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ritorix posted:Also talked to a few goons during a dungeon world game and they varied from neutral to positive on 5e. But they all mentioned they stay away from this thread due to the toxicity.
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Aug 18, 2014 01:19
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Ferrinus posted:Ki being psionic power was a freaking masterstroke.
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Aug 18, 2014 01:21
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Covok posted:Unless I'm mistaken, hasn't D&D always handled psionics with a power point system? Considering this editions emphasis on tradition, we're likely going to see the main psonic classes return and likely see a few unique ones from 3.X since its this edition favorite previous edition. I was gonna say I didn't think 2E did, but it sort of did. Also it sort of didn't. Because it had this weird skill check mechanic, which later turned into this fancy MTHAC0/MAC system for rolling to hit your own powers.
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Aug 18, 2014 01:27
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Old Thrashbarg posted:How balanced and interesting is the 5e monk in people's evaluation so far? Probably my 3rd or 4th favorite class. (The Paladin, Bard and Warlock are the other 3.) I am not a very good writer, but I will do my best to explain the monk. The monk gets a feature pretty much every level up. Most of the more interesting ones come in the first 10 or so levels with the later half focusing more utility like Proficiency on all saves. The Sub classes excluded as they all give pretty nice combat powers at high levels. Most powers are activated by using Ki which come as points you get based on your level that recharging after half an hour of Mediation. They can let you do stuff like punch an extra 2 times for 1 point to spending 3 points to force them to save after you punch them, if they fail they drop to 0 hp if they succeed they take 10d6 damage. (This a level 17 power.) Honestly they have a lot of neat stuff and someone else could explain this better then I could.
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Aug 18, 2014 01:36
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Monks are worse than Fighters and get class features like reducing fall damage and, at level 18, "cast Invisibility like a level 3 Wizard". Don't play a Monk.
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Aug 18, 2014 01:48
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seebs posted:I was gonna say I didn't think 2E did, but it sort of did. Also it sort of didn't. Because it had this weird skill check mechanic, which later turned into this fancy MTHAC0/MAC system for rolling to hit your own powers. It absolutely did. The Psionics Handbook uses a system of Psionic Strength Points and also a weird skill-like mechanic. You roll your skill check, and if you pass you pay the power's initial PSP cost and then any maintenance cost per round. If you fail your skill check, you pay half the PSP cost anyway. MThac0/MAC was a Skills&Powers (ie, 2.5e) thing, I think - it may have been in Dragon or something before that. The non attack/defense powers still use the PSP system in that book though. Psionic Strength Points were a constant thing in 2e's psionics. I'm not certain about AD&D, but I'm pretty sure it used power points too.
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Aug 18, 2014 02:01
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Old Thrashbarg posted:How balanced and interesting is the 5e monk in people's evaluation so far? It was really fun in the Alpha PHB, but I'm not happy with the new changes for release. The way they've reworded how Martial Arts works is strange, along with the stepped-down unarmed damage dice (starts d4, ends d10). The first attack you make can be with a monk weapon using that weapon's damage. Since there's no restrictions on a weapon with the "versatile" tag, you can have it be a quarterstaff for a d8 attack, but even a d6 shortsword beats or equals unarmed until level 11 where it turns d8. The follow up bonus attack is then done as an unarmed attack and uses the monks unarmed damage dice. Using a Ki point for flurry turns that single bonus attack into two bonus unarmed attacks (so ideally, weapon attack followed by two unarmed). The change to Perfect Self to do what the Fighter's superiority dice version does is lame. What really hurts the class is that your unarmed damage doesn't get magical until level 6, where you'll be seeing monsters that reduce or nullify non-magical damage around level 2 or 3. Meaning, for a few levels your bonus attacks are going to be half as effective at best with no way to fix it until 6. Even if you land a magic weapon, you only get the one attack with it. Maybe magic gloves or something? Without a magic items list, who knows. Something else that bugs me is the lacking damage options. Think about a two weapon ranger with the Colossus Slayer path - with shortswords that's three 1d6 dice a turn. Level 2 give them limited spells like Hunter's mark that adds yet another 1d6 to a specified target. Rogue's have various advantages with Sneak Attack and it can get the damage out as well. Monks seem to lack such a feature, their Flurry option limited by the Ki points and monastic traditions appear more focused on status effects and/or also limited by Ki. On the flip side, that same point could also have more worth than raw damage. I don't know how helpful it is to push a man - though so far it has not made much a different in the games I've played. Rarely are spikes placed on walls for Mortal Kombat style fatalities. Being able to cast spells is pretty great thematically, and some seem awesome (extend reach of attacks 10 feet, 1 ki on hit for extra 1d10 damage), but once again we're looking at the Ki Points being the restriction. There's also all the other things a Monk gets just as a class, like Purity of Body or that proficient in all save throws deal. Again, I don't really think that kind thing offsets what is lacking here especially when a lot of those don't come into play until later levels, where most people apparently don't end up playing to. *e: Stunning Strike could also prove very useful, stunning doing a lot not just for the Monk. However, I'm not sure what kind of CON scores monsters have. Lothire fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Aug 18, 2014 |
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Aug 18, 2014 02:11
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Monks had a really cool sub-class called Disciple of the Elements that had a whole lot of interesting effects. That got turned into "Cast some wizard spells by spending buttloads of ki." Which was kinda awkward when another one of the sub-classes is a monk who casts spells. 2/3rds of the specializations for monk is "Be a spellcaster." Meanwhile, in the playtest, you could make a monk that could grapple an opponent, then auto-hit with four attacks after inflicting bludgeoning damage vulnerability while their fists were on fire. Or explode when they die. Or other cool things. Now, it's just... whoopee, spells.
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Aug 18, 2014 02:38
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Thanks for the monk info. Disappointing to hear, although I guess they can't be as bad as the 3.0/3.5 versions.
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Aug 18, 2014 02:58
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Are there any archives of the old playtest packets? I only got a few of them before becoming completely disinterested in Next for a year and a half and between a better monk, neater Fighter abilities, and stuff like the old Sorcerer it seems like the playtests have better classes than the finalized PHB.
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Aug 18, 2014 03:41
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AlphaDog posted:It absolutely did. AD&D definitely used points, but in a radically different way -- there was nothing remotely corresponding to levels, and they didn't increase with your levels. Which was of course horrible. What I meant by "sort of didn't" is that when I think of a "power point" system, I'm thinking of a system where you spend points and powers manifest. The "also you have to make checks to even activate the powers at all" thing sort of detracts from that. But 2e introduced the idea that psionic points increased with level. 3e went to pricing them in a way relating to their "levels". And either 3e or 3.5e added "augmenting" which turns out to be one of the first analogues in D&D to the 5e spellcasting "use a higher level slot to improve the effect" thing. (Which is a lot more similar to that than it is to, say, metamagic feats.) But that was where we started seeing things like "does X damage, plus Y damage per additional two points". FWIW, my first 5e character rolled with intent to play is a monk. I've compared back and forth with the playtest rules, and the differences are large enough that it's hard for me to compare straight up. Just looking at open-hand monk: Playtest: 2 ki points at 1st level, up to 8 at 20th. At 20th level, regain one per round. No extra attack feature at any level. Flurry action replaces standard attack, gives two attacks, after which you can choose to spend a ki point for another. At 8th level, you get two extra attacks if you spend a ki point (I think). At 11th level, if you spend a ki point for an extra attack, you can automatically knock an opponent prone, knock them back 10 feet, or deny them reactions for one turn. Unarmed damage is 1d6 to 1d12. Flurry is unarmed strikes only. PHB: 2 ki points at 2nd, up to 20 at 20th. At 20th level, regain four every time you roll initiative. Start out with a feature which lets you, as a bonus action, take an extra attack. Extra attack feature at 5th level. At 2nd, get flurry, which lets you spend one ki to make two extra attacks as a bonus action. At 3rd, if you use flurry, those attacks can impose prone, 15' knockback, or no reactions for one turn, but the prone and knockback allow dex/str saves respectively. Martial arts damage is 1d4 to 1d10. With a weapon, you can use the weapon's damage if it's better. Extra attacks from flurry are always unarmed strikes. Monk weapons are effectively finesse weapons for a monk. So, at 8th level, a playtest monk gets a single attack with the attack action, or they can use flurry to make three attacks, or spend a ki point to make four. All attacks unarmed, and do 1d8. At 8th level, a PHB monk gets two attacks with the attack action, which can use monk weapons. They can then take one extra attack free, or spend a ki point to make two, which are unarmed and do 1d6 damage. These end up producing similar effects. The PHB monk's damage is slightly lower, but the option of using weapons (and making them finesse weapons) makes up for that some, and at higher levels, the monk can increase the damage of those weapons. The changes to how flurry works mean that the PHB monk gets the knock-prone/knockback type stuff quite a lot earlier. It now allows saves, but you can also use it with two attacks, so you could in theory knock down two opponents in a round. On the other hand, also needs to-hit rolls to succeed. PHB monk loses the ability to spend a ki point to get advantage on all attacks. Gains deflect arrows regardless of path chosen. Open hand moves the extra conditions from 11 to 3, and then adds "after each long rest, you gain the benefit of a sanctuary spell that lasts until your next long rest" at 11th. Not sure what I make of that. There's enough changes that have interactions that I am not sure whether it is a nerf or not. Weapon set changed from a specific list to all simple weapons plus shortsword. This gives them shortbow, for one thing. Diamond Soul changed from "advantage on all saves vs spells" to "proficiency in all saves, and can reroll a save by spending 1 ki". Stunning Strike changed from "on crit" to "spend 1 ki". Deflect Missiles got buffed; you can't spend ki to add 1d10, but it's now d10+dex+level rather than d10+dex. And you can spend 1 ki as a reaction to make an attack with that item, treating it as a monk weapon with proficiency regardless of what weapon type it was. So that's sorta cool. The nerf to Empty Body sucks, though. On the other hand, in playtest that was half your ki pool; now it's under 1/4 of your ki pool at 18th level. It's... a pretty significant overhaul. I genuinely can't tell whether it is overall more or less powerful. I think losing "1 ki per turn of recovery" is a nerf, but having a 20-point pool is pretty huge. Not as big as what happened to bard, though. Bards lost the ability to maintain performances, replacing that with inspiration, and changed from half casters to full casters. That's pretty huge.
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Aug 18, 2014 03:51
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Diamond Soul looks like a big upgrade. Proficiency is better than Advantage at those levels. If your DC is 18, better to have an extra +5 or +6 than a second roll.
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Aug 18, 2014 03:56
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dwarf74 posted:Diamond Soul looks like a big upgrade. Proficiency is better than Advantage at those levels. If your DC is 18, better to have an extra +5 or +6 than a second roll. You started with str/dex, so it's giving you wis and con, which are two pretty important saves, plus all the others. And it's not restricted to "against spells". So, yeah, upgrade.
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Aug 18, 2014 03:59
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Finesse weapons are weapons that use Dexterity instead of Strength, right?
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Aug 18, 2014 04:15
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Monks get 4 attacks 5 times between any rest at level 5, 6 levels/one whole 'tier of play' before a dual wielding fighter. After that they can dip Warlock 2 for practically permanent Mage Armor (should put you at 20 AC), another Invocation such as 120 ft magic darkness-proof darkvision, and 2 uses every rest of the spell Hex. Pick a target within 90 ft as a bonus action, give them disadvantage on checks to one ability score and deal 1d6 necrotic damage whenever you hit them. Which you can do 4 times. Just don't lose concentration on it. Nihilarian posted:Finesse weapons are weapons that use Dexterity instead of Strength, right? Either or. Also I don't think monk unarmed strikes are finesse anymore, so no sneak attacking with them. As if anyone would multiclass rogue monk anyway though.
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Aug 18, 2014 04:29
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slydingdoor posted:Either or. Also I don't think monk unarmed strikes are finesse anymore, so no sneak attacking with them. As if anyone would multiclass rogue monk anyway though. Ah-hah! That's why they say "can use dexterity instead of strength" rather than "finesse". But yeah, finesse means you can choose which stat to use; this is so monks don't have to focus on strength, dex, wisdom, and con. Just dex, wisdom, and con.
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Aug 18, 2014 04:53
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I ran a bit of the Dragon queen adventure tonight, level 3 party. We had a wild sorc. During a fight with cultists he surged, summoned a unicorn and hilarity ensued. Unicorn charged an evil creature that they wanted to capture alive, gored it on the horn instead. Enemies fled. The party of three hopped on the unicorns back and said "go after them!" Unicorns can teleport themselves+ riders. It was a very brief chase. On a later surge that sorc's skin turned blue. Permanently. He also managed to cast Confusion on himself. Effective? Eh, not really, but pretty entertaining.
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Aug 18, 2014 05:16
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slydingdoor posted:Monks get 4 attacks 5 times between any rest at level 5, 6 levels/one whole 'tier of play' before a dual wielding fighter. After that they can dip Warlock 2 for practically permanent Mage Armor (should put you at 20 AC), another Invocation such as 120 ft magic darkness-proof darkvision, and 2 uses every rest of the spell Hex. Hmm Monk/Warlock does indeed seem cool, though might want some more Monk levels for some at will teleport that Warlocks in this edition don't get. I think the Shadow Monk's ability to teleport from shadow to shadow was at will. Also why would you want Mage Armor on a Monk? Doesn't it still not stack with the Wis to AC?
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Aug 18, 2014 05:17
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Ryuujin posted:Hmm Monk/Warlock does indeed seem cool, though might want some more Monk levels for some at will teleport that Warlocks in this edition don't get. I think the Shadow Monk's ability to teleport from shadow to shadow was at will. Oooh, good catch. "AC becomes 13 + dexterity modifier". So it's not giving a bonus, but if your wis bonus is +2 or lower, it's still better.
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Aug 18, 2014 05:40
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ritorix posted:I ran a bit of the Dragon queen adventure tonight, level 3 party. Was the enemy Cyanwrath? If it was shame he is kind of cool. If not hope you do something cool with Cyanwrath.
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Aug 18, 2014 06:14
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A friend pointed out a lovely oversight: Elemental Weapon is paladin-only, but has rules for what happens if you cast it using a 7th level slot. I guess in theory a bard could learn it and do that, but... This seems odd.
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Aug 18, 2014 07:11
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The paladin could MC into a full caster class after they get the spell at level 9 to get 7th level slots around level 17 I think? That's also why they limit smite damage to 5th level slots, I imagine. It's a better spell for Lore bards though.
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Aug 18, 2014 07:18
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MonsterEnvy posted:Was the enemy Cyanwrath? If it was shame he is kind of cool. If not hope you do something cool with Cyanwrath. Nah we did that fight the night before. A paladin dueled him and got him down to 1hp before losing.
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Aug 18, 2014 09:40
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MonsterEnvy posted:Most powers are activated by using Ki which come as points you get based on your level that recharging after half an hour of Mediation. This gave me a very entertaining mental image.
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Aug 18, 2014 11:42
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OpenlyEvilJello posted:This gave me a very entertaining mental image. Hadozee Diplomonky.
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Aug 18, 2014 12:35
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this went up on their facebook page about an hour ago  
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Aug 18, 2014 15:30
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Jack can you translate this into the skeleton metric, its all I understand anymore
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Aug 18, 2014 15:33
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So the lair mechanics are Onyxia raid gimmicks?
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Aug 18, 2014 15:40
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moths posted:So the lair mechanics are Onyxia raid gimmicks? Standing too close or too far apart or in the corners causes Deep Breath.
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Aug 18, 2014 15:43
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moths posted:So the lair mechanics are Onyxia raid gimmicks?
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Aug 18, 2014 15:43
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No guys, I imagined I wasn't standing in fire.
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Aug 18, 2014 15:47
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moths posted:So the lair mechanics are Onyxia raid gimmicks? Mike Mearls, in an interview in 2020, while eating string cheese, posted:that D&D 5's lair mechanic approach was disastrously timed when it arrived in 2014, as it would face competition from the dominant MMO World of Warcraft Littlefinger fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Aug 18, 2014 |
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Aug 18, 2014 15:47
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FMguru posted:I was just about to post this - they look like environmental complications for an MMO boss fight. Which is fine, except that this version of D&D was supposed to be a clean break from the alleged "lol tabletop WoW" nature of the 4E. No, they're not complications for an MMO boss fight. Those usually give you a targeting reticle you have to run out of.
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Aug 18, 2014 16:00
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Running out of the telegraph is a DC15 Dex save.
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Aug 18, 2014 16:14
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Stormgale posted:Jack can you translate this into the skeleton metric, its all I understand anymore 10 skeletons will out-DPR a Fighter against the Ancient Red Dragon. It takes 156 skeleton-attacks (with advantage) to take one down. Meaning 52 skeletons shooting at it for the 3 rounds of guaranteed stun from Contagion/Slimy Doom. Or 30 skeletons if you cast spells alongside instead of just sipping a martini. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Aug 18, 2014 |
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Aug 18, 2014 16:15
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I like the lair mechanic, as well as the tidbit about dragons subtly changing their environment in magical ways. Also, one thing they did take away from 4e: dragons shouldn't just be really large Sorcerers. I might mine that thing for ideas.
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Aug 18, 2014 16:19
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Why did they make the decision to give the radius rather than the diameter of a sphere? I mean I know it allows you to say "20 feet in each direction from the origin point" but I think "a 40 feet in diameter sphere" is easier to understand.
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Aug 18, 2014 16:27
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Rosalind posted:Why did they make the decision to give the radius rather than the diameter of a sphere? I mean I know it allows you to say "20 feet in each direction from the origin point" but I think "a 40 feet in diameter sphere" is easier to understand. On a grid it's much easier to stick down the point you are aiming the centre at and work things out from there.
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Aug 18, 2014 16:32
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More fun undead facts, if you are bored at the end of a day, finger of death someone to gain a permanent (no need to waste any control them) zombie Other fun spell facts, if you get bored and want to relax while your skeletons kill thing, use warding glyphs to inscribe your spells into books that your skeletons or zombies carry, when opened In front of a dragon (you can be that specific) bam suddenly the dragon suffers the spell as if you cast it Double fun fact, the spell is stored permanently and it doesn't burn out the slots, You can use your remaining spell slots every night to store up spells at a rate of 2 spell slots (1 for the spell, 1 equal level for the glyph) so yep, just store them permanently for later at no real cost, spend your spare days creating a backup magical arsenal.
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Aug 18, 2014 16:47
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Does it say you have to inscribe them in a book? Can you, for instance, write the spell on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope addressed to your intended target, then send it in the mail? Roll it up and tie it to an arrow, which one of your skeletons shoots into their bedroom window? Fold it into a paper airplane?
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Aug 18, 2014 16:50
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