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Stat rolling is horrible and a joke unless disposable characters is the point of the game. "But it's fun to RP a character with fetal alcohol syndrome!" Then you get into "well if you don't like your rolls, roll again!" So why am I rolling, shithead?
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Sep 1, 2014 00:23
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Stat rolling is horrible and a joke unless disposable characters is the point of the game. The only time I 'enjoyed' roll stats was when a DM sat down and said 'Roll 5d6, keep all of them, reroll if its below 16'. We were also playing monsters and it was 3e so uh. I guess it was inherently stupid from the beginning.
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Sep 1, 2014 00:26
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Our group just ran through some of the first chapter of the level 1 - 7 Dragon pre-con. Normally we'd have 5 players but tonight, thankfully, we only had 4 players. One dual wielding fighter, a fae pact warlock, a star pact warlock and a monk. Combat feels pretty fluid now, no more twenty minute battles. We were able to down several kobolds and cultists in rounds thanks to our fighter's dual wielding and my martial arts giving both of us extra attacks. Warlocks were basically range support and had some nice one-off spells but nothing overtly amazing. Advantage/Disadvantage System is pretty cool. I feel like having each class run off it's own mechanics is detrimental (I'm a huge 2E fan but I LIKED 4E due to the Power structure and all classes functioning off the same rules.) and can definitely see casters becoming vastly more powerful than melee. Our biggest concern was no one rolled up a healer. We did random class/race/stat rolls for this campaign. Pretty fun stuff. Ended up a Tiefling Monk with 13/16/12/13/14/13 for my stats after racial bonuses. We down things fairly quickly, including the mini-boss that was thrown at us. But a few slings from a group of kobolds can wreck us. We're hitting level two in one more mission (pre-con has missions the players can take, all are time sensitive) and advancing to Chapter 2. I really feel like some class features should be level 1 skills rather than level 2 or 3. We're doing every thing by the book right now but we're already considering revising Short Rest rules to 10 minutes instead of an hour. We'll see how it goes next week with a wizard/necromancer. Racial abilities aren't to be ignored though. Dragonborn breath weapon? AMAZING at first level. The direction of narrative being more important than grids also helps. We all think out of the box a bit and this edition has felt more open minded for a few players. We have a solid mix of edition fans. One 3.x fan, two 4E fans, myself a 2E fan (despite it's huge flaws) and a "is this a d4?" player. Pretty happy with the system so far. Everyone was happy with rolling stats, by the by, even the guy who rolled two 6 stats. It's all in good fun and everyone did something that benefited the party. Kortel fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 00:26
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Kortel posted:Racial abilities aren't to be ignored though. Dragonborn breath weapon? AMAZING at first level. The direction of narrative being more important than grids also helps. We all think out of the box a bit and this edition has felt more open minded for a few players. We have a solid mix of edition fans. One 3.x fan, two 4E fans, myself a 2E fan (despite it's huge flaws) and a "is this a d4?" player. Pretty happy with the system so far. Racial ability disparity is pretty huge in that regard. As for 'narrative', that is pretty subjective and doesn't mean a lot. D&D still uses mincing 5 foot measurements and spell shapes (cones, etc) and that still forces you toward using a battle map. Kortel posted:Everyone was happy with rolling stats, by the by, even the guy who rolled two 6 stats. It's all in good fun and everyone did something that benefited the party. I'm glad your subjective experiences were fun for you and your group but the rest of us here are talking objectively about the failings of rolling stats and stat arrays in general. 'Fun' does not, and never will, excuse bad mechanics. Strength of Many fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 00:31
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Do you ever notice how nobody makes a guy with two sixes willingly? They're never like "I know this is 40 point-buy game, but I'm only going to use 20 points so that I can be objectively worse than everybody, it's so fun, ha ha ha!"
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Sep 1, 2014 00:40
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Solid Jake posted:Do you ever notice how nobody makes a guy with two sixes willingly? They're never like "I know this is 40 point-buy game, but I'm only going to use 20 points so that I can be objectively worse than everybody, it's so fun, ha ha ha!" Fun goes out the window when you stop being useful in, and lets not kid ourselves about this, what is a tactical party based wargame.
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Sep 1, 2014 00:41
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The only time two 6's happens is when you are trying to engineer three 18's or the like.
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Sep 1, 2014 00:46
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Solid Jake posted:Do you ever notice how nobody makes a guy with two sixes willingly? They're never like "I know this is 40 point-buy game, but I'm only going to use 20 points so that I can be objectively worse than everybody, it's so fun, ha ha ha!" That's only because Pointbuy doesn't normally go below 8. I've seen some absurdly min-maxed characters when playing e.g. GURPS. Normally in dump stats. And absolutely can imagine people playing wizards with Str 6 or fighters with Int and Cha 6 willingly if given the option.
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Sep 1, 2014 00:47
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The point buy system that D&D has promoted has also historically been terrible, where it costs exponentially more points to get to 18, etc. It's easier to do something like: -You get an 18, 16, 14, 12, 10, and 8 -You get a set number of points that you spend 1-for-1 Much less headache, much better characters for what D&D editions expect you to actually have to qualify for things.
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Sep 1, 2014 00:49
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He had the choice to re-roll and kept the character as is. Actually pretty cool. Ran them in Dex and Wis. Didn't mess with his ability to play at all. Every player provides a roll in the party, what kind of games are you folks playing where one person becomes completely useless? Other than with a Wizard, that is. General mindset in groups I've played with is "just have fun with it." Hell, I've taken 6s in Dex when playing a crippled character. Even negative movement speed, I made up for it by taking more lore abilities and dual-classing warlord. This was my choice. I've played plenty of 'gimped' characters and have enjoyed most of them. The only time I was detrimental to the party or myself was during chase sequences. Party dynamics, roles and stats all factor in to the 'fun.' Opinions! I was just posting how our first game went. =( *Edit: We do one re-roll for the lowest stats. Ties reroll both if below 8. Kortel fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 00:51
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I don't find the array bad (Tell me how it is bad?) Also for the person that complained about rolling for hp. The average hp is there as well for you to take. Also for everyone complaining about Rolling for stats and hp. Note that it has been in every edition and starting with 3e it's just been an option you don't have to use it. (Even 4e had both of them as options.) Also if I let someone roll I will never let them reroll as that misses the point. I say take the Array or point buy (Which are fine no matter hwo much you complain about them.) if you want to roll you can but if you end up with crap keep it. I have had no problems and only two people have ever wanted to roll. (Which they came up pretty average)
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Sep 1, 2014 00:53
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Strength of Many posted:I'm glad your subjective experiences were fun for you and your group but the rest of us here are talking objectively about the failings of rolling stats and stat arrays in general. 'Fun' does not, and never will, excuse bad mechanics. There is both an ability score point buy system and default/fixed HP gain values for every single class in the Player's Handbook, though What's wrong with the point buy system capping at 15 before racial modifiers in a game with 20 caps on ability scores, anyway?
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Sep 1, 2014 00:57
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Zombies' Downfall posted:There is both an ability score point buy system and default/fixed HP gain values for every single class in the Player's Handbook, though Nothing. They just don't like one part that can ignored in favor of another part that gets just as much billing.
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Sep 1, 2014 00:59
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Kortel posted:Had a good time with the module. Happy you enjoyed, my group hasn't done any modules before so we're not sure what to be expecting from this dragon queen thing. Hoping we enjoy it too!
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Sep 1, 2014 01:01
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MonsterEnvy posted:Nothing. They just don't like one part that can ignored in favor of another part that gets just as much billing. Oh cool, you're back and posting the same stuff again. You never answered the last question I asked you. It was AlphaDog posted:Why do you think saying "ok, so ignore the rulebook" will change anyone's opinion about what's in the rulebook?
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Sep 1, 2014 01:05
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Strength of Many posted:'Fun' does not, and never will, excuse bad mechanics. Fun excuses everything. This is a game. The point is to have fun.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:07
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This thing where you derive enjoyment from playing a statistical moron or an invalid isn't actually taken away from you in point buy. No roleplaying avenue is cut off. Point buy just ensures that your character has baseline competence at his class--the thing you claim to be able to do and that your character identifies as--and can contribute equally to everything going on with the other characters. That's all it does. If you can articulate why doing it randomly is better in any way without simply appealing to tradition, that would be impressive at this point. When people say "Fun isn't a measuring stick," they don't mean you are having badwrongfun. They mean that you can have fun playing almost any game if you try hard enough (or as in the case of many versions of D&D, ignore enough bad rules), so your "fun" is really not indicative of how good the game is comparatively.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:14
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dublish posted:Fun excuses everything. This is a game. The point is to have fun. Stephen King once said that the thing that matters in a story is for it to keep the reader interested and everything is secondary. That's pretty much the same on games.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:17
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Stephen King once said that the thing that matters in a story is for it to keep the reader interested and everything is secondary. That's pretty much the same on games. dublish posted:Fun excuses everything. This is a game. The point is to have fun. Okay but that doesn't stop the mechanics from being objectively poor for reasons demonstrated repeatedly in this thread and others. I defer you to; OneThousandMonkeys posted:This thing where you derive enjoyment from playing a statistical moron or an invalid isn't actually taken away from you in point buy. No roleplaying avenue is cut off. Point buy just ensures that your character has baseline competence at his class--the thing you claim to be able to do and that your character identifies as--and can contribute equally to everything going on with the other characters. That's all it does. If you can articulate why doing it randomly is better in any way without simply appealing to tradition, that would be impressive at this point. This accurately sums up the issue with 'fun' and subjectivity when discussing the attributes of game mechanics and design. Strength of Many fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 01:22
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Kortel posted:He had the choice to re-roll and kept the character as is. Actually pretty cool. Ran them in Dex and Wis. Didn't mess with his ability to play at all. Every player provides a roll in the party, what kind of games are you folks playing where one person becomes completely useless? Other than with a Wizard, that is. General mindset in groups I've played with is "just have fun with it." I think the issue you are running into in the thread is this: I had a friend who was dirt poor growing up. There were times in his childhood where his toys literally consisted of some cinder blocks in a dirt lot. He legitimately had fun with just that. You can find a way to have fun with what you've got. I never once ever saw his kid playing with cinder blocks. He was in a position to do better, so that is exactly what he did. Even though he knew for a fact that you can have fun with just some cinder blocks. 5E is trying to push cinder blocks on people for what appears to be fundamentalist/dogmatic reasons that are objectively wrong. Since fun was had with cinder blocks, then cinder blocks must be the root of all fun, so we must give cinder blocks to people. Never you mind if more fun might be had by stopping with the dogma for a second and thinking about what the point of a rule set is when writing said ruleset instead of blind worship of the memory of the One True Childhood Cartoon. I mean, feudalism historically was a form of government that was better on the whole than anarchy. Doesn't mean people are not going to roll their eyes at you when you use that as the argument for installing a king in 2014.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:27
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Stephen King once said that the thing that matters in a story is for it to keep the reader interested and everything is secondary. That's pretty much the same on games. So it would be entirely legitimate if Stephen King didn't spell check or edit his latest novel because the story was was good?
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Sep 1, 2014 01:28
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Cyclomatic posted:So it would be entirely legitimate if Stephen King didn't spell check or edit his latest novel because the story was was good? Have you ever read The Dark Tower books?
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Sep 1, 2014 01:30
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MonsterEnvy posted:(Even 4e had both of them as options.)
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Sep 1, 2014 01:30
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AlphaDog posted:Oh cool, you're back and posting the same stuff again. You never answered the last question I asked you. It was This is not ignoring the rulebook. This is ignoring an option in the rule book that stated to be optional and has another option that can be used instead written in the rule book. Those options are also the ones being used for organized play and everything. It's one of the worst things possible in the book to get upset and complain about given that the books says "If you don't like randomly determining stuff do this instead."
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Sep 1, 2014 01:31
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Littlefinger posted:Now you are just making poo poo up. No, random rolling is an optional thing in 4E, but it's the third of three methods and the paragraph on it is full of sirens and flashing signals that say it is a bad idea, while prefacing it with "some people find it fun".
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Sep 1, 2014 01:36
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:This thing where you derive enjoyment from playing a statistical moron or an invalid isn't actually taken away from you in point buy. No roleplaying avenue is cut off. Point buy just ensures that your character has baseline competence at his class--the thing you claim to be able to do and that your character identifies as--and can contribute equally to everything going on with the other characters. That's all it does. If you can articulate why doing it randomly is better in any way without simply appealing to tradition, that would be impressive at this point. We... do rolls for fun? We also do arrays and pregenerated characters. Play several other systems, all have pros and cons. Systems and settings determine what we feel like playing. Every system we play has things we like about that that help reinforce the narrative aspect. We also take the bads of each system, house rule where needed. Optional rules are awesome, such as character creation rules, because it can effect our character's basis. Our legacy games, three years running 4 E, were point buy characters. Our Rogue Trader game, thats six years off and on online, we're running random rolled characters. Our Cthulhu game is a mixed roll/set stat system. Anything can work depending on what the players want and enjoy. Each of the systems are flawed but we find enjoyment and fun based off our wants for the sessions.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:38
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Strength of Many posted:I'm glad your subjective experiences were fun for you and your group but the rest of us here are talking objectively about the failings of rolling stats and stat arrays in general. 'Fun' does not, and never will, excuse bad mechanics. Why are you telling him that? All he wanted to do was share his experience with us. If he's posting in this thread, he's probably more than aware of what everyone has to say about the game. That doesn't mean he's not allowed to have fun and post about having fun. Glad you had fun, Kortel! When my group finally gets its schedule straightened out, we're gonna be running the Hoard of the Dragon Queen too! I'm excited. The layout of the adventure looks really well done. MonsterEnvy posted:It's one of the worst things possible in the book to get upset and complain about given that the books says "If you don't like randomly determining stuff do this instead." Is anyone saying DnD Next is bad because stat rolling is bad? I think they're just on a fun tangent about how stupid rolling for stats is mechanically (that it to say, if it's fun for you then do whatever you want. that shouldn't need to be said.) AlphaDog was simply stating that you left last time without ever answering his legitimate question (over 20 pages ago - nothing to do with this conversation) and he still wants an answer! I'm clarifying this because I want an answer, too!
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Sep 1, 2014 01:38
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Littlefinger posted:Now you are just making poo poo up. No I am not. page 18 4e PHB posted:Method 3: Rolling Scores See rolling is in 4e too. I did make a mistake with rolling for hit points. But rolling for stats is still present.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:38
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MonsterEnvy posted:This is not ignoring the rulebook. This is ignoring an option in the rule book that stated to be optional and has another option that can be used instead written in the rule book. Those options are also the ones being used for organized play and everything. My question was Why do you think saying "ok, so ignore the rulebook" will change anyone's opinion about what's in the rulebook? and I'm asking it because a whole lot of your posts are variations on the theme of "you can ignore/houserule/fix it and therefore it's already fine".
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Sep 1, 2014 01:40
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Cyclomatic posted:5E is trying to push cinder blocks on people for what appears to be fundamentalist/dogmatic reasons that are objectively wrong. I don't really feel like 5E, the only edition of D&D besides 4E to show flat player hit dice and flat monster damage, is pushing randomization and rolling for poo poo on me anymore than 4E was pushing long tactical combats on people to the exclusion of any other kind of encounter or interaction. You dudes are doing the exact same poo poo to 5E that people do to 4E (ascribing all sorts of convoluted philosophies and implications to it that aren't perceptible to people who aren't crazy).
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Sep 1, 2014 01:43
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MonsterEnvy posted:(Even 4e had both of them as options.) Littlefinger posted:Now you are just making poo poo up. MonsterEnvy posted:No I am not.  E: I specifically quoted the incorrect part, but you went all defensive on my rear end nevertheless. 
Littlefinger fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 01:45
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I answered already. There is a diffrence between ignoring a rule book and ignoring a tiny part of a rule book. Added on my opinions are contradictory to his as he hates the Monster stat blocks while I really like them. I also have no respect for anyone that can't use a monster that does not have everything written in it. "This monster can cast fire ball, detect magic, Hold Monster and Wall of Fire. it's a piece of crap because I have to look up what it can do." To which I say you are super lazy and stupid if you can't remember what fireball does. Wall of Fire is the only one worth looking up and if you are too lazy to do so then simply don't use the spell just use the other powers the monster can use.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:48
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dichloroisocyanuric posted:
When you guys start, tell the DM monster stats and item stats are online. There are only a few in the book. Kind of a dick move but oh well.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:49
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MonsterEnvy posted:I answered already. There is a diffrence between ignoring a rule book and ignoring a tiny part of a rule book. Why do you think telling me to ignore the part of the book that I don't like will somehow change my opinion about that part of the book?
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Sep 1, 2014 01:50
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gently caress you. I was not making stuff up I made a mistake and even then it was only half of one. Hell the only reason they did not inculde it was because of how much differently hp works in 4e.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:50
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MonsterEnvy posted:To which I say you are super lazy and stupid if you can't remember what fireball does. It's almost as if Fireball works differently in every new D&D edition or something.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:52
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MonsterEnvy posted:gently caress you. I was not making stuff up I made a mistake and even then it was only half of one. Hell the only reason they did not inculde it was because of how much differently hp works in 4e. You make stuff up all the loving time. Go back and read your posts about shapeshift/polymorph. Or circles. Or this post I quoted right here, where you tell us how your post would have worked if it had worked the way you wanted it to.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:52
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AlphaDog posted:Why do you think saying "ok, so ignore the rulebook" will change anyone's opinion about what's in the rulebook? I am not saying that! Is the reply. I have never once said that. Once again HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE difference between saying ignore this sentence and saying ignore the rule book. Now gently caress off
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Sep 1, 2014 01:53
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Kortel posted:When you guys start, tell the DM monster stats and item stats are online. There are only a few in the book. Kind of a dick move but oh well. I'm the DM and have all the information and pdfs and stuff that I need ;D Gonna print out the basic pdf too for the players to have to flip through (we'll have the book available as well, but the basic book is much easier to flip through).
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Sep 1, 2014 01:54
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Really Pants posted:It's almost as if Fireball works differently in every new D&D edition or something. 8d6 damage 20 ft radius sphere. You have to look at in once in the new edition to know how it works.
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Sep 1, 2014 01:54
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