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Jack the Lad posted:e: This is going to take a long time to type up into a spreadsheet. You're doing God's work. I'm actually legit excited to see the Monster Manual's art.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:33
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Actually Dragons are better. PCs are called out as not getting Legendary traits and Dragons can pick spells equal to their charisma mod and the spell's level can be no higher than one-third the dragon's challenge rating (rounded down). So an Adult Red would have access to 5 level 5 spells if it wanted While an ancient Red could use 6 level 8 spells. (Compared to the Wizards one.)
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Sep 22, 2014 19:36
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crime fighting hog posted:You're doing God's work. I'm actually legit excited to see the Monster Manual's art. The art is fantastic, but the actual monster entries are, for the most part, extremely boring. Lair actions and legendary actions are really good ideas though.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:38
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SageNytell posted:This quote is a couple of days old, but I'm just catching up to the thread and I think this is still relevant. To those who are unexperienced with 4E, here's a 46 session 4E campaign recorded by the nice folks at Role Playing Public Radio, DMed by friendly local goon Clockwork Joe. It's called The New World, and just listening to the first few sessions caused me circa 2010 to completely come 180 degrees from my prior uninformed hatred of 4E to understanding how RPGs could be so much more than just a simple hack and slash. The campaign runs all the way from heroic to epic tier and the actions of the players define the fate of their colony, their continent, and eventually their world. Oh wow, I'm going to give this a listen. Thanks for pointing it out.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:57
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MonsterEnvy posted:Actually Dragons are better. PCs are called out as not getting Legendary traits and Dragons can pick spells equal to their charisma mod and the spell's level can be no higher than one-third the dragon's challenge rating (rounded down). So what would a red dragon want to shapeshift into?
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Sep 22, 2014 19:57
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crime fighting hog posted:So what would a red dragon want to shapeshift into? Why bother just grab antimagic field and crush anything.
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Sep 22, 2014 20:00
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crime fighting hog posted:So what would a red dragon want to shapeshift into?
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Sep 22, 2014 20:13
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ImpactVector posted:Another dragon. You have to slay all seven of its forms. Finally, a D&D edition that can support a Gunstar Heroes campaign!
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Sep 22, 2014 20:13
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MonsterEnvy posted:Why bother just grab antimagic field and crush anything. Hey, here's a mechanic where a fighter is legitimately useful. You hit the antimagic fielded dragon eight times or whatever using action surge, provoking many concentration checks and hopefully ending the antimagic field! Unfortunately next turn, the dragon, annoyed by the fighter, casts Forcecage. It lasts for an hour, no concentration check required, does not offer a saving throw, cannot be removed by dispel magic or greater dispel magic, and the fighter cannot leave by non-magical means, i.e. anything he can do personally. The dragon uses the cage option rather than the solid-barrier option if it's a melee fighter, so he can still hit the fighter with his breath weapon, of course. (Like with the monster mechanics, I don't really understand why Forcecage works the way it does. The total and complete lack of 'outs' is just lame.)
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Sep 22, 2014 20:56
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...doesn't being in an anti-magic field prevent spellcasting? I must admit I never bothered to work out how that spell worked in either 2e or 3e.
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Sep 22, 2014 21:01
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Gort posted:...doesn't being in an anti-magic field prevent spellcasting? I must admit I never bothered to work out how that spell worked in either 2e or 3e. If the fighter can deal the damage and the dragon can't pass the save the field would end before the dragon's next turn where he would just shrug and start casting.
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Sep 22, 2014 21:07
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Missed this post before.moths posted:Was there a good reason to gut the Fighter's tanking toolbox? Fighters suffer overwhelmingly from "realism." Fighters grow and die with each edition. They were far weaker compared to paladins/rangers in AD&D for most of the time, way stronger in 2e, weaker then almost EVERYONE in 3e, one of the best supported classes in 4e, and now in 5e they fall behind somewhat drastically. But those weak spots, at least in 3e and 5e, are rarely done intentionally. I don't actually think someone's sitting there and cackling about how those Fighters are all gonna eat poo poo. But what does happen is that lots of "incidental" rule changes all come together to murder Fighters. Take the monsters. It's easy to follow the thought process. Fighters happen when dudes hit each other right? And this monster has to be tough, so it'll do something nasty to the guy that hits it. Fair enough. But who is that punishing? This is a very common thread whenever "realism" or "simplicity" are invoked. We want fast, easy, uncomplicated combat, so OAs are just once/turn. Except that incidentally kills the fighter ability to defend. We want bounded math to ensure all enemies are always dangerous. Except that incidentally ruins the fighter ability to actually hold the line in combat (or frankly even contribute at higher levels, when large numbers of "weak" enemies can easily swarm the fighter who has no AoE whatsoever). Even when you look at small and incidental stuff; at ENWorld a group of people were angry that there was no penalty for sleeping in heavy armor, because it wasn't realistic. Ok, the logic is sound, sleeping in uncomfortable big bulky armor would be hard and you'd wake up sore. Except who wears the heavy armor? It's cool and "iconic" to have monsters that can only be hurt in certain ways with certain weapons. Except who's using weapons to do HP damage? Having normal men grapple huge baddies or trip centipedes and oozes doesn't make sense. Except who would be actually doing all those maneuvers? This is a gritty medieval game, you need to have feats of strength and athleticism bound to realism. Except who's the class actually bound to this "realism?" Seriously, watch how often "common sense" or "realism" inevitably equates to screwing over the fighter. You'll find it's basically every single time. Of course, for added fun, watch how often the "realism" argument invokes poo poo that isn't actually realistic, such as level 20 demigod fighters being unable to beat literal real life athletes. 5e is the child of 3e in the way that it absolutely ignores how any of the rules work together. I don't think 5e set out ENTIRELY to be gently caress FIGHTERS. I use "entirely" because I think there was absolutely some of that in there as a part of the 4e backlash; 4e was a love letter to fighter fans, and lots of 5e's audience hated 4e and transferred a lot of that hate to fighters. But you put all the rules together, and what you get is "NEVER BE A FIGHTER." The only bright spot is that those same accidental combos lead to "...UNLESS YOU DUAL WIELD HAND CROSSBOWS" So yeah, I don't think 5e is 100% devoted to hating fighters. I also don't think that number is 0%. But I think most of it comes from utterly ignoring the fighter class even exists when making the rules, and then oops, turns out all the rules basically punish fighters for existing.
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Sep 22, 2014 21:33
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And all of what Cirno said is why the little sops to 4e (the fuckin' Hit Dice thing for starters) do absolutely nothing for a 4e player. 4e's rules had an internal consistency and logic to them hung on an interlocking framework of mutual interaction (healing surges are a pacing mechanism for adventures, a resource for rituals/spells, a consequence for skill failure, etc etc) whereas 5e rules are included for the sake of there being rules that remind you of X edition or just to be there, so pointless that you can cut away half of them without affecting anything - and that then gets called a feature.
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Sep 22, 2014 21:43
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The one OA a round was actually really painful for us since it forced us to do the door dance from AD&D where you need to create a bottleneck to keep the casters alive. Without Sentinel many of the fights would of went in a terrible direction (getting a free attack on anyone attacking an adjacent ally was a huge boon). I was really hoping OAs were improved on but I guess even that bar was too high in my mind for 5th Edition. 
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Sep 22, 2014 21:48
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ProfessorCirno posted:Fighters grow and die with each edition. They were far weaker compared to paladins/rangers in AD&D for most of the time, way stronger in 2e, weaker then almost EVERYONE in 3e, one of the best supported classes in 4e, and now in 5e they fall behind somewhat drastically. But those weak spots, at least in 3e and 5e, are rarely done intentionally. I don't actually think someone's sitting there and cackling about how those Fighters are all gonna eat poo poo.
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Sep 22, 2014 22:28
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NorgLyle posted:AD&D is ever so slightly outside of my actual window of understanding gaming. I played a bunch of it and even was a DM (for a bunch of other 5th and 6th graders so it was not the most well run of games) but one thing that always stuck out to me was the exceedingly common house rule giving out the supposedly fighter exclusive Weapon Specialization rules from Unearthed Arcana to rangers and paladins and multiclass fighters of every stripe. It was the first time I really encountered the idea of an option so clearly seen as being the best possible choice that it became an obligation more than an enhancement (though really AD&D magic weapons and armor worked the same way; I just wasn't really able to notice it back then). That was a really common houserule when I played AD&D (and then 2e) too. It never made sense to me. Paladins and Rangers are both pretty great without specialisation. Rangers especially, given their often-overlooked +1 damage per character level to some of the most common opponents in the game.
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Sep 23, 2014 01:16
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AlphaDog posted:That was a really common houserule when I played AD&D (and then 2e) too. It never made sense to me. Paladins and Rangers are both pretty great without specialisation. Rangers especially, given their often-overlooked +1 damage per character level to some of the most common opponents in the game. but Fighters got it and thus threatened the tiny upset in the status quo for these special snowflakes
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Sep 23, 2014 01:19
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I really don't think there was much anti-fighter sentiment in AD&D. I think most of the specialisation houserules I saw were actually for second ed, where the specialisation rules were worded pretty well but had a weird interaction with the way classes were presented. It says "Weapon specialisation is an optional rule which allows a fighter (only) to choose a single weapon and specialise in its use" and then later "In one way, a weapon specialist is like a wizard specialist. The specialisation requires a single-minded dedication and training. Thus multi-class characters cannot use weapon specialisation; it is available only to single-class fighters". Here's where the confusion came in. Wizard is presented as a class. Mage is presented as a subclass, and so is Illusionist as an example of a specialist wizard, and there are rules for other specialist wizards. They all use the same xp and spell table, which is labelled "wizard". Fighter is presented as a class, so you'd think that "single class fighter" would be clear. But Fighter is next to Paladin and Ranger under the same main heading ("Warrior"), which is different to the way specialist wizards are presented. Warriors (fighter, ranger, paladin) all get their own XP tables and stuff and so are clearly supposed to be whole different classes instead of options on the same base class. Thing is, apparently a lot of people missed the distinction (and tiny section under the "warrior" heading) and thought Fighter was a class which encompassed the Ranger and Paladin subclasses and so weapon specialisation was an option for all three. It'd be easy to say that these people hated fighters or were being munchkins or whatever, but I saw enough genuine confusion over this that I really think most people just read it wrong. poo poo, I just had to look into the book to make sure I had it right before I posted.
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Sep 23, 2014 01:43
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I've never played AD&D. I was going for a joke, but it's clear now I didn't have a fighting chance
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Sep 23, 2014 01:48
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Even fewer people read, understood and played AD&D by the rules than 3e.
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Sep 23, 2014 02:36
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AD&D is something like feng shui, a complex, seemingly unrelated web of confusing mechanics and optional rules that may as well be houserules. Nothing immediately makes sense in AD&D, and the natural response is to change it so it does make sense. When taken as a whole, however, it can sometimes be coaxed into performing as a harmonious whole. Fighters get weapon specialization because that's their class ability and it makes them the best at fighting. EXP is tracked individually so that the classes with more abilities get them more slowly. Nonweapon proficiencies, well, I didn't say everything was part of the harmonious whole. Of course, speaking of feng shui, you could also be playing Feng Shui.
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Sep 23, 2014 02:51
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EscortMission posted:AD&D is something like feng shui, a complex, seemingly unrelated web of confusing mechanics and optional rules that may as well be houserules. Nothing immediately makes sense in AD&D, and the natural response is to change it so it does make sense. When taken as a whole, however, it can sometimes be coaxed into performing as a harmonious whole. Fighters get weapon specialization because that's their class ability and it makes them the best at fighting. EXP is tracked individually so that the classes with more abilities get them more slowly. Nonweapon proficiencies, well, I didn't say everything was part of the harmonious whole. Also Fiasco. Also OctaNe. Play OctaNe. Like, you are not playing OctaNe right now. Fix this.
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Sep 23, 2014 03:20
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Bassetking posted:Also Fiasco. Also OctaNe. Play OctaNe. Like, you are not playing OctaNe right now. Fix this. I can't play Fiasco and OctaNe at the same time, internet user Bassetking. 
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Sep 23, 2014 03:49
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Jack the Lad posted:There are 462 statblocks in this thing, including 40 dragons (4 ages of 10 colours) which together span 34 pages and are almost completely identical except for their breath weapons. Saw this linked on the Penny Arcade forums - searchable list of monsters from the MM and adventure http://asmor.com/5e/monsters/#/main
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Sep 23, 2014 04:17
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EscortMission posted:I can't play Fiasco and OctaNe at the same time, internet user Bassetking. If you made the individuals involved in the game of Fiasco use a game of OctaNe as the organizing event... But what would the Flip be, then...
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Sep 23, 2014 05:06
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I haven't looked at the classes real close, so can anyone tell me: If you make a bard that basically just uses their spells for support-type stuff all the time, do you really need Charisma for anything? Like, use weapons for attacks instead of spells. Is this particularly viable?
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Sep 23, 2014 07:24
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Mr Beens posted:Saw this linked on the Penny Arcade forums - searchable list of monsters from the MM and adventure Awesome, thanks. This will save me a lot of work.
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Sep 23, 2014 08:24
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Mr Beens posted:Saw this linked on the Penny Arcade forums - searchable list of monsters from the MM and adventure I can't check this right now, but according to that site, 2 orcs is a hard challenge for a party of 4 level 1 PCs. 3 Orcs would make the encounter "ludicrous". Is that right?
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Sep 23, 2014 08:47
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AlphaDog posted:I can't check this right now, but according to that site, 2 orcs is a hard challenge for a party of 4 level 1 PCs. 3 Orcs would make the encounter "ludicrous". I think the math is hosed up, eight PCs are supposed to be unable to handle CR 4.
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Sep 23, 2014 08:48
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AlphaDog posted:I can't check this right now, but according to that site, 2 orcs is a hard challenge for a party of 4 level 1 PCs. 3 Orcs would make the encounter "ludicrous". Nope - Orcs are 100 xp and a hard encounter for 4 level 1 PCs is 300 xp.
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Sep 23, 2014 10:02
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Jack the Lad posted:Nope - Orcs are 100 xp and a hard encounter for 4 level 1 PCs is 300 xp. The math behind all the stuff seems very wonky (aside from the fact that how creatures are assigned a CR is still obscured) This is a quote from the guy that posted the table as part of a follow up conversation: Someguy posted:Just noticed this in the Basic DMG: Nice and transparent and easy to use 
Mr Beens fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 10:11
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Mr Beens posted:The math behind all the stuff seems very wonky (aside from the fact that how creatures are assigned a CR is still obscured) Holy smokes that's right.  2 Orcs (AC 13/15 HP) is a hard encounter for a party of 4 level 1 PCs 
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Sep 23, 2014 10:37
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At least they are taking action economy into account here.
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Sep 23, 2014 13:53
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That was the first big  I ran into when leafing through the Basic DMG rules the other day. I'm hoping to start a 5th campaign soon and I want the first fight to be some troglodytes or whatever amphibious monsters to swarm the passenger ship the PC's start on, but I can't find anything I can use more than 2 of
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Sep 23, 2014 14:06
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And the game expects 6 to 8 such encounters in a work day. Hard encounters are just supposed to "use up resources". Check out that stuff in the back of the dmg pdf.
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Sep 23, 2014 14:16
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Super Waffle posted:That was the first big The solution is to start above level 1. Here's how many 100 xp monsters constitute a Hard encounter for 4 PCs at each level:  You're also probably just safe to go above the guidelines if you make sure not to focus fire too much with the monsters. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 14:33
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Uugh I finally got the "hey everybody is excited about Next and now we're all playing this poo poo-rear end system!" That's the loving weight behind the name on the book.
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Sep 23, 2014 15:03
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Jack the Lad posted:The solution is to start above level 1. Here's how many 100 xp monsters constitute a Hard encounter for 4 PCs at each level: These numbers seem suspect considering bonded math. I'm pretty sure 12 orcs could eat a 5E fighter alive with relative ease. Especially considering PC strength has a hard cap and fighter dps doesn't increase vast amounts per level. Wait what the gently caress happened to the scaling at level 18. 10-4-10-10? The Bee fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Sep 23, 2014 |
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Sep 23, 2014 15:06
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Jack the Lad posted:Holy smokes that's right. Why did they bring this back? WHY? This was the thing that made me swear to never again run 3E or PF. I hate it hate it hate it. It's just as unintuitive and cumbersome to deal with as it was in 3E. Sorry, this was the deal breaker, I'm not running 5E. I'll gladly play in it, but I will never, ever, take the GM's helm at any point for this edition. I'm not dealing with the headache of trying to figure out the arbitrary nature of setting difficulty for encounters again, only to be proven wrong when they're actually set in motion. You know what would have been better? A loving exp budget that makes sense, based on the party's level, and you can adjust the budget to higher or lower level tiers in order to appropriately gauge an encounter's difficulty relative to party size and level. You know, kind of like how 4E fixed this loving problem Jesus Christ I am angry at elfgames.
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Sep 23, 2014 15:08
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The Bee posted:These numbers seem suspect considering bonded math. I'm pretty sure 12 orcs could eat a 5E fighter alive with relative ease. Especially considering PC strength has a hard cap and fighter dps doesn't increase vast amounts per level. I guess the idea is that while the to-hit stuff is bounded, the orcs' damage won't scale up, so higher level PCs might get hit just as often but for less of their HP, %-wise. What I'm saying is, I'm sure it all got put through the Math Wringer so it should all work out.
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Sep 23, 2014 15:12
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