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thespaceinvader posted:Someone posted a thread about the Monk on the Wizards forums - basically indicating that an Elemental Monk could fly after a Dragon and use Water Whip to prone it, meaning it's able to knock a flying dragon out of the air all by itself. I found the thread in question and jeeze these people are lame. http://community.wizards.com/forum/product-and-general-dd-discussions/threads/4129726 How dare a monk be able to do something really cool? My realism in my dragon and elf game is ruined!
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Aug 23, 2014 00:41
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Honestly the Monk does read pretty cool aside from the lovely level 1. Quivering Palm seems like a pcool save-or-die for a martial class.
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Aug 23, 2014 00:49
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The SAforums are the only place I've found that talk about tabletop games like normal, not-broken people. For the most part. I will never understand the mentality that makes people view D&D as everything under the sun but what it is meant to actually be: A game. I will never understand why these people who complain until they're blue in the face about verisimilitude and realism, these people who house rule the game and ignore the ruleset so much that it hardly even resembles the game it was written as, don't just play a completely different game that caters to what they actually want to play. It absolutely boggles my mind. It's why I stopped playing 3.5 altogether at the beginning of 4E's lifespan: I had been playing the game for 8 years and only a handful of times was it ever the actual loving game. No one ever plays 3E/3.5 RAW. It just doesn't happen. Not that it'd be a good game even if one WERE to play it RAW, but you'd think that somewhere along the line people would have been clued in that they were doing all the drat work and the game they were playing wasn't the game they were playing. The system wasn't working, nor was it very good; Having a game that encourages people who didn't design the game to house rule a bunch of poo poo in a desperate attempt at making it fit whatever little tiny box view they have of how the game should run and "work" should be a big red flag that MAYBE they should look elsewhere. And now it's happening all over again with 5E.  Help. I think that I may be taking Elf Games too seriously.
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Aug 23, 2014 00:50
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Agent Boogeyman posted:Help. I think that I may be taking Elf Games too seriously. Nah I hear you. I legit think people forget that D&D is supposed to be a game where you raid dungeons and kill dragons, and not a fantasy world simulator.
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Aug 23, 2014 00:56
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slydingdoor posted:First off, anyone playing a Beowulf inspired character hangs around meadhalls a lot and definitely has Tavern Brawler. They can punch a thing or throw a bottle at their head then grab them. Pulling their goddamn arm off is something everyone in this thread forgets about : improvising an action. Any DM that doesn't let that happen doesn't just suck, they also aren't following the rule to make things fun and awesome. It's up to the DM At what level does a Necromancer get to cast Raise Dead? It's not up to the DM Also, to join the earlier conversation, I believe (but am not certain) that fighters have absolutely been nerfed compared to 4e. At level 25, the fighter in my game solo-ed a level 32 dragon for several rounds, neither getting killed nor letting the dragon escape (thanks to the feat 'pinning challenge') while the rest of the party took on the dragon's army. When they were done, the fighter still wasn't dead and they came and killed the big bad of the campaign like 5 levels early. I was shocked. I was certain that I would be able to knock the fighter to zero for a round and make my getaway then. No dice. And it was awesome because everyone knew that wasn't how it was supposed to go. In 5e, does the fighter get the tools to make this happen? Can they stop a dragon in its tracks every time it tries to escape? Obviously not at level 1, but ever? Can they eventually spend one of their dice to do that? These are honest questions: I don't know 5e that well. Somebody might come back and tell me that yeah, a level 20 fighter can tank and pin down a dragon for a few rounds with a little luck. That'd be sweet.
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Aug 23, 2014 00:58
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Generic Octopus posted:Nah I hear you. I legit think people forget that D&D is supposed to be a game where you raid dungeons and kill dragons, and not a fantasy world simulator. This is absolutely a problem, yes. Even AD&D with all its world-sim tables had a core assumption of "...and that world has dungeons, which contain dragons and other monsters. You go in those dungeons and take all the loot from those monsters".
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Aug 23, 2014 01:05
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thespaceinvader posted:Let's see how this goes Jesus Christ, the first three responses were 1) another spellcaster will break them. 2) enemy cleric can turn them UNLIKE THE MIGHTY FIGHTER 3) ~ROLE~play will prevent this travesty! It's like self-parody at this point.
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Aug 23, 2014 01:20
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Rosalind posted:I found the thread in question and jeeze these people are lame. quote:It trivializes the Tarrasque, though. Such a beast shouldn't be able to be subjected to treatment like that from a mere monk. I don't want to play whack-a-Tarrasque when I play D&D.  I'm enjoying reading this topic. Edit: quoted wrong guy. Nihilarian fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 02:07
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moths posted:Jesus Christ, the first three responses were This is what I don't get. The game shows promise of doing awesome or interesting things (in this case, a dude can have a skeleton army) and the game's fans immediately start saying how they'd shut it down. Not the people who have pre-decided to hate the game. The actual fans who say they love the rules immediately start talking about changing the rules so the things that happen because of those rules won't happen. It's the weirdest attitude*. "You can play as a dude with a skeleton army", "You can be, like, 14 bears", and "If you're careful, you can use spells to become a dragon" should be regarded as features. I feel like they would have been back in the OD&D days. If you don't like that sort of thing, that's cool - but it means that you don't actually like this game. *Well, not in TTRPGs. But in any other industry it would look weird as hell. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 02:10
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I guess "the only limit is your imagination" cuts both ways.
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Aug 23, 2014 02:26
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Nihilarian posted:mere monk. A mere, almost epic level monk. quote:very true... although as you can see i've been on these forums for several years I can say sadly that the rules as written crowd will never see the light. They know drat well the intent but are constantly looking for ways to exploit things like lawyers. they always have some justification also. (well i can imagine a high level monk used pressure points...lol) in their heads they always have an excuse.
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Aug 23, 2014 03:25
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AlphaDog posted:This is what I don't get. The game shows promise of doing awesome or interesting things (in this case, a dude can have a skeleton army) and the game's fans immediately start saying how they'd shut it down. Yeah, all this poo poo sounds pretty loving cool to try for a bit. I'd like to play a high-level 5e game where the party is a super-fast flying monk that can knock a dragon out of the air, a necromancer with undead army, a wizard who can turn into a dragon, and a druid who can fill the map with bears. And maybe a fighter played by a dude who is really good at talking the DM into going along with his plans and never uses his actual class for anything. Would it get old pretty quick? Yeah, maybe. Would there be any real tactical considerations? No. But it still sounds fun for an adventure or two. And after typing that I just pictured rolling all those skeleton attacks. Hmm... maybe it'd be better if the DM didn't use the combat rules and just let the players narrate how they embarrass and destroy their opposition in each combat instead of actually slogging through. I guess I just really like the game's spells. I don't like the combat, I don't like the balance, I think the skills are a step up on 4e but still far from great, I don't like the cliche setting, but I think it has really cool loving spells. Making spells 40% of the book might be an unironically great idea, since they are the best thing about 5e. I guess I'm not the first to observe how much cooler this stuff is in my imagination than the game would make it at the table. 5e: at its best while you wipe your rear end. Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 03:31
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I'll be honest, an edition of DnD that just went whole hog with breaking everything to bits and making everybody downright mythical would be amazing. Necromancers raising entire armies, paladins turning into walking avatars of their gods, rogues so good at their craft that they can steal concepts such as souls, talents, and hearts, fighters that can reshape the world around them with their bare hands . . . Somebody should work on that. It'd be downright incredible.
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Aug 23, 2014 04:23
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Jimbozig posted:At what level can I rip off the Dragon's arm when it attacks me? Surely not level 1, so when does my cool improvisation get to happen? Yeah, I think it does. That feat I keep mentioning will let the fighter lock down a single enemy, and the fighter can dish out some good damage. As for the monk stuff, I think that the monk in the Cleric's Quintet did Kung-Fu a red wyrm out of the sky, so anybody complaining about that is complaining about D&D canon.
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Aug 23, 2014 05:13
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The Bee posted:I'll be honest, an edition of DnD that just went whole hog with breaking everything to bits and making everybody downright mythical would be amazing. Necromancers raising entire armies, paladins turning into walking avatars of their gods, rogues so good at their craft that they can steal concepts such as souls, talents, and hearts, fighters that can reshape the world around them with their bare hands . . . I'm running an epic level 4th edition campaign right now (that actually started at level 1 a few years ago even) and that's not far off from how it plays.
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Aug 23, 2014 05:20
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The Bee posted:I'll be honest, an edition of DnD that just went whole hog with breaking everything to bits and making everybody downright mythical would be amazing. Necromancers raising entire armies, paladins turning into walking avatars of their gods, rogues so good at their craft that they can steal concepts such as souls, talents, and hearts, fighters that can reshape the world around them with their bare hands . . . Someone made something like that, tried to get it Kickstarted, and I playtested it. It was terrible. The central problem was that the concept of magic feeds into people's imaginations much better than fighters being able to physically reshape the world. People are used to the idea that magic is something that is inherently world-shaping and extraordinary, while our imagination for physical feats is relegated to caber tossing (still quite awesome) and the world' strongest man competition. When people create rules, they tend to place limits based upon what they can imagine. Besides, Druids are better at reshaping the world anyway through nature-based magic. Regardless, it does absolutely nothing to solve the most central problem of D&D - Balance. How do you balance the ability to steal souls against making a mountain? How do you balance being the avatar of a god against raising an army of the dead? How do you balance so many extraordinary abilities against each other to allow players to meaningfully contribute to the narrative without another character being relegated to the role of sidekick? Turning things up to 11 doesn't solve problems - it makes them worse. Edit: Also, just play 4e. The central design concept of 4e is "Big Goddamn Heroes" and it plays out well like this. Maybe not as extraordinary as you're describing, but much more balanced than any other flavor of D&D will ever be because LIMITS, DAMMIT.
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Aug 23, 2014 05:26
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The Bee posted:I'll be honest, an edition of DnD that just went whole hog with breaking everything to bits and making everybody downright mythical would be amazing. Necromancers raising entire armies, paladins turning into walking avatars of their gods, rogues so good at their craft that they can steal concepts such as souls, talents, and hearts, fighters that can reshape the world around them with their bare hands . . . Someone did. They called it Exalted. Sadly, someone in this case was White Wolf with all the baggage and poor design that implies.
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Aug 23, 2014 05:43
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LuiCypher posted:Turning things up to 11 doesn't solve problems - it makes them worse. I'm not trying to say you're wrong in the case you're describing, but what you described sounds more like a problem with the design of the game you played than with "turning it up to 11". A game where your special sword doesn't work so you rip the thing's arm off sounds awesome, and that's the sort of thing that slots right into "abilities" or "special moves" and probably works just fine on the level of a 4e Daily or Encounter power. It just sounds like they cargo-culted the other things (steal soul, make mountain) on as though they were specific abilities. A game where you change the course of a river with your muscles sounds awesome, but having a listed power specifically for that sounds dumb as gently caress. Hercules doesn't cast "fast cleaning" or even "move river", and honestly the diverted river itself isn't really the point. Getting water to flow where you want it to isn't mythological (I mean, the Greeks had irrigation), it's Hercules doing the required thousands of man-hours of labor in a day, by himself that's the myth. Well, that plus the "tricking the king" thing.
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Aug 23, 2014 08:25
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Quick houserulling question for folks. I was pondering stealing a couple of things from Dungeon World and 13th age, starting with making damage dice dependent on your class rather than your weapon (or in the case of multiclassed characters whichever class your last level was in to stop people taking a one level Fighter or Barbarian dip) and increasing the amount of damage dice you get to throw as you level - either one per tier, or one per two levels. The other thing I've been thinking about is that one of the arguments against caster power level compared to the other classes is that spells just happen, whereas other classes generally have to roll for their abilities, so what about a skill roll for spell use? You wouldn't lose the spell/slot until it actually worked.
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Aug 23, 2014 09:57
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Angrymog posted:The other thing I've been thinking about is that one of the arguments against caster power level compared to the other classes is that spells just happen, whereas other classes generally have to roll for their abilities, so what about a skill roll for spell use? You wouldn't lose the spell/slot until it actually worked. I think the issue is more that spellcasters get a vast variety of things they can do, in combat or out of it. Martials get "attack, attack, attack". Your solution IS a nerf to casters, but "You have awesome cosmic power but sometimes it doesn't work the first time" does not equal balance with "You're limited to things a normal dude can do". Plus, it does little to address the out of combat issue. EG: There's a huge impassable canyon. The heroes need to be on the other side of it ASAP. The fighter begins a four-week mountaineering expedition, complete with Sherpas and all the supplies he needs to survive. Maybe he has some adventures along the way, makes friends with the Abominable Snowman and vanquishes the evil Frost Yetis along the way. The wizard fails to cast fly a couple of times but is ultimately at the other side of the canyon in about a minute, pretty much the exact same as before your nerf.
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Aug 23, 2014 10:09
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Gort posted:The wizard fails to cast fly a couple of times but is ultimately at the other side of the canyon in about a minute, pretty much the exact same as before your nerf. *It was a 7-8 person game and the adventure was Keep on the Shadowfell, so probably not the best introduction to the game. Angrymog fucked around with this message at 10:19 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 10:13
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AlphaDog posted:A game where you change the course of a river with your muscles sounds awesome, but having a listed power specifically for that sounds dumb as gently caress. Hercules doesn't cast "fast cleaning" or even "move river", and honestly the diverted river itself isn't really the point. Getting water to flow where you want it to isn't mythological (I mean, the Greeks had irrigation), it's Hercules doing the required thousands of man-hours of labor in a day, by himself that's the myth. Well, that plus the "tricking the king" thing. Fighter move. You can do the work of a thousand men in a thousand days: Rank 1: In a single day. Rank 2: In a single hour. Rank 3: In a single punch.
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Aug 23, 2014 10:25
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Skill rolls on spell cast doesn't solve the problem either. Failing on skill roll means that the caster has effectively done nothing on their turn. It ruins things for the casters but makes nothing better for the rest. One way to balance classes and what not is to remove all the fluff, remove all unique signifiers, and start looking at the situation from an entirely mechanical point of view. A character is not a wizard, fighter or anything else from this PoV. They are a character with a general role, a specific flavor a preferred niche. Mechanical actions and balance first, fluff and splat later. From there you can look at an overview of a character/class objectively and determine if they all have equal opportunity of action. What I'm trying to say is that 5E has a majorly biased methodology in it's design. Boing posted:Fighter move. You can do the work of a thousand men in a thousand days: This actually sounds great. Is there a system that allows for being a Mythical badass? Rigged Death Trap fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 10:37
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The worst part is that 4e solved this. By bringing everyone under one mechanical roof - for instance by having Wizards roll attacks against defences just like everyone else instead of having half a dozen different resolution mechanics - relative balance was the natural state of things. The biggest problem with Wizards arises when they get to break or bypass the rules that everyone else abides by. Like, specifically, the move from 3 static defences (Fort/Ref/Will) to 6 different saving throws is one of the most unfathomable things for me. It worked so well! e: Also, random thing I noticed in the Hoard of the Dragon Queen Supplement:  Gotta have a separate entry for centipedes, obviously. But not different stats. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 10:46
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Or for that matter, the move from 3 saving throws to 6 saving throws, even if they wanted to preserve rolling them. Hell, making them affected by stats the way 4E's defenses were (i.e. taking the better of two ability scores) would've left almost everyone better off.
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Aug 23, 2014 11:12
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The Bee posted:I'll be honest, an edition of DnD that just went whole hog with breaking everything to bits and making everybody downright mythical would be amazing. Necromancers raising entire armies, paladins turning into walking avatars of their gods, rogues so good at their craft that they can steal concepts such as souls, talents, and hearts, fighters that can reshape the world around them with their bare hands . . .
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Aug 23, 2014 13:12
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copy posted:What character should I play? 
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Aug 23, 2014 14:11
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Jack the Lad posted:Gotta have a separate entry for centipedes, obviously. But not different stats. Hey man, those ~~30 extra pages~~ aren't going to write themselves.
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Aug 23, 2014 14:26
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Jack the Lad posted:Gotta have a separate entry for centipedes, obviously. But not different stats.
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Aug 23, 2014 14:58
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Out of curiosity, is there anyone here who plays the new D&D and honestly and unironically enjoys it? Full disclosure: I do.
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Aug 23, 2014 15:03
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ascendance posted:I think that's to show the stereotypical OCD neckbeard that you can make a swarm of insects anything - centipedes, bees, spiders, ants, etc. I imagine there's an story-based swarm of centipedes in the Dragon Queen supplement, so they included the generic and the specific to avoid confusion.
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Aug 23, 2014 15:27
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VacuumJockey posted:Out of curiosity, is there anyone here who plays the new D&D and honestly and unironically enjoys it? Full disclosure: I do. I wish there was a thread for these kinds of people. The edition is great for my party (4e, while I absolutely love it, is a bit too tactical for what this group wants), and every time I look at the book I see things I like. And then every time I look at this thread I feel like I should regret purchasing the book or something. With everything bad about the book... it's just not really that bad, and I do prefer it to the alternatives I was looking at.
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Aug 23, 2014 15:28
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VacuumJockey posted:Out of curiosity, is there anyone here who plays the new D&D and honestly and unironically enjoys it? Full disclosure: I do. I have now run two sessions from the starter set. The first one was my first time as a DM. The first session had one person who had never played D&D or any ttrpg before (my wife), two people who had played a few sessions of 4E but sounded like they had a terrible, controlling DM, and a guy who "played a long time ago, I think." The second session was my wife, the last guy, another brand new person, and someone else who "played once in highschool." Everyone had a blast. Everyone wants to keep playing. I've got a new group now, and next weekend they are rolling up characters and we are starting up a campaign. For reference, my playing experience with D&D is mostly limited to 3.x. I dabbled in 4th a little bit, but my other group prefers 3.5 and that's what we currently play.
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Aug 23, 2014 15:45
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VacuumJockey posted:Out of curiosity, is there anyone here who plays the new D&D and honestly and unironically enjoys it? Full disclosure: I do. We mostly don't talk about this because: A) Just saying we enjoyed it isn't interesting unless you say why and B) Fun is a terrible metric, like I can have fun with cortex system firefly or any number of terrible RPG systems, you kinda have to examine the system itself Stormgale fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 16:13
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VacuumJockey posted:Out of curiosity, is there anyone here who plays the new D&D and honestly and unironically enjoys it? Full disclosure: I do. I'm unironically enjoying DMing it so far. Next week we'll be starting a custom campaign at lvl 1, we'll see how it goes! On another note, I could've sworn there was a table somewhere that listed quick DC difficulties for general tasks (in terms of easy/average/hard/impossible) but can't seem to find it now. Am I imagining things?
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Aug 23, 2014 16:24
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treeboy posted:On another note, I could've sworn there was a table somewhere that listed quick DC difficulties for general tasks (in terms of easy/average/hard/impossible) but can't seem to find it now. Am I imagining things? Page 174 of the PHB under ability checks. It's also in the basic PDF's somewhere too.
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Aug 23, 2014 16:40
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I've done a bunch more work on my sheet, including transcribing the stat blocks of every monster of the DM Basic and Hoard of the Dragon Queen Supplement PDFs by hand for easier analysis. You can find it here but you'll need to File -> Make a copy before you can tinker with it.  I've included the chance for each monster to make each kind of save against a PC of level = CR, and it turns out the best chance anything has to save against its lowest save is 40%. A Stone Golem (described as 'nearly impervious to spells') can never pass an Int or Cha save from a PC caster and has a 28% chance of making a Dex save and a 36% chance of making a Wis save - after taking into account its advantage against magic. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 16:51
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I like the idea of skill checks for spells but instead of failure being a null result, make it a hard choice: The spell isn't coming out right. You can fix it by: Putting more magic into it: Spend an extra slot Putting some of yourself into it: spend 1/4 of your HP Or you can let it come out wrong: the DM will roll on a table to see how the effect or target is changed. (I'm thinking of something like Burning wheel's spell failure here)
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Aug 23, 2014 17:05
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Feats Only available to fully martial characters. Labor of Heracles. The character may physically produce the effects of the spell move Earth five times per day. Savage strength of Beowulf Once per day a character may discard her weapon and for the remaining combat fight unarmed as if her strength were 30. Air-walker A character may move her full movement speed along any surface or object that is no lighter than a falling leaf. Further a character may stand or move upon the walls or ceiling. Great slaughter A character may enact this power once per combat, if she defeats her opponent within her allotted actions she may move her full movement to another opponent and receive full actions, if again she defeats the opponent, she may continue to repeat this sequence until such time as she is unable to reach another opponent, or fails to defeat them. The sun fears my arrow A character may make ranged attacks with no disadvantage upon any thing that she can see. Thief of time A thief may five times a day on her turn steal a round from the DM to do with as she pleases. Scarlet Thief A thief may make a sleight of hand check to steal something truly ridiculous, such as a soul, a breath, a large statue, or national pride. I don't believe in magic The character receives permanent 25% resistance to all magic. This feat may stack. There does need to be some fiddling but these are just quick concepts. remusclaw fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 17:29
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dichloroisocyanuric posted:With everything bad about the book... it's just not really that bad, and I do prefer it to the alternatives I was looking at.
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Aug 23, 2014 17:33
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