK, then resurrect us all as some unholy malformed revenants...actually that sounds awesome." "I try to blame everyone else for everything always anyway" "If i'm not angry at [our wizard] somethings wrong and he's not doing his job." i love my group 
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Aug 12, 2014 03:07
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So now the entire adventure has to become about making sure the wizard can never collect enough bones to build their army. No more quests to explore creepy mausoleums, every town the party comes to has a suspiciously well guarded graveyard that the townsfolk won't let the wizard near, every signal random encounter is now made up of slimes or creatures with exoskeletons. God help us if the GM planed to have a plot involving a war or a plague. And once again the entire adventure becomes all about the wizard. It's like a nuclear weapon, even when it not being used it's still completely changing the political landscape around itself.
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Aug 12, 2014 03:08
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