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EscortMission posted:I would totally use the free rules, but after making way too many 3.5 characters, I'd like to get from opening the box to trying the system out as fast as I can. Very soon now, someone will tell you that this is the simplest fastest D&D there ever was and it's just oh so snappy and fast and easy. But yeah, it's gonna take you more than 20 minutes to make characters.
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Jan 12, 2015 23:03
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The pre-gen character sheets from the starter set are on wotc's website as well: http://media.wizards.com/downloads/dnd/StarterSet_Charactersv2.pdf
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Jan 12, 2015 23:05
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EscortMission posted:I would totally use the free rules, but after making way too many 3.5 characters, I'd like to get from opening the box to trying the system out as fast as I can. For what it's worth I am very happy with the starter set. I think it's more than worth the twelve bucks. Phandelver is a solid enough dungeon crawl. and fromt he starter set you could get a couple of weeks at the least worth of D&D without having to buy anything else. More if you're using the basic rules PDFs too. The Module also has a good selection of Low-level monsters with plenty of different types, so if you want to do something else you could just rip some beasties from the back of the module and fly with it. If you ever do get around to char gen, there is a similarity with indie games like dungeon world in the bonds/flaws background system and inspiration. EDIT: AlphaDog posted:But yeah, it's gonna take you more than 20 minutes to make characters. Your mileage with this will vary. Even excising a bunch of the stuff from 4e, there's a lot of options to consider, and that's where the bulk of time in making dudes seems to be coming from. Rolling the stats and getting into the mechanics of what to take for your character isn't quite so onerous. I'm readying a campaign for a bunch of 4e players, and it's nice not to have to be quite so involved with helping them pick mechanically sound characters they can have fun with. Quantumfate fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Jan 12, 2015 |
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Jan 12, 2015 23:33
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I honestly feel like all of the interesting 5E builds have been found, at least until the put out some splatbook with crazy crap it in a'la 3X. Who knows, maybe they'll put out an actual OGL (lol) and we'll have d20 D&D products flying around like crazy again. I can't imagine how bad they would be, given the loose design already on display - I suppose they can't be any worse.
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Jan 12, 2015 23:50
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I feel like we're going to see things go more in the direction of 2e, just kits on top of kits, everywhere.do they always work together? WHO KNOWS. why would take the adventurer thief kit that does nothing of value? WHY NOT THROW THAT INTO 5e!
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Jan 12, 2015 23:57
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D&D Next: An introduction to RPG Re-Design.
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Jan 13, 2015 00:04
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I'd like to see about 4 or 5 more path options for everything that isn't a full caster.
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Jan 13, 2015 00:09
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I just ordered it, there's no sense in flipping out over $12. Just so I understand the gist, the main practical differences between 5e and 3.5e are AoOs and iterative attacks not existing, math being much flatter, some adjustments to how casting works, and every stat having its own save?
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Jan 13, 2015 00:59
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EscortMission posted:I just ordered it, there's no sense in flipping out over $12. Opportunity attacks still exist. Fighters get multiple attack rolls at higher levels, if that's what you mean by "iterative attacks".
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Jan 13, 2015 01:06
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EscortMission posted:I just ordered it, there's no sense in flipping out over $12. AOO's still exist, but there's no way to increase them above 1 per ROUND. Full attack isn't really a separate thing, it's just that you have a move budget over the course of your turn and you can basically use it anywhere or anyhow you want, so every round can be a "full attack". Math is much flatter, but also +2/+4/-2/-4 as the main way of adjudicating good/bad things has been replaced by Advantage/Disadvantage. The casting adjustments are good, and yes every stat has its own save.
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Jan 13, 2015 01:46
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I was disappointed when I realized 5E Monks didn't get a D20 damage die, but I totally understood why. Then I noticed they don't even cap out with a D12--they end at just D10. THAT IS BULLSHIT  On a more serious note: what the hell uses a Charisma saving throw? It seems like all charm-y type spells use Wisdom (because that way Wizards get proficiency!!!  ), so what's the main target for CHA? I admit I didn't do a full run-down through the entire spell list but I couldn't find a single spell when I was skimming.
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Jan 13, 2015 02:14
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Dick Burglar posted:I was disappointed when I realized 5E Monks didn't get a D20 damage die, but I totally understood why. Then I noticed they don't even cap out with a D12--they end at just D10. THAT IS BULLSHIT Magic Jar, Magic Circle, Planar Binding, Plane Shift, Zone of Truth all use Charisma saves. I think I forgot one or two others as well. So let's say... like half a dozen spells? Certainly less than 10.
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Jan 13, 2015 02:23
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Dick Burglar posted:I was disappointed when I realized 5E Monks didn't get a D20 damage die, but I totally understood why. Then I noticed they don't even cap out with a D12--they end at just D10. THAT IS BULLSHIT Some classics. quote:Spells that require a Charisma save: More than 10 even! From http://community.wizards.com/comment/51252136#comment-51252136
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Jan 13, 2015 02:27
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Dick Burglar posted:On a more serious note: what the hell uses a Charisma saving throw? It seems like all charm-y type spells use Wisdom (because that way Wizards get proficiency!!! Arguing that the Charisma isn't the Will stat now is dumb when it's the casting stat for Warlocks and Sorcerers. Warlocks are casters who encounter powerful, otherworldly beings and through force of personality come out of the deal not only alive but with powers. Sorcerers function through sheer willpower shaping the magic energy coursing through them. Wizards just read a bunch of books and follow instructions. Why should they have strong willpower?
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Jan 13, 2015 02:30
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I sure am glad they added 3 more saves and divided spells up nice and evenly between themcode:
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Jan 13, 2015 02:43
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AlphaDog posted:I sure am glad they added 3 more saves and divided spells up nice and evenly between them St+Co (43) De+In (46) Wi+Ch (54) an interesting thing occurs. Now if only someone would've thought to do that before...
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Jan 13, 2015 02:46
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mango sentinel posted:Replace Charisma with separate Comeliness and Willpower stats. When was charisma ever not intended to be the stat to represent that sort of force of will and x-factor? Following Weber's secular charisma definition even: quote:Charisma is a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader. Except paladins literally have honest, real charis and sorcerers have more than exceptional abilities. Still, stats these days are pretty much meaningless relicts until they bring back differences for each point.
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Jan 13, 2015 02:46
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:And yet when you group them, like, hypothetically The world is simply not ready for such genius!
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Jan 13, 2015 02:48
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Quantumfate posted:When was charisma ever not intended to be the stat to represent that sort of force of will and x-factor? Since for the longest time, Wisdom defined the Will stat. For . . . some reason. Granted, it gave Wisdom more to do than just perceiving things, but at the same time taking it away from Charisma gives it little more to do than the occasional persuasion, and unlike perception persuasion is the first skill to be cut for RP reasons. Honestly I wouldn't mind merging Strength+Con and Wis+Cha to get Might, Agility, Intelligence, and Will as stats, even if not going in a DTAS direction. It'd reduce MAD across the board and give Dexterity a bit of competition as the King of All Stats. I know 4E sorta did this with its semi-merged semi-not stats, but that still left some races and classes with redundancies that crippled their non-primary defenses.
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Jan 13, 2015 03:09
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Quantumfate posted:When was charisma ever not intended to be the stat to represent that sort of force of will and x-factor? Charisma and Wisdom are a loving mess and always have been, but Wisdom has consistently been used as the "force of will" stat. I'm not saying that's a good way to do it, just that that's the way it's always been done. . In RC BECMI, wisdom "is the character's strength of understanding of the world, the way things work, the forces of nature, and so forth. It affects the character's natural ability to resist magical spells." while charisma is "the character's force of personality and presence". In AD&D, wisdom is the stat with "enlightenment, judgement, wile, will power and (to a certain extent) intuitiveness" as part of the description while charisma has "physical attractiveness, persuasiveness, and personal magnetism" 2nd ed has wisdom with "enlightenment, judgement, guile, willpower, common sense, and intuition", and charisma with "persuasiveness, personal magnetism, and ability to lead... is not a measure of physical attractiveness". 3rd ed wisdom is "willpower, common sense, perception, and intuition", while charisma is "force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness". 4th ed wisdom is "common sense, perception, self-discipline, and empathy" and charisma is "force of personality, persuasiveness, and leadership". 5th ed wisdom is "awareness, intuition, insight" and charisma is "confidence, eloquence, leadership" at the start of the book, but respectively become "perception and insight" and "force of personality" in Chapter 7. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 03:32
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Guide to experiencing D&D Next on the cheap: 1. Get the player's basic rules: http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/PlayerDnDBasicRules_v0.2.pdf 2. Get the DM's basic rules: http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/DMBasicRulesv.0.3.pdf 3. Get Froggod Games' free adventure, The Wizard's Amulet: http://froggodgames.com/wizards-amulet (no guarantee of quality as I've not run this myself, but it is free) 4.If you want to create your own monsters, use this guide by goon Sanglorian: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3647634&pagenumber=292&perpage=40#post439342954 I've also converted it to Google Docs form here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dK15yjLKN_8DakLsQeLxWAXrqKQjx5BaHsNJ4cUaRng/edit?usp=sharing (this does not cover CR 1/8, 1/4 and 1/2 monsters, but you should be able to wing the stats using the Kobolds and whatnot from the Basic Rules) 5. You can use this: http://donjon.bin.sh/5e/random/#encounter as a reference for creating properly budgeted encounters, and then just using the monster creation guide from step 4 for monsters whose stats you don't have the MM for - just create something with identical CR (that site also has treasure generators for Next as well. If it ever throws you an item that's just a description because you don't have the DMG, wing it or look at the d20 or Pathfinder SRD's as reference. It's probably going to work out to be the same) That gets you to about 90% of what you need to play the game - you could even run a homebrewed campaign with just steps 1, 2, 4 and 5. I also wrote a guide on quickly making level 1 characters: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z3K_mfkfibJrCeClm2kczfOiA0sSuBIwf9ggBJ9b_Is/edit?usp=sharing , although I took some liberties with RAW for the sake of brevity
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Jan 13, 2015 04:02
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In the monster manual, some of the actions have "+X to hit". What is this referring to? Is that the modifier when it attacks?
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Jan 13, 2015 04:21
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Rusty Kettle posted:In the monster manual, some of the actions have "+X to hit". What is this referring to? Is that the modifier when it attacks? Yes. Do note that while "+X to hit" is normally derived as STR/DEX modifier, plus proficiency bonus, the one written in the attack actions is already that finally computed sum. For example: Kobolds are CR 1/8, which means they have a +2 proficiency bonus Their attack action is either a melee dagger attack with a +4 to hit, or a ranged sling attack with a +4 to hit. The ranged attack is easy to compute: +2 from proficiency and +2 from DEX 15 gives a final bonus of +4 Some people get thrown off by the melee attack still having a +4 to hit even if Kobolds have STR 7 for a -2 modifier: the dagger is a finesse weapon, which means the Kobold can use its DEX modifier, which means it's still a +4 anyway. The basic Goblin pulls off this trick too: their melee attack is a +4 to hit even with STR 8 because supposedly they're using scimitars, which are also finesse weapons, so they can use their DEX 14.
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Jan 13, 2015 04:32
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Sanzuo posted:less fun and more traditional. New thread title.
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Jan 13, 2015 05:02
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AlphaDog posted:Charisma and Wisdom are a loving mess and always have been, but Wisdom has consistently been used as the "force of will" stat. I'm not saying that's a good way to do it, just that that's the way it's always been done. . But that only brings up the point that Str and Con are also a mess. (Also Dex and Int.)
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Jan 13, 2015 05:14
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gradenko_2000 posted:3. Get Froggod Games' free adventure, The Wizard's Amulet: http://froggodgames.com/wizards-amulet I don't know that I would personally recommend the adventure. It's more along the lines of those older narrative modules where the players are expected to play the pregens. But even working around that, it's a little mediocre. S'alright for a one off maybe, but I think the way WotC did the pregens, leaving it open, was a better route. None of the pregens really have backgrounds or bonds or any such truck. The monsters in the adventure are alright, and if you grab it, you can pull some dudes from there. On the whole I thought it was kind of railroad-y
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Jan 13, 2015 05:16
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I kinda like the way the new FFG Star Wars rpg handles attributes. Mechanics aside, you get Brawn and Agility, Intellect and Cunning, Presence and Willpower. It is really funny to me that considering how simulationist d&d tries to be, they did not create even more ability scores.
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Jan 13, 2015 05:18
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Azran posted:I kinda like the way the new FFG Star Wars rpg handles attributes. Mechanics aside, you get Brawn and Agility, Intellect and Cunning, Presence and Willpower. If Str,Dex,Con,Int,Wis,Cha, in that order and only in that order, were not the perfect combination, number, and ordering of ability scores, why would gygax have made them that way?
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Jan 13, 2015 05:24
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30.5 Days posted:If Str,Dex,Con,Int,Wis,Cha, in that order and only in that order, were not the perfect combination, number, and ordering of ability scores, why would gygax have made them that way? That's kind of the problem, isn't it? D&D has so much just. . . cultural baggage that it would be a big thing if they were to drop attributes for bonuses (even though that's kind of what they're doing)
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Jan 13, 2015 05:26
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30.5 Days posted:If Str,Dex,Con,Int,Wis,Cha, in that order and only in that order, were not the perfect combination, number, and ordering of ability scores, why would gygax have made them that way? You mean Str, Int, Wis, Dex, Con, Cha, right?
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Jan 13, 2015 05:48
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AlphaDog posted:You mean Str, Int, Wis, Dex, Con, Cha, right? 
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Jan 13, 2015 05:49
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AlphaDog posted:You mean Str, Int, Wis, Dex, Con, Cha, right? What is this from? I've seen it before in this order?
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Jan 13, 2015 06:01
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Covok posted:What is this from? I've seen it before in this order? S/I/W/D/Co/Ch has the longest pedigree. It's B/X, BECMI, and AD&D 1e/2e. It was (A)D&D for 20+ years. S/D/Co/I/W/Ch is 3.x/PF S/Co/D/I/W/Ch is 4e Oh, and 5e for some reason goes back to S/D/Co/I/W/Ch 
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Jan 13, 2015 06:14
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INT is a mess. In 3.x, it was used for skill points (although even then, those were still mostly determined by class) and uhhh... Wizards. And Bards, a little bit? ...bonus languages? In 4e, it was tied to only 3 skills (History generally being regarded as useless; Arcana Does Everything™); roguey skills became DEX and rangery/druidy knowledge became WIS (because DUH). BUT, they also made INT usable for AC bonus in light armor. And with the whole "filling in the grid" thing, you ended up with "STR:INT/CHA" Warlords (lol excellent racial support there, btw) and eventually Psionics and poo poo, using INT. In 5e, it's like they realized how loving stupid and useless INT had become (Wizard is literally the only class that needs it now) so they slapped Nature back under INT and added Investigation (AFAICT it's just there so Wizards can be good at Perception by calling it something else  ) No AC use, no skill point use, no bonus languages. Like, 5e more than 4e or 3.x really REALLY doesn't need 2 mental stats.
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Jan 13, 2015 06:27
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Eldritch Knight Fighters and Arcane Trickster Thieves use INT for their spells as well, but yeah. EKs are apparently hot garbage but I don't know how ATs fare. From reading their abilities they appear to be at least very flavorful, if not terribly effective. They have a special place in my heart because their capstone, Spell Thief, was my favorite class from 3.5 (again, from a flavor standpoint, not an actually-mechanically-good standpoint).
Dick Burglar fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Jan 13, 2015 |
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Jan 13, 2015 06:34
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Dick Burglar posted:Eldritch Knight Fighters and Arcane Trickster Thieves use INT for their spells as well, but yeah. EKs are apparently hot garbage but I don't know how ATs fare. From reading their abilities they appear to be at least very flavorful, if not terribly effective. They have a special place in my heart because their capstone, Spell Thief, was my favorite class from 3.5 (again, from a flavor standpoint, not an actually-mechanically-good standpoint). My spell thief was great because of shoddy rules writing. Having a spell-like ability stolen meant you couldn't use it for a minute, but didn't deplete your uses. So I spent a lot of time embezzling buffs off the party warlock and factotum.
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Jan 13, 2015 06:38
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Yeah, my spellthief did the exact same thing with the party warlock. But having to rely on those classes to not be a lovely thief/mage was pretty bad design, and my spellthief probably wasn't even as effective as the warlock. I would've been better off rolling a second warlock  In 5E, is there any way to negate the disadvantage on Stealth with all heavy armors? I like the idea of a Paladin who's not exactly super-sneaky like a Rogue, but can at least stay hidden when he needs to. Disadvantage seems really harsh. And while I'm asking about disadvantage, is there any way to negate Drow's disadvantage rolls in direct sunlight? In the old playtests they included some Riddick-style goggles that would remove the penalty that cost a pretty penny, but they don't appear to be in the PHB and I don't have the DMG to check if they're in there. Other random question: do Paladins only ever get one use of Channel Divinity per day? I can't find any note of them getting a second usage.
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Jan 13, 2015 06:58
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Dick Burglar posted:Other random question: do Paladins only ever get one use of Channel Divinity per day? I can't find any note of them getting a second usage. Looks to be so, though it recharges on a short rest, so you can do more than one a day.
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Jan 13, 2015 07:16
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Dick Burglar posted:In 5E, is there any way to negate the disadvantage on Stealth with all heavy armors? As far as feats go, I think you'd be stuck with Medium Armor Master, at best. Although, if you're rolling stats and you start with an 18 in DEX, you're basically breaking even if you stick with Light armor. Roughly.. sorta kinda.. Other than that, I'm sure there's a spell/magic item for that, because Magic Does Everything™
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Jan 13, 2015 07:24
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Dick Burglar posted:Yeah, my spellthief did the exact same thing with the party warlock. But having to rely on those classes to not be a lovely thief/mage was pretty bad design, and my spellthief probably wasn't even as effective as the warlock. I would've been better off rolling a second warlock Anything that gives you advantage will negate disadvantage, but the best it can do is cancel out. You can never actually get advantage in this case.
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Jan 13, 2015 07:29
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