|
Basic rules updated. http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 21:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 21:54 |
|
|
What changed?
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 21:43
|
|
|
Gort posted:What changed? Well Potent cantrip is no longer useless, Gods and factions have been added. Also we have a 2nd pdf for DM's that have Monsters and Magic Items and maybe DM advice. (Have not read through it yet so I don't know.)
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 21:45
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:Well Potent cantrip is no longer useless, Phew, thank gently caress! They realized their mistake and buffed the wizard. Now all is well and NEXT is perfect.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 21:49
|
|
|
I really wish they would stop alphabetising lists of stuff and start making them by level/CR instead.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 21:57
|
|
|
Skyelan posted:Phew, thank gently caress! They realized their mistake and buffed the wizard. Damage on a miss!  Oh wait, its a Wizard, carry on.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 22:16
|
|
|
Ixjuvin posted:That sphinx's roar would totally ruin an army of skeletons. If the Sphinx wins initiative (against everything else, let's be generous) and roars, the Wizard casts Otto's Irresistible Dance to cancel out the Disadvantage and commands his skeletons to shoot it. 42 Skeletons will, on average, kill it in one round.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 22:20
|
|
|
Do summoned skeletons count as magic weapons though?
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 22:23
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:And looking at that spell list you know that some of those spells are on there simply because whoever designed that sphinx had to come up with a way for it to, say, be fluent in all languages (tongues) but just couldn't make the conceptual leap necessary to simply say (in naturalistic language no less) "Sphinxes are fluent in all languages." This way, when my party walks into its lair and it casts Tongues to tell us its riddles, I can Counterspell its attempt to cast Tongues and smirk smugly as it roars in frustration  Kai Tave posted:Do summoned skeletons count as magic weapons though? Nope, woops. 84 Skeletons.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 22:23
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:Emilio Estevez in "The Breakfast Club" disagrees with you. He's one of the nice ones. He gets to be a Paladin.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 22:28
|
|
|
ManMythLegend posted:He's one of the nice ones. He gets to be a Paladin. I'm down with this.   
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 22:30
|
|
|
Moinkmaster posted:Damage on a miss! They don't have damage on a miss. They just have two cantrips that can actually take advantage of the effect. Skyelan posted:Phew, thank gently caress! They realized their mistake and buffed the wizard. Not really a buff they just made it so the power actually does something by adding two more spells.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 22:41
|
|
|
Are you guys still talking about skeletons?
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 22:57
|
|
|
Recycle Bin posted:Are you guys still talking about skeletons? DnD 5e: Still Talking About Skeletons
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 22:59
|
|
|
Mendrian posted:DnD 5e: Still Talking About Skeletons It's skeletons all the way down.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:03
|
|
|
Recycle Bin posted:Are you guys still talking about skeletons? A Necromancer's Animate Dead gets you 2 Skeletons at level 3 and 2 more for each spell level above that when cast as a higher level spell, and you have control of them for 24 hours. You can also cast Animate Dead before your control lapses to 'refresh' your control of 4 + 2*level-above-3 Skeletons. By spending your spells to summon Skeletons, taking a long rest and then spending your recovered spells to refresh your existing Skeletons and summon more with any remaining slots, you can work your way up to controlling as many as your spell slots will allow at the refresh ratio rather than the summon ratio. A Necromancer can therefore summon or control up to the following number of Skeletons at each level:  That's a lot of Skeletons, and each one can shoot their shortbow at +4 for 1d6+2+Prof damage. That's not much individually, as we can see from the chart of Skeleton damage per shot by level and opponent AC below, but when we're dealing with large numbers, it quickly adds up:  If you give them Advantage, (for instance, with Otto's Irresistible Dance, which does not allow a save) it adds up even faster:  Let's look at the Adult Blue Dragon from the Hoard of the Dragon Queen. It's worth 15,000 XP and has 225 HP. It's a Medium encounter for a party of 5 level 16 PCs per the just-updated encounter guidelines:  With a +6 Proficiency bonus, it takes 62 Skeletons to kill the Adult Blue Dragon in one round on average. If you grant them Advantage it takes 36 Skeletons. You can kill the CR16 Adult Blue Dragon in one round, on average, starting at level 13, when you're able to summon 44 slightly weaker Skeletons while still leaving a level 6 slot free for Otto's Irresistible Dance. This is with no cheese - not cast/rest/control/repeat, not cast/rest/cast. Just one day's spell allowance, straight up. Speaking of cast/rest/cast, I haven't gone into casting all your spells to summon Skeletons, then resting for 8 hours and casting them all again for more, (which obviously doubles the numbers above) but you get the idea. In summary; summoned Skeletons bust the action economy wide open and do obscene damage in large groups, which you can begin to create at surprisingly low levels. The 5e Necromancer is ridiculously broken with Animate Dead in its current state. Currently Smoking: Skeletons 
Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Aug 12, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:09
|
|
|
MonsterEnvy posted:Not really a buff they just made it so the power actually does something by adding two more spells. Ohhhh, so they only took a useless power and improved it to be more functional? You're right, that's totally different from a buff, my mistake.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:11
|
|
|
I'm eagerly awaiting the first big 3rd party Next campaign setting that takes the Animate Dead thing to its verisimilitudinal extreme. They could call it Boned Lands or something and it's the fantasy game you know and love but with a twist. The twist is skeletons. Skeleton workers, skeleton soldiers, an entirely skeleton economy. Thirty pages of new skeleton-focused spells, 15 skeletal magic items, new backgrounds include Bonelord and Cleromancer.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:15
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:I'm eagerly awaiting the first big 3rd party Next campaign setting that takes the Animate Dead thing to its verisimilitudinal extreme. They could call it Boned Lands or something and it's the fantasy game you know and love but with a twist. The twist is skeletons. Skeleton workers, skeleton soldiers, an entirely skeleton economy. Thirty pages of new skeleton-focused spells, 15 skeletal magic items, new backgrounds include Bonelord and Cleromancer. I'm waiting for the themed action figures, the skeleton squad to be honest.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:29
|
|
|
Giving them advantage doesn't ensure that they have advantage; it just ensures that they don't have disadvantage. If something can impose disadvantage on their rolls, that just balances out. Irresistible dance is a 6th level spell, so if you're casting it, you should be at least one spell down from your nominal cap of skeletons. Also it's a 6th level spell with a 30' range, and the dragon's got pretty decent senses, including blindsight to 60'. It is not immediately obvious to me that the skeletons automatically have shortbows, but let's say for the sake of argument that the spell just sort of automatically gives them equipment, so they have shortbows and at least some arrows. I think you're right to use the shortbows, otherwise there's no way to get all the skeletons into melee reasonably. All that said: Yeah, I agree that it's overpowered if you stipulate to all the freebies. But I've never seen a D&D that wasn't insanely breakable, except maybe 4e, and 4e lost a lot of other things which a lot of players valued and enjoyed, so it's not an automatic win to go in that direction. I love Pathfinder, and basically every week I mention a new way I found to break it. Couple weeks back, I said "hey, I found a thing in the rules", and our GM said "before I gamed with you people, I didn't know what fear was." But... I don't actually try to do that crap, because *it wouldn't be fun*. Even if it's rules-as-written. I guess I'm more interested in how the game plays when I'm playing with people who are assuming a good-faith effort to have a fun game and who will politely disregard a possible exploit in order to keep the game fun than I am in whether it can be broken, because the observation that it can be broken has no effect at all on my gameplay. I mean, back when I was a kid and trying stuff that I've never seen outside of preteens playing D&D and the Intercontinental Union of Disgusting Characters, sure, it affected me. It was AWESOME! Sign me up for mugging a centaur for 4 million XP, sure. But since then? No effect at all on actual gameplay. Pun-pun? Locate City nuke? Great stuff to talk about while unboxing the pizza.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:30
|
|
|
A wizard saunters towards the dragon. The dragon backs away hissing, hackles raised. It knows that if it lets that guy get within thirty feet, it's done for!
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:31
|
|
|
A wizard can breathe fire more often than a red dragon...
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:35
|
|
|
Are there any other spells that pull the "No save against the effect, but if you spend an action, you might save against it" that Otto's does?
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:36
|
|
|
seebs posted:Giving them advantage doesn't ensure that they have advantage; it just ensures that they don't have disadvantage. If something can impose disadvantage on their rolls, that just balances out. seebs posted:Irresistible dance is a 6th level spell, so if you're casting it, you should be at least one spell down from your nominal cap of skeletons. seebs posted:Also it's a 6th level spell with a 30' range, and the dragon's got pretty decent senses, including blindsight to 60'. seebs posted:It is not immediately obvious to me that the skeletons automatically have shortbows, but let's say for the sake of argument that the spell just sort of automatically gives them equipment, so they have shortbows and at least some arrows. seebs posted:All that said: Yeah, I agree that it's overpowered if you stipulate to all the freebies. seebs posted:But I've never seen a D&D that wasn't insanely breakable, except maybe 4e, and 4e lost a lot of other things which a lot of players valued and enjoyed, so it's not an automatic win to go in that direction. I love Pathfinder, and basically every week I mention a new way I found to break it. Couple weeks back, I said "hey, I found a thing in the rules", and our GM said "before I gamed with you people, I didn't know what fear was." But... I don't actually try to do that crap, because *it wouldn't be fun*. Even if it's rules-as-written. It's a Necromancer casting Animate Dead. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Aug 12, 2014 |
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:38
|
|
|
seebs posted:Giving them advantage doesn't ensure that they have advantage; it just ensures that they don't have disadvantage. If something can impose disadvantage on their rolls, that just balances out. Irresistible dance is a 6th level spell, so if you're casting it, you should be at least one spell down from your nominal cap of skeletons. Also it's a 6th level spell with a 30' range, and the dragon's got pretty decent senses, including blindsight to 60'. I'll repeat again: I can put a massive dent in a dragon with 5 spells 4 to summon skeletons, if I used 8 spells total I could 1 round it before the dragon could even hope to put disadvantage on me or my skeleton bro's Just to clarify that is 8 spells of my 18 (plus 16 spell levels of arcane recovery) and that dragon is dead or terrified of me apparently, and at level 16 buying 44 shortbows or however many isn't exactly a big expense?
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:39
|
|
|
I'm glad that Otto's Irresistible Dance is proving to be such a haymaker in scenarios like these because it really cleanly illustrates the perils of not bothering to have a consistent task resolution mechanic. The Battlemaster Fighter always inflicts maneuver effects the same way: first it hits you, then it makes you roll a save, and if you fail your save you're tripped or taunted or whatever. The wizard sometimes makes attack rolls, sometimes asks you to roll saves, and sometimes just automatically imposes random bullshit that it's then your problem to deal with, and indeed has a huge list of powers any one of which might feature any one of these attack resolution methods or some stranger one. So, your enemy's got high AC? Force a save. Enemy has good saves? Use something that ignores saves. Enemy is a priori untargetable by effects? Use an untargeted AoE sweeper. Etc, etc.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:39
|
|
|
seebs posted:But I've never seen a D&D that wasn't insanely breakable, except maybe 4e, and 4e lost a lot of other things which a lot of players valued and enjoyed, so it's not an automatic win to go in that direction. I love Pathfinder, and basically every week I mention a new way I found to break it. Couple weeks back, I said "hey, I found a thing in the rules", and our GM said "before I gamed with you people, I didn't know what fear was." But... I don't actually try to do that crap, because *it wouldn't be fun*. Even if it's rules-as-written. This is basically "bug vs. feature" chat. If poo poo is in the game, you shouldn't have to NOT use it; that means it's bad design.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:39
|
|
|
seebs posted:But... I don't actually try to do that crap, because *it wouldn't be fun*. Even if it's rules-as-written. It is kinda amazing that as page after page of skeletontalk uncovers more and more inane broken crap just by looking at the rules as written, we always get back to square one with people pulling the "well, not at my table  " bullshit.Thank you for your contribution, I guess?
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:46
|
|
|
I like the idea that brokenness isn't important to a game, it just so happens that a bunch of people flipped out over the one edition of D&D that wasn't a patchwork mess of bugs and exploits and dumb broken poo poo because of, y'know, other stuff that totally had nothing to do with the fact that wizards were no longer the supreme choice for cool roleplayers with well-honed player skill, no really guys.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:48
|
|
|
seebs posted:All that said: Yeah, I agree that it's overpowered if you stipulate to all the freebies. quote:But since then? No effect at all on actual gameplay. Pun-pun? Locate City nuke? Great stuff to talk about while unboxing the pizza.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:51
|
|
|
I mean saying the 4E rules weren't in any way broken or exploitable is pretty dumb when the errata is *insert page count here because it is apparently broken/no longer available on their new and improved website* pages long and poo poo is p silly and it's also p silly both that the rules as written allow someone to summon 40 skeletons and royally own a dragon and also that any GM would be like "well, that's what the rules say, so you the wizard are allowed to summon 40 skeletons and roll 40 individual attack rolls for them and kill the dragon while the fighters in the party twiddle their thumbs" b/c I guess it'd be unfair to them otherwise or something??? Everything is silly, except the people who wrote the 5E rules got paid to be that way, so they're bigger shitheads, imo. Thank you.
|
|
#
?
Aug 12, 2014 23:52
|
|
|
Play it out. The wizard needs to get within 30ft of the dragon to OID it. It has frightful presence, which stops approaches, and 22 passive perception. 36/62 skeletons and the wizard all need to beat it in initiative along with the sneaky wizard, because otherwise it'll legendary action during the wizard's turn (we're assuming they win initiative) legendary resist during its turn, refreshing its legendary actions, then legendary action again at the end of the first skeleton's turn. That'll let it fly 40ft up to the wizard and their skeletons, tail attack them and force a concentration save, then wing attack and tail attack again after the first skeleton goes. Wing attack hits everything within 10ft of the dragon, which is a huge flier, so it'll hit 35ft by 35ft, a large amount of the 60ft radius space the skeletons need to be in to respond to the necromancer's orders. If the dragon actually gets a turn, it can breath and burrow. This encounter sounds pretty cool actually. They'd need to cast a lot more spells to have a shot at soloing the dragon, I think. The assumptions aren't really practical. I'm pretty sure this exercise really just says "how much damage can you deal in two turns?" and one answer is "well if I blow literally all my spells, this many." What would a balanced party be able to do with the same setup? They could probably one shot it too. If I were concerned about balance, I'd say even though it's hard to imagine setting up a free OID, it indeed ought to be nerfed to require an initial save, even with a penalty or something.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2014 00:04
|
|
|
4E had stuff that was broken but it was "broken" in the sense that "the Ranger can kill Orcus in one round! If he totally gears his character build towards that goal and also everybody else in the party helps buff him to make sure his one trick goes off without a hitch." Broken in 4E is things like "with this combination of feats and gear and abilities I can charge every round really hard." Broken in 4E isn't "I summon a skeleton army and then rest for 8 hours to get my spells back, ho hum." Also Pun-Pun isn't really the problem with 3E, Pun-Pun is a dumb joke. You can trivially break 3E by writing "Wizard" on your sheet and sticking solely to that class for 20 levels straight out of the PHB1, no sourcebooks or 3rd party bullshit required. 3E got, if anything, more balanced as it went along.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2014 00:11
|
|
|
slydingdoor posted:Play it out. Someone's going to go over that point by point while missing the most important thing about it. A rogue or fighter of the necromancer's level tries to solo the dragon. Do we even need to discuss what might happen?
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2014 00:16
|
|
|
slydingdoor posted:Play it out. On the one hand, I do have the feeling that if any one of us tried to sit down at our next 5e game and try to break the game this way there'd be a lot of little logistical things that kept it from basically ever operating at the full power we're talking about here, even if the DM wasn't explicitly on-guard for this exploit. On the other hand, this isn't a huge resource commitment for the wizard, and even operating at a fraction of its max efficiency it's going to be doing the fighter's niche as well or better than the fighter. I'd say it's pretty undeniably super imbalanced, even if we take what most of the people who are defending it here are saying as true.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2014 00:18
|
|
|
seebs posted:I guess I'm more interested in how the game plays when I'm playing with people who are assuming a good-faith effort to have a fun game and who will politely disregard a possible exploit in order to keep the game fun than I am in whether it can be broken, because the observation that it can be broken has no effect at all on my gameplay. My issue here is that if this is the actual restriction on my play choices, I'm not going to play a game with hundreds of pages of rules. I'm fine with playing In A Wicked Age where I have a power described by a sentence that can be used however I like so long as it produces a good story. But that game is described by a pamphlet. I don't need to reference a dozen different spell entries to learn what a monster can do: it can do what makes sense for the story. If casting a spell a few times breaks the game, such that I'm an rear end in a top hat to my friends for doing so, why did I pay WotC to print a book with that spell in it?
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2014 00:26
|
|
|
ianvincible posted:That's assuming there haven't been centuries of necromancers roaming around the countryside raising everyone as skeletons. A small hamlet doesn't have a town cemetery, they just have a town grave, since whoever they bury is always raised as a skeleton before the next guy dies. Peasants: "What are ya gonna do, KILL US? Skel'ton's don't make babies dat what grow up to be skel'tons, ya high-falutin idjit!"
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2014 00:28
|
|
|
For reference, 15 Skeletons summoned by a level 16 Necromancer will do the same DPR to the dragon as a level 16 Fighter in round 1, when he uses Action Surge to make 6 attacks. Once he's used his Action Surge, 8 Skeletons (that's 1 level 5 spell slot) will on average outdamage him every round.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2014 00:28
|
|
|
I can't stop laughing at that Sphinx stat block. Well done, adventurers. For solving The Riddle of the Sphinx, you have earned a reward beyond imagining... *a grand dining room set appears, with full table service and five course meal including soup and salad* Behold! The Bottomless Bread Bowl! Here lies true class parity; no number of skeletons could ever partake of such a feast, but the fighter can fill up on bread all day.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2014 00:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 21:54 |
|
|
Generic Octopus posted:The blacksmith fighter can craft armor all day though.
|
|
#
?
Aug 13, 2014 00:39
|
|