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spoon daddy posted:You forgot to include 30.5 Days posted:- Some guy says something both idiotic and fact-allergic People bring those points up, over and over because other people argue they either aren't true or don't exist. Also they are playing 5e when they complain about it, that tends to be a part of understanding how it works. kingcom fucked around with this message at 11:21 on Jan 2, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 11:16
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spoon daddy posted:Oh sure, there are hints of actual 5e discussion every so often but really its just a place to discuss frpg design. But wait how could we be beating the horse of 5e's problems with martials to death if we aren't discussing it. Makes u think.
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Jan 2, 2015 11:50
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Unless you're implying that the only valid discussion of 5th edition is discussion of the unalloyed positive but that'd be CRAAAAAZY.
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Jan 2, 2015 11:51
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Has anyone come into this thread with a question about Next that didn't actually get answered honestly? Even in the middle of "tanking mechanics" chat someone piped up with a question about Paladin Channel Divinity and we still got him sorted out right quick.
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Jan 2, 2015 11:58
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Nope. That's the thing this forum unlike most is actually honest about Next. You ask me what's good about it, I'll tell you what I think is good about it. There are some things it improved upon, genuinely. You ask a rules wuestion, we'll give as accurate an answer as it's possible to give. But if you come into a discussion with some bullshit about how Next is amazing because *lies* or how Next is amazing because *lies about other editions that imply they're bad in an area next is loving WORSE* I'll call you on it, if I happen to be around, and so, I know, will others. I've not played yet, I'll give you that - but that's mostly because whilst I'm willing to play, I'm not remotely willing to run it, and apparently neither is anyone else in my group, so it's not getting run.
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Jan 2, 2015 12:15
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30.5 Days posted:But wait how could we be beating the horse of 5e's problems with martials to death if we aren't discussing it. Makes u think. Well you should be Cloud Killing it to death.
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Jan 2, 2015 16:07
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Can someone recap the wizard skeleton thing where every other class was being measured in terms of how many spell slots worth of skeletons they are? I missed all that and wasn't able to find it. Additionally, can someone recap the thing about dual hand crossbow/hand crossbow and tower shield SWAT teaming? That sounded hilarious and apparently it's super effective but I'm not seeing how it works with a cursory read of the PHB.
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Jan 2, 2015 17:25
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Doodmons posted:Can someone recap the wizard skeleton thing where every other class was being measured in terms of how many spell slots worth of skeletons they are? I missed all that and wasn't able to find it. Additionally, can someone recap the thing about dual hand crossbow/hand crossbow and tower shield SWAT teaming? That sounded hilarious and apparently it's super effective but I'm not seeing how it works with a cursory read of the PHB. This is murderous as a fighter with all their extra attacks and +2 to hit, but probably best done as a valor bard since you get a shitload more out of combat utility and can poach the ranger's Swift Quiver before the ranger even gets access to it. The only thing is, while I'm pretty sure Mearls has okayed this reading as being correct RAW, that whole "loaded hand crossbow you are holding" makes a lot of people think it was RAI supposed to be used for dual wielding. So your DM might disallow it on principle (because it really is a little OP compared to any other one-handed weapon).
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Jan 2, 2015 17:45
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Doodmons posted:Can someone recap the wizard skeleton thing where every other class was being measured in terms of how many spell slots worth of skeletons they are? I missed all that and wasn't able to find it. Additionally, can someone recap the thing about dual hand crossbow/hand crossbow and tower shield SWAT teaming? That sounded hilarious and apparently it's super effective but I'm not seeing how it works with a cursory read of the PHB. The skeleton thing is basically that the spell that allows you to create undead is ridiculously spammable, and the skeletons it creates are surprisingly powerful. There was a whole long discussion that resulted basically about how many levels'-worth of that spell accounted for the contribution in combat of any given class, and it worked out to 'not many' for all the martial classes, and was then run into the ground (because goons, but in a good, nay great, way) with logical extensions of the spell into creating skeleton-powered industrial and transportation systems etc etc etc. It was fun whilst it lasted.
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Jan 2, 2015 17:50
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Crossbow Expert Feat: 1. You ignore the loading quality of crossbows with which you are proficient. 2. Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls. 3. When you use the Attack action and attack with a one-handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a loaded hand crossbow you are holding. Archery Fighting Style: You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons. The way this works is, you take the Archery Fighting Style so that your to-hit is 10% better than any Fighter using a melee weapon, but you can still use hand crossbow in melee because the #2 clause of Crossbow Expert removes the drawbacks of trying to use a ranged weapon while someone is in your face. The #1 clause of Crossbow Expert means you still get full use of your multiple attacks Why a shield? The #3 clause of Crossbow Expert never specifies that the "one-handed weapon" and "a loaded hand crossbow you are holding" have to be two different weapons. So you can take full advantage of the #3 clause with a single hand crossbow, and then have a shield in your off-hand so that you have equal or better AC than any Fighter using a melee weapon. A sword-and-board Fighter isn't going to have the bonus attack A two-handed Fighter isn't going to have the bonus attack and will have worse AC because they don't have a shield A dual-wielding Fighter is going to have worse AC because they don't have a shield. Even if they take the Dual-Wielder Feat, they're still 1 AC behind. And all three of them will have 2 less attack bonus because they can't utilize the Archery Fighting Style; a dual-wielder has the bonus attack, but literally has to take the Two Weapon Fighting Fighting Style in order to add their STR/DEX modifier to the bonus attack's damage, but the bonus attack from Crossbow Expert has no such limitation.
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Jan 2, 2015 17:52
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gradenko_2000 posted:Crossbow Expert Feat: You forgot the feat to take a -5 to hit for +10 damage. The +2 to hit helps alleviate the penalty a lot, as does ignoring the penalty for being in melee. All in all its probably the strongest thing you can do as a martial. The bonus attack is just super good since its +dex modifier AND +10 damage. At the levels you can start this combo off at (level 4 for a Human), it is absolutely devastating. Starts to lose some steam as HP begins to scale up past level 10 of course, but everyone has that problem. Plus a shield and hand-crossbow lets you look like World War 2 captain america.
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Jan 2, 2015 17:57
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I've been planning on building a hand crossbow fighter ever since reading about it in this thread months ago. Regarding "crossbow expert", my DM ruled that I'd need a second hand crossbow to make the second shot, but it's ok, because I'll just picture myself as a much less effective version of one of those gun-fu guys like in "Equilibrium". Also, the 2 AC hit from not having a shield won't be too painful, because battlemaster maneuvers like menacing attack and goading attack are most useful when the enemy can't reach you anyway. A lot of people don't seem to notice that most maneuvers (the good ones, anyway) don't specify "melee" attack. Funny that the best tanking build for a fighter has them following the strategy of Sir Robin. I sort of agree with my DM's ruling. I originally figured that the bonus action shot rule on crossbow expert was redundant with two weapon fighting, but the "normal" two weapon fighting rules only say you use melee weapons for it. So maybe the purpose of that benefit of the feat is to allow dual wielding them in the first place. On the other hand, since you aren't following the two weapon fighting rules, you'd then get to ignore that part that says "don't add your ability score modifier to the damage roll" as mentioned in gradenko's post. That said, were I DMing, I'd still allow one bow to make the bonus action shot because martial classes are terrible anyway and they need all the help they can get. And yeah, the sharpshooter feat is almost essential, I think. Damage boost from the -5 to hit +10 to damage thing aside, the benefit where you don't get disadvantage when attacking at long range is very useful since a hand crossbow's standard range is only 30 feet.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:12
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Slippery42 posted:A lot of people don't seem to notice that most maneuvers (the good ones, anyway) don't specify "melee" attack. Funny that the best tanking build for a fighter has them following the strategy of Sir Robin. This is important, yeah - out of 16 maneuvers, only 4 explicitly need a melee attack.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:18
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Doodmons posted:Can someone recap the wizard skeleton thing where every other class was being measured in terms of how many spell slots worth of skeletons they are? I missed all that and wasn't able to find it. Additionally, can someone recap the thing about dual hand crossbow/hand crossbow and tower shield SWAT teaming? That sounded hilarious and apparently it's super effective but I'm not seeing how it works with a cursory read of the PHB. So you want to ask about THE SKELETON SQUAD If you go find Jack the lad or my forum posts we (mostly him) did most of the math on it. Because Animate dead is really easy to use long term because it is more powerful (e.g. more skeletons controlled per cast) when you are recasting it to "Reassert control" (which you have to do every 24 hours) you can replace the fighter with about 4 spell slots (its about 20ish skeletons IIRC) who are 100% loyal 100% under your control and are just an archer block of death. With that many skeletons you can in fact send any enemy to the bone zone.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:23
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Stormgale posted:So you want to ask about THE SKELETON SQUAD If you go find Jack the lad or my forum posts we (mostly him) did most of the math on it. Because Animate dead is really easy to use long term because it is more powerful (e.g. more skeletons controlled per cast) when you are recasting it to "Reassert control" (which you have to do every 24 hours) you can replace the fighter with about 4 spell slots (its about 20ish skeletons IIRC) who are 100% loyal 100% under your control and are just an archer block of death. God dammit, I finally understand the thread title. One of the upcoming villains in my FATE campaign is a burnout guitarist who recently developed psychic powers. I'm absolutely going to have him threaten to send the PCs to "the bone zone" and then let them string out his ongoing explanation of "No, like, it's the zone where there's nothing left of you but bones" for as long as they can as a distraction measure.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:29
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Doodmons posted:Can someone recap the wizard skeleton thing where every other class was being measured in terms of how many spell slots worth of skeletons they are? I missed all that and wasn't able to find it. Additionally, can someone recap the thing about dual hand crossbow/hand crossbow and tower shield SWAT teaming? That sounded hilarious and apparently it's super effective but I'm not seeing how it works with a cursory read of the PHB. D&D 5e is  In other skeleton related questions, with at least one of the new books out, did anyone find a way to get undead summoning on a cleric or eldritch knight? Clerical necromancy was awesome in pretty much every previous edition of D&D.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:28
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Having finally read the PHB, I'm just happy that my idea to abuse the poo poo out of True Polymorph and turn it into a one-hit-kill weapon against any opponent (True Polymorph a massive boulder into a friendly and obedient fly, command it to hover directly above the target, end concentration) still works. (Hmm. Does a lake of acid count as "an object"?) Granted, anyone capable of casting True Polymorph should probably be able to kill any target anyway.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:50
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Slippery42 posted:Funny that the best tanking build for a fighter has them following the strategy of Sir Robin. Oh god yes, this. My favourite part of all this was the train of thought that goes: "We don't need tanking mechanics, because a dragon will kill a Wizard's skeleton army in one turn, but this one niche build of Fighter can single-handedly defeat a dragon by never being within its range and running away from it forever. Balance achieved, immersion not-ruined."
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Jan 2, 2015 21:14
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Slippery42 posted:
So what you're saying is neither of you are capable of imagining shooting two bolts at once.
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Jan 2, 2015 21:19
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Jack the Lad posted:A Necromancer's Animate Dead gets you 2 Skeletons at level 3 and 2 more for each spell level above that when cast as a higher level spell, and you have control of them for 24 hours. You can also cast Animate Dead before your control lapses to 'refresh' your control of 4 + 2*level-above-3 Skeletons. Time to make my character "the Necrodancer".
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Jan 2, 2015 21:53
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A link to that should go in the OP because I was looking for that some time ago and couldn't find it.
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Jan 2, 2015 22:21
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Stormgale posted:Because Animate dead is really easy to use long term because it is more powerful (e.g. more skeletons controlled per cast) when you are recasting it to "Reassert control" (which you have to do every 24 hours)
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Jan 2, 2015 22:25
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First Bass posted:Time to make my character "the Necrodancer". With the antipaladin Rules in the DMG you can make a charisma focused necromancer type who buffs his skeletons even more, take some ranks in perform and you can become the necrodancer
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Jan 2, 2015 23:02
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Ah yes, the thriller strategy.
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Jan 2, 2015 23:19
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Animate Dead is one of the more fun things about 5e and I really liked the whole bone economy this thread came up with where villages pledge their remains to their feudal necromancer lords' armies in exchange for help from tireless skeleton workers at harvest time and for being defended against marauding orcs by them and stuff.
Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jan 3, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 23:32
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gradenko_2000 posted:Crossbow Expert Feat: quote:You can take a bonus action only when a special ability, spell, or other feature of the game states that you can do something as a bonus action. and the feat says quote:When you use the Attack action and attack with a one-handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a loaded hand crossbow you are holding. (emphasis mine) quote:Loading. Because of the time required to load this weapon, you can fire only one piece of ammunition from it when you use an action, bonus action, or reaction to fire it, regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make. Which says nothing about loaded weapons. It's just a limitation of the number of shots you can make from a weapon. Btw, I get the interpretation that you can load the crossbow after the main action is taken and thus the bonus action could be used. I'm suggesting that RAW are open to interpretation both ways. spoon daddy fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Jan 3, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 23:54
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God dammit not this fight again. It's really ambiguous and open for interpretation, so just ask your DM if you can be a SWAT bard, or if you have to dual wield them, or if the feat is dumb and useless.
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Jan 3, 2015 00:02
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Jack the Lad posted:Animate Dead is one of the more fun things about 5e and I really liked the whole bone economy this thread came up with where villages pledge their remains to their feudal necromancer lords' armies in exchange for help from tireless skeleton workers at harvest time and for being defenced against marauding orcs by them and stuff. I would play in this campaign and buy multiple copies of a book based on this or the necromancer ruining the economy
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Jan 3, 2015 00:48
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One of my friends recently suggested/called me a terrible grog for not having upgraded to 5e. So.. I basically use 3.5 right now because it's convenient, and don't really care much about balance. I'm more interested in whether character building is easier and more fluid, if CR works now, whether combat goes quicker, etcetera? Is 5e actually more streamlined or just cut down?
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Jan 3, 2015 01:46
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A little more streamlined, as far as I can tell, but in large part just smaller.
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Jan 3, 2015 01:49
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ThirdEmperor posted:One of my friends recently suggested/called me a terrible grog for not having upgraded to 5e. It seems we need more data on combat length. Lots of people say it's shorter, but they have mostly (all?) been playing at very low levels. The few reports from high levels that I have seen all report long combat times. But, in fairness, that might be partly due to inexperience with the complexities of high level characters. I haven't seen enough reports to say anything conclusively, nor have I tried starting a high-level 5e game myself. (And really, why the gently caress would I?)
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Jan 3, 2015 01:53
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ThirdEmperor posted:One of my friends recently suggested/called me a terrible grog for not having upgraded to 5e. Well, aside from the designers basically moving the goalposts with the DMG, the CRs don't work worth a poo poo (at least I think we can all agree on that?) I'd say building a character is equally "easy" and "fluid" although if you stripped out MC and Feats (which are technically "optional") it might be a little quicker. It's "cut down" in the sense that it doesn't have a decade of bloat. I guess it depends if you look at that as a + or a - ...
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Jan 3, 2015 01:58
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ThirdEmperor posted:One of my friends recently suggested/called me a terrible grog for not having upgraded to 5e. It is better than 3.5e at everything 3.5e does. If you are currently playing 3.5e you should play 5 instead.
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Jan 3, 2015 02:29
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3.5 had a lot of poo poo printed for it though. 5e has a couple lovely-rear end precon quests.
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Jan 3, 2015 02:56
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First Bass posted:3.5 had a lot of poo poo printed for it though. 5e has a couple lovely-rear end precon quests. Within a year you're going to be swimming in more content than a sane person can own, and any sense of simplicity inherent in having just a three-book set will be destroyed, especially now that they appear to have dropped the ball once again on a digital service. If you want to hitch 5E up to 3.5 for some reason, you can basically go "bonuses of any kind give you advantage, penalties disadvantage" and just wait for 5E to have more than the bare-bones, "every edition must have this" material in the meanwhile.
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Jan 3, 2015 03:02
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Jimbozig posted:It seems we need more data on combat length. Lots of people say it's shorter, but they have mostly (all?) been playing at very low levels. The few reports from high levels that I have seen all report long combat times. But, in fairness, that might be partly due to inexperience with the complexities of high level characters. What complexity of high level characters? Do you mean longer spell lists? Because its not like Martial characters ever get more complex.
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Jan 3, 2015 04:20
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30.5 Days posted:It is better than 3.5e at everything 3.5e does. If you are currently playing 3.5e you should play 5 instead. Caveat: do this if you and your players haven't been playing a long time. If you've been playing 3.X for like ten years you probably shouldn't switch.
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Jan 3, 2015 04:39
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ThirdEmperor posted:One of my friends recently suggested/called me a terrible grog for not having upgraded to 5e. It's a heavily modified version of 3.5e that gets rid of some of the jankiest aspects of that game like: * tons and tons of CharOp/multiclassing/prestige-classing * Touch Attacks and other BAB tomfoolery * item wishlisting / Wealth-by-level * buff stacking * feat bloat (at least for now) * small incremental bonus bloat (morale bonus vs reflex bonus vs untyped bonus, etc) * Martials outside of Tome of Battle or multiclassing literally have nothing to do except full attack You could almost call it Dungeons and Dragons: Mike Mearls' 3.5e Houserules Edition 1. Character building is easier - there's less stats to keep in mind, and more-or-less the only decisions characters need to make are their class progression tracks at level 3 and their spells. 2. Monster creation is theoretically easier since you have a chart of expected stats by CR (and goon Sanglorian has made it even easier), but how well this will translate into a fight against the players is up in the air because class design and math isn't as tight as it was in, say, 4E. 3. Combat is objectively quicker at low levels because of a sheer lack of options. As you progress past level 4 or so, everyone starts getting toys to play with. We don't really have a lot of in-depth insight to what happens - some people say combat remains quick, but only because rocket-tagging starts coming into play. Some people say combat starts getting slower as classes start getting more/as many powers as they would have in 4E, especially the casters having to pick through spells. EDIT: I haven't gone through the spell list to see if there's as many save-or-die/save-or-suck spells in Next as there are in 3e or how the Concentration mechanic factors into it. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Jan 3, 2015 |
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Jan 3, 2015 04:47
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Has anyone played E6, and have ability to compare?
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Jan 3, 2015 04:50
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moths posted:So what you're saying is neither of you are capable of imagining shooting two bolts at once. It's not that we're both incapable of imagining it. We simply prefer to imagine around the rules rather than rule around the imagination, at least during character creation when we have time to think carefully about ambiguous/poorly-written rules like this one. That approach might sound backwards/less fun, but if you get too loose with the rules, you'd then run the risk of inviting the more grognardish players to take it the other way (which is much less fun). They'd start demanding different rulings because "how could you load a bolt with both hands full? I don't care what the feat says. That can't be done in 6 seconds in real life!" *ignores the wizard magically dropping meteors on people* Anyway, I told the DM what I was planning to do and asked what he'd allow before our first session. I've gotta at least try for that extra 2 AC, right? Considering how hand crossbows with the feat are still probably better than any other martial loadout (feats and all) even without the shield, I'm fine with being an elfgame gunslinger instead of elfgame SWAT officer. Oh, and for bone zone talk, here's a case study: A friend and I ran a fight tonight between a level 20 wizard with 132 skeletons vs. a solo Terrasque in an open field. It took 11 rounds, and only that long because the skeletons can only hit 25 AC on a crit. 98 skeletons remained at the end of the fight. We forgot about "frightful presence" until after the fight, but that'd be what? 4 or 5 extra rounds before the majority of the skeletons made their save. My friend seemed a bit shocked that it even worked. I was shocked that I only lost something like 3 spell slots worth of skeletons.
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Jan 3, 2015 07:48
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