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Father Wendigo posted:You have to keep in mind that this was Jason Bulmahn, A.K.A. the guy who has admitted to nerfing the Monk and Gunslinger classes because '[They] don't belong in a fantasy world like Golarian as we (read: I) see it.' That makes literally no sense, since the gun rules Pathfinder uses were developed by Jason Bulmahn in the first place. Also, have you read up on Golarion? Monks and guns make a ton of sense for it and are integrated into the setting pretty well.
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Sep 9, 2014 02:04
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Arivia posted:That makes literally no sense, since the gun rules Pathfinder uses were developed by Jason Bulmahn in the first place. And that's why gunslingers are nearly unusable RAW. The wrist cords thing came from him setting out to overrule a popular rules exploit that would allow gunslingers to have damage output slightly below that of an equivalent level fighter. He didn't want to accidentally make gunslingers too good.
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Sep 9, 2014 03:32
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Father Wendigo posted:You have to keep in mind that this was Jason Bulmahn, A.K.A. the guy who has admitted to nerfing the Monk and Gunslinger classes because '[They] don't belong in a fantasy world like Golarian as we (read: I) see it.' pospysyl posted:And that's why gunslingers are nearly unusable RAW. The wrist cords thing came from him setting out to overrule a popular rules exploit that would allow gunslingers to have damage output slightly below that of an equivalent level fighter. He didn't want to accidentally make gunslingers too good.
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Sep 9, 2014 04:02
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Opening an average lock is significantly more challenging Unlocking the average medieval lock with thieves tools would be as trivial as opening the lock with the actual key.
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Sep 9, 2014 04:02
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HiveCommander posted:Wait, the Gunslinger is meant to be bad? My DMs won't let me play one anymore because they think it's too strong to be hitting literally every enemy we come across on a natural 6 or higher starting from lv2-3. I get that their damage falls off harder than other martial classes, but the DMs here seem to think they trivialize combat. It depends on the game mostly. They fluctuate from being insanely broken game changing to completely worthless. Essentially if you have a DM who primarily uses Monster Manual stuff instead of his own and/or create characters using the same rules as the players. The gunslinger will never miss because MM creatures never increase their touch armour class (it goes down the higher level you are) so they just start to auto hit everything. This means you can combo insane stuff since your to-hit is never something that needs to be higher than +10.
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Sep 9, 2014 04:32
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Arivia posted:That makes literally no sense, since the gun rules Pathfinder uses were developed by Jason Bulmahn in the first place. The pathfinder gun/gunslinger rules are pretty awful, though, so that doesn't seem incongruous to me at all.
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Sep 9, 2014 05:03
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DalaranJ posted:Unlocking the average medieval lock with thieves tools would be as trivial as opening the lock with the actual key.
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Sep 9, 2014 05:48
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kingcom posted:It depends on the game mostly. They fluctuate from being insanely broken game changing to completely worthless. Essentially if you have a DM who primarily uses Monster Manual stuff instead of his own and/or create characters using the same rules as the players. The gunslinger will never miss because MM creatures never increase their touch armour class (it goes down the higher level you are) so they just start to auto hit everything. This means you can combo insane stuff since your to-hit is never something that needs to be higher than +10. That makes sense, I may have to convince the DM of my upcoming campaign to add in some stuff like enemy gunslingers, or more enemies that have high touch. Not sure I could get a Gunslinger to work in a sandbox thieves guild-type campaign though... EDIT: I really miss my Tengu gunslinger from Skull and Shackles.  Cpt. Jack Crowe
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Sep 9, 2014 06:05
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Arivia posted:That makes literally no sense, since the gun rules Pathfinder uses were developed by Jason Bulmahn in the first place. It makes sense if you view the process of game design as an eternal conflict between "what our fans want" and "the sanctity of my vision." In other words just because you've promised the little shits guns and kung-fu like they keep begging for doesn't mean you have to make them any good, maybe that'll learn'em.
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Sep 9, 2014 06:44
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Pondering about buffing up the fighters. Champion - No real clue what to do with this poor sod; probably somethign like adding Exploits which raid the spell list for ideas of making them effective. Add social effects as well as physical ones? Battlemaster - Superiority dice refresh in full every encounter, regardless of whether you rested or not, and refresh at one per round. Relentless needs to be changed - maybe let you dish your superiority dice out to characters who're attacking the same foe as you and allow them to use any of your maneuvers? Rally and Commander's Strike now affect a number of creatures equal to your Charisma mod + Proficiency bonus? Needs something else, but not sure what. Ripping from Pathfinder, maybe banner effects like the Cavalier? Free feats? Eldritch knight - Thinking about ripping from Pathfinder's Magus liberally, but for now - War magic - becomes 3rd level, and you can take all your weapon attacks 7th level - You can imbue your weapon (or a single missle) with a spell. If your attack hits, the spell goes off. The target has disadvantage on the save, and if it's an AoE you have Advantage. The spell remains imbued until it activates, for a minute, or until you cast or imbue a second spell. Spells which don't normally get an attack roll are now able to Crit if you crit with the weapon blow. Ray spells are a special case - imbued into a melee weapon all rays activate against the same target; imbued into a missile weapon you get a number of uses equal to the number of rays, and anything between you and the target must make a save or take half-damage from the spell. 10th - You can imbue two spells to activate at the same time. Also thinking about raiding other people's spell list to make them a customised list rather than the leavings of the wizards list. 18th - three spells, or 1 spell, but it goes off on every every weapon attack that hits in the round it first activates. (for an Archer it would be imbuing your bow rather than a single arrow). Not sure how this interacts with the War Magic rays at 3rd - maybe you get a number of shots equal to the number of attacks or the number of rays, whichever is highest? -------- Assuming we can get these guys up to being Motorcross bandits rather than BMX bandits, the next thing is to limit the casters a bit. Changes which affect combat effectiveness don't have a lot of effect on non-combat effectiveness (as was pointed out when I suggested skill rolls), and a lot of the issues seem to show up with the lower level spells rather than the limited number of high level ones. 2nd Edition limited the number of spells a character could know full stop, as well as prevented access to spell schools that were opposed to your speciality, but I'm not really sure what to do in fifth. Possibly limit non-school spells to 4th and below as a start? EtA. Maybe steal from 13th age and reduce the number of spell slots, but upgrade them automatically? On resting Reduce short rest duration to 15 minutes - if I'm an unfit nerd and can manage a 5 minute fencing bout every 15-20 minutes, superfit adventures should be able to recover from a life or death struggle in the same amount of time. I imagine that the time is spent catching your breath, calming down, re-centering yourself (for the mystic folks) and checking your equipment for damage. Get rid of Rope Trick or add a chance of planar nasties sniffing out the space, increasing with each use of the spell. Angrymog fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Sep 9, 2014 |
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Sep 9, 2014 07:37
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Angrymog posted:Pondering about buffing up the fighters. They may be mundane, but they can also force others to fight them on their terms.
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Sep 9, 2014 13:52
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The main thing the battlemaster needs is level-gated maneuvers so that he actually gets interesting choices to make at level up. While the wizard is trying to decide between taking Time Stop, PW: Kill or Wish- the fighter is scraping the bottom of the maneuver barrel trying to decide between a handful of leftovers he didn't consider worth taking 17 levels ago. Do that, and maybe add a dice refresh mechanic to Second Wind and you have a pretty good start on a decent class. I'd also like to see an EK hack that uses Sup dice to fuel his spell slots but that's a lot more work.
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Sep 9, 2014 14:13
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Slimnoid posted:It's kind of telling that the only time D&D has ever done psionics in an interesting and fun manner was the 4e monk, and that didn't even use power points.
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Sep 9, 2014 16:47
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rope kid posted:2nd Ed. psionics were "fun", i.e. insanely powerful. Powerful to the point that even during 4e you had kneejerk reactions where people declared all psionics banned, since everyone knows psionics are broken. I'm still bitter about a game where I just wasn't allowed to play a Monk because of this. 
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Sep 9, 2014 16:58
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dwarf74 posted:Make him literally anti-magic. Start with save bonuses, and move up to a few outright immunities to charm and stuff. And add cutting through spells at some point. I always liked this archetype, like force-resistant guys in Star Wars who go around hunting Jedi.
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Sep 9, 2014 17:47
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Gort posted:I always liked this archetype, like force-resistant guys in Star Wars who go around hunting Jedi. It's an interesting storytelling tool to be sure. When you need a strong villain, creating someone who is able to cancel the hero's powers is great for encouraging the hero to think creatively or turn a weakness into a strength. That being said, I'm not sure how useful it is as a mechanical feature for a character. When you have a character with a class that is just "anti-X," these characters suffer from their narrow focus. If you're an anti-mage and the DM is running an entire arc where the party is taking down a horde of barbarians or mindless undead, for instance, the anti-mage is going to have little to do. The DM is going to have to specifically adjust encounters to give this PC a chance to feel heroic. Nothing's worse than feeling useless in an encounter while the rest of the party gets to be awesome.
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Sep 9, 2014 18:07
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Does WoTC ever release massive modules, providing enough content for a lengthy campaign? Almost like Baldur's Gate 2 packaged in book form, if you catch my drift?
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Sep 9, 2014 18:14
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Radio Talmudist posted:Does WoTC ever release massive modules, providing enough content for a lengthy campaign? Almost like Baldur's Gate 2 packaged in book form, if you catch my drift? They have, both now and in the past. Hoard of the Dragon Queen is the first half of one for 5e; Against the Giants was one for 4e; and City of the Spider Queen was a very long adventure for 3e.
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Sep 9, 2014 18:18
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Radio Talmudist posted:Does WoTC ever release massive modules, providing enough content for a lengthy campaign? Almost like Baldur's Gate 2 packaged in book form, if you catch my drift? Yeah, they had the Scales of War for 4E. They're usually called "Adventure Paths." Also the Encounters arcs tend to be pretty lengthy.
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Sep 9, 2014 18:20
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Rosalind posted:It's an interesting storytelling tool to be sure. When you need a strong villain, creating someone who is able to cancel the hero's powers is great for encouraging the hero to think creatively or turn a weakness into a strength. That being said, I'm not sure how useful it is as a mechanical feature for a character. When you have a character with a class that is just "anti-X," these characters suffer from their narrow focus. If you're an anti-mage and the DM is running an entire arc where the party is taking down a horde of barbarians or mindless undead, for instance, the anti-mage is going to have little to do. The DM is going to have to specifically adjust encounters to give this PC a chance to feel heroic. This is mostly an attempt to make it better while keeping it simple. This is on top of the Champion stuff that's already there.
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Sep 9, 2014 18:20
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That's why you let them be good at anti-magic and anti-nonmagic. Make them bulky, resist everything, and poo poo damage. There, now you have a boring but still effective fighter for the folks (like me) who're into that. Radio Talmudist posted:Does WoTC ever release massive modules, providing enough content for a lengthy campaign? Almost like Baldur's Gate 2 packaged in book form, if you catch my drift? I think Scales of War spans 1-30 in 4e. Never played it though, we didn't use modules for much. E: beat
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Sep 9, 2014 18:21
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It does go 1-30. I'm playing it now, and we just hit 24 after 2 years.
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Sep 9, 2014 19:43
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Rosalind posted:It's an interesting storytelling tool to be sure. When you need a strong villain, creating someone who is able to cancel the hero's powers is great for encouraging the hero to think creatively or turn a weakness into a strength. That being said, I'm not sure how useful it is as a mechanical feature for a character. When you have a character with a class that is just "anti-X," these characters suffer from their narrow focus. If you're an anti-mage and the DM is running an entire arc where the party is taking down a horde of barbarians or mindless undead, for instance, the anti-mage is going to have little to do. The DM is going to have to specifically adjust encounters to give this PC a chance to feel heroic. Generic Octopus posted:That's why you let them be good at anti-magic and anti-nonmagic. Make them bulky, resist everything, and poo poo damage. There, now you have a boring but still effective fighter for the folks (like me) who're into that. Yeah, it's still got all the usual fighter bits on top of the antimagic thing. And the thing to remember is that "anti-magic" is not niche. Remember, spells are treated as keywords. Almost every single monster with any sort of "special ability" uses it as a spell. It doesn't matter what the campaign is, you're going to fight plenty of magic users, and their numbers only get bigger as you level. Like, what high level enemies don't have spells? In fact, what BBEGs are non-spellcasters? 5e's perverse need for caster supremecy somewhat ironically only makes anti-magic abilities that much more powerful (which is likely why they've always been options only spellcasters can take, naturally)
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Sep 9, 2014 20:46
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Every mundane martial dude worth their salt in a DnD world brings some anti-magic liquid/gas poison/dust bomb/magic reflective mirrors/magic eating beatles etc etc & the non-martial but still non-magic dudes bring the holy equivalents 
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Sep 9, 2014 21:03
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Radio Talmudist posted:Does WoTC ever release massive modules, providing enough content for a lengthy campaign? Almost like Baldur's Gate 2 packaged in book form, if you catch my drift? This is what Dragonlance began as. It was a series of 12 modules telling a single epic story that grew into a game setting when people wanted more of it. One of the coolest 2E releases was The Night Below, a campaign in a box that took a party into the Underdark and up to level 18.
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Sep 9, 2014 21:09
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I have to say I appreciate that they went out of the way to make the difference between a Cleric and an every-day temple running priest more apparent in 5e. It fixes a lot of problems when you don't have a bunch of low level Clerics sitting around in every temple there to fix your problems in exchange for donations..Rosalind posted:It's an interesting storytelling tool to be sure. When you need a strong villain, creating someone who is able to cancel the hero's powers is great for encouraging the hero to think creatively or turn a weakness into a strength. That being said, I'm not sure how useful it is as a mechanical feature for a character. When you have a character with a class that is just "anti-X," these characters suffer from their narrow focus. If you're an anti-mage and the DM is running an entire arc where the party is taking down a horde of barbarians or mindless undead, for instance, the anti-mage is going to have little to do. The DM is going to have to specifically adjust encounters to give this PC a chance to feel heroic. That's when you either A.) throw in some fake-mages to give the anti-mage something to do, i.e. Evil Shamans or Evil Mages or Evil Demon Mages or whatever, ooorr B.) you don't make it the sole focus of their class or class feature and instead make it some kind of handy buy-in they can add to their tool bag. Such as, a Maneuver to parry spells back at the spellcaster or sunder their magic with a successful roll. Strength of Many fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Sep 9, 2014 |
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Sep 9, 2014 22:18
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Strength of Many posted:I have to say I appreciate that they went out of the way to make the difference between a Cleric and an every-day temple running priest more apparent in 5e. It fixes a lot of problems when you don't have a bunch of low level Clerics sitting around in every temple there to fix your problems in exchange for donations.. This was solved in 3e with the adept NPC class and in 2e with acolytes if I remember.
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Sep 9, 2014 22:27
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It wasn't really a problem in 4e, either.
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Sep 9, 2014 22:37
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Arivia posted:This was solved in 3e with the adept NPC class and in 2e with acolytes if I remember. Hell, back in 1E days, Len Lakofka proposed a non-adventuring "cloistered cleric" class in his Dragon column.
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Sep 9, 2014 22:56
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I kinda hate the myth that spellcasters are supposed to rare in 3x, when rules as written, a town of 30 people has a level 4 spellcaster. It would probably be better if it was a divine caster instead of some mad wizard who could wipe out the hamlet in an instant, but provides almost no benefit to society.
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Sep 9, 2014 23:21
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Babylon Astronaut posted:I kinda hate the myth that spellcasters are supposed to rare in 3x, when rules as written, a town of 30 people has a level 4 spellcaster. It would probably be better if it was a divine caster instead of some mad wizard who could wipe out the hamlet in an instant, but provides almost no benefit to society. One of the way better things Pathfinder did was to overhaul the entire settlement creation system, including removing figuring out each level for everyone and so on. You can now just not have wizards in a small town if you want - the GameMastery Guide talks a bit about the effects of that and why/why not you would want to do it.
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Sep 9, 2014 23:23
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Babylon Astronaut posted:I kinda hate the myth that spellcasters are supposed to rare in 3x, when rules as written, a town of 30 people has a level 4 spellcaster. It would probably be better if it was a divine caster instead of some mad wizard who could wipe out the hamlet in an instant, but provides almost no benefit to society. Hell if they're so rare how does every adventuring party of 5-6 people have 2-5 of them its not like they can just put an ad in Craig's list saying "Wanted: individuals, born with rare 1 in 10,000 abilities willing to risk there life on a daily basis for questionable rewards and future job experience, instead of using there powers to live a comfortable life of leisure. Please meet at the shady inn on elm street next Wednesday, all applicants welcome." Vorpal Cat fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Sep 9, 2014 |
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Sep 9, 2014 23:47
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PeterWeller posted:One of the coolest 2E releases was The Night Below, a campaign in a box that took a party into the Underdark and up to level 18.
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Sep 10, 2014 00:05
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moths posted:It wasn't really a problem in 4e, either. This was, incidentally, one of the things that made Rich Baker proclaim that 4e was Eberron Edition - that PCs actually were rare, and NPCs couldn't just "take a spellcasting class." Eberron makes sense when there literally are no PC clerics outside of the party, and you get your healing done by going to House Jorasco who can do the actual healing rituals.
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Sep 10, 2014 01:12
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Vorpal Cat posted:Hell if they're so rare how does every adventuring party of 5-6 people have 2-5 of them its not like they can just put an ad in Craig's list saying "Wanted: individuals, born with rare 1 in 10,000 abilities willing to risk there life on a daily basis for questionable rewards and future job experience, instead of using there powers to live a comfortable life of leisure. Please meet at the shady inn on elm street next Wednesday, all applicants welcome." Because they're heroes, and heroes are drawn to one another.
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Sep 10, 2014 01:29
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ProfessorCirno posted:This was, incidentally, one of the things that made Rich Baker proclaim that 4e was Eberron Edition - that PCs actually were rare, and NPCs couldn't just "take a spellcasting class." Yeah I just got a copy of the 4e Eberron Campaign Guide and I'm pretty excited to read about how it plays in 4e. It should be a good fit.
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Sep 10, 2014 01:50
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Arivia posted:Yeah I just got a copy of the 4e Eberron Campaign Guide and I'm pretty excited to read about how it plays in 4e. It should be a good fit. The 4e Eberron Campaign Guide was the book that convinced me that I could and should try DMing for the first time since 1987 or whatever. If the 5e setting guides are equally full and inspiring, I think 5e will at least break even on its contributions to the hobby.
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Sep 10, 2014 01:53
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I'm still pretty down on their beginner box. The fact that they didn't include a battlemat to preserve the delusion that it is designed for abstract positioning is shameful.
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Sep 10, 2014 01:56
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Grim posted:I played most of the way through this under a DM who converted it to 3E and can confirm it is legit It's the reason why people started giving a poo poo about aboleths.
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Sep 10, 2014 01:56
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homullus posted:The 4e Eberron Campaign Guide was the book that convinced me that I could and should try DMing for the first time since 1987 or whatever. If the 5e setting guides are equally full and inspiring, I think 5e will at least break even on its contributions to the hobby. All none of them they say they're producing, GO 5E.
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Sep 10, 2014 01:58
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