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Really Pants posted:It seems like most of them hate actually playing a game and would rather just sit around reading the rule books by themselves. So clogging the books with bloated fluff, passages from godawful fantasy fiction, and tables to roll on for character traits & useless loot is a good business move. I really do think that most people would prefer to play the game - perhaps a whole lot of people don't actually play that much, but I think the proportion of people who buy the books without at least the intention of playing regularly is pretty low. But seriously, lots of people are goddamned awful at making stuff up. I like super solid rules for monster combat, and therefore I like super solid monster combat statblocks, but I really don't need much/any fluff in the corebooks. Leave that for setting-specific stuff. That way it applies just to that setting and I won't have some sperglord telling me that I'm imagining landsharks wrong. Just as an example, here's the sort of thing I think would be cool for the noncombat information on something like owlbears: *It's called an Owlbear <picture of owlbear> *Wild Owlbears are aggressive and untameable. *If you train them from hatching they make scary guard animals. That's enough to give me some cool ideas, and vague enough that I can slot the Owlbear into my adventure without bending pseudo-rules or having someone complain that I'm doing it wrong. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 13:29 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 13:25
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And I don't want to sell beholders short - they did get a two page spread before the stat blocks including stuff like lair actions and fluff. That format is common in the monster manual. Couple pages talking about devils, then all the devil stats. Elemental stats all fit across a two pager also.
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Aug 15, 2014 13:29
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While I'm showing off monster art check out this limited-edition Crabapotamus, from my dungeon World game last night: More pics and d&d stuff in the gencon thread.
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Aug 15, 2014 13:38
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Someone else had an idea for some other game...necroid posted:welp attachment doesn't work necroid posted:that's it I'm done working this is all I got Goa Tse-tung fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 14:38
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Sly Flourish just tweeted this regarding CR: cr is equal to a party of four of that level. A CR of 2 is roughly equal to a party of four level 2 PCs.
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Aug 15, 2014 16:06
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Rugpisser posted:Sly Flourish just tweeted this regarding CR: Is that news? That's what CR always meant.
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Aug 15, 2014 16:09
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Was news to me coming purely from 4E.
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Aug 15, 2014 16:25
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AlphaDog posted:But seriously, lots of people are goddamned awful at making stuff up. I like super solid rules for monster combat, and therefore I like super solid monster combat statblocks, but I really don't need much/any fluff in the corebooks. Leave that for setting-specific stuff. That way it applies just to that setting and I won't have some sperglord telling me that I'm imagining landsharks wrong. My issue with the beholder statblock that's being shown there isn't anything to do with the fluff, it's that (for example) the telekinetic ray entry requires two paragraphs of text while the one in the 4E Monster Vault takes one sentence. I get that beholders are a monster that has a bazillion different attacks and stuff that a lot of fun has been made of "naturalistic language" here but having demonstrated that it's possible to succinctly summarize all the critical, game-important aspects of a monster like the beholder before, I fail to see this version as an improvement.
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Aug 15, 2014 16:27
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Kai Tave posted:My issue with the beholder statblock that's being shown there isn't anything to do with the fluff, it's that (for example) the telekinetic ray entry requires two paragraphs of text while the one in the 4E Monster Vault takes one sentence. I get that beholders are a monster that has a bazillion different attacks and stuff that a lot of fun has been made of "naturalistic language" here but having demonstrated that it's possible to succinctly summarize all the critical, game-important aspects of a monster like the beholder before, I fail to see this version as an improvement. There's tradeoffs. My biggest concern is what happens when we find two basically-identical blocks of text with a cut and paste error. Is that difference a typo or an intentional distinction? No one knows! That said, I have been playing Pathfinder for a while now, and I would just like to say a thing on the topic of spells which incorporate another spell by reference: gently caress THAT. You're playing Pathfinder. You cast shapechange. What stats would you get from becoming a given creature? You might need to consult up to five spells to find out what the stats are. I eventually wrote unified stats up for the polymorph spells, and even then there turn out to be some issues. Is it intentional that in all the polymorph-type spells, exactly one has a case where a higher level spell changes the stat modifiers you get for a size that a lower-level spell could change to? Heck if I know. So while I like the clarity of a clear by-reference definition, I also like having the full necessary text right there to look at. And I know there's at least one case where I'm pretty sure defined-by-reference broke a thing in PF. They changed the cast time on the mending cantrip because their unlimited cantrip use made it way too powerful. But the make whole spell is defined by reference to mending. So they also changed the cast time on make whole, and I don't know whether that was intentional, but I suspect it wasn't. Back onto 5e: Thing I did not realize until reading threads last night: "Once per turn" and "Once on each of your turns" are more different than I realized. "Once per turn" doesn't just mean "it doesn't have to be your turn". It means "if applicable, once on each combatant's turn". So for instance, if a rogue gets multiple attacks during a combat round that could qualify for sneak attack, they can do sneak attack damage once during each combatant's turn.
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Aug 15, 2014 16:59
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Gonna be pretty hard to do things on more than your turn and one other because of only getting one reaction per round, though. Still pretty good with the Battlemeister.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:15
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slydingdoor posted:Gonna be pretty hard to do things on more than your turn and one other because of only getting one reaction per round, though. Still pretty good with the Battlemeister. The Battle Master's granted attack uses a Reaction.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:18
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slydingdoor posted:Gonna be pretty hard to do things on more than your turn and one other because of only getting one reaction per round, though. Still pretty good with the Battlemeister. Yeah, I don't see any ways to get past that. But this makes the "get an extra turn on the first round of combat" thing noticably better.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:39
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Jack the Lad posted:The Battle Master's granted attack uses a Reaction. I understand this is a game where you want to avoid being a melee rogue, too. You want to be a little Hidey McCrossbow that can get sneak attacks from having advantage all the time, without relying on allies. Commander's Strike is also the easiest way to get the assassin a double sneak attack autocrit off on a surprised foe, which is normally pretty hard because not being able to move or take any type of action during a surprise round means no chance to provoke opp attacks. I guess the rogue could take two levels of fighter for action surge, which they'll use to ready an action to shoot a surprised foe again on another round, too. But that delays their sneak attack damage so eff that.
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Aug 15, 2014 17:41
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AlphaDog posted:That's enough to give me some cool ideas, and vague enough that I can slot the Owlbear into my adventure without bending pseudo-rules or having someone complain that I'm doing it wrong. This really is a problem with your players or the people you talk to about the game and not with "naturalistic language" or fluff in monster books, though. Stop playing with people who tell you it's impossible for orcs to use spiked chains because you read a thing that says most of them use axes and spears. Are you opposed to all artwork because it gives an implicit vision of how orcs are supposed to look? It's honestly pretty different from "stop playing with people who want to be necromancers because skeletons are broken"; there's nothing wrong with wanting to summon skeletons. Telling the DM he's making stuff up wrong is idiotic, and people who do it are idiots.
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Aug 15, 2014 19:45
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It's pretty much an inevitable outcome of filing in all the details. OCD nerds are a thing, and I know people I'd never try to run through certain oWoD or Forgotten Realms because they know it all. When someone tells you orcs use x, y, and z weapons what they're saying is that D&D told them they use those weapons. They want to play in the canonical D&D world, where this building burned down during that battle, this NPC is in love with that NPC, etc. It's imaginative without being creative. You get this setting-by-doctrine in all sorts of fantasy stuff, from Warhammer to LotR. Go tell the 40k thread about your female Space Marine who is a traitor Grey Knights captain and see if I'm wrong. Spelling everything out in huge swaths of text encourages this, which isn't by itself a bad thing - but it does stifle creative freedom. A lot of games have moved past trying to dictate and enforce setting. Even D&D flirted with this in 4th, but the backlash drove them into a second dark age of minutia worship over individual creativity.
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Aug 15, 2014 20:22
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ritorix posted:While I'm showing off monster art check out this limited-edition Crabapotamus, from my dungeon World game last night: Question were the two pages we got of the Tarrasque all the pages about it. So does it have next to no fluff and no details about it's immortality and regen. Also here is the Flumph https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BvBPNEnCYAEwDGE.jpg:large MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 20:36
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Welp, I died to ghouls at gencon. That's pretty much the complete 5e experience.
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Aug 15, 2014 21:14
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ritorix posted:Welp, I died to ghouls at gencon. That's pretty much the complete 5e experience. Do they still have multiple attacks which each force a save-or-paralyze?
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Aug 15, 2014 21:24
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Just 1 but when there's 4 ghouls it didn't matter. 2 pcs dead that encounter, should have been a tpk but the gm had npcs show up to save the rest. 5e.
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Aug 15, 2014 21:39
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ritorix posted:Just 1 but when there's 4 ghouls it didn't matter. 2 pcs dead that encounter, should have been a tpk but the gm had npcs show up to save the rest. 5e. And that's what they showed at GenCon? Like, the big convention where you show off your best? A ghoul tpk in process where NPCs swoop in to save you? That's... kind of not very good. Sort of like the opposite of good really.
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Aug 15, 2014 21:48
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Should have just wiped everyone imo, would have been more honest.
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Aug 15, 2014 21:57
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Sage Genesis posted:And that's what they showed at GenCon? Like, the big convention where you show off your best? A ghoul tpk in process where NPCs swoop in to save you?
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Aug 15, 2014 22:10
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Littlefinger posted:Not really surprising, considering how all their livestreams promoting 5e were unfailingly terrible to mediocre, except maybe some Acquisitions Incorporated stuff ages ago. Speaking of which, what happened to Chris Perkins? He was pretty much WotC's promo guy since Day 0 of 4e. And he was loving awful at it so good riddance.
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Aug 15, 2014 22:18
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Fenarisk posted:And he was loving awful at it so good riddance. For what it's worth the Penny Arcade 4E podcasts were moderately entertaining. But then, that's probably more due to the PA group shenanigans.
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Aug 15, 2014 22:29
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Perkins was just fantastic when someone (a new role player I believe) in the robot chicken episode had a cool idea to use a power to solve a puzzle/obstacle and Perkins shuts it down with the brilliant response of "no sorry even though it makes sense with how it's described and could be neat it targets a creature only". You can visibly see the mood and the enthusiasm from everyone just plummet.
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Aug 15, 2014 22:39
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Dunno, at least he seemed genuinely enthusiastic at times, and now we only have half-hour wallchat sessions with Mearls and boring Starter Set Adventures (thought that DM was kinda OK, I guess?) WotC-D&D is terrible at promotion is my point, re: ghoulchat.
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Aug 15, 2014 22:50
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slydingdoor posted:The point is double sneak attack is going to be a rare occurance without Commander's Strike because the enemy'd need to provoke an opp attack and fulfill the criteria for sneak attack, aka it'd have to provoke two opp attacks at once like a Bulette trying to spam its butt slam. Also Rit, did anyone call them out on how horseshit Ghouls are? Did you tell them how great of a time you had running Dead in Thay? 
Father Wendigo fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Aug 15, 2014 |
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Aug 15, 2014 22:55
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Fenarisk posted:Perkins was just fantastic when someone (a new role player I believe) in the robot chicken episode had a cool idea to use a power to solve a puzzle/obstacle and Perkins shuts it down with the brilliant response of "no sorry even though it makes sense with how it's described and could be neat it targets a creature only". You can visibly see the mood and the enthusiasm from everyone just plummet. You'd think that every DM manual would have somewhere next to rule zero something like: "If your player asks if they can do a cool thing, the answer is always yes."
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Aug 15, 2014 22:55
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ritorix posted:Just 1 but when there's 4 ghouls it didn't matter. 2 pcs dead that encounter, should have been a tpk but the gm had npcs show up to save the rest. 5e. I've already seen people rating their 5e experience by the number of dead PCs as though it was a metric of quality.
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Aug 15, 2014 23:13
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Daetrin posted:You'd think that every DM manual would have somewhere next to rule zero something like: "If your player asks if they can do a cool thing, the answer is always yes." "D&D ADVENTURERS LEAGUE PLAYER'S GUIDE posted:Tips for the Dungeon Master
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Aug 15, 2014 23:15
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Putting "Let your PCs try cool stuff" in your GM book only gets people to write 12,000-word manifestos about how you're a worthless gamist piece of poo poo who has literally raped the soul of roleplay forever. You can mitigate this by stuffing your book with at least fifty pages of random Cool Stuff To Try tables. Then the manifestos will only be 8,000 words.
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Aug 15, 2014 23:15
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Fenarisk posted:Perkins was just fantastic when someone (a new role player I believe) in the robot chicken episode had a cool idea to use a power to solve a puzzle/obstacle and Perkins shuts it down with the brilliant response of "no sorry even though it makes sense with how it's described and could be neat it targets a creature only". You can visibly see the mood and the enthusiasm from everyone just plummet. If I'm remembering right isn't what you're referring to the Ranger wanting to use an encounter power on a locked door? That's not all that creative or cool. I mean Perkins usually seemed alright and really enthusiastic without being dickish from what I remember, but I definitely fall more on your side of thinking in just going with fun ideas.
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Aug 15, 2014 23:18
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OctoberCountry posted:If I'm remembering right isn't what you're referring to the Ranger wanting to use an encounter power on a locked door? That's not all that creative or cool. I might be remembering some totally different incident but I think it was a drow who tried to use Darkfire (ie. what was once called Faerie Fire) to burn down a door. Chris Perkins had to explain to him that, despite the name, Darkfire is actually a glow and not real fire. I can't really fault Perkins for not allowing somebody to burn down a door with a glow stick. The fact that this power has the word "fire" in it is just one of those stupid D&D-isms that sound perfectly normal to veterans and trip up everybody else. Still, it's a door. Who the gently caress cares how they got past it? They might use an axe or a rogue, what does it matter? Tell the drow that you allow it just this once and but in the future it will just glow a bit. I will gladly sacrifice verisimilitude if it means the player having fun.
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Aug 15, 2014 23:31
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Sage Genesis posted:And that's what they showed at GenCon? Like, the big convention where you show off your best? A ghoul tpk in process where NPCs swoop in to save you? They're rather bad at this. The week character creation came out they used it at gencon which inevitably drained 2/3 of the time allotted for the adventure. At least I had enough time for a combat encounter where everyone got trapped in a net and then the entire encounter was invalidated by the wizard casting pre-nerf sleep.
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Aug 15, 2014 23:54
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Ghouls are nasty. I lost a character to ghouls in 4e. I told the group "let's just press on. We might be near the end. If there are enemies, we can just run." Well it was ghouls who immobilized me. I marked all of them and ate all the attacks to let my bros escape. I almost escaped too, but they got me with a crucial opportunity attack. RIP swordmage. So if ghouls are still scary in 5e, that seems right to me. Nasty things. Edit: my Warden I played after was even better. I don't care that much about the warlord, but 5e needs wardens. They kicked rear end. Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 00:52 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 00:48
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Wardens are a type of Paladins now. Swordmages are Eldritch Knight Fighters I suppose. Clearly people should all be rolling elves, who are immune to the paralytic attacks of the bane of low level characters. In the adventure rules it says you can rebuild your character after any session as long as your name doesn't change until you hit level 5.
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Aug 16, 2014 01:02
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slydingdoor posted:Wardens are a type of Paladins now. Swordmages are Eldritch Knight Fighters I suppose. Only 4e Paladin I ever played was when I wanted to cheese the Lair Assault format so I chose a Paladin that had tons of daily uses of lay on hands for leader-levels of healing while still being a full defender.
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Aug 16, 2014 01:15
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Maybe multiclassed with Abjurer Wizard, who get the shielding style thing.
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Aug 16, 2014 01:22
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I played in a bit of the starter set last night with a bard. I was actually kind of excited because some of the bard's stuff seem like they could be fun. I went college of lore, so I was a hardcore skill-monkey type. Honestly, I was pretty underwhelmed. I don't get a lot out of making the GM roll saves, I have no idea how people play wizards with save or sucks, because it's loving tedious. I felt like I was doing nothing during combat, even though I was rolling tons of skills out of combat. Just really boring. I could give a drat about balance when the game's just fundamentally dull. The guys playing the barbarian and rouge seemed to be enjoying themselves, though, so there's that.
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Aug 16, 2014 01:29
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Zombies' Downfall posted:This really is a problem with your players or the people you talk to about the game and not with "naturalistic language" or fluff in monster books, though. Stop playing with people who tell you it's impossible for orcs to use spiked chains because you read a thing that says most of them use axes and spears. Are you opposed to all artwork because it gives an implicit vision of how orcs are supposed to look? I'm not going to argue that it's not the fault of the players. It was a problem with so many of the people I played with around 1999-2001 that I quit playing D&D for 5 or 6 years. My point wasn't that D&D could fix this by <stuff> it was that lots of people have dogshit where their imagination should be and that's why the rulesbooks talk about how many noncombatant baby owlbears you'll find or what the actual combat stats are for a tiny harmless frog or lizard. I would prefer less fluff in the core monster books*. I like the pictures. I like "Owlbears are super vicious". I don't like "25% leather/spear, 15% leather/mace, 30% scale/axe, 20% scale/crossbow, 10% DM's choice" because I think it's a total waste of space that caters to imagination-less idiots. I mean, the D&D Next manual feels the need to specify that "A frog has no effective attacks. It feeds on small insects and typically dwells near water, in trees, or underground." You know, just in case you were imagining tiny harmless frogs that dwell in volcanoes and feed on giant octupus. *Put as much fluff in setting-specific monster books as you like. Reading about how "Dark Sun elves are like this" is one of the reasons to buy a setting book/box in the first place. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 01:29
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