|
PurpleXVI posted:The problem with the battle grid is that it also adds more work to every fight, and when gaming online it's a pain in the rear end to mess around with yet another program. Battle grids and boards are great when gaming in person, but over the internet I hate them. Well, the last few editions of D&D have been all about grids and are not written for the benefit of people who want to play without one, regardless of what the designers have/had to say. Gridless games are a popular alternative because of the obvious ease with which it can be done and the way it opens up descriptive scenery and combat that you don't have to spend time drawing/hoping that your description matches. If you want to play a gridless game, D&D is not where you should start, there are many games written from the ground up so that you never have to use a map. This didn't prevent any of us from playing D&D without a grid when we started, but here we are now trying to actually read and follow the rules.
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 13:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 20:39 |
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:Well, the last few editions of D&D have been all about grids and are not written for the benefit of people who want to play without one, regardless of what the designers have/had to say. Gridless games are a popular alternative because of the obvious ease with which it can be done and the way it opens up descriptive scenery and combat that you don't have to spend time drawing/hoping that your description matches. If you want to play a gridless game, D&D is not where you should start, there are many games written from the ground up so that you never have to use a map. This didn't prevent any of us from playing D&D without a grid when we started, but here we are now trying to actually read and follow the rules. I never had a grid for 3.5e and never found that to be a hindrance, nor have I been using a grid for 5e and I've had no problems with the fights I've run so far. So, I have no idea where this "last few editions" thing is coming from because it's completely counter to my experiences and the experience of everyone I know who plays those editions, 4E excepted.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 13:05
|
|
|
There's a difference between "my personal gaming group has been able to play a gridless game of 3.5 and had it work" and "3.5 was not built with a grid in mind" I'm not trying to be snarky here or anything - lord knows I've done that too, but it's an objective fact that the rules for 3rd Edition were written specifically with the intention of being played with a grid and miniatures. The fact that people, maybe even the majority of people, played without it and did just fine because of any number of reasons doesn't invalidate that.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 13:11
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:While it does speed things up, the less things you roll during combat, the less purpose there is to combat. If everything was just static values, you could basically sit down at the start of the fight, look over all the sheets, and go: "Okay, you start fighting the ogre, you all take... twenty HP worth of damage, distribute it among yourselves, you win the fight and pick up fifty gold pieces and the ogre's club." At the very least, if you applied it to D&D as-is. So... kinda a bit like Tunnels & Trolls? That's actually not all that awful if you already dislike lengthy, detailed combat, which seems to be a category that many D&D fans fit into. PurpleXVI posted:I never had a grid for 3.5e and never found that to be a hindrance, nor have I been using a grid for 5e and I've had no problems with the fights I've run so far. 3.5 required a grid. It came with a tear-out battle map grid in the back of the DMG. It uses pictures of miniatures on a grid to explain all the rules. The rules themselves include phrases like "You can't move through a square occupied by an opponent, unless..." I totally understand if your group (or my group even!) played some kludged up version where they just didn't use all those rules, but 3.5 required a grid. It even says so in the start of the PHB under the heading "what you need to play" (Only 2e, 5e, and the pre-AD&D books don't tell you miniatures are required).  You might as well say that 4e didn't require a grid because you could totally just ignore all the rules that mention a grid and interpret "square" as "5 foot interval". You totally can play 4e like that. Half the poo poo won't do what you're used to, but the same is true of 3.5 RAW vs 3.5 ignoring the grid. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Feb 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 13:11
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:I never had a grid for 3.5e and never found that to be a hindrance, nor have I been using a grid for 5e and I've had no problems with the fights I've run so far. The systems are both chock-full of mechanics that are designed around them, though. Sure, you can get by without a grid on the table, but if you don't have a pretty detailed model of where everybody is in relation to one another you are going to have trouble when the Fighter wants to position himself so that the Orcs can't get to the Wizard who is trying to get as many baddies in his Lightning Bolt as possible without hitting any friends, while the Rogue and the Cleric move to pincer the archer so he can't 5' step away and shoot without provoking an opportunity attack. I won't deny that you can abstract all of that, but the systems themselves are clearly designed for the kind of position specificity that comes from a map. Compare that to something like the Zone system in Fate, where your bar fight has some combatants Behind The Bar, while others are Around The Tables, and the rest are Outside. Gambor fucked around with this message at 14:00 on Feb 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 13:27
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:While it does speed things up, the less things you roll during combat, the less purpose there is to combat. If everything was just static values, you could basically sit down at the start of the fight, look over all the sheets, and go: "Okay, you start fighting the ogre, you all take... twenty HP worth of damage, distribute it among yourselves, you win the fight and pick up fifty gold pieces and the ogre's club." At the very least, if you applied it to D&D as-is.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 13:30
|
|
|
Ratpick posted:This is actually an interesting discussion: how would you guys go about getting rid of attack rolls? If you want to get rid of the amount of dice being rolled, gradenko's solution is probably the way to go. It has the same formality death issue as the above, with probably the same solution. If you want a bit more variance or granularity, add another success level, such as each power listing a certain amount of bonus damage you apply for every 5 or so you beat the DC by. Would means more mental maths though. If you want to discard attack rolls because you dislike the probability curve of success/failure being tied to a single roll + modifier, then you can just take one of the above and replace your d20 with 3d6. If we're solid on getting rid of attack rolls, then as per Siivola you could just roll damage (more damage means you hit better) and have effects dependent on damage thresholds. Chancy manoeuvres could be ones with less damage but with lower effect thresholds, or using swingier dice (1d12 vs 2d6). Again you have the certain kill thing going on, and more importantly you've pretty much abandoned the pretence of playing a d20 system in favour of a dicepool system, and we should probably take that level of diversion to the design thread or the chat thread.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 13:34
|
|
|
Payndz posted:Ha, that's exactly what I asked about in the Elf Simulation thread a few days ago. No-combat combat, basically, where each encounter delivers a set amount of damage, which can be mitigated by character defences and burning limited resources like spells, potions and the equivalent of Dailies. (Or you can try to come up with another way to deal with the enemies that doesn't involve fighting them.) That sounds similar to a dice-less game concept: every time you want to do A Thing that might otherwise need a roll in any other game, you instead spend one of your limited number of tokens to get yourself to automatically succeed, and the point is to husband your tokens until you get to the end (or perhaps more tokens) Gambor posted:Compare that to something like the Zone system in Fate, where your bar fight has some combatants Behind The Bar, while others are Around The Tables, and the rest are Outside. IIRC the Last Stand RPG had a pretty good Zone-based system too. I'm something like 600 pages behind on the Imp Zone Next thread but it's still got some good discussion from months back: quote:Back on topic for D&D Next: the hybrid FATE system that was mentioned upthread is, frankly, awesome as a midpoint between tactical grid-based and abstract combat. IMHO it could work really well for D&D, too. One could implement all sorts of D&D-isms: Splicer posted:The only real gameplay change would be the introduction of frequent "guaranteed kills", since if every attack does miss damage then any enemy who'd been reduced to below your damage minimum is just a formality. Whether this counts as a problem is pretty much individual preference. This is just my personal style, but I routinely use "yup, you hit and kill him, don't even roll damage, he's just dead" in my games. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Feb 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 13:39
|
|
|
Thanks for the responses. I've personally never noticed much of a difference between missing in 2/3/5E and 4E, but then again my group knows how to make stupidly optimized melee fighters in early editions and don't understand "18 in primary stat" in 4E, so I'll trust everyone's words there. In regards to how a system where you don't miss due to dice rolls would look like, the fanboy in me says it'd look similar to Guild Wars 2... Especially since I have bits and pieces of a GW2 RPG system on my computer. You have a slowly regenerating Endurance bar that can be expended to automatically dodge attacks. Some powers can also dodge or block attacks. Then you have status effects like Blind (next attack misses), Weakness (target deals half damage and Endurance regen halves), Vigor (Endurance regen doubles), and Protection (target takes half damage), and your typical MMO stuns/immobilize to help control damage dealt. Blind isn't an outright "do nothing this turn" since you can instead think about using defensive/healing moves instead or delay until an ally heals you with their own attacks/minor actions". The game's also like 4E in the sense that your HP jumps up and down during a fight and you recover to 100% strength between fights; just replace healing surges with abilites-that-heal-on-a-cooldown and you've got the idea of in-battle healing. Basically, I imagine such a game would deal more with resource and status management over "how do I optimize my dice rolling numbers?"
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 13:41
|
|
|
If we're getting rid of attack rolls and keeping damage rolls, we can do something cool by re-working the way damage dice and armor work and adjusting hit point totals to fit the new system. Let's say that possible damage from weapon attacks (ie, damage defended against by your AC) is now one of 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 plus any (small) modifiers. Armour class is now anywhere from 0-5 (say). When you attack, roll your damage die. Subtract your opponent's AC. You did that much damage. Keep Advantage/Disadvantage as it is now (roll twice and take the highest/lowest). You can work it so that the lowest damage die can or can't affect the highest AC as you feel is best. I personally feel like someone in magic fullplate (or an ancient dragon, or whatever) should be immune to a regular thrown stone or something. You'd want to adjust hit points downward to compensate. You'd also want to re-work damaging spells, but I reckon that "save for half" would still work pretty well. gradenko_2000 posted:This is just my personal style, but I routinely use "yup, you hit and kill him, don't even roll damage, he's just dead" in my games. That was a good way to unfuck a hosed encounter in 2e or AD&D. I guess it'll work just as well for unfucking a Next encounter. Also any time you know the player is gonna be rolling 2d6 + <this thing and that thing and probably the other thing and also maybe...> and the monster has like 7hp left just to speed up combat. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Feb 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 13:44
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:I never had a grid for 3.5e and never found that to be a hindrance, nor have I been using a grid for 5e and I've had no problems with the fights I've run so far.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 13:44
|
|
|
Getting rid of attack rolls (and damage rolls if you like!) in D&D, the messy way (as in, not getting into rewriting the exact mechanics or anything): Every attack is classified as an AC/Fort/Ref/Will attack that does X damage. When applied to a character, that characters soaks the damage according to their AC/Fort/Ref/Will rating. Big badass attacks sometimes have a minimum damage that happens even if you would normally soak it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 13:46
|
|
|
OneThousandMonkeys posted:Getting rid of attack rolls (and damage rolls if you like!) in D&D, the messy way (as in, not getting into rewriting the exact mechanics or anything): That's cleaner than my messy way. I'd go with yours.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 13:48
|
|
|
Gambor posted:The systems are both chock-full of mechanics that are designed around them, though. Sure, you can get by without a grid on the table, but if you don't have a pretty detailed model of where everybody is in relation to one another you are going to have trouble when the Fighter wants to position himself so that the Orcs can't get to the Wizard who is trying to get as many baddies in his Lightning Bolt as possible without hitting any friends, while the Rogue and the Cleric move to pincer the archer so he can't 5' step away and shoot without provoking an opportunity attack. I won't deny that you can abstract all of that, but the systems themselves are clearly designed for the kind of position specificity that comes from a map. I again, never really found that to be a problem. If the fighter wants to protect the mage, he can protect the mage, I just assume he's not glued to a single square and can move around freely as a mobile wall to intercept any orcs coming for the wizard, unless they mob him with a dozen at once. For the mage, I assume that if they don't know what he's capable of, or are raging or stupid, enemies generally let him hit the majority of them with any AoE spells without roasting his buddies(unless one of his buddies is currently fighting one of them in melee), and otherwise just hazard a fair and reasonable guess. If the rogue and cleric move to pincer an archer... they move to pincer the archer, I'm... not sure why I need a grid for that. Yeah, I entirely agree that some things work better with a grid, and I never said the game might not have been designed with them in mind. But most of the mechanics are perfectly possible to abstract and, frankly, a lot of them are more fun if you just roll with them in a way that's cool rather than nitpicking over every last inch of boardspace. Payndz posted:Ha, that's exactly what I asked about in the Elf Simulation thread a few days ago. No-combat combat, basically, where each encounter delivers a set amount of damage, which can be mitigated by character defences and burning limited resources like spells, potions and the equivalent of Dailies. (Or you can try to come up with another way to deal with the enemies that doesn't involve fighting them.) I think it could actually, potentially work. It'd need an entirely new system, though, from the ground up, and having no random factors at all it would really, really take an experienced and capable GM to keep it fresh, interesting and challenging yet not bullshit. Normally the dice soak up a lot of that responsibility by being arbitrary and unaligned factors. If you've got literally nothing on the board that's not placed there by the GM, though... puts a bit more responsibility on him, and I'm not sure I'd trust myself to be able to manage it, as cool as the idea sounds. I also feel it risks making combat a bit more adversarial by, again, putting EVERYTHING directly in the GM's hands, if a PC bites it, it can never just be put down to the dice, and... I don't know, I'm repeating myself, but I think it would take a really mature group and competent GM to make it work. Splicer posted:By grids do you mean any form of map and miniature combat, or explicitly maps with a grid drawn on them? If you mean the former, I recently pulled up the 3.0 PHB combat section to check out what it says about maps and miniatures and all the combat examples use miniatures. They always say "if you are using miniatures", but never actually give any advice on what to do in non-miniatures combat. If you mean the latter, while the maps don't have grids explicitly drawn on them all the combat examples show maps with everything sitting in their own square, neatly aligned. All the movement explanations, same. Also the 1-2-1 rule exists, and the gelatinous cube is a thing. I'll happily admit they might've been designed for grids and miniatures, but I can also say that in my experience they don't need them. What's the 1-2-1 rule? As for the conversation on getting rid of attack rolls... I think the important part is to not replace them with other rolls. Every roll we kill off, whether it's attack or damage, stays dead, no replacing them with armor soak rolls or anything. What they should be replaced by would be some sort of option or set of options, like Ederick suggested, various forms and types of attacks. Though I'm not sure whether keeping track of "regenerating resources" in fights would be a good idea, seems like it just swings back into more bookkeeping, I'd suggest just a cooldown on any given ability instead. This all sort of swings into "designing 6th edition D&D" rather than "houseruling 5e D&D," though. Which may suggest just how badly they hosed up if our considered "fixes" all involve literally junking 90% of the drat thing.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 14:34
|
|
|
The post you were replying to was about how D&D hasn't been written for people who don't want to use grids in some time. None of the counter examples you posted are supported by the rules, and many directly contradict them. No-one has said you can't do X with D&D if you houserule the hell out of it. e: actually I think someone explicitly mentioned that caveat but I'm phone posting now so I don't want to quote it.PurpleXVI posted:What's the 1-2-1 rule? Splicer fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Feb 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 15:06
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:I think it could actually, potentially work. It'd need an entirely new system, though, from the ground up, and having no random factors at all it would really, really take an experienced and capable GM to keep it fresh, interesting and challenging yet not bullshit. Normally the dice soak up a lot of that responsibility by being arbitrary and unaligned factors. If you've got literally nothing on the board that's not placed there by the GM, though... puts a bit more responsibility on him, and I'm not sure I'd trust myself to be able to manage it, as cool as the idea sounds. I also feel it risks making combat a bit more adversarial by, again, putting EVERYTHING directly in the GM's hands, if a PC bites it, it can never just be put down to the dice, and... I don't know, I'm repeating myself, but I think it would take a really mature group and competent GM to make it work. As you said, it would involve completely rewriting chunks of the system. But maybe that would count as one of Mike Mearls' mythical modules? 
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 15:34
|
|
|
Payndz posted:A random element could be added by having a "damage die" or something for each character which they roll to add to their total damage mitigation, representing how quickly they take down the opposition before they're killed themselves. Essentially, Murderhobo Level + Damage Die + Armour/Defence/Whatever + Burned Resources are totalled and subtracted from the encounter damage, which is then divided up amongst the party. Having a die involved also allows for crit bonuses and the like. The problem is, though, if you make the random element large enough to unburden the GM in some sense, and large enough that players feel a bit endangered, like a given encounter isn't completely predictable, then you're already heading back towards what we had in the first place. But if you don't make it large enough for that, it remains as kind of a vestigial mechanic and still leaves us with hard, but not insurmountable, problems. So I think I'd just scrap the random element completely, if I was really going to work on it, just go all-in towards a non-random system and see what the end result was.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 17:33
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:The problem is, though, if you make the random element large enough to unburden the GM in some sense, and large enough that players feel a bit endangered, like a given encounter isn't completely predictable, then you're already heading back towards what we had in the first place. But if you don't make it large enough for that, it remains as kind of a vestigial mechanic and still leaves us with hard, but not insurmountable, problems. So I think I'd just scrap the random element completely, if I was really going to work on it, just go all-in towards a non-random system and see what the end result was. Mostly players casting Invis and then X-Zone.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 17:53
|
|
|
Payndz posted:A random element could be added by having a "damage die" or something for each character which they roll to add to their total damage mitigation, representing how quickly they take down the opposition before they're killed themselves. Essentially, Murderhobo Level + Damage Die + Armour/Defence/Whatever + Burned Resources are totalled and subtracted from the encounter damage, which is then divided up amongst the party. Having a die involved also allows for crit bonuses and the like. Anyone played the boardgame Descent? It's a tactical miniatures dungeon crawler game with cute little damage dice that you roll depending on your class and weapon, and the figure being attacked rolls armour dice depending on their armour, so instead of rolling to hit you roll opposing damage and armour soak at the same time which is quick and speedy and fun. But just rolling dice against one another doesn't make an interesting combat system so it also had special moves and resource management and positioning and interesting interactive abilities, whereas D&D 5E has you trying to convince the GM 'no, I definitely said I was standing 10ft in front of the wizard' and saying 'I attack the closest enemy' every turn because TotM maneuverability lacks the interesting and discrete gamey tactics of Descent/4E or the exciting freeform narrative of something like DW. For a game where almost every class mechanic is about combat in some way, D&D really sucks at it. The fun I've had with it is playing a wizard and totally bending the encounters around my battlefield-altering spells while the rest of my party makes numbers go down.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 17:53
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:So does anyone else notice that Barbarians have a serious MAD problem? I noticed this before, but I sort of just now came to the full realization of how bad it is. I would expect the class with a "rage" mechanic to have a MAD problem.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 18:33
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:The problem is, though, if you make the random element large enough to unburden the GM in some sense, and large enough that players feel a bit endangered, like a given encounter isn't completely predictable, then you're already heading back towards what we had in the first place. But if you don't make it large enough for that, it remains as kind of a vestigial mechanic and still leaves us with hard, but not insurmountable, problems. So I think I'd just scrap the random element completely, if I was really going to work on it, just go all-in towards a non-random system and see what the end result was. If each monster had a set damage rating (or whatever) that were totalled to produce the encounter's danger level, rather than just saying "this encounter will cause X damage", then that gives the GM the option to add or subtract enemies to balance things, as they know how much punishment the party can still take. (Or again, the party could just not fight and instead come up with clever alternatives to save on resources.) Anyway, Gygax is probably spinning in his grave at this talk of an RPG where combat isn't played out segment by laborious segment, so, er, Next content: hey, how about them Intellect Devourers, huh?
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 18:44
|
|
|
What's the exact language in 5e regarding when movement occurs throughout the initiative phases? I'm wondering if using the 2.5e (combat & tactics) interpretation as a houserule would lead to a more satisfying experience for people playing 5e. Most of my group's tactical considerations stems from that and I think it makes it a ton more interesting and fluid but also doesn't slow gameplay down that much.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 18:48
|
|
|
Payndz posted:(Or again, the party could just not fight and instead come up with clever alternatives to save on resources.) Thing is, if you've already got a system for "combat resources," why not also have "equipment resources" that the players can convert into, say, a grappling hook to scale a wall and get around the guards, rather than fighting them? Or "arcane resources" that they can use to trap the guards in enchanted slumber while they sneak past? Or "social resources" that they can use to convince the guards that they're actually Royal Inspectors there to check on the state of the armory? May as well have as unified a system as possible.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 18:55
|
|
|
To steer this back towards Next, the reason why we want to eliminate attack rolls is so that we eliminate the boring, nothing-happens miss result. However, part of the reason why misses are so boring in the first place is because there's often very little a player can do about it. As a juxtaposition: XCOM Enemy Unknown. Hit rates in that game can be as low as 50 or 40%, and the one-to-two hits to kill damage:ratio means that it's very much not in the player's favor to engage in trading shots with Sectoids. Instead, you have to fish for ways to up your hit chance, primarily by flanking, but also just by getting closer, or by throwing a grenade as the equivalent of blowing a spell slot: it just happens, but you only have so much of them You can't really do that in D&D. Or rather, there are flanking rules, and Advantage actually means it's even more powerful than a +2 attack bonus, but flanking is so specific: two characters on either side of the enemy. This is why I'm a fan of metacurrency. Hero Points, Glory Points, Inspiration, whatever you want to call it - I think giving the players a limited resource that they can then devote to "I want to hit/kill this guy RIGHT NOW" can make combat much less rote.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 19:36
|
|
|
Every year, the Barony of Vascones features the traditional "Running of the Manticores". It's a friendly festival honouring the ancient attempt of a nascent Manticore empire to seize control of the town, and their pursuit of the legendary archers through the streets after their wings were torn by broad serrated arrowheads. The modern day event features a team of manticores with their wings strapped down, who pursue the bravest/stupidest revellers through the streets, barrelling through them and tripping them up. Most years only a few people die, it's cool. This year the party are present for the event. Maybe they're hoping to take part, maybe they just want to watch, maybe they just like festivals. The run begins with lots of pushing and shoving in the crowd before the manticores are released. Traditionally they give short, provocative speeches before they begin the chase - providing a brief window for the runners to get a head start - but this year one of them springs forward somewhat crazed and dashes one cocky orc reveller against a wall before sinking its teeth into another. The scene quickly descends into chaos with the crowd scrambling over each other to get away from the slavering monster, but the elvish baron Hampton Kneeswitch keeps his calm and activates his secret trump card. With the well-timed pull of a lever, the street beneath the crazed manticore gives way, its well bound wings leaving it no escape from a demise in the spiked pit below. Investigation of the corpse will reveal bone darts that have been used to deliver poison, one associated with the Ancient and Most Venerable Order of Horse Dopers. AMVOHD have been outlawed for decades, but their former guild houses are still in use, a place where retired gamblers, jockeys, horse-trainers and stable-hands meet for drinks. They all deny any involvement, but can point the way to the source of the drugs, an apothecary named Hibbard MacStuffit. MacStuffit is holed up in the basement of an old surgical school, the anatomical study skeletons are now his undead minions and will put up a stiff fight with scalpels and bone-saws. Once his capture seems inevitable, MacStuffit escapes through a hidden door that slams shut once he steps through. When the door is reopened it reveals nothing but the wall behind it. A one-trip portal, advanced magics for a horse-doper. What would motivate the disruption of such a jovial carnival? Why would the local Baron have spiked pits installed in his streets? Who is handing out powerful magical tools to degenerate criminal drug dealers? Find out, NEXT TIME... goatface fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Feb 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 19:39
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:I again, never really found that to be a problem. If the fighter wants to protect the mage, he can protect the mage, I just assume he's not glued to a single square and can move around freely as a mobile wall to intercept any orcs coming for the wizard, unless they mob him with a dozen at once. For the mage, I assume that if they don't know what he's capable of, or are raging or stupid, enemies generally let him hit the majority of them with any AoE spells without roasting his buddies(unless one of his buddies is currently fighting one of them in melee), and otherwise just hazard a fair and reasonable guess. If the rogue and cleric move to pincer an archer... they move to pincer the archer, I'm... not sure why I need a grid for that. Then why don't you just do all this with 4E instead of going "man, what a pain in the rear end, you have to use a grid"? Because you're already handwaving and houseruling a bunch of poo poo anyway what with letting Fighters occupy nine squares simultaneously and that AoE's just hit whatever you want whenever and flanking just happens declaratively.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 19:56
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:To steer this back towards Next, the reason why we want to eliminate attack rolls is so that we eliminate the boring, nothing-happens miss result. However, part of the reason why misses are so boring in the first place is because there's often very little a player can do about it. Metacurrency's not bad as a get-out-of-trouble card, but I dislike the idea that players would need to rely on it to have better than 50% odds of doing stuff, just as much as I dislike the idea that the players would basically have to rely on GM benevolence to have a better chance("Come on, can this count as a flanking maneuver already? I'm tired of missing."). Why not simply give the basic attack a 100% chance of success, or perhaps an 80% chance of success, with a guaranteed minimum damage if it misses, and instead give them a variety of things to do that involve risking their guaranteed hit/minimum damage in exchange for status effects or a chance at higher damage. Power attacks, knockdowns, stuns, blinding, bleeding, wacky elemental maneuvers from eldritch knights, AoE-sweeping strikes, etc. Kai Tave posted:Then why don't you just do all this with 4E instead of going "man, what a pain in the rear end, you have to use a grid"? Because you're already handwaving and houseruling a bunch of poo poo anyway what with letting Fighters occupy nine squares simultaneously and that AoE's just hit whatever you want whenever and flanking just happens declaratively. Because grids are a pain in the rear end when gaming online, like I usually do? I don't have any groups in my area and I've found all the programs I could use to run something with a grid to be thoroughly poo poo. Not to mention that having a tactical map for every potential encounter is a pain in the rear end, when my players could decide to pick fights I might not have expected them to pick, or otherwise run off the tracks. I'm terribly sorry for letting my players have fun and do things without requiring them to fulfill strict mechanical requirements, I apologize for sullying your hobby so with the dire crime of houseruling. Also seriously do you think that giving fighters more leeway is really something that warrants complaining about? 90% of the thread since I started reading it has been: "Man, fighters really need a break." PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Feb 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 19:59
|
|
|
Or you can use the system some area-control board games have instead of dice. Both sides select a modifier card, place it face down, and reveal simultaneously. If you then restrict modifier cards so you can't just spam the best one all the time, the system allows for unknown outcomes while still being in control of the players. EDIT: PurpleXVI, you aren't answering the question. Kai Tave asked why you're willing to houserule 3E and 5E to gridless, but not 4E. If making houserules is so much effort, why did you do it for two different editions? If making houserules is easy, why didn't you do it for 4E? golden bubble fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Feb 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 20:03
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:Because grids are a pain in the rear end when gaming online, like I usually do? I don't have any groups in my area and I've found all the programs I could use to run something with a grid to be thoroughly poo poo. Not to mention that having a tactical map for every potential encounter is a pain in the rear end, when my players could decide to pick fights I might not have expected them to pick, or otherwise run off the tracks. Jesus Christ, way to miss my loving point. If you're willing to handwave 3.X's use of a grid out of the way why don't you just handwave 4E's use of a grid away? "But 4E NEEDS a grid!" And so does 3.X and yet somehow a whole bunch of people had no problem just going "nah, we don't need one." But 4E? Oh man, gently caress that noise, you need a map.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 20:03
|
|
|
The X-Com comparison doesn't really stand up very well anyway, due to the fact that your X-Com soldiers are very likely to die en masse. So, unless you want to spend half of your game time making a zillion character sheets, it's not a great example.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 20:05
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:Metacurrency's not bad as a get-out-of-trouble card, but I dislike the idea that players would need to rely on it to have better than 50% odds of doing stuff, just as much as I dislike the idea that the players would basically have to rely on GM benevolence to have a better chance("Come on, can this count as a flanking maneuver already? I'm tired of missing."). Why not simply give the basic attack a 100% chance of success, or perhaps an 80% chance of success, with a guaranteed minimum damage if it misses, and instead give them a variety of things to do that involve risking their guaranteed hit/minimum damage in exchange for status effects or a chance at higher damage. Power attacks, knockdowns, stuns, blinding, bleeding, wacky elemental maneuvers from eldritch knights, AoE-sweeping strikes, etc. Well yeah, an always-hit-with-variance-via-interesting-effects system would also work, I was speaking from the viewpoint of an approach that you could more easily shoehorn into Next. I also agree that metacurrency technically shouldn't be necessarily to what is essentially just playing the game at its baseline level, but "game where all the characters have interesting abilities that they can always call upon" definitely isn't Next. Dick Burglar posted:The X-Com comparison doesn't really stand up very well anyway, due to the fact that your X-Com soldiers are very likely to die en masse. So, unless you want to spend half of your game time making a zillion character sheets, it's not a great example. I was just drawing the comparison to illustrate a game where missed attacks are "interesting" because you have a lot of control over just how high or low your miss chance actually is.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 20:09
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:Jesus Christ, way to miss my loving point. If you're willing to handwave 3.X's use of a grid out of the way why don't you just handwave 4E's use of a grid away? The way I feel about 4E, from my limited experience with it, is that the grid in 4E is a lot harder to ignore than it is in 3E and 5E. For instance, 4E has classes that are based more around careful and precise positioning and repositioning of things, than any class in 3E or 5E(at least that I've ever seen, I will concede that 3E has so many loving third-party splats that there may have been a Gridmaster in there somewhere). And why are you so angry about my houseruling 5E, anyway? Am I not allowed to come up with a mix of 4E and 5E that I enjoy? Dick Burglar posted:The X-Com comparison doesn't really stand up very well anyway, due to the fact that your X-Com soldiers are very likely to die en masse. So, unless you want to spend half of your game time making a zillion character sheets, it's not a great example. It works for the Firaxis X-COM remake which runs a lot more with small squads of elites than the big swarms of disposable rookies of the original(but they're not that much more accurate, despite that). gradenko_2000 posted:Well yeah, an always-hit-with-variance-via-interesting-effects system would also work, I was speaking from the viewpoint of an approach that you could more easily shoehorn into Next. I'm kind of looking for the least-aggressive way to "fix" 5E here(seriously, I'm never gonna call it Next, that's a loving stupid name), myself, because I started up running a game a few weeks ago that's actually going pretty well(in the early levels, and without much in the way of combat, so I'm suspecting that's gonna change), and I don't want to gently caress it up by suddenly changing systems a few sessions in, or losing a good PC dynamic by scrapping the game entirely. My hope is that just tossing some extra abilities/maneuvers at the primarily martial characters(party's two fighters, one aiming for eldritch knight, a ranger, a cleric and a druid), I'm expecting that the cleric and druid will get enough tools out of their spells to not need any real work. Here's a thought, to wrap "always-hit-with-variance-via-interesting-effects system" into 5E: Why not just knock the martial class attack bonuses upwards? Say, throw them up to a base of +10 or something, really good hits don't do extra damage unless they're crits, so no problem upsetting HP/damage balance. Then you give the martial classes maneuvers, or whatever term you want, that they can trade for their damage bonus. Small, spammable maneuvers just reduce it for the attack they're on, while the big, huge once-an-encounter maneuvers take a chunk out of the attack bonus until the next short rest, meaning that a fighter could literally trade himself into the negatives in exchange for making some huge attacks, until he next gets a chance to catch a breather. PurpleXVI fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Feb 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 20:11
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:The way I feel about 4E, from my limited experience with it, is that the grid in 4E is a lot harder to ignore than it is in 3E and 5E. For instance, 4E has classes that are based more around careful and precise positioning and repositioning of things, than any class in 3E or 5E(at least that I've ever seen, I will concede that 3E has so many loving third-party splats that there may have been a Gridmaster in there somewhere). And why are you so angry about my houseruling 5E, anyway? Am I not allowed to come up with a mix of 4E and 5E that I enjoy? I don't give a poo poo what you play, I just think it's dumb to say that of two heavily grid-based games one is super easy to play gridless while the other is nigh impossible, and for the record you're far from the only person I've seen say this. 3.X is chock-full of stuff that requires precise positioning...it's the edition that really codified the Attack of Opportunity and its rules for it are way, way more fiddly than 4E's, it's where spike chain tripmasters came from, you have 5-foot steps and abilities and effects that move stuff in increments of five feet, precisely measured area-effect spells, etc. If you can go gridless with one, I fail to see why you can't just go gridless with the other. It shouldn't be any harder to make 4E a ~theater of the mind~ game than it was with 3.X, people just don't seem to want to do it because (I guess) things are measured in "squares" instead of "X feet" distances.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 20:17
|
|
|
Was about to say that, but I'll echo it: the only appreciable difference I've seen between 4e combat movement/placement & 5e is that one uses "squares" and the other uses "feet."
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 20:19
|
|
|
What I'm saying is that if your main reason for not playing 4E, online or off, is "it uses a grid" but you're perfectly willing to play 3.X gridless, why not just give 4E gridless a try? It can not involve any more work to function than the other did.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 20:24
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:What I'm saying is that if your main reason for not playing 4E, online or off, is "it uses a grid" but you're perfectly willing to play 3.X gridless, why not just give 4E gridless a try? It can not involve any more work to function than the other did. Well, the main reason, currently, is that I'm already running a 5E game that's going pretty well, and I'd rather not mess that up by suddenly switching systems or scrapping it in favour of a new game with a new system. And I'm totally cool with 4E offline, that's kind of the thing I was saying: I love the grid and board as a physical thing, but online it feels like a pain in the rear end to mess with more badly-coded software than I already have to. I have no issue in principle with 4E using a grid, or 4E as a system, I think it's great that we have it. Please don't mistake me for one of the ardent "BUT BUT BUT IT'S LIKE AN MMO"-grognards.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 20:28
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:The way I feel about 4E, from my limited experience with it, is that the grid in 4E is a lot harder to ignore than it is in 3E and 5E. For instance, 4E has classes that are based more around careful and precise positioning and repositioning of things, than any class in 3E or 5E(at least that I've ever seen, I will concede that 3E has so many loving third-party splats that there may have been a Gridmaster in there somewhere). And why are you so angry about my houseruling 5E, anyway? Am I not allowed to come up with a mix of 4E and 5E that I enjoy? Thread: Because they are and here are some examples. You: Yes but if you ignore those bits and add a bunch of house rules they work fine. Thread: By your logic, 4E doesn't need a grid either. You: No that's different, also you seem super mad about me houseruling 5e why do you hate fighters stop telling me how to have fun Boing posted:Anyone played the boardgame Descent? It's a tactical miniatures dungeon crawler game with cute little damage dice that you roll depending on your class and weapon, and the figure being attacked rolls armour dice depending on their armour, so instead of rolling to hit you roll opposing damage and armour soak at the same time which is quick and speedy and fun. But just rolling dice against one another doesn't make an interesting combat system so it also had special moves and resource management and positioning and interesting interactive abilities, whereas D&D 5E has you trying to convince the GM 'no, I definitely said I was standing 10ft in front of the wizard' and saying 'I attack the closest enemy' every turn because TotM maneuverability lacks the interesting and discrete gamey tactics of Descent/4E or the exciting freeform narrative of something like DW. Boing posted:For a game where almost every class mechanic is about combat in some way, D&D really sucks at it. The fun I've had with it is playing a wizard and totally bending the encounters around my battlefield-altering spells while the rest of my party makes numbers go down. Splicer fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Feb 26, 2015 |
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 20:30
|
|
|
PurpleXVI posted:Well, the main reason, currently, is that I'm already running a 5E game that's going pretty well, and I'd rather not mess that up by suddenly switching systems or scrapping it in favour of a new game with a new system. And I'm totally cool with 4E offline, that's kind of the thing I was saying: I love the grid and board as a physical thing, but online it feels like a pain in the rear end to mess with more badly-coded software than I already have to. I have no issue in principle with 4E using a grid, or 4E as a system, I think it's great that we have it. Please don't mistake me for one of the ardent "BUT BUT BUT IT'S LIKE AN MMO"-grognards. Okay, well I wasn't telling you that you absolutely had to ditch your game and play 4E right this second or anything, I just think that the whole "but 4E needs a grid!" thing is, and has been, very, very overstated. And even accepting the idea that 4E requires a grid where other grid-based games can just work fine without them, I'm not really sure that it's more of a pain in the rear end to set up maps and minis in real life every time a fight starts as opposed to setting up a map in paint and throwing some tokens up on a Google docs page online is. We (not you and me, the general we) had this discussion a few chat threads back about PbPs and I maintain that if you're willing to do all the setup and takedown for a face-to-face game full of grid combat that doing so for a PbP isn't really that much more work.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 20:36
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:We (not you and me, the general we) had this discussion a few chat threads back about PbPs and I maintain that if you're willing to do all the setup and takedown for a face-to-face game full of grid combat that doing so for a PbP isn't really that much more work. Yeah, I'll agree there, it's not necessarily a lot more work. The utilities I've found online, last I tried to deal with grids online(A Star Wars Saga game, so that may account for some of the bad taste it left in my mouth, admittedly), just felt clunky and really added to everyone's combat fatigue in having to deal with them. Assuming I had a gorgeous, ideal utility for it that maybe even handled some of the game rules, I'd be up for it, but not with the buggy trash I've had to deal with so far. Then again, after the initial poor impression, I haven't really looked for anything, so it's entirely plausible that something's out there and I've simply not experienced it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 20:53
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 20:39 |
|
|
Kai Tave posted:Okay, well I wasn't telling you that you absolutely had to ditch your game and play 4E right this second or anything, I just think that the whole "but 4E needs a grid!" thing is, and has been, very, very overstated. And even accepting the idea that 4E requires a grid where other grid-based games can just work fine without them, I'm not really sure that it's more of a pain in the rear end to set up maps and minis in real life every time a fight starts as opposed to setting up a map in paint and throwing some tokens up on a Google docs page online is. We (not you and me, the general we) had this discussion a few chat threads back about PbPs and I maintain that if you're willing to do all the setup and takedown for a face-to-face game full of grid combat that doing so for a PbP isn't really that much more work. It's simple man. 4e is good with a grid, and bad without a grid. 3.x is bad with a grid, and bad without a grid. So to an observer, 4e gets worse without a grid present, but 3.x does not. It's just all relative.
|
|
#
?
Feb 26, 2015 20:56
|
|