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Earlier in the Blingdenstone game running here, I had put my level 2 or 3 Ranger on the line by standing against I believe it was six Orcs alone. It really played to his character being so martial minded and not wanting to back down from his chosen hated enemy. Ryuujin played the Orcs as being so seething with fight-drive that they honed in on him and kept on swingin' until he dropped, each miss just making them more angry. Turned out Dodge and a shield made for a fairly decent Ranger tank as he only got hit twice - once in the first round and then not until the rest of the party (think it was only 2 others at the time) had killed off all but one Orc, where I dropped Dodge for that round to attack (and missed), then got hit by it to be knocked out. I had one inspiration point gotten when I was knocked out three different times in the very first round of the encounters by an Orc crit. I used it to swap to my shield which is an action, and Dodge which was another action (which isn't a benefit of inspiration quoted by the book, all you get is a re-roll). It is so frustrating that this entire scenario is not supported by the rules, that it takes the DM to both use inspiration in the first place and on top of that, be willing to do things with it not covered by its entry. If D&D can write a set of rules that lets this kind of thing happen and more often, it would be the edition that makes Scrooge McDuck levels of money.
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Jan 24, 2015 22:22
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Elendil004 posted:The only setting I want is spelljammer. The best campaign I ever played in was a Spelljammer campaign where the DM had been running the world for more than a decade before my group started, with another group. It was basically Firefly meets D&D (except this was before Firefly came out). Done right, Spelljammer owns.
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Jan 25, 2015 00:51
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Sorry if this has been answered before but I would like somebody to clarify how Monk attacks work. Does Extra Attack activate a Martial Art bonus unarmed attack? Does the Polearm Mastery bonus 1d4 attack activate a Martial Art bonus attack? Does the opportunity attack from having enemies enter my range activate a Martial Art bonus attack? Can the opportunity attack from Polearm Mastery have any limits on how often it can occur? For example, if two different enemies move into range with me can I get opportunity attacks against both? If I make a standard unarmed attack (or using fist weapons), can I attack with my "offhand" and do another unarmed attack? If so, do I add my dex mod to both hits?
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Jan 25, 2015 02:45
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Pawl posted:Does Extra Attack activate a Martial Art bonus unarmed attack? The Polearm mastery extra attack requires a bonus action, as does the Monk's extra attack, and you only have one bonus action per round so you can use one but not both. You can also only use bonus actions on your own turn, so they can't be triggered off opportunity attacks. Opportunity attacks use your reaction, which you also only have one of a round.
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Jan 25, 2015 02:58
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Oh, I didn't realize that bonus actions and reactions had a limit. That certainly changes things. Extra Attack doesn't state it uses a bonus action, so would it be valid to use Attack, then Extra Attack, then use a bonus action on Martial Art/Flurry of Blows?
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Jan 25, 2015 04:27
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Jimbozig posted:No offense to you personally, but I hate this rule. I know lots of people like it fine, and it's serviceable with a good DM, but "You get a point when the DM notices/judges that you've lived up to their standards" is just lame in comparison to games like Fate or Mouse Guard that give you specific things you can do to get those points without needing to count on the DM noticing or approving. I just wanted to second this. As a DM giving out little trophies to the best 'RPers' is a trap and very stressful. There aren't any standards for what makes good RP good. Sometimes it's how entertaining it is. Sometimes it's how dramatic it is, or how invested the players are. There aren't always opportunities for players to RP well, whereas they will create opportunities to make their traits relevant if they have to. Traits give you a direction. Good RP has no direction, and is usually interpreted to mean 'whichever players at the table take poo poo the most seriously, talk the most, or get a rise out of another player' which isn't always the best precedent to set.
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Jan 25, 2015 04:31
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Pawl posted:Sorry if this has been answered before but I would like somebody to clarify how Monk attacks work. The Extra Attack feature means that whenever you use the Attack Action, you make an attack roll more than once. Since the Martial Arts feature is triggered by taking the Attack action and not by making an attack roll, you will take the Attack action, roll as many attack rolls as you are entitled to (quick check of the Monk says that caps out at two), and then you can use the Martial Arts feature once, and it consumes your Bonus Action. The Polearm Master feat attack is also triggered by taking the Attack action and not by making an attack roll, so it's similar and in fact mutually exclusive with the Martial Arts feature, especially since they both consume your Bonus Action. You only have one Reaction per turn, and taking an Opportunity Attack consumes your Reaction, so if you have Monster A that moves into your reach, and then Monster B also moves into your reach, and then Monster C moves out of your reach (which is the standard OA trigger), you have to pick and choose which one you're going to OA (EDIT: I'm not implying that you can choose to take your OA after they've all made their moves) For your last question: use the Attack Action with your fists, then use the Martial Arts feature to make another attack with your fists. Add your DEX mod to both the damage of both attacks. Trying to "dual-wield" by considering your other fist as your "off-hand" is going to run into a lot of rules BS that makes it worse and is mutually exclusive with the Martial Arts feature anyway, because the Martial Arts feature, and the Polearm Master feat attack, and attacking with your off-hand while dual-wielding all consume your Bonus Action. Pawl posted:Oh, I didn't realize that bonus actions and reactions had a limit. That certainly changes things. The Extra Attack feature means that whenever you use the Attack Action, you make an attack roll more than once. It's not an action you take, it just changes what the Attack action does. So you declare that you will take the Attack action, make your first attack roll, then make a second attack roll (that you gained from Extra Attack), then declare that you will use your Bonus Action on the Martial Arts feature or Flurry of Blows (which was triggered by taking the Attack action, the Extra Attack had nothing to do with it) On Inspiration/metacurrency: While I acknowledge that trying to award can and will run into issues of subjectivity, I really like the idea of the players having a thing they can tap into when they really want this one particular thing to work. Perhaps I could make it more mechanical: "you start the session with 3-5 Inspiration/Hero/Glory/Luck/whatever points. Use them wisely" or award them whenever a plot point is resolved or milestone is reached. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Jan 25, 2015 |
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Jan 25, 2015 04:52
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I played this today and it was pretty much 3.5.
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Jan 25, 2015 08:46
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Later, Mentzer made the Basic rules even easier to learn, so that new players could enter the hobby and they could finally release the companion set. And ever since that heady day in 1983, the rules for the world's most popular roleplaying game have only gotten more and more accessible to casual players and beginners. Woo!
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Jan 25, 2015 09:50
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Mendrian posted:I just wanted to second this. As a DM giving out little trophies to the best 'RPers' is a trap and very stressful. There aren't any standards for what makes good RP good. Sometimes it's how entertaining it is. Sometimes it's how dramatic it is, or how invested the players are. There aren't always opportunities for players to RP well, whereas they will create opportunities to make their traits relevant if they have to. Traits give you a direction. Good RP has no direction, and is usually interpreted to mean 'whichever players at the table take poo poo the most seriously, talk the most, or get a rise out of another player' which isn't always the best precedent to set. I think it depends on the DM. While I haven't DM'd DnD I have GM'd other RPGs and there are definitely people in the group who come up with interesting character backgrounds and think about how their actions tie in with that background. Sometimes they will then so stuff to the detriment of their character gameplay wise because it's in character (like I offered a party the chance to switch their weapons once and this guy kept his old, less powerful pistols because he was so used to using them and they had sentimental value). Then you get the other guys who have just rolled a character because it gets cool abilities and skills and just sort of play a game without thinking about motivations etc. It's not even like it's difficult to do as DnD has a system of personality traits that are easy enough to stick to. I mean we all rolled for ours randomly and my charlatan dwarf has (something like) : I change identities like I change clothes, likes to donate to charity, I'm too greedy so I nearly always take a risk for a bigger pay off, and I once fleeced the wrong mark and I'm running from them. When I met the party I gave them a false name (at first) , and when I get to the city we are going to I'm going to disguise myself there and con someone. I'm pretty loving poor right now but when I have some more cash I'm going to go to an orphanage or something disguised and drop off a donation anonymously, and there's been plenty of times where I've pushed my luck for more money. Then there's other people in the group who ignore all their stuff. That's fine people can play how they want, I guess the idea of the system is to give a relatively minor award to people that play the character they have well. On the subject of starting off with inspiration points each session, that could work but ultimately I still think that good roleplaying or cool poo poo that people do should be rewarded, so they stand out from people just building strong characters to kill everything.
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Jan 25, 2015 13:54
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Elendil004 posted:The only setting I want is spelljammer. It would actually own if the only setting they brought back was Maztica.
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Jan 25, 2015 14:00
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Kitchner posted:I think it depends on the DM. While I haven't DM'd DnD I have GM'd other RPGs and there are definitely people in the group who come up with interesting character backgrounds and think about how their actions tie in with that background. Sometimes they will then so stuff to the detriment of their character gameplay wise because it's in character (like I offered a party the chance to switch their weapons once and this guy kept his old, less powerful pistols because he was so used to using them and they had sentimental value). It depends on a lot of factors. When it's not the core of the system like in FATE, I think RP rewards should be kind of quality over quantity. I had people engage pretty thoroughly when I ran a HERO System campaign a couple years ago where I handed out "level ups" (it's a level-less system) to people who did something that was either super in-character, hilariously hardcore, or preferrably both, at most once per session per character. You'd get a sizeable amount of bonus XP (in raw character points) that you could spend right there, possibly in the middle of an encounter if you want, and I'd make them come up with increasingly elaborate titles for their "character class". It was fantasy-genre superheroes, so there were some pretty good moments. The knight got a level up for suplexing a wyvern out of the sky, onto the boss they were fighting. The party "rogue" got one when she singlehandedly wiped out an entire bandit squad before anybody else in the encounter got another action. The party illusionist got one when she had her handmaiden send a fruit basket to the tavern girl that she felt guilty about seducing during her lunch break. There was some variety.
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Jan 25, 2015 18:07
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On the topic of Kender. From what I remember reading someplace, Mr. Tracy Hickman was Mormon, and this accounts somewhat for Dragonlance being something of a Mormon fantasy setting, what with the Disks of Mishakal kind of being parallels to the Golden plates that Joseph Smith finds. Mr. Hickman wanted to include a thief as these were D&D novels, but he wanted to avoid the moral conundrum of a thief being a good guy, and what that entailed, so he created the "Innocent" Kender to fulfill the need. Here is what the the 1st edition supplement "Dragonlance Adventures has to say about thieves; "Thieves(Handlers) Here is a fellow who will steal from anyone. In most Krynn societies, this type of behavior is not only condemned, but punished severely. The only exception to this rule is the Kender. These diminutive people, while embodying the traits and abilities of thieves, call themselves "Handlers" since the term thief denotes one who steals for personal gain. Handlers, on the other hand, do not steal for personal gain, but simply out of an outrageous curiosity about everything and everyone at all times. Kender handlers are just as likely to leave something behind as to take something new"
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Jan 25, 2015 18:28
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Kitchner posted:On the subject of starting off with inspiration points each session, that could work but ultimately I still think that good roleplaying or cool poo poo that people do should be rewarded, so they stand out from people just building strong characters to kill everything.
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Jan 25, 2015 18:33
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Kitchner posted:I think it depends on the DM. While I haven't DM'd DnD I have GM'd other RPGs and there are definitely people in the group who come up with interesting character backgrounds and think about how their actions tie in with that background. Sometimes they will then so stuff to the detriment of their character gameplay wise because it's in character (like I offered a party the chance to switch their weapons once and this guy kept his old, less powerful pistols because he was so used to using them and they had sentimental value). The idea of giving some benefit for sticking to traits specifically is to quantify what "counts" as an IC response to an IC stimulus. This is pretty useful and I'm not against adding additional ones formally or informally. What's difficult about the "bonus for good RP" stuff is that it's really hard to quantify and ends up accidentally conforming to certain rules that no one is aware you're using. "Take a benefit for making a choice that is consistent with your character's personality, but which does not benefit or harms you mechanically' is a really common one and is applies by a lot of GMs in a lot of systems where 'good RP' is rewarded. And I think that's great when you're consistent and explicit about it. The problem comes when the GM doesn't apply it evenly. I think rewarded players for participating is a good idea and I endorse it, I just think codifying when or how that happens is beneficial to all parties. I'm not a huge fan of FATE but I like the way it handles that part of the equation.
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Jan 25, 2015 19:21
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I am an idiot who posted in the wrong thread.
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Jan 25, 2015 19:30
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The DM for my Tuesday game told us he didn't want to deal with Inspiration (which I totally get, because I always forget that kind of thing too when running a game), so we each have a point of Inspiration to give to another player for either doing something cool or playing up a flaw or whatever.
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Jan 26, 2015 05:47
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I think inspiration for Ideals, Flaws, and Bonds is a Good Idea and that if you don't include it as a reward for good roleplaying you are just shortchanging your games.
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Jan 26, 2015 16:48
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Laphroaig posted:I think inspiration for Ideals, Flaws, and Bonds is a Good Idea and that if you don't include it as a reward for good roleplaying you are just shortchanging your games. I agree, with the caveats that a) it shouldn't be at the DM's discretion. It should be automatic when a player has earned it. And b) you shouldn't get it just for mentioning your ideal. That leaves you with players claiming points and having any disputes moderated by the group. Which works fine, generally, but it is sort of begging for some more rules at that point.
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Jan 26, 2015 20:58
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Jimbozig posted:I agree, with the caveats that Or you could just have the group decide when points get given out full stop with the DM only stepping in if they are like "Oh wow, now we have 10 inspiration points each"
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Jan 26, 2015 21:35
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Kitchner posted:Or you could just have the group decide when points get given out full stop with the DM only stepping in if they are like "Oh wow, now we have 10 inspiration points each"
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Jan 26, 2015 23:01
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Infinite Karma posted:Inspiration should really go to all the players when one earns it. Usually indulging a role playing flaw will screw more than just the player who tries to seduce the princess in the public royal court. Or sparing a dangerous prisoner's life (who inevitably comes back to haunt the players). Being limited to a single point of inspiration per the RAW already makes it easy to prevent abuses. Except that "bad things happening" isn't actually a bad thing because you don't "win" RPGs. Bad things happening is actually a really good thing because obstacles contextualize your play. So like if you seduce the princess in the royal court, you get put in the dungeon and the king offers you the option to be freed if you undertake some wetwork for him. Now you've added depth to the kingdom and also more play time is spent completing what you were doing originally without lovely stretching, so it feels better when you finish it. If you spare a dangerous prisoner's life and he comes back to haunt the players, every time he comes after the players or is revealed to be Behind The Plot, you're calling back to things that happened previously. Ultimately lovely things happening to the players is a really good things in terms of the game's quality, it's just that nobody likes to feel like the DM is arbitrarily loving them over. So letting players choose bad things to happen to them improves the game, so offering an incentive for players to do so isn't a consolation that should be made out to every player, it's an incentive to make sure it happens fairly often.
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Jan 27, 2015 00:31
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It's weird how when bad things happen to my character in Dungeon World I laugh and I totally go with it, but when bad things happen to my character in D&D I feel cheated by the DM and it usually feels unfair. I don't think that's just personal to me, either. D&D just doesn't reward that kind of play at all.
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Jan 27, 2015 00:51
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30.5 Days posted:Except that "bad things happening" isn't actually a bad thing because you don't "win" RPGs. Bad things happening is actually a really good thing because obstacles contextualize your play. So like if you seduce the princess in the royal court, you get put in the dungeon and the king offers you the option to be freed if you undertake some wetwork for him. Now you've added depth to the kingdom and also more play time is spent completing what you were doing originally without lovely stretching, so it feels better when you finish it. If you spare a dangerous prisoner's life and he comes back to haunt the players, every time he comes after the players or is revealed to be Behind The Plot, you're calling back to things that happened previously. Should the antisocial player get the benefit when he decides to introduce a complication for everyone else? Sure, setbacks make a richer story, but the inspiration benefit is meant to offset the extra difficulty of the setback, not to reward to character extra for hamming it up during spotlight time.
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Jan 27, 2015 00:54
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Infinite Karma posted:Maybe the Paladin thinks stealth is dishonorable and ruins the rest of the party's surprise round on purpose, or the Barbarian smashes a useful (to someone else) magic item because he's dumb and superstitious. Then you should tell the paladin's player to stop being a total rear end in a top hat.
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Jan 27, 2015 01:38
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30.5 Days posted:Then you should tell the paladin's player to stop being a total rear end in a top hat. I feel like many of these issues are someone playing an inflexible character and it just makes them an rear end in a top hat and should probably stop doing it. Using the 'my character wouldn't do this' is not a valid defence.
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Jan 27, 2015 01:42
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These rear end in a top hat, inflexible characters aren't the goal, but they do happen even when there's no inspiration-type mechanic. I'm not the only one who's seen game sessions go bad because if those shenanigans. You're pushing the envelope towards non-cooperative play if you reward people for causing trouble and letting the other characters bail them out. Ideally you don't have assholes, but if you do, at least give the other players that inspiration bonus to offset it.
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Jan 27, 2015 01:56
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You're right, bad characters have nothing to do with the presence or absence of any given rules. Bad characters are made by bad players.
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Jan 27, 2015 02:07
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Like to be totally real here, there are ways to play the the traits you're discussing. But rule 1 (okay more like rule 9) of being both a player and a DM is you don't pre-empt other players' power. Which is what you're discussing in both cases. It's verboten, not pemitted. It simply is not permitted at the table, period. So if someone is doing that, you need to tell them to stop. Always. I'm not sure a situation where it's ever okay to blow stealth for the party, since stealth abuts so directly with the combat rules and is wrapped up pretty tightly in player power. Also, with 5th ed surprise rules, I don't know how a surprise round is even possible. So let's use the barbarian as an example: - It is okay to destroy your own magic items, but you should probably talk about it with your DM and make it a single magic item, after which your character gets inherent bonuses if your DM is amenable. It can be a cool character growth moment for a barbarian to decide to stay true to his honorable martial-combat roots now that he's out in a world where wizards are building bone armies. And it deserves inspiration. - If the DM refuses to give you inherent bonuses, then I would roll my loving eyes way back into my head every time you bombed your ability to be viable in combat but I guess it's your right. I guess inspiration is acceptable to give for it. - It is okay to destroy a mcguffin for a plot as a funny/frustrating moment in the same vein. This doesn't hurt anyone REALLY, it just extends the plot. Inspiration is deserved. - It is not HOLY poo poo NEVER okay to destroy a magic item that exists to give another player not you power. No inspiration, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, you did not destroy that item now give me back my pizza and get the gently caress out of my house. I think it's pretty telling that all the examples for inspiration involve players loving over combat. Don't do that. The purpose of inspiration as it's been described over the past couple pages is to give players stuff for creating plot twists. If all you're doing is reducing someone's DPR that's not inspiration-worthy, it's kicking you out of the group worthy.
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Jan 27, 2015 02:42
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Yeah whenever players pitched character ideas to me like religious fanatics and stuff I used to say "OK and your religious fanatic who literally hates the idea of psychic powers is with the part that includes a psychic person why?". Arse hole characters are valid character choices, but I've yet to meet someone who can justify both being a total arse hole AND continuing on as a permanent member of the group. No one takes the arse hole magic weapon smashing barbarian with them more than once, it's totally in character to ditch him first opportunity and thus defeats the point of playing with other people.
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Jan 27, 2015 03:02
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Some guy made a DM screen that's significantly more compact and useful than the actual one that WOTC put out. There's still way more here than I would ever personally use (time to don armor, travelling rate, services, adventuring gear down to individual ink pens), but it covers most of the bases.
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Jan 27, 2015 06:48
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30.5 Days posted:Except that "bad things happening" isn't actually a bad thing because you don't "win" RPGs. oh man  I mean, RPGs? Sure. D&D? Oh hell no.
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Jan 27, 2015 09:06
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Note to self. Do not get knocked down to 0 HP for the third session in a row.
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Jan 27, 2015 11:04
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Are you ready?! http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/fifth-edition-feedback-survey To be ignored AGAIN?!
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Jan 27, 2015 19:03
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It asks how satisfied you are with each class. Maybe they expected you to play them all or something? Also if you accidentally quit halfway you can't go back into it. I'm sure there's other funny stuff but I only got to page 2.
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Jan 27, 2015 19:09
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I did it. I submitted my thoughts. They were pretty bad questions and too easy to convert into meaning whatever you wanted them to. The section of "here are 6 randomly paired classes, which is more powerful in each pairing" was quite nice though.
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Jan 27, 2015 19:17
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goatface posted:I did it. I submitted my thoughts. I used it to express my displeasure at the fighter and ranger classes.
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Jan 27, 2015 19:34
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I think they were actually randomly selected, any two classes from the list put next to each other. I got Wizard/Rogue as one of mine.
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Jan 27, 2015 19:37
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I had to pick between Fighter and Monk, then Wizard and Cleric.
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Jan 27, 2015 19:44
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I want detailed breakdowns of the percentage of respondents who thought the Fighter or Rogue were stronger than each of the other 11 classes.
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Jan 27, 2015 20:00
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