|
polisurgist posted:
This has been my experience with 5e so far as well; that being said, I think my experience has to do with having a good group of players. A good group can make any game fun, regardless of rules fucktardery. I'm curious to see how things are going to evolve as we get higher in level and the wizard gets new spell levels while the fighter gets to pick his 6th least favorite maneuver off the Battlemaster list.
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 20:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 09:11 |
|
|
http://www.madadventurers.com/dungeonscape-the-fellowship-of-the-thing/ Interesting interview with the Trapdoor Tech people where they blame the failure of the character builder on it just being Too Innovative for WOTC to get on board with.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 20:15
|
|
|
Ferret posted:This has been my experience with 5e so far as well; that being said, I think my experience has to do with having a good group of players. A good group can make any game fun, regardless of rules fucktardery. Yeah. But I've also been in good groups that decide that the game they're playing is enough of a pain in the rear end that they decide to be a good group playing a different game. That's not what this is. Personally, I can't imagine wanting to continue playing a game that I dislike on its face as much as most everyone here does 5e, but then, some people juggle geese.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 20:24
|
|
|
polisurgist posted:My one initial concern that does seem to be bearing out is that in days with roughly one encounter (as you tend to get with random encounters in overland travel), the PCs having access to all their daily resources tends to make the opposition go over easier than normal. Where are the rules for random encounters? xiw posted:http://www.madadventurers.com/dungeonscape-the-fellowship-of-the-thing/ This part especially is funny as hell. quote:“The challenge we faced,” he said, “was a fundamental difference in approaches.” Trapdoor and WotC simply had different visions for the future of gaming. "The challenge we faced was that we didn't build what the client wanted. We could have done what they needed and it it would have been great, but instead we did what we've always wanted to do. We're very disappointed by our client's narrow vision." e: I never got to see the iOS version, but the web version looked like it'd be been banged out by the work experience kid in a couple of days. An excel-based character sheet would have been an upgrade. Did anyone here get to use the iOS demo and could tell me how it differed from the web version? Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Nov 26, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 21:26
|
|
|
Another someone who managed to buy the DMG early made a reddit thread Of the stuff that we don't know yet from the previous leak and previews is that there are 9 pages of monster creation rules, supposedly including tables of target stats for any given CR, there's 2 sets of alternate resting rules: Epic Heroism where short rests are 5 mins and long rests are 1 hour, and Gritty Realism where short rests are 8 hours and long rests are 1 week; there's also a Madness table (1), naval combat rules and ship stats, optional Sanity and Honor stats, treasure tables linked to CR, and a section on combat variants (1)  It still sort of beggars belief for me that they would lock away all this stuff in a separate book, but without being able to pick apart the monster stat tables I do think this would give you enough material to actually run full campaigns with.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 21:53
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:Where are the rules for random encounters?
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 21:54
|
|
|
quote:The character regards something (usually the source of the madness) with intense revulsion, as if affected by the antipathy portion of the antipathy/sympathy spell well poo poo i'm glad they clarified that it wasn't the sympathy part of the spell
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 22:02
|
|
|
I'm really looking forward to picking apart the monster building stuff. I wish someone would post those tables instead of boring-rear end mental illness stuff. polisurgist posted:In my notebook. Oh right, I thought I'd managed to miss something. I'm glad that random encounter tables that can produce one encounter a day in a game that's supposed to have 6-8 in a day aren't a thing that's in the rulebook. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Nov 26, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 22:04
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:and Gritty Realism where short rests are 8 hours and long rests are 1 week Gritty realism: one minute of activity, eight hours of rest. You can't even make a "realistic for a bunch of nerds" joke.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 22:25
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:I'm really looking forward to picking apart the monster building stuff. I wish someone would post those tables instead of boring-rear end mental illness stuff. Having not seen any random encounter rules yet, if they require me to justify why, on a two-week overland journey, there are days where the group runs into no trouble and there are days where the group gets into between six and eight fights to the death, but there are no days where they run into anywhere between one and five or greater than eight fights to the death, I'm going to ignore them in favor of just using harder singular encounters and/or loving further with the long rest rules.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 22:43
|
|
|
polisurgist posted:Yeah. But I've also been in good groups that decide that the game they're playing is enough of a pain in the rear end that they decide to be a good group playing a different game. That's not what this is. Personally, I can't imagine wanting to continue playing a game that I dislike on its face as much as most everyone here does 5e, but then, some people juggle geese. Thats pretty personal relatively speak. I'm a person who complains about bad games but when it comes down to it, if I want to hang out with my friends and play some make believe I'll tend to play most systems if someone wants to run them (not needing to be the GM is pretty great sometimes). I'm even playing a star wars saga edition game! Also the gritty realism thing is the most hilariously bad rule i've seen so far. Its not the worst rule but the idea that this makes the game any more dangerous or lethal is complete nonsense. It just serves to make a healbot mandatory and screw players who use short rest based abilities even further.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 23:12
|
|
|
Use Gritty Realism for spellcasting and Epic Heroism for everything else.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 23:23
|
|
|
It amuses me that that's the best they can do when it comes to dials for moduling how gritty the game is. Changing the lengths of the rests. Something that anyone with half a brain can do and probably has been doing for years. That's it. Nothing mechanical, just... changing the lengths of the rests. No changes to how much healing people get, no limits to how many times per session people can be healed, no boosts to or penalties to hit dice or healing rates, no nothing just... make the rests longer or shorter. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 23:32
|
|
|
polisurgist posted:I'm taking that "supposed" with a big grain of salt for starters... I can see that happening in the mid-levels, and I can see way more than that being doable in a day at later levels, but I'm going for way fewer at low levels. If that averages to 6-8 over 20 levels, so be it. But in any case, I'm not planning to adhere to any "supposed to" that leads to a story that makes no drat sense. If you're happy to ignore the encounter-building rules and the encounter-per-day stuff, then no problem. It's just kind of weird to complain about having a single encounter in a day being too easy when the rules explicitly state 6-8 medium difficulkty encounters per day as the standard. polisurgist posted:Having not seen any random encounter rules yet, if they require me to justify why, on a two-week overland journey, there are days where the group runs into no trouble and there are days where the group gets into between six and eight fights to the death, but there are no days where they run into anywhere between one and five or greater than eight fights to the death, I'm going to ignore them in favor of just using harder singular encounters and/or loving further with the long rest rules. But that's actually a way more interesting way of doing things than "4 bandits appear and demand your treasure. You laugh at them, kill them, and move on. It was actually pointless running this combat" followed the next day by "A wild boar rushes out of the bushes and attacks you for no reason. You kill it easily and eat boar that night. It was actually pointless running this as a combat" followed the next day by "4 more bandits, you know the score" and so on. Let's take the example of a 2 week overland journey between a capital city and an outlying town. There are going to be days when nothing interesting happens. When something interesting does happen, it should be more interesting than "a dude attacks you and you beat him easily". Days 1-5, nothing happens. You're in the heartland of the kingdom. The roads are patrolled. Day 6, you've passed out of the safest areas and suddenly there are bandits everywhere. It's a series of ambushes and waves of reinforcements culminating in a boss fight, because like gently caress 4 random mooks would try ambushing a party of dangerous murderhobos. Day 7 you rest up. Days 8-10, nothing much happens. You're now travelling on a road through the wild forest on the way to the outpost. Day 11, a series of weird events occurs. Wild animals rush out of the bushes and attack you for no reason. The bushes rush out of the bushes and attack you for no reason. The mud itself rises up and attacks you. It culminates in a fight against an insane nature spirit. Days 11-14, you continue on your way and reach the outpost. There, you've got 2 x 6-8 "encounters" that produced a meaningful challenge, instead of one encounter per day that is pointlessly easy. e: Or just don't do random encounters and instead plan a couple of single day sidequests that will appear during a journey and let the players choose if they want to interact with those or not. Or just handwave the journey and get on with the story like a whole lot of people used to do in 2e. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Nov 26, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 23:36
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:
The message they put up when it got canned said the project was funded by Trapdoor, so I think wizards was less of a customer and more of a partner?
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 23:57
|
|
|
Yakse posted:The message they put up when it got canned said the project was funded by Trapdoor, so I think wizards was less of a customer and more of a partner? That seems to be what Trapdoor thought, yeah. It looks like Wizards thought otherwise. I guess we're never going to know what the actual arrangement was.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 00:12
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:That seems to be what Trapdoor thought, yeah. It looks like Wizards thought otherwise. I guess we're never going to know what the actual arrangement was. Either way it sounds like it was managed about as well as everything else. kingcom fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Nov 27, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 00:24
|
|
|
I'm guessing the problem lay in communication. I've seen similar things happen at places I worked. It's not an unusual story. "We want X, and are prepared to pay 12 thousand dollars for it." "We can do that, and much more besides" "Cool! Make a prototype and we'll take a look and think about doing business" "Here is the thing we made that does XYZ and also ABC and also dispenses the cocaine we'll need to replace the cocaine we snorted while thinking about this. It cost us 12 million dollars to develop and we've already bought a Chinese factory and started production. When can you pay?" "What the gently caress?" Or, you know, the other way round. "We want X, but with all the bells and whistles and we need it last Tuesday and money is no object!" "I have frantically built a thing that does X and rings bells and blows whistles. It cost 50 grand to develop, when you can pay?" "Oh, we were really thinking just X but a bit shinier and with round corners, and we were thinking more like 12 bucks, sorry". Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Nov 27, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 00:42
|
|
|
I've got a player who's hard-up to play a character like the 4e warlord. I was thinking Fighter (Battlemaster) and Bard (Valor) with Magic Initiate [Cleric] for Guidance and an extra heal would replicate almost everything. - Front line combatant with Heavy Armor and Shield Proficiency - Proactive mitigation from Rally and Heroism, - Modifying d20 rolls by Inspiration and Guidance, - Granting advantage/disadvantage on attacks with Faerie Fire or Hold Person, and Vicious Mockery, - Enabling attacks with Commander's Strike and Dissonant Whispers, - Traditional healing via Healing Word and Cure Wounds. Adding Inspiring Leader and Martial Adept feats would really round it out. Did I miss anything obvious to add into this concept?
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 01:54
|
|
|
All right, I think I found the "monster quick stats" table from the DMG: Credit to the original: http://tribality.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/monster-quick-stats.png And for a more readable form:  1. Cells in yellow were either missing from the shot entirely such as Proficiency, in which case I just lifted it off the Basic DM rules, or were partially outside of the shot and I just assumed what the number was (it's pretty easy to actually read, but just for full disclosure) 2. Cells in green are my own additions 3. The increase in average HP is 18 from CR 0 to CR 1/8, then 22 from CR 1/8 to CR 1/2, then 18 two more times, then it's a consistent 15 HP per CR until 19. Then there's a jump of 30 average HP going from CR 19 to 20, then it's 45 more average HP for every CR after 20 4. There's a similar pattern in average DPR: 2.0 more DPR while you're below 1 CR, then 4.5 more DPR going from CR 1/2 to CR 1, then 6.0 more DPR for every additional CR up to CR 19. There's a jump of 12.0 DPR from CR 19 to 20, then every post-20 CR increases the DPR by 18.0 5. The DM Basic Rules go up to CR 30, so there's 5 more CRs of monsters missing from that shot, but aside from missing AC after level 12 this should probably cover most campaigns The math method I was using for creating even-level monsters (aim for 60% to-hit for players, 50% to-hit for monsters, enough HP to last 4 rounds before death, deal enough damage to "consume" 25% of a player's max HP+hit dice reserves) predicted that an appropriate challenge for a level 14 Fighter would be a monster with [19 AC, 70 HP, +7 attack, 25 average damage per round]. According to Kobold Club, a "Medium" fight for a party of four level 14 characters would be four CR 4 monsters. A CR 4 monster would have [14 AC, 123 HP, +5 attack, 29.5 average damage per round]. That's fairly close, although the official math probably assumes an even higher intended chance-to-hit for the PCs, hence the discrepancy between the AC and HP values. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Nov 27, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 18:43
|
|
|
How many of the monsters in the monster manual follow that chart?
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 18:54
|
|
|
Gort posted:How many of the monsters in the monster manual follow that chart? There are 20 monsters in the MM that are CR 4 * There are 8 monsters out of 20 that are within 1 AC of the chart's suggested 14 AC. The greatest divergences are the Helmed Horror with 20 AC and the Black Pudding with 7 AC. Average AC across all 20 monsters is 13.85 * There is 1 monster that's within the chart's suggested 116-130 HP. The 19 other monsters all have too low average HP counts, with the worst being the Flameskull at a mere 40 HP. I'm not checking if using rolled HP would bring them within the range. Average HP across all 20 monsters is 74.35 * There are 2 monsters that are within the chart's suggested 27-32 damage-per-round. The 18 other monsters all have too low damage, with the worst being the Incubus/Succubus at 6 DPR. I'm not checking if using rolled HP would bring them within the range, and it's fairly obvious that these monsters are supposed to make up for their "missing" damage by using their spells and abilities, since I'm only looking at basic attacks and multi-attacks. Average DPR across all 20 monsters is 16.95
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 19:21
|
|
|
So the better question is, if those monsters actually adhered to the chart to an reasonable degree would it make the monsters any better?
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 19:28
|
|
|
Mendrian posted:So the better question is, if those monsters actually adhered to the chart to an reasonable degree would it make the monsters any better? Trying to recall some of the problems mentioned in this thread - the Kobold is a CR 1/8 monster that deals [1d4+2] with its 120 foot Sling ranged attack. The chart suggests that a CR 1/8 monster should have a DPR of 2.5 Actually making the Kobold abide by that chart giving it a flat 1d4 damage rather than 1d4+2 would reduce the possibility of Kobolds being able to kill a low-level Wizard with a series of lucky rolls. Following the chart would also bump up the Kobold's AC by 1 and its HP by 2 (the latter just to meet the absolute minimum for the suggested range) as a sort of trade-off for losing the +2 damage. It's a simple example, but then that question is somewhat difficult to answer without going through the monster list one by one and trying to look for individual "problematic" monsters in the first place. EDIT: Thinking about it a bit more, the way I would do this intuitively would be to have the range of HP and DPR, and then have "caster" or "ability-heavy" monsters fall on the low-side of the range. Except what I've seen (admittedly from a small sample size) is that the caster monsters fall outside of the range entirely, and even the "simple brute/soldier" monster like an Ettin still just falls within the low end of the range. This is pure conjecture that might be colored by bias, but it almost seems like they made the monsters first, THEN the chart. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Nov 27, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 20:07
|
|
|
Mendrian posted:So the better question is, if those monsters actually adhered to the chart to an reasonable degree would it make the monsters any better? Apparently there was a formula, but pretty much no one gave a poo poo about the formula.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 20:12
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:This is pure conjecture that might be colored by bias, but it almost seems like they made the monsters first, THEN the chart.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 20:39
|
|
|
Is it just me or do those HP totals seem incredibly high?
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 22:52
|
|
|
Darwinism posted:Is it just me or do those HP totals seem incredibly high? At a quick once-over, yeah, the chart has really high hp totals compared to the monster manual. From my Druid character I remember that a polar bear (which I'm using for its highish hp) has 42hp. That chart says that a CR2 monster should have 86-100hp (more than double at the low end). That would make me goddamn unstoppable. If tradition is followed, then the math should get a re-work in Monster Manual 3, so we'll have to wait until the game is fully released and I'm sure everything will be fixed   e: CR 2 creatures from glancing through the first half of the MM (I will have missed some): Rug of Smothering: 33hp Ankheg: 39hp Azer: 39hp Carrion Crawler: 51hp Centaur: 45hp Green Dragon Wyrmling: 38hp Ghast: 36hp Gnoll Pack Lord: 49hp Average: 41.25hp MM suggested CR2 HP: Average 93 Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Nov 27, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 23:16
|
|
|
Weird thing is, it would have been trivial to average the HP of the monsters they made in order to come up with the table. So either they made the chart and ignored it while making the monsters, or they made the monsters and then ignored them while making the chart, or the guy who made the chart had nothing to do with the guy who made the monsters.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 23:37
|
|
|
Gort posted:Weird thing is, it would have been trivial to average the HP of the monsters they made in order to come up with the table. And this is why the staggered release is total bullshit. They claim it was so they could get the whole team to focus on one book at a time, so they could start releasing in August and end in November, end up with the best possible products. But of course this does mean that you have to finish one piece of the puzzle before you know what the other pieces will look like. If you look at AlphaDog's numbers, then... well Jesus Christ just look at them. What more can one say about that? Revolutionary thought: how about you work on the three books one at a time but keep them to yourself, give them a quick round of polish to get it loving right for a change, and then release them all in November/December? Yeah? Would that have been so hard? Your own monsters don't even remotely come close to following your own guidelines. I hate to use the word "objectively" bad because it's so overused on the internet, but this is a rare instance of that actually applying. A guideline that doesn't work is objectively bad design.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 23:56
|
|
|
Gort posted:Weird thing is, it would have been trivial to average the HP of the monsters they made in order to come up with the table. Actually averaging the HP would take effort and math, two things 5e is dedicated against.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 00:00
|
|
|
Just to get this out of the way: That looks like the "quick" monster stat generator, which implies that there's a "full" one too. The "full" one might be better. I mean, even if it is the quick one's still completely hosed but there might still be better rules, or at least more detailed rules, for creating monsters.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 00:08
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:Just to get this out of the way: That looks like the "quick" monster stat generator, which implies that there's a "full" one too. The "full" one might be better. I mean, even if it is the quick one's still completely hosed but there might still be better rules, or at least more detailed rules, for creating monsters. Just wait for DMG 3 to come out with better math, and then the Advanced Dungeon Mastering Guide for the finished product afterwards.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 00:36
|
|
|
While I'm waiting for that to happen, I took all the CR 2 monsters from the free DM rules and put them into a chart to compare them to the monster stat making rules. Red is where the monster is under the number provided in the DMG sample above. Green is where it is over the number provided. Bold Red HP is where the difference is greater than the average hp for a CR 2 creature (ie, the DMG rules would provide more than twice as many HP as the creature has). The "damage" number I used is the creature's most damaging melee attack that isn't a special ability like the Centaur's Charge. If the creature has multiattack, it's the sum of the damage its attacks do. I rounded the average damage up (17.5 to 18) when averaging the damage range given in the DMG.  e: I'm going to say that I probably typo'd something in there because I suck at data entry and it's boring. If you find a mistake, let me know. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Nov 28, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 00:44
|
|
|
I just can't get over the fact that this is what a group of professional game designers thought was a good idea to release, I have seen games designed by a single person working from their house that are designed more coherently
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 02:06
|
|
|
Darwinism posted:I just can't get over the fact that this is what a group of professional game designers thought was a good idea to release, I have seen games designed by a single person working from their house that are designed more coherently They DID say they were going back to their roots, and if you have read the old 1 and 2e rulebooks they are pretty similarly messed up!
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 03:53
|
|
|
Chronische posted:They DID say they were going back to their roots, and if you have read the old 1 and 2e rulebooks they are pretty similarly messed up! Not to be that guy, but that is a very poor excuse and a very poor design goal. Not to mention that that market is being satiated by the numerous OSR titles out at the moment.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 03:56
|
|
|
Covok posted:Not to be that guy, but that is a very poor excuse and a very poor design goal. Not to mention that that market is being satiated by the numerous OSR titles out at the moment. I believe that may have been a joke.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 05:19
|
|
|
I'm really not sure what everyone's surprised about. We all saw this coming because the numbers in the MM make it pretty obvious it's built on gut feel and "makes sense" design. But that's exactly what Mearls has been telling us they were doing through the whole development process. It's a big part of their sales pitch to 3e/PF fans. On the other hand, if they actually put in the work this time and these are the numbers that their testing has shown will make the game the most fun I'd actually be pretty pleased. People that care about balance will just remake the old monsters with the new numbers, pretty much exactly like what happened with the 4e MM3. And the old numbers will probably still work "well enough" for those that don't convert (just like pre-MM3 monsters). Or maybe they'll release a "Monster Vault" sooner rather than later. Sure it's pretty lovely they were released so close together, but with all the changes between playtest packets, it's been pretty obvious they've been winging it for a long time. If you have a product of this scale that you've put a lot of work into and are confident in, you don't make that many changes between end-user test builds. Then again, these numbers could all be (and in all likelihood probably are) bullshit too.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 05:42
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 09:11 |
|
|
The monster chart is well and truly messed up. 93 HP for a 2nd level party to whack through? Thats just going to be a drag. 23 damage average is also more than enough to kill a level 2 character in one round. This might be the legendary monster table or something, because it looks twice as tough as the average monster of each level.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 06:43
|
|