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ascendance posted:I think it would just add a whole pile more complexity to give monsters varying XP levels within each CR band. We have always had monsters worth the same amount, with some more difficult than others. And I mean, player optimization matters a lot too. 2e had a lot of stuff with the same HD and different XP. In 1e each individual monster's xp total would vary because XP was expressed as base + X xp/hp.
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Oct 13, 2014 00:58
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AlphaDog posted:2e had a lot of stuff with the same HD and different XP. In 1e each individual monster's xp total would vary because XP was expressed as base + X xp/hp.
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Oct 13, 2014 01:02
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I don't know how anyone could ever hope to make 50million out of DnD. It's ultimately a game; you can't really turn it into anything other than a game. It makes for piss-poor movies by default, the fictional lines (FR, Dark Sun, even Ravenloft) are way more niche than even something like Guardians of the Galaxy, being a sub-genre of an already small industry. You could make a baller videogame but since that doesn't count, I have no freaking idea. Branching out into comics, movies, books, and accessories at the right time with the right brand could work but I don't know how long they can keep beating the Drizzt drum and hope to make money out of it. They need a solid setting and story if they hope to do anything worthwhile with the brand.
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Oct 13, 2014 01:04
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AlphaDog posted:2e had a lot of stuff with the same HD and different XP. In 1e each individual monster's xp total would vary because XP was expressed as base + X xp/hp. Well some Creatures in the MM have Different xp from the standard CR. The Ancient Green Dragon for example. Is 20000 or short. However this is probably just a mistake. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 01:05
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ascendance posted:oh poo poo i forgot about that XP/HP stuff. That was kind of nuts. But then, in 1e, people got most of their XP from gold and treasure, anyway. Didn't only fighters get XP from killing monsters? No, they but they got bonus XP for killing monsters. Most of your XP came from treasure, but fighting monsters wasn't an insignificant thing xp-wise. You could level up without ever fighting, but it wasn't as fast. 1HD creatures in 2e were worth anywhere from 15xp (like orcs) on up to something like 175xp for hill dwarves, with lots of stuff in the ~20-60 area. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 01:07
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Mendrian posted:Branching out into comics, movies, books, and accessories at the right time with the right brand could work but I don't know how long they can keep beating the Drizzt drum and hope to make money out of it. They need a solid setting and story if they hope to do anything worthwhile with the brand. The city of Sharn in Eberron would make a pretty good spectacle for a movie but Eberron doesn't have a character like Drizzt that lots of nerds know. It's kind of a shame the best known D&D characters are in the most bland setting.
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Oct 13, 2014 01:10
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:I think your math is off. The ID's psychic blast first causes an intsave, which even the presumed int8 fighter (who i guess isnt an EK, and never deigned to take Resilient in his weak save) has a 40% chance of succeeding at. If he fails this save he has to lose an int contest of 12 vs 8, or d20+1 vs d20-1. The int8 fighter has a 48% chance of winning or tieing, or about 31% chance of getting stunned. per hit by an ID before indomitable. Pretty much 53% chance of getting stunned by either one of the first two IDs which is what is required to die. Because I like doing actual math, and I have the edition stuff handy; the initial int save is DC12, which requires the Int 8 fighter to roll a 13 or higher to beat. He has a 40% chance to succeed this check, and a 60% chance to fail and take 2d10 damage. After the fighter fails the check, the intellect devourer rolls 3d6; if the result of this roll is equal to or higher than the fighter's 8 int, then the fighter has his int reduced to 0 and is stunned. The odds of rolling 3d6 >= 8 is 83.8%, for a combined 50.2% chance to be stunned (60% * 83.8%) per ID. Once stunned, any ID can initiate an Intellect contest; the Devourer will roll at +1, the player at -5 (for having a 0 score), and the Devourer needs to exceed the player's roll to eat its brain. The ID has a 73.75% chance to succeed at brain eating, with a 26.25% chance of the PC surviving. For the presumed 3 ID attack on a single target, this leads to the following possible results; 1) The first ID stuns the target, the second ID eats his brain, the third ID gets to go play with someone else. (50.2% * 73.75% * 100%) = 37% probability. 2) The first ID stuns the target, the second ID doesn't eat his brain, the third ID does eat his brain. (50.2% * 26.25% * 73.75%) = 9.7% probability. 3) The first ID stuns the target, both the second and third ID fail to eat his brain. (50.2% * 26.25% * 26.25%) = 3.4% probability. 4) The first ID fails to stun the target, the second ID stuns, and the third ID eats his brain. (49.8% * 50.2% * 73.75%) = 18.4% probability. 5) The first ID fails to stun the target, the second ID stuns, and the third ID fails to eat his brain. (29.8% * 50.2% * 26.25%) = 6.5% probability. 6) The first ID fails to stun the target, the second ID fails to stun the target, and the third ID stuns. (49.8% * 49.8% * 50.2%) = 12.4% probability. 7) All three IDs fail to stun the target. (49.8% * 49.8% * 49.8%) = 12.3% probability. (total chance: 99.7%, because I rounded a little, so sue me) Summing up the results, we get the following: 12.3% chance that the fighter skates away, laughing at the puny insects buzzing around him. Although possibly hurting quite a bit because of the 2d10 kicker damage even if the stun doesn't go through. (#7) 22.3% chance that the fighter is stunned, but remains brain-safe. They're out of combat and permanently disabled until they get a Greater Restoration spell cast on them, though. (#3, 5 and 6) 65.1% chance that the fighter is now a dancing meat puppet. (#1, 2 and 4) Indomitable drops the chance of failure on the first roll from 60% to 36%, or an adjusted stun chance of 30.2%. It doesn't have any impact otherwise, so let's do a little tinkering... 1) The first ID stuns the target, the second ID eats his brain, the third ID gets to go play with someone else. (30.2% * 73.75% * 100%) = 22.2% probability. 2) The first ID stuns the target, the second ID doesn't eat his brain, the third ID does eat his brain. (30.2% * 26.25% * 73.75%) = 5.8% probability. 3) The first ID stuns the target, both the second and third ID fail to eat his brain. (30.2% * 26.25% * 26.25%) = 2.1% probability. 4) The first ID fails to stun the target, the second ID stuns, and the third ID eats his brain. (69.8% * 50.2% * 73.75%) = 25.8% probability. 5) The first ID fails to stun the target, the second ID stuns, and the third ID fails to eat his brain. (69.8% * 50.2% * 26.25%) = 9.2% probability. 6) The first ID fails to stun the target, the second ID fails to stun the target, and the third ID stuns. (69.8% * 49.8% * 50.2%) = 17.4% probability. 7) All three IDs fail to stun the target. (69.8% * 49.8% * 49.8%) = 17.3% probability. (total for a sanity check: 99.8%) With indomitable, we get: 17.3% chance that the fighter skates away. (#7) 28.7% chance that the fighter is stunned but brain-safe. (#3, 5 and 6) 53.8% chance that the fighter is meat puppet. (#1, 2 and 4) Which is to say, a 5% increase in the chance that the fighter will be able to laugh it off, and a 12% drop in the chance of him turning into a meat puppet, with the remainder still leaving him permastunned until he gets kicked out of his coma by a spellcaster. Unless someone points out an error in my math I'm going to go ahead and say this is definitive, so just point arguments about the statistics towards this post in the future. Godbless.
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Oct 13, 2014 01:23
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The beauty of the mind flayer + ID setup is the flayer's 60' stun cone. DC15 INT save. Anyone who fails is then fair game for the ID brain eating ability.
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Oct 13, 2014 01:32
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Its almost as if thematically connected monsters are made to synergize well and low level mooks can be made threatening again with a proper general figure. That's actually pretty cool! Except for, you know, the save or die part. And the fact that minion Intellect Devourers could have the same impact without mucking up the CR addition. And the cleaving of static defenses into fiddly rolls. It's really sad how many of 4E's good points were tossed out in the transition.
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Oct 13, 2014 01:44
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MonsterEnvy posted:It should be noted that 5e is selling really well right now. According to Mearls this has been WotC D&D's most successful launch having outdone both 4e and 3e in launch sales. Though he admits that the upcoming year matters a lot more then a good launch. This was mentioned previously, but they all sell better than the previous one. I think Angry DM wrote that someone from wizards was claiming that they've averaged 5% growth a year since the 70's, come hell or high water, and their main problem right now is that everything geek is blowing up right now and wizards is stuck with their piddly 5% because they have no idea how to market the hobby to anyone or produce materials that aren't complete garbage for newcomers.
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Oct 13, 2014 01:59
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The thing with the Marvel movies is that "going out to the movies" is still a mainstream pursuit. RPGs, specifically D&D, are gated being buying $150 worth of elf-pretend manuals, studying them, and then finding several others (cat piss optional) whose free times line up. And THEN there's a non-zero chance that another player will try to convince you that you bought the MMO for babies edition, here you can borrow my Pathfinder stuff. Hey where are you going? Ok I guess we can see Guardians again. moths fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 02:02
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Ran a game yesterday for a bunch of my little brother's friends. Because of this thread I decided to throw encounter design out the window. Went great, everybody had a good time, especially the guy who was playing D&D for the first time. Afterward, some of the players said that it was just right for them (in deadliness,) even though some of them almost died to the sabretooth tiger. The thing was, it was slightly dissatisfying for me, because I was going to send even more difficult stuff, and I nerfed some of the things they fought. To be fair I didn't even try using CR and I don't keep track of experience, but it didn't seem worth it. We had a very Magical Tea Party-esque game filled with improvisation and straight ignoring the mechanics a lot of the time. Though of course this is not the job of the customer, is there any effort out there to make a more accurate encounter building system? Also, I have the Monster Vault from 4e and I love it to death, but it probably won't work with the flat math approach of 5e, will it? I don't have the 5e Monster Manual and I'd prefer not to shell out more cash for it. 5th edition is my favorite so far (after Basic and 4th) and I intend to use it for campaigns, and use OSR stuff for one-shots. It's too bad the designers seem to have put out the monsters prematurely.
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Oct 13, 2014 02:31
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Mendrian posted:I don't know how anyone could ever hope to make 50million out of DnD. It's ultimately a game; you can't really turn it into anything other than a game. It makes for piss-poor movies by default, the fictional lines (FR, Dark Sun, even Ravenloft) are way more niche than even something like Guardians of the Galaxy, being a sub-genre of an already small industry. You could make a baller videogame but since that doesn't count, I have no freaking idea. Branching out into comics, movies, books, and accessories at the right time with the right brand could work but I don't know how long they can keep beating the Drizzt drum and hope to make money out of it. They need a solid setting and story if they hope to do anything worthwhile with the brand. This is backwards: novels sell more than rulebooks for D&D. Since the release of Dragonlance, novels have been the better-selling product by far, especially by the big tentpole authors like Weis & Hickman, Salvatore, or Greenwood.
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Oct 13, 2014 02:32
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Soggy Cereal posted:Though of course this is not the job of the customer, is there any effort out there to make a more accurate encounter building system? The problem I'm encountering while doing this is that trying to do it without just making stuff up would mean using some kind of coherent guideline for "this <save/attack/AC/ability/whatever> is worth this many xp", doing it is impossible if I can't figure out what those relationships should be, and the way things are in the book doesn't help at all (see my previous post about differing challenge within a given CR). On top of that, the way I think I'd have to actually do it would be to re-work the XP total for each monster, and that's not only a shitload of work, it's going to produce a list that you'll have to cross-reference when you're building encounters. So while I'm trying*, it's not a straightforward thing, and even if I ever get it working it's not going to produce a result that's easy to use. So I'm not very motivated. *Mostly as a byproduct of trying to understand why it doesn't work right as-is. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 02:43
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AlphaDog posted:The problem I'm encountering while doing this is that trying to do it without just making stuff up would mean using some kind of coherent guideline for "this <save/attack/AC/ability/whatever> is worth this many xp", doing it is impossible if I can't figure out what those relationships should be, and the way things are in the book doesn't help at all (see my previous post about differing challenge within a given CR).
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Oct 13, 2014 02:59
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I think it doesn't have to be XP per se, it just has to be something because CR currently isn't it.
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Oct 13, 2014 03:36
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ascendance posted:I really dont think you need that much granularity in XP budgeting for encounters. I'd be happy if each monster was rated from 1 to 3 stars for deadliness, with special notes on the ones that attack stats directly. Ok sure, now all I need to do is figure out if it's a low/mid/high CR 5 monster. Guess what I still have to do? The answer is not "eyeball the numbers and go with my gut feeling", because I'm trying to do something better than what's already there.
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Oct 13, 2014 03:39
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Im also really curious how the social media marketing for D&D is going. Like, did they actually buy a bunch of positive coverage on gaming sites amd what not? How does the process of buying such coverage work?
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Oct 13, 2014 03:41
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AlphaDog posted:Ok sure, now all I need to do is figure out if it's a low/mid/high CR 5 monster. Guess what I still have to do?
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Oct 13, 2014 03:43
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ascendance posted:Im also really curious how the social media marketing for D&D is going. Like, did they actually buy a bunch of positive coverage on gaming sites amd what not? How does the process of buying such coverage work? #gamergate
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Oct 13, 2014 03:45
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ascendance posted:Im also really curious how the social media marketing for D&D is going. Like, did they actually buy a bunch of positive coverage on gaming sites amd what not? How does the process of buying such coverage work? They absolutely did, in the form of "exclusive previews." Official recognition is a huge thing in these loving communities, along with whatever weight that including superstar gamers as consultants was supposed to. It's amazing that Monte Cook has managed to keep his mouth shut about everything. I don't care for his design style, but the man's a professional.
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Oct 13, 2014 03:49
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ascendance posted:any idea what that strategy might be? Make every release a big event and don't overwelm everyone wit too many books.
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Oct 13, 2014 04:03
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MonsterEnvy posted:Make every release a big event and don't overwelm everyone wit too many books. And that is going to make them money how? This is the big problem, and always has been, with RPGs. You do not have a long term revenue stream - your customers are buying a product that by design gives them everything they need for literally years of use. One campaign can last years. Even if it doesn't, starting a second or thrid campaign doesn't require your customers to give you any more money. On top of this 2/3 of your core books are not designed to be bought by (on average) 4/5ths of the people using your product (the DMG and Monster Manual) - same for any adventures you publish.
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Oct 13, 2014 07:25
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If they could actually come up with a first-party online tool that made it possible to play Dungeons and Dragons online, with your friends, with all the minis and rules built in, I bet they would have a ton of subscribers at $5 a month. Maybe that's not MMO money, and I doubt Wizards could actually create the product in the first place, but I think that it would be drat popular and make a profit.
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Oct 13, 2014 07:35
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Malcolm posted:If they could actually come up with a first-party online tool that made it possible to play Dungeons and Dragons online, with your friends, with all the minis and rules built in, I bet they would have a ton of subscribers at $5 a month. Maybe that's not MMO money, and I doubt Wizards could actually create the product in the first place, but I think that it would be drat popular and make a profit. They already had an online tool that tons of people payed (and some still pay) for it isn't enough or hasbro says it doesn't count. They need to leverage their ip while this big nerd boom is going on but honestly i'm not sure how, my thoughts would be to court kids more. Hasbro has a tv channnel to advertise their poo poo and for better or worse they've had success revitalizing an old brand with a new cartoon before. Something like that could bring the D&D name out of the joke territory it resides in but then they would have to be comfortable selling D&D as a toy, a childs game. One that adults could enjoy as well but something still ultimately for kids.
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Oct 13, 2014 08:14
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Arivia posted:#gamergate Oh please, like they care about actual game companies buying coverage 
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Oct 13, 2014 08:52
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Does anyone actually believe that if 5e were selling poorly, Mike Mearls would say so? Like, can you envisage a scenario in which he says: "Actually yeah 5e isn't doing so great. I guess we kinda messed up. Oh well." I'm not saying it is selling poorly, but Mearls saying it's selling well means nothing. Also, I love the idea that some random guy on the internet would be privy to the specifics of board-level Hasbro business strategy.
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Oct 13, 2014 10:26
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Elfgames posted:Court to kids. Another D&D cartoon? Yes please!
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Oct 13, 2014 11:19
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Cainer posted:Another D&D cartoon? Yes please! Hell yes.
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Oct 13, 2014 11:48
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Jack the Lad posted:Does anyone actually believe that if 5e were selling poorly, Mike Mearls would say so? Like, can you envisage a scenario in which he says: "Actually yeah 5e isn't doing so great. I guess we kinda messed up. Oh well."
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Oct 13, 2014 11:51
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I haven't played for about 12 years, but I picked up the Starter Set tonight in prep for a few weeks from now, a night of drinking and dice. I don't remember most adventures having art/maps this detailed and pretty; I'd like to copy them much larger and have my players actually use them for combat positioning, etc. Are there still Kinko's or somewhere else that can take something and blow it up to like 18x24 b&w?
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Oct 13, 2014 12:36
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UPS Stores, FedEx Offices, and Office Depot are the kind of place you're looking for.
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Oct 13, 2014 13:05
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Jack the Lad posted:Does anyone actually believe that if 5e were selling poorly, Mike Mearls would say so? Like, can you envisage a scenario in which he says: "Actually yeah 5e isn't doing so great. I guess we kinda messed up. Oh well." And so we come to one inescapable conclusion: MonsterEnvy is Mike Mearls.
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Oct 13, 2014 13:48
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AlphaDog posted:For example: the difference between a CR 2 (450xp) and CR 3 (700xp) monster is 350xp. If CR 2 monsters were worth 450-699xp depending on their abilities (and obviously if those numbers actually worked properly), my complaint would be totally irrelevant. And if it's a rules patch later on, I'd find it easier to adjust the XP values of existing monster stat blocks than to adjust all the stats of a monster to match the challenge/XP value a la the same patch in 4e (not that it affected me much in 4e because I was mainly running Dark Sun, but hey).
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Oct 13, 2014 16:12
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Generic Octopus posted:What does it do that you like? It just seems like Pathfinder minus a bunch of poo poo rules / mechanics. I like how two-weapon fighting is handled, how moving/attacking is handled, how attacks of opportunity are handled. I like how cantrips scale better. I like how feats have a bunch of bundled perks, so when you pick a feat, it makes a difference and lets your character do something cool. I like how each class can be branched in different ways. I like how all the spells feel useful. I like how there isn't a bunch of conditional modifiers to always worry about. Note that this is all from a player's perspective. I'm guessing there are legit gripes with how CR and monster XP is handled. Our GM is running Hoard of the Dragon Queen, so I'm guessing we're avoiding some pitfalls with crafting homebrew encounters. Edit: Regarding sales, I heard the product was selling well. It was the number 1 selling book on Amazon for a bit (not sure if it still is). But more importantly, it seems like the grognards like it, so you have GMs that were playing Pathfinder wanting to run it. Dahbadu fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 16:38
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Dahbadu posted:I like how attacks of opportunity are handled. So you really dislike defender fighters, is that correct?
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Oct 13, 2014 16:59
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Nancy_Noxious posted:So you really dislike defender fighters, is that correct? I'm playing a defender sword/board Paladin. I actually prefer playing protector characters. I've done a really good job tanking hordes of kobolds and cultists. Although the encounters within HotDQ are pretty deadly, and we've come close to death several times, I feel effective and like I can perform my role. Once I get level 4, I'm planning on picking the feat Shield Master (knock dudes prone with a free shield bash). And level 8, I plan on taking the feat Sentinel (that lets me freeze guys with OAs). Dahbadu fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 17:08
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Dahbadu posted:I like how two-weapon fighting is handled, how moving/attacking is handled, how attacks of opportunity are handled. Eh, TWF I'm not too crazy about, since it's only 1 attack at the cost of a bonus action, and there are other ways to get attacks with the bonus action with better weapons; it seems to me only really useful for a Rogue trying to land Sneak Attack and wasn't going to use Cunning Action for anything that turn. Splitting movement is nice. OAs costing your reaction is really bad, it basically kills any ability to guard the back line while also competing with other powers/features since you only get 1 reaction per round.
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Oct 13, 2014 17:17
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What mechanics let you guard the rest of the party? When the monsters all tried to bypass you and you got an OA on one of them, how did you stop the rest?
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Oct 13, 2014 17:20
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I'm confused aren't OAs nerfed even from 3.5? Ranged Attacks don't provoke nor do spells right? Only thing that provokes is leaving reach, so not even moving between threatened squares.
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Oct 13, 2014 17:23
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