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Well its a West Marches system so there's plenty of reason for alts to be adventuring on their own, off camera, so to speak, and to be swapped in and out of.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:36
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FRINGE posted:Huh. Never tried that but I like the sound of it. The non-silly rules limiting it were along the lines of "no more than 4 proteges per PC, ever" and "no more than half your xp/session can be sent to proteges". The sillier rules were things like your xp "sent" converts at different rates (never 1:1, I think the best was 4:3) depending on how you communicate your lessons to your protege (face-to-face, letter, messenger, etc) and how long it takes to arrive and then a giant clusterfuck about how having your protege along as an NPC works, how to convert hirelings and henchmen into proteges, etc. You don't need all that stuff in D&D.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:37
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Elendil004 posted:Ou I wasn't in such a good position to fight the dragon. Half the party drank invis potions and ran off. The rest of us ate acid.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:49
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If a monster says, "The target is grappled." as part of an attack, does it still mean a roll off or is that automatic and PC can try to escape on his round?
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Feb 16, 2015 04:32
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Elendil004 posted:If a monster says, "The target is grappled." as part of an attack, does it still mean a roll off or is that automatic and PC can try to escape on his round? Sounds like the effect is automatic so the PC needs to escape in their round.
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Feb 16, 2015 04:35
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Elendil004 posted:If a monster says, "The target is grappled." as part of an attack, does it still mean a roll off or is that automatic and PC can try to escape on his round? "Grappled" is a condition. The language "...the target is Grappled" implies that there's no rolls involved. In the monster building section of the DMG (page 278), there's a box about attack riders that says quote:Many monsters have attacks that do more than deal damage. Some effects that can be added to an attack to give it a flavorful twist include: That seems to confirm that "on a hit... ...target is grappled" is an automatic grapple if the attack hits.
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Feb 16, 2015 04:51
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Improving the Monster Quick Stats Table The basic idea for the 5E's CR system is: A single monster of CR x should be an appropriate challenge for 4 player-characters of level x. I thought "if that's the baseline, then shouldn't it also be true that a single monster of CR x-4 should be an appropriate challenge for a single player-character of level x?" As corollaries of the idea, I was already able to previously figure out that 5E still uses the same "players have a 60% chance to hit a same-level monster, while monsters have a 40% chance to hit a same-level player" paradigm that existed in 4th Edition (and possibly 3rd, though I didn't check that far back). Step 1: Hit Points The conclusion I came to was that if 5E had already inherited all those other design decisions, then we could try applying the "4 hits to kill" ratio to avoid the 5E DMG's pitfall of DMG-created monsters being big boring bags of HP. So I began with a few baselines for a "standard" character: * A Fighter * with their primary stat set to 15 STR using the standard array * 15 STR becomes 16 STR due to being a human, for a +3 modifier * 16 STR increases to 18 STR by level 4, for a +4 modifier * 18 STR increases to 20 STR by level 8, for a +5 modifier * It is assumed that all other Ability Score Improvements are used to either buy better stats elsewhere, or to buy additional feats, in keeping with the 3rd Edition idea that a Fighter is entitled to more of those instead of actual abilities * a 1d8 weapon is being used as the best one-handed martial weapon - if the Fighter chooses to dual-wield or use a two-handed weapon, then their damage goes up, so the monster dies quicker, which is good and to be expected since they made a conscious choice to want to deal more damage. Otherwise, they could use a shield, which trades away the better damage of dual-wielding/two-handed weapons for increased AC * The Fighter earns his extra attacks at levels 5, 11, 16, 20, and this is factored into his Damage-per-Round * Monster HP is therefore set at [Damage-per-Round * 4] The big, big assumption I am making here is that the Extra Attacks of a Fighter are roughly equivalent to all other class abilities. That's basically what a Champion already is, so I don't think it's too out there. That gives us the following table:  So far so good - we've accomplished the goal of creating monsters with significantly less HP than what the DMG recommends, and while there are some levels that have exactly the same HP levels because our standard character hasn't increased his baseline performance, that can be smoothed out like so:  Step 2: Armor Class For AC, the DMG's suggested stats already give us a good baseline:  Being more precise about a 60% chance-to-hit would require a +1 bump to AC across the board. There's a few places where it looks like the table is off by 2 AC or more, but it's just because of a mismatch in exactly when a player is supposed to increase their primary stat modifier, since we're still only off by 1 at level 20. Step 3: Attack Bonus For a monster's attack bonus, it becomes much trickier: The problem is that proficiency does not apply to player AC, and the player has no means of increasing their AC outside of class abilities, which leaves us with three main options: 1. Halt monster attack progression at +5 by level 4, giving monsters a 40% chance to hit against AC 18 2. Take the DMG's recommended monster attack progression, and assume that the DM will hand out a total of +5 AC from magic items over the course of the game such that players will top-out at AC 23 3. Take the DMG's recommended monster attack progression, but do not hand out additional AC from items, and simply assume that players will be able to deal with the increased monster hit chance. A level 20 monster would have a 65% chance to hit a player with AC 18 I chose to simply keep the DMG's attack progression, with notes on when a player would be "owed" additional AC if the DM wants to play it that way. Step 4: Damage (per round) This requires that we establish some more assumptions for our baseline character * CON stat set to 14 using the standard array * 14 becomes 15 due to being human, for a +2 modifier * 15 becomes 17 by level 12, for a +3 modifier * 17 becomes 19 by level 16, for a +4 modifier * 19 becomes 20 by level 20, for a +5 modifier * Maximum HP at level 1 is [10 + CON modifier], with subsequent levels giving an additional [6 + CON modifier] HP * Healing from Hit Dice is [6 + CON modifier], with 1 Hit Die at level 1, and 1 additional Hit Dice being gained per level This gives us the following chart:  But watch what happens if I take the Damage-Per-Round numbers from the DMG, and divide it against the player's total HP reserves:  This is a problem. The damage numbers are still roughly calibrated with an assumption that a monster can kill a player in 4 hits, but without 4th Edition's healing surges, there is no way that that model is going to work - since the damage numbers are including the healing you can get from hit dice, the players are going to be tapped out after one fight no matter what. They can probably stretch it out to 2 or 3 fights if they kill monsters before they ever get their 4 licks in, but certainly not the 6 to 8 encounters recommended by the rules. Instead, I would recommend recalibrating the DPR numbers against a player's maximum HP only, disregarding their Hit Dice healing:  And that leaves us with this final chart:  To-do / To-follow: Saving throws gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 16, 2015 05:36
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Holy poo poo that looks awesome.
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Feb 16, 2015 05:40
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I find myself giving a poo poo about a formula.
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Feb 16, 2015 05:57
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gradenko_2000 posted:So far so good - we've accomplished the goal of creating monsters with significantly less HP than what the DMG recommends, and while there are some levels that have exactly the same HP levels because our standard character hasn't increased his baseline performance, that can be smoothed out like so: What orifice was this part pulled out of? Or is there some sort of methodology at work here?
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Feb 16, 2015 06:02
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P.d0t posted:What orifice was this part pulled out of? Or is there some sort of methodology at work here? On the left column you'll find that there are "dead levels" where monster HP doesn't go up because our baseline Fighter hasn't increased his damage any. And then when he does earn more damage via increased STR or an extra attack, expected HP takes a jump. All I did was take the difference between the current HP level and the next "breakpoint", and then divide it between all the dead levels.
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Feb 16, 2015 06:08
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You should throw down some eighth, quarter, half CRs too.
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Feb 16, 2015 06:51
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30.5 Days posted:You should throw down some eighth, quarter, half CRs too. The "level 1" monster is already roughly equivalent to the CR 1/4 monster: Original DMG's CR 1/4 monster: 13 AC, 43 HP, +3 attack, 4.5 DPR Revised as a level 1: 14 AC, 30 HP, +3 attack, 3 DPR And then the CR 1/2 monster is the level 2 monster. No CR 1/8, but you're probably looking at something like [13 AC, 15 HP, +3 attack, 1.5 DPR] Besides rejiggering the stats so that they're less big boring bags of HP*, the idea was to re-align the stats to a player's level so that you encounter design can be the standard "1 same level monster for every PC" * Technically they're only big boring bags of HP because I'm lifting the stats straight off the table instead of going through the 20-step monster creation process, which should result in HP and DPR adjustments up and down the table, but who wants to do that.
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Feb 16, 2015 07:11
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Just got this. Tote-al party kill. 
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Feb 16, 2015 14:35
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Improving the Monster Quick Stats Table Step 5: Saving Throws  The best saving throw that a target can come up with would be if it's against their primary attribute AND they're proficient at it, which would give them a 65% chance to save and this would keep pace exactly with a spellcaster's spellcasting attribute and proficiency bonus (basically roll an 8 or better to save). At the same time, the proficiency bonus of a spell comprises somewhere between 40-50% of the total saving throw bonus. Instead of trying to come up with a way to capture the 12 different ways that a saving throw could go, my idea for abbreviating the process would be to have a Best / Good / Bad system: the best would be the primary stat+proficiency as I had mentioned, a Good saving throw that's 66% of Best to represent either a tertiary stat with proficiency or a high stat without proficiency, and a Bad saving throw that's 33% of best to represent no proficiency and a non-primary stat. It should be familiar to veterans of the Fort/Ref/Will save, and is quick-and-dirty enough that you can make your mind up on the spot for what the save is going to be as the Wizard casts their spell. That leaves us with this final table:  By request I also threw in a Minion / rough CR 1/8 equivalent in there. The DPR margin against a level 1's HP is so low that that should actually be 1 DPR.
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Feb 16, 2015 16:54
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gradenko_2000 posted:Improving the Monster Quick Stats Table I don't think that follows, since the action economy makes things scale nonlinearly.
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Feb 16, 2015 17:47
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Tunicate posted:I don't think that follows, since the action economy makes things scale nonlinearly. It does follow for monsters that are intended to be fought in groups, just not solos or elites. And also the CR system already tries to make these nonequal things be equal so even if you try to use gredenko's system for elites and solos, it's still an improvement.
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Feb 16, 2015 18:34
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30.5 Days posted:It does follow for monsters that are intended to be fought in groups, just not solos or elites. And also the CR system already tries to make these nonequal things be equal so even if you try to use gredenko's system for elites and solos, it's still an improvement. Perhaps I'm misreading? It seems silly that a single CR 5 monster would be an appropriate challenge for a single level 20 character. From the table the level 20 fighter should have the ability to kill it in one round (48 DPR vs 45 HP).
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Feb 16, 2015 18:53
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Tunicate posted:Perhaps I'm misreading? It seems silly that a single CR 5 monster would be an appropriate challenge for a single level 20 character. From the table the level 20 fighter should have the ability to kill it in one round (48 DPR vs 45 HP). So what you're saying is that a level 20 character isn't equal to four level 5 characters? I don't get if you're saying that 4 level 5 characters should be stronger than a level 20 character for the purposes of balance or vice versa.
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Feb 16, 2015 18:58
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So my wife got me the 5e DMG for Valentine's Day because I had it on my wish list. This is good - it represents probably all the money we'll spend on 5e! Anyway, I was flipping through and was super excited when I saw a heading for "chase rules." I thought, "Wow, maybe this isn't so bad!" Nope. It's that bad. It starts by mumbling something about making chases exciting... and then utterly fails to do so. Its big "innovation"? Limiting the number of Dash actions you can take by your Con bonus. And then you can take Exhaustion levels after that as if that's ever a good idea. Hilariously, it says you can take no more than 5 because your speed is zero at that point; what it fails to mention is how your speed was already halved at 2, so why are you still making dash actions, dummy? It even suggests a map. Because you see, this is a simulation-minded broken D&D-player's idea of how a chase scene should work. (I'd argue it requires one, since so much is based on keeping the quarry in LoS.) Now, in total fairness, there are "random event" tables. (Bad ones, that would get repetitive after even a short chase with 6 participants.) But man... It's the least-exciting chase rules I've ever seen, full of measuring, mapping, and table rolls.
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Feb 16, 2015 19:16
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Kitchner posted:So what you're saying is that a level 20 character isn't equal to four level 5 characters? I don't get if you're saying that 4 level 5 characters should be stronger than a level 20 character for the purposes of balance or vice versa. I'm saying that quote:a single monster of CR x/4 should be an appropriate challenge for a single player-character of level x
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Feb 16, 2015 19:25
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Can I just opine that CR is a stupid idea that there's really no point to trying to make work? Like, if the only attributes present were Damage Per Round, HP, Attack Bonus and AC, then yes, it could be calculated pretty easy. Or if you only had to calculate CR for one specific party's class/race combos. But since that's not the case, I think it's kind of a fool's errand to try and get it to work, without a bunch of caveats of the size of a small novella("CR is increased by one if the party has no arcane casters, by two if the party has neither arcane or divine casters, by ten if the entire party conists of bards.." etc. etc.).
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Feb 16, 2015 19:32
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PurpleXVI posted:Can I just opine that CR is a stupid idea that there's really no point to trying to make work? Like, if the only attributes present were Damage Per Round, HP, Attack Bonus and AC, then yes, it could be calculated pretty easy. Or if you only had to calculate CR for one specific party's class/race combos. It's not necessarily a bad idea, and it's very useful if you have a balanced game. The problem is Next gives characters very unequal access to combat abilities. In some games a party of four rogues might only be 90% as effective as a party of four clerics, in which case even with more complex stats than AC/AB/HP/DPR, DR can still be a very pertinent figure.
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Feb 16, 2015 19:48
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I always thought it was meant to be CR-4 not CR/4
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Feb 16, 2015 21:56
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goatface posted:I always thought it was meant to be CR-4 not CR/4 Ah, that would make more sense. Or by CR 'steps', to account for fractionals.
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Feb 16, 2015 22:09
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Tunicate posted:Ah, that would make more sense. Or by CR 'steps', to account for fractionals. Yeah, they're not CRs, they're 4E-style "levels". So it's not a CR20 monster, it's a level 20 monster from which to build a CR20 encounter. It's not a perfect system since tougher monsters should have other stuff going on, but if you're trying to make a level 6 encounter of standardized mooks it's an awful lot better than the existing rules.
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Feb 16, 2015 22:41
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Oops, yeah, I totally mistyped that: CR-4, not CR/4. I was just thinking of "four CR 1/4s to one level 1" and got confused.
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Feb 17, 2015 03:33
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So in my session tonight I plan on running a scam to fleece peasants out of some cash by using a bag of lizard penises I harvested off some lizard men that we killed. Apparently according to some people on these forums, this is a lack of poor judgement on my DM's part. Personally I look forward to making a handful of gold coins.
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Feb 17, 2015 12:17
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You wanted to post that to g.txt, right?
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Feb 17, 2015 12:37
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Kitchner posted:this is a lack of poor judgement on my DM's part
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Feb 17, 2015 12:40
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So if nobody has ever played D&D with strict exp tracking in what I'm going to assume is at least half a decade, and level-ups come at narrative milestones, how far have people actually gotten in Next so far? When I was still gaming a lot I could knock out 2 to 3 sessions of 3-4 hours each in a week. If we were leveling up every 2-3 sessions, and factoring in that I'd want to get them out of levels 1-3 ASAP, I'd be looking at level 20 within 3 months?
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Feb 17, 2015 12:55
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gradenko_2000 posted:So if nobody has ever played D&D with strict exp tracking in what I'm going to assume is at least half a decade, and level-ups come at narrative milestones, how far have people actually gotten in Next so far? Well, you can also simply start them at level 4 or whatever your desired minimum limit is, I mean, you're entirely in control of this. Or if you wanted to, you could level them up just for playing a single session. Nothing about the system is going to break if you do this. What levelling up feels appropriate is more down to whether the players have a sense of accomplishment(defeated a villain, resolved a quest, etc.) to associate with the level up, or whether your players and you feel that there's fun to be had at the levels they're at. You'd also be perfectly justified in tapering off the speed of levelling up a bit after the initial few levels.
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Feb 17, 2015 13:07
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PurpleXVI posted:Well, you can also simply start them at level 4 or whatever your desired minimum limit is, I mean, you're entirely in control of this. Or if you wanted to, you could level them up just for playing a single session. Nothing about the system is going to break if you do this. What levelling up feels appropriate is more down to whether the players have a sense of accomplishment(defeated a villain, resolved a quest, etc.) to associate with the level up, or whether your players and you feel that there's fun to be had at the levels they're at. You'd also be perfectly justified in tapering off the speed of levelling up a bit after the initial few levels. Right - I should have just omitted the second paragraph. I was really asking how other people are pacing their games, because "you're never going to be high enough level to worry about the Fighter's Relentless feature" and "you have control of the party's leveling pace" doesn't seem very compatible outside of groups falling out for non-game reasons.
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Feb 17, 2015 13:18
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There's nothing wrong with "we're gonna do this one adventure, 3-5 sessions, you're all level 7" and just not tracking xp. Then if everyone has shitloads of fun and wants a sequel, set it 4 years later and tell everyone to be level 15 this time. It works really well with groups that don't/can't get everyone together very often.
Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 13:24
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gradenko_2000 posted:I was really asking how other people are pacing their games, because "you're never going to be high enough level to worry about the Fighter's Relentless feature" and "you have control of the party's leveling pace" doesn't seem very compatible outside of groups falling out for non-game reasons. Well, personally I don't really have any hard-set pace, it depends on how the game goes. Though, generally I'd say 3 to 4 sessions per advance until level 3 has been a general pace of mine since 2nd ed(dependent, of course, on whether there's anything to justify the level-up in those sessions). Level 3 has usually been the important level to get players to, since it's where mages and clerics get their first new spell level, making play less repetitive for them. With it now also being the archetype level, reaching it has become even more fun for players, and an even more important place to reach to give them more options, no matter their class. After level 3, I wind down the levelling pace a lot, filling up the space with rewards of other types. Loot, items, skill points/feats/proficiency slots, that sort of thing. Levels are pretty important motivators for players since it gives them new abilities, and new abilities means more fun, but a wand with a spell they don't have access to yet, or an at-will ability to cast Feather Fall or something, is also something that opens up new possibilities for them.
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Feb 17, 2015 14:13
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Kitchner posted:So in my session tonight I plan on running a scam to fleece peasants out of some cash by using a bag of lizard penises I harvested off some lizard men that we killed. "Hmm yes, I brought up lizard dicks in both D&D Next threads apropos of nothing, and keep bringing it up to the degree that it's possible that I'm just being a weird rear end in a top hat, but clearly it's these prudes who have the issue. Really gross 'you had to be there' humor is the best, and a good idea to share online, especially somewhere other than shit_that_didnt_happen_rpg_edition.txt" 
Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Feb 17, 2015 |
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Feb 17, 2015 14:23
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Lightning Lord posted:"Hmm yes, I brought up lizard dicks in both D&D Next threads apropos of nothing, and keep bringing it up to the degree that it's possible that I'm just being a weird rear end in a top hat, but clearly it's these prudes who have the issue. Really gross 'you had to be there' humor is the best, and a good idea to share online, especially somewhere other than shit_that_didnt_happen_rpg_edition.txt" Oh wow the ironic post quote. I'm lucky I've got someone as funny as you around or else I'd never learn what good humour is! Good thing there's nobody who doesn't read the other thread and a mod didn't specifically say to talk about it here instead! Especially if I want to moan afterwards that the DM basically cockblocked me from making a load of cash via guile and conartistry but if I had a spell I would have been able to do it just fine!
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Feb 17, 2015 14:53
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Don't talk about lizard cocks.
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Feb 17, 2015 15:01
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Really Pants posted:Don't talk about lizard cocks. Ettin new thread title please.
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Feb 17, 2015 15:32
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Kitchner posted:Good thing there's nobody who doesn't read the other thread and a mod didn't specifically say to talk about it here instead! Good thing you're a sarcastic dick, even when you're wrong! Ettin posted:That's enough about lizard dicks in the advice thread. Chat thread it or something! This isn't the chat thread, bro. Also, I want to point out the tone - this isn't yes, I like hearing about this, but this is the wrong thread for it. This is saying please stop talking about it, if you really have to talk about it gently caress off and do it where I don't have to see it.
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Feb 17, 2015 15:44
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