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Blue Raider posted:My point is that I still want to try and like D&D, but is it ever not lovely and boring like I feel like it can be? Blue Raider posted:...everyone was either a casual player or clueless like me... If you played 4e and "wiped twice in 3 hours", your DM had no idea how to run a game, and I would guess hadn't actually read and understood the rules. It's probably not their fault, but that flat-out shouldn't happen if you're playing by the rules (I mean, it could, but it would involve an incredibly unlikely string of bad luck). If you're still set on playing D&D, take the first few sessions really slowly and look up rules whenever you need to, regardless of which edition you're using. The biggest problem with any D&D after the red Basic box from the 1980s is that it's not easy to learn without someone who already knows it quite well to show you how things are done. Next / 5th Edition is currently "easier to learn" than some other versions because there's no extra material, but it heaps of complexity that's not introduced in a logical order or in an easy-to-learn way. The free Basic rules in the above post are a good start with the new D&D, but they don't actually contain basic/simplified core rules, only fewer options (that is, the rules complexity is still all there, there just aren't as many character options or optional rules presented). If you like the idea of D&D but don't actually like D&D, maybe try looking at Dungeon World. If you don't already play D&D (or know people who already play D&D, don't do lovely boring D&D, and are looking for a new player), Dungeon World will be easier to learn and easier to play. The complete rules are free online here: http://book.dwgazetteer.com/ (use the navigation bar at the top). I'm mentioning this because if you do find D&D boring and lovely, changing the version of D&D probably isn't your best shot at having more fun. Other fantasy RPGs exist, and they can work very differently while still providing the whole "pretend to be an elf" thing. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:02 on Dec 23, 2014 |
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Dec 23, 2014 00:59
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Thanks guys. I've watched people play the game in my presence, so I know how the cadence of the game can be when everybody's on the same page. I guess I'll just study up and try to find a local game or something.
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Dec 23, 2014 01:05
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MonsterEnvy posted:http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules?x=dnd/basicrules You can download and learn the basic rules here. I asked this before and no one responded. Maybe you know. When are they planning on updating the basic rules to include information from the DMG?
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Dec 23, 2014 01:13
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Blue Raider posted:Thanks guys. I've watched people play the game in my presence, so I know how the cadence of the game can be when everybody's on the same page. I guess I'll just study up and try to find a local game or something. I hope you find a fun group!
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Dec 23, 2014 01:22
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DalaranJ posted:I asked this before and no one responded. Maybe you know. When are they planning on updating the basic rules to include information from the DMG? There is the DM`s basic rules right there. But they said they would be done so by the end of Dec or early Jan. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Dec 23, 2014 |
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Dec 23, 2014 01:59
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Blue Raider posted:So I tried playing D&D forth edition with a friend of a friend as the DM. He made up his own universe for the game and it sucked. It was also extremely frustrating and boring as everyone was either a casual player or clueless like me. We wiped twice in the span of three hours and everybody got pissed and left. There was drama over this night, which I found funny. I'm playing D&D for the first time with 5e rules and having fun with it. Maybe give that a go with the basic manuals they have for free?
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Dec 23, 2014 03:12
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Blue Raider posted:So I tried playing D&D forth edition with a friend of a friend as the DM. He made up his own universe for the game and it sucked. It was also extremely frustrating and boring as everyone was either a casual player or clueless like me. We wiped twice in the span of three hours and everybody got pissed and left. There was drama over this night, which I found funny. The big question is what you want out of D&D. Because a couple of versions of D&D are great at what they do. BECMI is a nice tight dungeon crawling game of player skill and challenge, and 4e is big budget action movie stuff (too often with all the coherence of Michael Bay films, but I digress.). But generally you're better off with some of the Indy games - depending what you want out of RPGs (which might be for the recommend a system thread). That said, with a good group and GM, any game at all can sing - and with a poor group and especially a poor DM (as you had) the game will suck hard. Two wipes in three hours is either a very sucky game with a DM without a clue or a Lair Assault/4thCore challenge and I doubt people were trying Lair Assault.
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Dec 23, 2014 03:20
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MonsterEnvy posted:It's faster then 4e which should help as well. I've actually played a good deal of 5e now, and this is basically absolutely not true.
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Dec 23, 2014 03:35
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I've got a hypothetical situation that a player brought up and I have no idea how to handle if ti comes up. A character is 5th level, Bard 4/Wizard 1. She finds a scroll of Fireball and wants to copy it into her spellbook. Checking the PHB I find: PHB page 114; "Your Spellbook" sidebar posted:Copying a Spell into the Book. When you find a wizard spell Alright, well, Fireball is a Wizard spell. And a Bard 4/Wizard 1 does have 3rd level spell slots; nowhere does it specify "wizard spell slots". So, that seems okay to me. She spends the time and gold to copy Fireball off of the scroll and into her spellbook. The next adventuring day, the character is preparing her spells. Checking the PHB it tells me: finish a long rest. PHB page 114; "Preparing and Casting Spells" posted:You prepare the list of wizard spells that are available She has a 16 INT, so, she can prepare 4 Wizard spells. She has third level spell slots as noted on the chart on page 165 of the PHB. The entry on page 165 about multiclassed casters says: PHB page 165; "Spells Known and Prepared" posted:You determine So, it seems to be that this character should be able to prepare Fireball, since it's now known to her (in her spellbook) and she has 3rd level spell slots. Am I incorrect? Seems like a dip into Wizard is really worth it for a full caster, just for the utility of being able to copy spells into a Spellbook. EDIT: Or is it that, because you prepare spells by class individually, and a level 1 wizard can only prepare two 1st level spells, that "learning" (copying from a scroll) a 3rd level wizard spell is pointless? Red Hood fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Dec 23, 2014 |
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Dec 23, 2014 03:36
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OK, so a friend who has never expressed any kind of interest in tabletop RPGs says he wants to play "That new D&D" now. I've agreed to run a 5e game. Barring esoteric skeleton antics, what are the major classes, feats, etc to avoid in this edition? You know, to minimize the chances of him declaring that RPGs loving suck halfway through the second session. EDIT: I suggested other RPGs, but he said "That sounds like reading Squadron Supreme when you really want to read Justice League." Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Dec 23, 2014 |
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Dec 23, 2014 03:45
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MonsterEnvy posted:There is the DM`s basic rules right there. I'm pretty sure that the portions of the Dungeon Master's Guide content that I've been waiting to be added to Basic are not in the release that occurred three weeks before the Dungeon Master's Guide came out.
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Dec 23, 2014 04:04
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Red Hood posted:EDIT: Or is it that, because you prepare spells by class individually, and a level 1 wizard can only prepare two 1st level spells, that "learning" (copying from a scroll) a 3rd level wizard spell is pointless? I'm pretty sure this is how it works, based on this wording: quote:You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed member of that class. However, the first two things you quoted show that the multiclass bard4/wizard1 is able to copy wizard spells earlier than you can cast them if they want to. I can't see a reason not to.
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Dec 23, 2014 04:04
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Lightning Lord posted:OK, so a friend who has never expressed any kind of interest in tabletop RPGs says he wants to play "That new D&D" now. I've agreed to run a 5e game. Barring esoteric skeleton antics, what are the major classes, feats, etc to avoid in this edition? You know, to minimize the chances of him declaring that RPGs loving suck halfway through the second session. Just play dungeon world and don't tell him until it's over.
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Dec 23, 2014 04:08
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neonchameleon posted:The big question is what you want out of D&D. Because a couple of versions of D&D are great at what they do. BECMI is a nice tight dungeon crawling game of player skill and challenge, and 4e is big budget action movie stuff (too often with all the coherence of Michael Bay films, but I digress.). But generally you're better off with some of the Indy games - depending what you want out of RPGs (which might be for the recommend a system thread). I'd just like some cool environments and role playing with some reasonably challenging encounters, not stacked against the party. For the record, we wiped to the first encounter outside of the town both times. I know this was a bad GM because I'm not an idiot. I just think it could be a fun game because friend and role playing can be fun.
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Dec 23, 2014 04:10
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Rannos22 posted:Just play dungeon world and don't tell him until it's over. This is the best answer.
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Dec 23, 2014 04:15
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Blue Raider posted:I just think it could be a fun game because friend and role playing can be fun. Check out the meetup thread, survey your LGS for people that look fun, or just try to figure it out yourselves with cool people you already like being around. I'd say at least one person in every LGS pickup game has a better, more fun "home game" or established group. Unless you're some kind of shithead, you'll eventually get invited to that better private game. And if you are a shithead, you'll eventually get invited to a worse private game where everybody's shitheads - but you won't notice because that's the nature of the thing.
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Dec 23, 2014 04:24
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Lightning Lord posted:OK, so a friend who has never expressed any kind of interest in tabletop RPGs says he wants to play "That new D&D" now. I've agreed to run a 5e game. Barring esoteric skeleton antics, what are the major classes, feats, etc to avoid in this edition? You know, to minimize the chances of him declaring that RPGs loving suck halfway through the second session. Tell him that he's asking for New 52.
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Dec 23, 2014 04:37
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Rannos22 posted:Just play dungeon world and don't tell him until it's over. Haha, I was actually considering doing this, but using 13th Age. ProfessorCirno posted:Tell him that he's asking for New 52. I actually like Squadron Supreme (Mark Gruenwald for life) so...
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Dec 23, 2014 05:12
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ProfessorCirno posted:Tell him that he's asking for New 52. 
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Dec 23, 2014 05:21
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Lightning Lord posted:Haha, I was actually considering doing this, but using 13th Age. I wasn't joking, if he's never played an RPG before he's gonn be turned off immediately by all the fiddly bullshit.
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Dec 23, 2014 05:47
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ProfessorCirno posted:Tell him that he's asking for New 52. That is just overly harsh.
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Dec 23, 2014 05:56
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I'd play 5th edition if it was called Esoteric Skeleton Antics.
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Dec 23, 2014 06:31
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Blue Raider posted:So I tried playing D&D forth edition with a friend of a friend as the DM. He made up his own universe for the game and it sucked. It was also extremely frustrating and boring as everyone was either a casual player or clueless like me. We wiped twice in the span of three hours and everybody got pissed and left. There was drama over this night, which I found funny. If your DM sucks, trying being the DM yourself and show him how it's done.
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Dec 23, 2014 17:04
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Lightning Lord posted:Haha, I was actually considering doing this, but using 13th Age.
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Dec 23, 2014 17:15
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goldjas posted:I've actually played a good deal of 5e now, and this is basically absolutely not true. In my few games of 4e, a typical encounter took a very long time. We might get through one or two in a 3 or 4 hour game. In my 5e game, we are averaging 4 encounters per 3 hour game.
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Dec 23, 2014 17:44
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Yeah I can see some problems with 5th but so far most of the encounters have been fast and all the times we played 4e they were pretty long.
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Dec 23, 2014 18:00
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I think the problem with "5E has faster combats" as a response to "4E's combats are too long" is that 5E didn't really solve 4E's long combat issues, they just threw it out the window entirely. Yes, 5E's combats are faster, but only insofar as one of the Fighter archetypes are designed to do nothing except normal attack, forever. They didn't actually solve the problem of the previous edition. It's like saying "5E character creation is simpler" as a response to "you need a DDI subscription to build a 4E character", but then a level 1 Wizard still has to pick between 16 different cantrips and 30 different level 1 spells
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Dec 23, 2014 18:09
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fidgit posted:In my few games of 4e, a typical encounter took a very long time. We might get through one or two in a 3 or 4 hour game. In my 5e game, we are averaging 4 encounters per 3 hour game. Yeah, but I don't really do anything in 5e combat. I spam my basic attack - few decisions, limited tactics and get my health whittled. To me 5e falls in a really unhappy zone - the combat is neither fast, tactically interesting, nor emotionally involving. And in three hours I'd get through two encounters in 4e with time to spare (except for a mega boss fight as the climax of an arc) while in 5e I'd scrape three encounters - and have less to show for it; less opposition in total, fewer moments when all appears lost or I was making a hard choice to risk myself, and less tactical challenge.
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Dec 23, 2014 18:44
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fidgit posted:In my few games of 4e, a typical encounter took a very long time. We might get through one or two in a 3 or 4 hour game. In my 5e game, we are averaging 4 encounters per 3 hour game. 4e fights tend to last longer than they need to in order to allow everyone to use their cool moves, this is true; there is way too much HP to hack through, in my experience, and that's why people always talk about how the DM should end fights early once they become a foregone conclusion. To me, this is a flaw of the system. 5e fights tend to end very quickly because one side got Surprise on the other (which is complicated since the rules are contradictory and non-functional) and therefore gets a huge advantage in action economy. Or else, the wizard trivializes the fight with a spell (admittedly, this won't really happen at the lowest levels) while the healers heal and the non-magical classes hack away at HP. Basically the design has thrown out the interesting parts that make combats long, without addressing the boring parts that make combats long. And instead, it again puts the spotlight on the wizard.
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Dec 23, 2014 21:06
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P.d0t posted:4e fights tend to last longer than they need to in order to allow everyone to use their cool moves, this is true; there is way too much HP to hack through, in my experience, and that's why people always talk about how the DM should end fights early once they become a foregone conclusion. To me, this is a flaw of the system. This was more of a problem with MM1 and 2; MM3 and the Monster Vaults (and onwards) fixed a lot of these issues, namely, reducing monster HP and upping their damage. I think a lot of people's misconceptions arise from using the first two books and thinking that all monsters were going to be like that. That said, even then, fights could drag on longer than necessary, especially later on as people got more and more actions they could choose from. Especially item powers.
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Dec 23, 2014 21:12
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It's also a lot worse if you skip levels. Under normal 4e circumstances, you're using powers you've been familiarizing yourself with for weeks, and the only new choice is something you picked up last level. Of course, starting at level fifteen, house-ruling away surges, and fighting NPCs derived from PC-building rules are going to make 4e a bad experience. And it seems like a lot of players' first 4e experiences were with poo poo like that.
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Dec 23, 2014 21:18
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Slimnoid posted:This was more of a problem with MM1 and 2; MM3 and the Monster Vaults (and onwards) fixed a lot of these issues, namely, reducing monster HP and upping their damage. I think a lot of people's misconceptions arise from using the first two books and thinking that all monsters were going to be like that. Actually, this isn't a byproduct of the earlier MM books, in my experience. It's often caused by using above-level standard monsters to try and make fights harder and/or not using more minions instead. In any case, when players focus fire (as they should) you end up with a fight consisting of 5 PCs vs. 1 Monster, which there isn't even any point in continuing. You're left plinking away with at-wills, if it's still alive after you've burned through your cool moves, and usually nothing much interesting happens. PC HP levels are generally fine in my experience, because they have resources to manage them, whereas monsters generally don't have access to healing, so they're just padded meatsacks to compensate, Monster Vault or no. Scaling back monster HP or adding some sort of morale system might help with this, but they're basically patchwork fixes to something that's been a D&D problem for longer than just 4e.
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Dec 23, 2014 21:32
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Slimnoid posted:This was more of a problem with MM1 and 2; MM3 and the Monster Vaults (and onwards) fixed a lot of these issues, namely, reducing monster HP and upping their damage. I think a lot of people's misconceptions arise from using the first two books and thinking that all monsters were going to be like that. The biggest changes were to increase damage output, keep attack bonuses around L+5/L+3 even for soldiers and brutes, remove defense bonuses from elites/solos, and make sure the action economy favors elites/solos a bit more.
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Dec 23, 2014 21:37
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P.d0t posted:Scaling back monster HP or adding some sort of morale system might help with this, but they're basically patchwork fixes to something that's been a D&D problem for longer than just 4e. Morale Check is the only thing I miss from 2nd Ed. I started using fudgy morale checks almost immediately in 3.5 because I was trying to run a somewhat more gritty, storygame campaign. Enemy NPC is low on HP or just saw his buddy get one-shot? Roll a d20 behind the screen and arbitrarily decide if that NPC tries to flee based on how high the number I rolled was. It worked well enough, but I would have preferred like an actual number to check against.
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Dec 23, 2014 21:39
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In the spirit of the Microlite5E hack that I posted a few pages back, I've created a monster creation guide that doesn't require you to re-calculate the monster's CR at the end of the monster creation process or to calculate "effective AC" and "effective attack bonus" alongside your actual AC and attack bonus. The resulting monsters should be legal under the rules outlined in the Dungeon Master's Guide. It doesn't fit on a business card, but it will fit comfortably on two A4 pages. Microlite5E: Monsters Choose a Challenge Rating  Choose an approach Offensive: +4 attacks and save DCs. Proficient in two saves. Defensive: +3 AC. Proficient in three saves. Balanced: +1 AC. +1 attacks and save DCs. Proficient in four saves. Flying: +2 AC. Flight. Proficient in two saves. Ability modifiers Distribute +4, +3, +2, +1, +0 and -2 among Strength modifier, Dexterity modifier, Constitution modifier, Intelligence modifier, Wisdom modifier and Charisma modifier. Treat the monster as proficient in a skill that is simply the monster's name, so black dragons are proficient in all Black Dragon checks and stone giants are proficient in all Stone Giant checks. Powers Choose an array. “DPR” is the number of DPR points that you have. So if you have 12 DPR points, a power that has “2 DPR” does 24 damage and one that has “0.5 DPR” does 6 damage. Dragon: Breath weapon (once every 1d4+1 rounds as an action, 60-foot cone, Reflex save to avoid damage, damage = DPR). Bite (basic melee attack, damage = ½ DPR). Demon: Aura (all creatures within 5 feet take 0.3 DPR at the beginning of their turns). Trident (basic melee attack, damage = 0.6 DPR). Hellfire cannon (basic ranged attack, damage = 0.6 DPR). Elemental: Death Throws (all creatures within 30 feet make a Fortitude save or take 0.6 DPR when this monster dies). Smash (basic melee attack, damage = 0.6 DPR). Beast: Multiattack (make one Claw attack and one Bite attack as an action). Claw (basic melee attack, damage = 0.5 DPR). Bite (basic melee attack, damage = 0.5 DPR). Robot: Mind Surge (once every 3 rounds as an action, a single creature within 100 feet makes a Will save or takes 0.7 DPR). Laser Beam (a single creature within 100 feet takes 0.35 DPR automatically). Circular Saw (basic melee attack, damage = 0.35 DPR). Giant: Punch (basic melee attack, damage = 1 DPR). Boulder (basic ranged attack, damage = 1 DPR). Resistances If the monster has a substantial number of resistances or a small number of immunities, multiply its hit points by the following values: 0.5 (Challenge Rating 1-4), 0.7 (CR 5-10), 0.8 (CR 11-16), 1 (CR 17 and up).
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Dec 23, 2014 21:44
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Sanglorian posted:Microlite5E: Monsters That looks awesome. When I say stuff like "the free basic rules don't remove complexity from the core rules, they just remove character options and optional rules", that's the sort of thing I mean that they should have tried to do. I bet you could format it to fit on a single page if you tried, and there's nothing in there that immediately makes me go "wait, what?" - I understood how to do it on the first readthrough. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Dec 23, 2014 |
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Dec 23, 2014 21:55
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In good news for me the Tiamat I won arrived. It also came with a random Icon boaster pack so I got four random minis with it. Here is a lovely picture of my prizes. That would have cost me like 75 dollars had I not won it for knowing that Silver Dragons fight with Red Dragons over territory. 
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Dec 24, 2014 19:27
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Nice. Does anyone have any idea of how D&D Attack Wing plays? I saw a bunch of the minis in my FLGS the other day and thought they looked neat - but Star Wars X Wing had a lot more shelf space and I've heard good reviews.
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Dec 24, 2014 19:39
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4E still takes too long to resolve combat even when you are using post-errata monsters. It takes way too long if you are fighting insubstantial enemies, enemies that throw off conditions, and/or enemies that lob stuns/dominates around (virtually everything after about level 16). And it's even worse when you have DMs/players who are determined to play out combats to the bitter end instead of ending when the PCs are obviously winning--most combat is really decided within 4-5 rounds and yet it goes on and on because there are still hit points to slog through, so you get 3+ rounds of mop-up/using heavy control to prevent monsters from doing anything while doing almost no damage to them, just extending things out interminably. The game would be vastly improved by cutting down on totally un-fun status effects--probably turning all stuns and dominates into dazes at most, for example--and further cutting down on hit points. Almost the entire "control" aspect of the game was a mistake, in my opinion, outside of marking mechanics. There's so many layers of the metagame based around preventing your opponents from doing anything/preventing enemies from doing the same to you that it's really just too much. Two combats a night is about accurate for my group in a four-hour session, too.
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Dec 24, 2014 19:44
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thespaceinvader posted:Nice. It is literally the X-Wing system, just changed over for D&D. They add unit formations which move around via the Unit Leader, with the rest of the unit falling into a legal formation around him after he moves. They add different kinds of movement types - flying, swooping, and walking. Flying and swooping use the same maneuver dial, but swooping miniatures are able to use and be targeted by melee attacks. Walking miniatures use a different maneuver dial completely. They added a charge action in to make it easier for minis to get into melee, they added 3 kinds of AoE attacks (blast, line, and cone) to cover how different spells/breath weapons/artillery work. Rather than factions, there are elemental-dragon specific upgrades that get considerably more expensive if you put them on the wrong dragon - so for instance a green dragons breath attack will cost +5 points if you put it on a non-green dragon, or w/e. There is a new armor system to mitigate damage, and there are spell slots that certain models can take as upgrades.
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