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Is WotC doing a metaplot with 5e or am I misinterpreting their products line? Also, I never heard of R.A. Salvatore before, but this thread and his wubba wubba story made me like him. When it comes to him as a person, atleast. Might try his books. I usually avoid tie-in fiction.
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May 8, 2015 00:29
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PeterWeller posted:The games aren't official canon, but their novelizations are. Does... does that make the novelization of Planescape Torment canon?
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May 8, 2015 00:48
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The Crotch posted:Oh, Christ. Nah, you don't have to worry. All the novelizations of games and modules are canon in FR, but that rule doesn't necessarily apply to other settings.
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May 8, 2015 01:06
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On the other hand, the Baldur's Gate novels are indistinguishable from bad fanfiction to the point where I have literally stopped reading it and double-checked to make sure this was a book that was actually published.
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May 8, 2015 01:17
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Covok posted:Is WotC doing a metaplot with 5e or am I misinterpreting their products line? All of their current adventure paths take place in the Forgotten Realms, which has a metaplot.
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May 8, 2015 01:49
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what does metaplot means
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May 8, 2015 01:51
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Metaplot means an ongoing story line that the game books follow. It's often a bad thing because it leads to adventures where the PCs have no agency and just watch important NPCs from the fiction do important stuff. It sounds like they are trying to avoid that problem with this tie-in. It should be noted that metaplot is nothing new to FR. LightWarden posted:On the other hand, the Baldur's Gate novels are indistinguishable from bad fanfiction to the point where I have literally stopped reading it and double-checked to make sure this was a book that was actually published. Yeah, I have heard that from many people. PeterWeller fucked around with this message at 01:58 on May 8, 2015 |
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May 8, 2015 01:55
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For TRPGs? That means the setting has an overarching plot that happens regardless of the player characters' actions.
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May 8, 2015 01:55
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frajaq posted:what does metaplot means An overarching storyline that ties together all the various books in a roleplaying line. Forgotten Realms has a cohesive plot going back to 1987.
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May 8, 2015 02:00
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Doesn't organized play basically always have a metaplot?
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May 8, 2015 04:45
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Yes. Also apparently the adventures have QR codes that you can scan and fill out a survey for how you dealt with certain things, did important NPCs die, get saved, captured, etc. How did you deal with this, did the town burn, whatever. And those would presumably end up determining how later adventures would be written. If most killed an NPC or let them die, then they probably aren't showing up in later adventures.
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May 8, 2015 05:07
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I don't know how you losers play D&D in other countries, but here in America we invented this little thing called democracy. 
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May 8, 2015 05:15
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Really Pants posted:Yeah, maybe that book you didn't enjoy will be different this time around. He pointed out he only read the first chapter.
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May 8, 2015 05:49
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Ryuujin posted:Yes. Also apparently the adventures have QR codes that you can scan and fill out a survey for how you dealt with certain things, did important NPCs die, get saved, captured, etc. How did you deal with this, did the town burn, whatever. And those would presumably end up determining how later adventures would be written. If most killed an NPC or let them die, then they probably aren't showing up in later adventures. Oh boy, like in Torg! But with more modern implementation than mailing in post cards. No way will this come around to bite those to whom said NPCs turn out to be important staples of the game, or who end up going very off rails during the course of play, right in the rear end. But then staying on message and not deviating from the path is pretty important for organized play, isn't it?
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May 8, 2015 07:19
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MonsterEnvy posted:Also link to some concept art for the new storyline This actually looks pretty cool and fun.
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May 8, 2015 07:53
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thespaceinvader posted:This actually looks pretty cool and fun. 5e art always does.
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May 8, 2015 09:22
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So we might actually be able to Kill Elminster?
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May 8, 2015 13:32
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http://ragingowlbear.blogspot.com/2015/05/dragon-issue-1-exactly-what-were-not.html?m=1quote:Once I started reading on the iPad, some of the issue in the app became apparent. Loading the magazine issue from the main app screen resulted in a never ending spinner several times. I had to manually restart the app a few times. There were a few other wonky UI issues I ran into, so it appears they may need to do some additional testing and bug fixes. It was a bit frustrating, but I kept at it.
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May 8, 2015 15:45
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Splicer posted:So we might actually be able to Kill Elminster?
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May 8, 2015 15:47
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gradenko_2000 posted:...the article does include a pre-generated PC/NPC... but there appears to be no way to export or print the character sheet! Original Character Do Not Steal!
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May 8, 2015 23:42
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This idea has been kicked around my group a couple of times, but; a campaign set in the Forgotten Realms where you kill all of its pedantic pantheons in an orgy of deicide. I can not be the only one who has wanted to do this?
Strength of Many fucked around with this message at 05:08 on May 10, 2015 |
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May 10, 2015 04:33
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Payndz posted:I've never once played an FR game (or anything with a metaplot, for that matter), but if I were DMing, the very first adventure for the players would be called "Who killed Elminster?" He really is dead, dead, dead despite all those Mary Sue tricks that are meant to save him - and the reason a bunch of L1 nobodies has been asked to investigate the murder is that everyone else is terrified that anything which could kill such a powerful wizard might still be around and get them too.
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May 10, 2015 05:00
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Strength of Many posted:This idea has been kicked around my group a couple of times, but; a campaign set in the Forgotten Realms where you kill all of its pedantic pantheons in an orgy of deicide. I can not be the only one who has wanted to do this?
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May 10, 2015 05:13
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So here's something that I've never been able to parse out. When folks like Mearls talk about the design of systems like 5e (or 3.5), any scattered mentions of class balance and role usually mention something like "The Fighter is the best class at fighting, and . . . " I've never been able to figure out what that means, and specifically whether it's being said in good faith. Obviously 4e was really clear about what the strengths, weaknesses, and tactical role of each class were, in part due to its focus on symmetrical design and meaningful differentiation. But even 3rd edition-based rules could allow for defined roles like this to a smaller extent. When I was 14 I was designing tank builds for Neverwinter Nights PVP arena servers, and the reason my builds caught on is because they eschewed raw DPS and survivability in favor of a more clearly defined role as a dedicated frontline crowd control machine that kept squishies safe via knockdowns and taunts. Folks who maxed out survivability would just run around meaninglessly and get ignored until they were the last one on their team to die, and folks who tried to hit a baseline of melee tankiness and then max out DPS would just get clowned and outshone by real DPS options like Wizards and Rogues who abused the game's stealth and sneak attack mechanics. So I guess because I've always come at this from a videogame background and specifically as someone who wanted desperately to be a low-rent character designer for a low-rent MOBA wannabe, it's always been intuitive to me that anyone whose character build gameplan is just "be the best at fighting" is going to have a bunch of numbers in stats that aren't as meaningful as they look. But do Mearls and co. think they're saying something meaningful when they say that? Is it just a disingenuous way of claiming that they've given the Fighter a set of strengths and a niche without having done so, or do they think "fighting" is a meaningful concept that somehow includes what Fighters do but doesn't include the combat-ending powers that full casters can bust out? Do they just mean that if two characters walk up to each other and do nothing but autoattack, the Fighter will typically win?
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May 10, 2015 06:59
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Jenny Angel posted:So I guess because I've always come at this from a videogame background[...] You are not D&D Next's target audience. I'm not saying this just to be glib, it's a version of D&D that's quite explicitly aimed at diehard D&D fans first, second, and third. "Videogame" is a four-letter word to the sorts of people Next is aimed at and, I would guess, the sorts of people making it. For instance: quote:Is it just a disingenuous way of claiming that they've given the Fighter a set of strengths and a niche without having done so,[...] it's this. The Next PHB gushes all over magic and how awesome it is, and the final version of the rules are the end result of successive drafts where anything that Fighters had that was marginally interesting and useful was systematically pared down into tepid mediocrity, but if you ask Mearls or any "true D&D fan" what the purpose of the Fighter is they'll sell you some tautological line about how the Fighter is for fighting and that's as far as it goes. The Fighter in Next doesn't really have a niche...swinging swords isn't a class exclusive ability, there are plenty of other classes that can do so, they receive nothing as useful or powerful as magical abilities that other classes receive, and what abilities they do have are hobbled and limited.
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May 10, 2015 07:13
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In theory, the fighter is best at basic attacks, which is what real fighting is all about. Everything else is either magic (good) or anime (evil).
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May 10, 2015 07:22
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Kai Tave posted:You are not D&D Next's target audience. But the videogames I grew up on were all D&D-based games.  Surely that counts for something!quote:the final version of the rules are the end result of successive drafts where anything that Fighters had that was marginally interesting and useful was systematically pared down into tepid mediocrity I'm actually really curious about this, if you or someone else can go into more detail about it. Were there earlier iterations of the Next/5E Fighter that were more interesting, and if so, how did those get pared down into what we ended up with? What kind of rationales were given as far as stripping away those useful abilities?
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May 10, 2015 07:28
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Jenny Angel posted:But the videogames I grew up on were all D&D-based games. It's kind of interesting to go back and play the old D&D videogames like Baldur's Gate because in a lot of respects they illustrate how dumb AD&D2E combat could be (the edition they're roughly based on I believe) but at the same time it becomes much more interesting when you aren't just a single character but actually controlling an entire adventuring party. Then the whole Vancian casting/sword all day differential becomes more engaging at the very least because you aren't playing Steve the Wizard who casts Sleep once and then has to hide for the next five hours of tabletop time until the GM allows you to rest, and you aren't playing Bob the Fighter who later in the game gets glossed over by Steve, you get to handle all of that stuff, including the fun parts and the choosing when to use what and kiting enemies and swapping weapons, and an 8 hour rest isn't something you have to negotiate with the GM for so even if you want to try and cheese things with a 15 minute adventuring day at least it's relatively painless. Jenny Angel posted:I'm actually really curious about this, if you or someone else can go into more detail about it. Were there earlier iterations of the Next/5E Fighter that were more interesting, and if so, how did those get pared down into what we ended up with? What kind of rationales were given as far as stripping away those useful abilities? I don't have the links offhand but someone here probably does, there were multiple "playtesting drafts" released in the runup to Next and Fighters at least had more generous Martial Dice recovery (they used to regain dice every turn for example) and generally had anything remotely interesting bled out of them for being "too powerful," but don't get me wrong, they were always saddled with poo poo like "you can jump 1d6 inches further, wowwwwwww."
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May 10, 2015 07:36
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Strength of Many posted:This idea has been kicked around my group a couple of times, but; a campaign set in the Forgotten Realms where you kill all of its pedantic pantheons in an orgy of deicide. I can not be the only one who has wanted to do this? I've been running this on and off for a good while using 13th Age (Originally Pathfinder, but around level 8 we decided 'gently caress Pathfinder'). It's good times. Night10194 fucked around with this message at 07:42 on May 10, 2015 |
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May 10, 2015 07:38
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Kai Tave posted:It's kind of interesting to go back and play the old D&D videogames like Baldur's Gate because in a lot of respects they illustrate how dumb AD&D2E combat could be (the edition they're roughly based on I believe) but at the same time it becomes much more interesting when you aren't just a single character but actually controlling an entire adventuring party. Then the whole Vancian casting/sword all day differential becomes more engaging at the very least because you aren't playing Steve the Wizard who casts Sleep once and then has to hide for the next five hours of tabletop time until the GM allows you to rest, and you aren't playing Bob the Fighter who later in the game gets glossed over by Steve, you get to handle all of that stuff, including the fun parts and the choosing when to use what and kiting enemies and swapping weapons, and an 8 hour rest isn't something you have to negotiate with the GM for so even if you want to try and cheese things with a 15 minute adventuring day at least it's relatively painless. I still remember watching my dad play through Neverwinter Nights with a Fighter, wondering why the hell his "action bar" was so bare of activatable abilities, seeing him prep for a fight by downing a bunch of different potions, and then going through the game basically just auto-attacking through the game with flashier and flashier swords. Or when I'd level up a dude in Icewind Dale and ... I clicked the level-up button ... now what? Why didn't I get to increase some stats or choose a new ability to play with?
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May 10, 2015 08:00
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gradenko_2000 posted:I still remember watching my dad play through Neverwinter Nights with a Fighter, wondering why the hell his "action bar" was so bare of activatable abilities, seeing him prep for a fight by downing a bunch of different potions, and then going through the game basically just auto-attacking through the game with flashier and flashier swords. I remember as a dumb kid thinking my fighters were the most powerful characters in Baldur's Gate because they had unlimited ammunition and I had elixir/rocket launcher syndrome hard about using limited magic resources. At the same time, I remember thinking enemy wizards were absolute bullshit with all their 'fighters can't kill me' spells and stuns and instant-kills. Somehow I did not put 2 and 2 together for quite some time and realize what wizbiz could do for me.
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May 10, 2015 08:07
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Night10194 posted:I remember as a dumb kid thinking my fighters were the most powerful characters in Baldur's Gate because they had unlimited ammunition and I had elixir/rocket launcher syndrome hard about using limited magic resources. At the same time, I remember thinking enemy wizards were absolute bullshit with all their 'fighters can't kill me' spells and stuns and instant-kills. Somehow I did not put 2 and 2 together for quite some time and realize what wizbiz could do for me. Admittedly, if you're clever enough (and sometimes lucky enough) you can exploit the fact that enemy wizards follow the same Vancian casting rules as your own wizards do, and so while they have no compunction about unloading on you with all their spells once they're tapped they become frail dudes in bathrobes with sticks. Bacter and Mzbundifund have been doing an infrequently updated Let's Play of Baldur's Gate where they exploit this fact for personal gain, sometimes even intentionally.
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May 10, 2015 08:11
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The actual telling thing is how fast "fighters should be the best at FIGHTING but NOTHING ELSE" people cry for fighter nerfs when they do too much damage.
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May 10, 2015 10:19
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ProfessorCirno posted:The actual telling thing is how fast "fighters should be the best at FIGHTING but NOTHING ELSE" people cry for fighter nerfs when they do too much damage. Yeah, this is a problem. When I was discussing some house-rules with forums-poster Ryuujin for his latest PbP game, my viewpoint to him was basically, "If fighters are supposed to be the best at Fighting, they need to be mathematically superior at damage in ways that other classes can't duplicate." Which is why splashing fighting styles over ranger and paladin is sorta loving stupid.
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May 10, 2015 18:57
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Bongo Bill posted:In theory, the fighter is best at basic attacks, which is what real fighting is all about. Everything else is either magic (good) or anime (evil). Fighters are also supposed to have the most HP and be able to wear the best armor, as well as being proficient with the most weapons. Unfortunately, all of these are hangovers from editions of the game when they were actually relevant. In older editions -- 1E and the like -- it was a lot harder for casters to just end a fight by skipping past HP damage, which meant that armor, weapons, and HP were still relevant. Even then, though, most fighters just specialized in one weapon and carried a couple backups. And the specialization rules were pretty generous; a 1E fighter with double specialization in bow is a death machine. Plus magic items were usually handed out by rolling on random tables, which meant that your fighter, with his wider range of proficiencies, had a better chance of being able to use that suit of +2 banded mail or +1 glaive-guisarme of sharpness you just found in the dragon's lair. And a lot of the cooler magic items were specifically usable only by martial classes -- no getting around that with Use Magic Device.
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May 10, 2015 19:04
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I think if you're going to give casters saveable and non-saveable ways to hinder and kill opponents then fighters need to be picking up ways to hack off heads and limbs (ignoring HP, of course - what chump cares about those?) at about the same time.
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May 10, 2015 19:06
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Gort posted:I think if you're going to give casters saveable and non-saveable ways to hinder and kill opponents then fighters need to be picking up ways to hack off heads and limbs (ignoring HP, of course - what chump cares about those?) at about the same time. Basically, fighters should just get all of the grapple and trip improvement feats that 3E had baked into the class, then stack on crippling maneuvers that cause other status effects as they carve up their opponents. I want to see my fighter inflict horrible bleed effects, stat penalties as they break limbs and fingers/hands/feet/weapons, etc. That would be thematic, effective, and would even synergize with other party members' abilities. Being able to shrug off certain effects would be nice as well, a la the Iron Heart stuff from Bo9S.
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May 10, 2015 19:14
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Selachian posted:Fighters are also supposed to have the most HP and be able to wear the best armor, as well as being proficient with the most weapons. And even ignoring the (current) irrelevance of such benefits, it's not even true. Fighters don't have the best hit points, Barbarians do. And because of the way modern Constitution bonuses work, the difference between a Fighter and a Wizard is about 2 hp per level. That's nothing. Fighter have access to the "best" armor in the sense that we all have to pretend that heavy armor is the best. It's sort of in shared first place with light armor, except there's some different details. Light armor requires Dex, heavy armor doesn't. But heavy armor weighs more, has Str requirements, disadvantage on Stealth, that kind of thing. Regardless of the minutiae, heavy armor is not such a great boon compared to the other options. Oh and Paladins and many Clerics also can wear this armor. And finally, let's not forget that "armor" itself is meaningless, it's the AC we're after. Monks and Barbarians happen to have ways to get pretty high as well. So are Fighters bad at Armor Class? No, but they're clearly not so good at it that they deserve to be called the best in any meaningful sense. Weapon proficiency. Who cares? Just about everybody can use the weapons they want to. Rogues are proficient with tiny little daggers... but they rely on sneak attack instead of weapon dice. Wizard are proficient with walking sticks... but they now have at-will attack cantrips. Monks use fists... and they inherently improve their damage dice. Many Clerics have at-will attack cantrips and also good weapon proficiency. What's the point of being "the best" at weapon proficiency? It's about dealing damage, and weapon prof barely matters anymore for that. Being "the best" at any of these things is a hollow phrase, an empty symbolic status which ignores what these things actually mean within the context of the game.
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May 10, 2015 19:22
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The concern of FIGHTER IS BEST AT FIGHT ONLY people isn't making sure the Fighter is the best at fighting, it's making sure they're worse at everything else.
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May 10, 2015 19:22
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Selachian posted:Fighters are also supposed to have the most HP and be able to wear the best armor, as well as being proficient with the most weapons. The problem with this is that your weapon/armor loadouts are incredibly limited: STR -> Heavy Armor: biggest damage-die melee weapon you can use (with or without a shield), something Thrown for your ranged option DEX -> Light Armor: a bow or crossbow for range, and whatever finesseable TWF weapon you can use (even then you probably need to the Dual Wielder feat if you actually want to switch back and forth in-combat) So, being able to use all weapons is pretty loving underwhelming when you're going to be toggling between 2 weapons setups at absolute best; likewise, being able to use all armor is crap because which armor you use is entirely dependent on which ability score you pump. The Gate posted:Basically, fighters should just get all of the grapple and trip improvement feats that 3E had baked into the class, then stack on crippling maneuvers that cause other status effects as they carve up their opponents. I want to see my fighter inflict horrible bleed effects, stat penalties as they break limbs and fingers/hands/feet/weapons, etc. That would be thematic, effective, and would even synergize with other party members' abilities. Being able to shrug off certain effects would be nice as well, a la the Iron Heart stuff from Bo9S. In other words, 4th Edition Fighters.
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May 10, 2015 19:22
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