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seebs posted: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! What does this have to do with the brevity or length of a game-facing rules text though? You can have a typo in something that's long or short, and how many words someone's willing to stuff into a statblock doesn't make typos any less likely to occur or make them easier to discern from intentional changes. I have no idea what your point here is. Seriously, here's the text of the Beholder's telekinetic ray from that preview posted: quote:If the target is a creature it must succeed on a DC 16 Strength saving throw or the beholder moves it up to 30 feet in any direction. It is restrained by the beholder's telekinetic grip until the start of the beholder's next turn or until the beholder is incapacitated. Here's how they could write that in a fashion that preserves all the necessary information without taking up as much wordcount: quote:Target: One creature or unworn or uncarried object 300 pounds or less. Effect: Strength save DC 16 or the target is moved 30 feet in any direction and immobilized until the start of the beholder's next turn. Misc: The beholder has fine, precise telekinetic control over objects. Understand that this isn't even as pared down as I would prefer. I'm making concessions to the original text here because where I would simply put "unattended object" instead of "unworn or uncarried" which is clunky and ugly I just know that would be begging for dumb nerds to want to endlessly argue over the definition of "unattended" and what that means. Also I don't think it needs to be stated that the beholder has fine telekinetic control over doors and levers and poo poo because I would think for a creature with a telekinetic ray that would be a pretty obvious conclusion to make but I guess whoever wrote that statblock didn't figure that the people reading it would be able to piece it together for themselves so okay. I am making the assumption that I don't need to clarify that inanimate objects, presumably lacking a Strength score, don't get a saving throw and so that only applies if the target is a creature. I'm also assuming that the bit about the immobilization ending if the beholder is incapacitated is similarly redundant given that the number one way most players are likely to try and end ongoing effects against them is murdering the source.
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Aug 16, 2014 01:34
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AlphaDog posted: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. For the benefit of someone who hasn't really been paying attention, does 5e actually have any interesting setting content yet? Pathfinder has gotten a fair amount of (probably deserved) poo poo in this thread, but I unironically like the Golarion setting. Outside of 'There are some orc-conquered human kingdoms and stuff so half-orcs aren't all rape-babies' I haven't really seen much that jumped out at me.
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Aug 16, 2014 01:50
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The default setting for Next is the Forgotten Realms so I guess it depends on how much you like FR stuff.
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Aug 16, 2014 01:54
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AlphaDog posted:tiny harmless frogs that dwell in volcanoes and feed on giant octupus. That's going in my game as soon as possible.
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Aug 16, 2014 01:56
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Jimbozig posted: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. Yeah I'm not pissed about dieing in a con game or anything, poo poo happens. Just laughing about it being goddamn ghouls. As soon as I saw them (4 showed up on round 2 while fighting 6 skeletons) I knew we would wipe. I tried to hold them off for a few rounds with my sorcerer by dodging and using Shield while the party finished the skeletons. It worked for 2 rounds then I was down and devoured. You are penalized for any sort of death in organized play, heroic or otherwise, so that was a terrible idea. Never be the hero. ritorix fucked around with this message at 02:17 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 02:15
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AlphaDog posted: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'd really like more fluff, better organized, more focused on being things that make play interesting, and hopefully framed more as 'rumors' than 'indesputable truths'. Maybe also with a focus on stuff that isn't super obvious/lazy. I really liked the ettercap preview they posted a while ago, where it threw down a bunch of fluff about ettercaps hunting pixies for their dust and turning forests into spider-forests. That's all stuff that makes for good adventure hooks, while also not being the most-obvious-most-lazy idea a person could have after hearing about the monster's basic concept. I think Next is doing a good job with this, actually. All that stuff about Sphinxes being divine guardians and whatever is actually pretty cool, and I really like how they're trying to treat monster lairs as part of monster identities. Breaking the lore stuff about them into distinct bolded segment is also super handy, since you can pretty much just glance at their lore page and get plenty of ideas for how to run them. I think they could even shave it down a bit, but with the bolding and the organization that's more to save printing costs and less to make things easier to find.
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Aug 16, 2014 02:47
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AlphaDog posted: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. So I'm someone who enjoys playing in a premade setting more than running my own but none of this stuff seems remotely useful to a GM. When it comes to chunks of fluff I would prefer them to be something along the lines of a plot hook more than just useless poo poo. The landsharks being something that operates in a swarm much like a plague of locusts is a easy and simple plot hook to attach to a monster. Do they do much of that or?
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Aug 16, 2014 03:06
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I also think lair-oriented abilities are a nice concept. It makes the idea of going to fight something on its home turf more of a dangerous proposition and rewards groups for doing things like luring the monster out of its lair (how effective that is being, of course, entirely up to the GM). That said while it's a neat idea, the Sphinx one in particular left me thinking that those particular effects coexist somewhat awkwardly with the monster's own abilities. "The Sphinx can roar really loud, it can cast spells...or it can send the player-characters hurtling a decade through time." Don't get me wrong, that's neat enough as far as these things go, it just seems a bit odd to me that "introduce massive campaign plot twist" is the sort of thing they're going for there.
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Aug 16, 2014 03:10
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Kai Tave posted:I also think lair-oriented abilities are a nice concept. It makes the idea of going to fight something on its home turf more of a dangerous proposition and rewards groups for doing things like luring the monster out of its lair (how effective that is being, of course, entirely up to the GM). I wonder how the lair dynamic is going to work out. So, you want to lure out the dragon from its lair. Great. Unfortunately, the dragon is not a loving tool and he knows that he can't use his Home Sweet Home magic tricks outside of its lair. And the DM planned for a totally rad encounter that involves the Home Sweet Home magic. Because he read the book and said to himself, "this is so cool I can't wait to see the party deal with this." But the party doesn't want to deal with this. The party wants to lure the dragon just over the doorstep and beat its skull in with a sock filled with platinum pieces. And this is not some trivial difference because lair actions seem pretty loving potent. In the case of the sphinx, it includes a save-or-lose. (Being regressed to the age of a toddler is pretty much an instant loss.) So it kind of matters where you fight the monster. The PCs don't want to go in. The monster doesn't want to come out. I don't see how this promotes cool gaming. It strikes me more as bullshit "Gotcha!" baiting or antagonistic railroading. ("You have only 24 hours to obtain the flower of McGuffin and its inside this lair only, now go forth and face the music.")
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Aug 16, 2014 03:25
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Well save-or-suck always makes cool ideas less cool, that's just one of those things. And of course the dragon doesn't want to come out of its lair, there are skeletons and poo poo out there man. gently caress going outside. I wonder how a monster having a lair with lair abilities interacts (if at all) with CR and in what arcane ways? I bet it'd be pretty easy to backport lair abilities into a game like 4E by assigning the lair an XP budget based on the abilities and how it works. Again, I genuinely and unironically think that "monster lair abilities" is a neat idea, I'm just not sold on the execution based on what I've seen of it.
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Aug 16, 2014 03:41
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Kai Tave posted:Well save-or-suck always makes cool ideas less cool, that's just one of those things. And of course the dragon doesn't want to come out of its lair, there are skeletons and poo poo out there man. gently caress going outside. Yeah I love the idea of a monster lair. It expands the concept of fighting the monster to include "what credible threat can we used to get it out of the lair" or "what can we do to neutralize the lair effects" - assuming that the lair properties are at least moderately knowable by the players/PCs. But, that assumes your group wants to have something that's at least half a puzzle.
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Aug 16, 2014 03:48
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There's no real point of stuff like that age regression thing really, it's just a flavorful way of saying Save Or Die, and I get that really flavorful way of saying Save or Die is all kinds of old school (hell it's literally half of the Tomb of Horrors) but I don't think it creates terribly good gameplay.
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Aug 16, 2014 03:56
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OtspIII posted:I'd really like more fluff, better organized, more focused on being things that make play interesting, and hopefully framed more as 'rumors' than 'indesputable truths'. Maybe also with a focus on stuff that isn't super obvious/lazy. Could you link the Ettercap preview I never saw it.
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Aug 16, 2014 04:01
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MonsterEnvy posted:Could you link the Ettercap preview I never saw it. Oof, here it is. I tried googling it for my initial post, but it didn't come up easily so I just skipped over it. Sage Genesis posted:And this is not some trivial difference because lair actions seem pretty loving potent. In the case of the sphinx, it includes a save-or-lose. (Being regressed to the age of a toddler is pretty much an instant loss.) So it kind of matters where you fight the monster. The PCs don't want to go in. The monster doesn't want to come out. I don't see how this promotes cool gaming. It strikes me more as bullshit "Gotcha!" baiting or antagonistic railroading. ("You have only 24 hours to obtain the flower of McGuffin and its inside this lair only, now go forth and face the music.") Yeah, it's one of those things that I think is actually super cool and interesting if used well, but that seems to just be asking for people to abuse it and then defend being an rear end in a top hat by pointing to the rulebook. They work well in a 'just make a setting and let the pcs make their own goals' type of game (which is pretty much how I do D&D), but they seem like big pitfalls for anyone trying to run a more 'I make a set of encounters and plot hook you through them' style of campaign--I can very easily see inexperienced DMs trying to run a lair-fight against a Sphinx as just another combat encounter and then being totally caught off guard when it out of the blue just renders half the party unplayable.
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Aug 16, 2014 05:36
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Monsters that always (or nearly always) stay in their lairs, or are nigh-invincible when in their lairs are a common thread in mythology and in fantasy fiction. I mean, you'll only find Medusa in her cave. You only end up killing Fafnir or Smaug when they're out of their lairs (and Smaug was still a loving chancy thing). The Sphinx guards that one place, it's what it's for. You're not going to fight Cerberus anywhere that's not the gates of the underworld*. And so on. I'm not sure how well they'll work in practice, but the idea of lair abilities is awesome and is the sort of extra information that I find enjoyable and useful. *Unless you do what Hercules did, I guess. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 07:30
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ritorix given that you own the MM. Can you tell me anything about the 4 Yugoloths that show up in the book. Also were the two pages we got on the Tarrasque all the info about it? MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 09:25
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Interesting at Gencon Mike Mearls mentioned, there isn't an FR book in the works, that seems strange if FR is supposed to be the 5e default Campaign world
Lochness_Hamster fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 11:25
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WotC have pulled even the Google cache of the old content on their site now, and have in fact disabled caching entirely:
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Aug 16, 2014 11:38
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Kai Tave posted:I wonder how a monster having a lair with lair abilities interacts (if at all) with CR and in what arcane ways? I bet it'd be pretty easy to backport lair abilities into a game like 4E by assigning the lair an XP budget based on the abilities and how it works. Again, I genuinely and unironically think that "monster lair abilities" is a neat idea, I'm just not sold on the execution based on what I've seen of it. Come to think of it, isn't the lair basically just a 4e trap? It's tied to a location, it has an initiative, it has one of several actions available. And I bet it has an impact on the xp value of the encounter. They changed the fluff a little and the way to deal with it (only by killing the monster) but they're really not all that different. It should be trivial to backport into 4e.
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Aug 16, 2014 12:59
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Jack the Lad posted:WotC have pulled even the Google cache of the old content on their site now, and have in fact disabled caching entirely: Mike Mearls posted:3. The Fighter Exists in a World of Myth, Fantasy, and Legend Oh. Though Mearls was careful to cherry-pick the most mundane feats of Beowulf, so the "keep the fantastical out of my fantasy, TYVM" grog was strong with this one even then.
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Aug 16, 2014 13:17
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Starting at level 17, a Bard/Warlock/Wizard can use True Polymorph to permanently turn into (for instance) a CR17 Adult Red Dragon, retaining all their own mental stats, class features and spellcasting. They can also permanently turn other party members into Adult Red Dragons. This is a pretty big buff for the Fighter. 
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Aug 16, 2014 13:30
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Please, please tell me they can polymorph skeletons into dragons.
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Aug 16, 2014 13:38
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E: Well, okay then. That sounds not entirely terrible.
Littlefinger fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 13:41
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moths posted:Please, please tell me they can polymorph skeletons into dragons. Unfortunately not. You can only use True Polymorph to turn a creature into another creature of its CR or lower. Another idea I had was using Fabricate to make a Large wooden sculpture (of a Skeleton) and then True Polymorphing it into a Fire Giant (you can only object -> creature up to CR9) and creating an army of Fire Giants that way, but it doesn't work either; once you make object -> creature permanent they're no longer bound to your service.
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Aug 16, 2014 13:43
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Whoa, I must have missed some sort of abusive combination here. How do you make True Polymorph be permanent?
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Aug 16, 2014 13:51
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Jack the Lad posted:Starting at level 17, a Bard/Warlock/Wizard can use True Polymorph to permanently turn into (for instance) a CR17 Adult Red Dragon, retaining all their own mental stats, class features and spellcasting. The question is where to get a musical instrument large enough for a Dragon Bard.
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Aug 16, 2014 13:51
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Sage Genesis posted:Whoa, I must have missed some sort of abusive combination here. How do you make True Polymorph be permanent? It's right in the spell. "If you concentrate on this spell for the full duration, the transformation becomes permanent." Daetrin posted:The question is where to get a musical instrument large enough for a Dragon Bard. There don't seem to be any rules for size-appropriateness, so presumably you could rock out on a Medium guitar even as a Huge dragon. You could fluff it as a skeleton riding you around playing guitar for you. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 14:02 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 13:57
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Jack the Lad posted:It's right in the spell. Wow, my eyes glanced right over that. That'll teach me to read before drinking enough coffee. That seems... kind of stupid.
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Aug 16, 2014 14:03
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Or kind of awesome. After last night's ghoul death the party rezzed me and I rebuilt from a wild sorc into an assassin. We played that Hoard of the Dragon queen for a few hours and my every other roll was a crit. Making up for the crappy wild surges. Monster envy you are only getting one page on the tarrasque but there's a few for yugoloths.
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Aug 16, 2014 14:16
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Here is another cool spell.quote:Contagion So you make a touch attack against something (or have your Familiar do so using your attack bonus from up to 100 feet away) and it is stunned until the end of its next turn every time it takes damage. This effect lasts until it makes 3 Constitution saving throws (with Disadvantage) or for 7 days if it fails 3 before passing 3. These saving throws are specifically triggered at the end of each of its turns. Even if they make every save, or have Legendary Resistance to auto-pass them (if they don't, they're unlikely to; your chance even with a +10 bonus to save against a level 17+ caster's spell DC with Disadvantage is 36%) they're afflicted for a minimum of 3 rounds, which is as long as most combats last anyway. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 14:24
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I completely glossed over that version, I was looking at the one above it (the wisdom one) combine them both and you just spent 2 5th level spells to neuter the dragon completely Edit: do stunned creatures grant advantage?
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Aug 16, 2014 14:35
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Stormgale posted:I completely glossed over that version, I was looking at the one above it (the wisdom one) combine them both and you just spent 2 5th level spells to neuter the dragon completely Yep, and can't take actions or move.
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Aug 16, 2014 14:42
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ritorix posted:Yep, and can't take actions or move. So just cast this on the dragon, skeleton archer it then magic missile it each round for guaranteed damage, The dragon sees a small flying fairy and runs for none can escape the wizards reach?
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Aug 16, 2014 14:49
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Jack the Lad posted:Here is another cool spell. Also it looks like True and regular Polymorph are distinct from Wildshape and Shapechange in that only the latter allow users keep class abilities when in another form.
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Aug 16, 2014 15:23
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quote:* A stunned creature can't move or take actions or reactions, and can speak only falteringly. Yeah, stunned is super strong. slydingdoor posted:Might be hard to get a familiar as a cleric or a druid, who are the only ones besides bards that can get the spell, but they can just melee a dragon anyway. Trickery cleric get Pass Without Trace and a bullshit duplicate that could cast the spell from 120 feet away, assuming you can get it close at 30 ft/round. A Druid can just turn into something stealthy while concentrating on PWT, pop out with surprise, cast half damage on a save spells and solo stunlock the thing to death at like level 9 by the look of it. Bummer, yeah, that's true - scratch the familiar thing except for Bards. With regard to nukes, that seems viable and completely safe. Disintegrate as an 8th will do 96 on average and Meteor Swarm will do another 140. If you go the skeleton route, 12 will do the job with advantage and 3 rounds to work in, even if you don't use any attacks or spells yourself. The dragon can (falteringly) tell you what a jerk you are as it dies. e: Bards can also use Bardic Inspiration on their initial attack roll, bringing their chance to succeed up to 98.6%. It seems they may be the ultimate dragon killers. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 15:23
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Jack the Lad posted:e: Bards can also use Bardic Inspiration on their initial attack roll, bringing their chance to succeed up to 98.6%. It seems they may be the ultimate dragon killers. Bard is the way to a kill a dragon? I guess the game really was inspired by Tolkien.
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Aug 16, 2014 15:42
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DalaranJ posted:Bard is the way to a kill a dragon? I guess the game really was inspired by Tolkien. Actually, turns out Bards can't inspire themselves - only their allies. Having a Bard buddy is good, though! e: Actually they're still the best since they can use Foresight + Lucky for a 95.7% success rate solo. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Aug 16, 2014 |
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Aug 16, 2014 15:59
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Jack the Lad posted:Actually, turns out Bards can't inspire themselves - only their allies. But doctor, I am great bard Pagliacci!
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Aug 16, 2014 16:07
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"Well, look, it's not all bad as a fighter. Later on, your party members can polymorph you until something useful that they can also polymorph themselves into, while keeping all the poo poo that made them better than you in the first place."
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Aug 16, 2014 16:27
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Crasical posted:For the benefit of someone who hasn't really been paying attention, does 5e actually have any interesting setting content yet? Pathfinder has gotten a fair amount of (probably deserved) poo poo in this thread, but I unironically like the Golarion setting. Outside of 'There are some orc-conquered human kingdoms and stuff so half-orcs aren't all rape-babies' I haven't really seen much that jumped out at me. The Player's Handbook doesn't even technically release until Tuesday. It's FR, I guess. 3E was Greyhawk minus anything to do with Greyhawk and 4E was "I guess the world is a bunch of forests and ruins and ~points of light~" at this point. Who knows!
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Aug 16, 2014 16:49
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