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moths posted:Writing clear rules is hardly "worst case scenario" though. Bringing it back to 5E, I was playing in a game last week and the GM kept being a complete cock to the rogue, shutting down his sneak attacks because "he wasn't sneaking" and such. After the fourth or fifth time I blurted out "That's his only class ability! It's all he does." and the GM said something like "Oh poo poo sorry yeah you can hit that dude I thought you had stuff" and stopped. A few minutes later the other rogue quietly leaned over to me and asked if it was really all a rogue could do, look at all these class abilities and then I got sad. e: Must tell them about dual attacking next week.
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May 18, 2015 22:40
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Splicer posted:and the GM said something like "Oh poo poo sorry yeah you can hit that dude I thought you had stuff" and stopped. How would the GM not know that that was all the rogue could do? Is the GM not even reading the game he's running?
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May 18, 2015 23:38
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DalaranJ posted:Is the GM not even reading the game he's running? Yet another thing that cant be fixed! Actually its the same things its "some people". I guess the solution is to stop talking to people and go all 
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May 18, 2015 23:42
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DalaranJ posted:How would the GM not know that that was all the rogue could do? Is the GM not even reading the game he's running? He knew. He has just learned through years of other strains of bad DMery that he has to punish rogues for not invoking the arcane words of "I'm sneaking" at the start of any sentence. He probably also has a nagging sense at the back of his mind when there's a paladin in the party and he isn't actively trying to trick said paladin into a moral catch-22 to make him fall. I assume.
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May 18, 2015 23:48
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FRINGE posted:Yet another thing that cant be fixed! Actually its the same things its "some people". Believe it or not good games (games with clear and unambiguous rules, games which are balanced, games that provide robust and useful advice on playing and running them) can and do lead to good gaming habits. Most lovely GMs and/or players didn't get that way in a void.
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May 19, 2015 00:18
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I never understood the sheer glut of Dungeon Masters who try and handicap Paladins and Rogues. At least with spellbooks and Wizards (past level 5), they were curtailing a class with the power to disrupt their entire campaign. What can a rogue?
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May 19, 2015 00:26
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Backstab their DMPC insert or other super-cool NPC. Paladins? gently caress knows. Maybe they just hate people with defined morality.
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May 19, 2015 00:29
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GrizzlyCow posted:I never understood the sheer glut of Dungeon Masters who try and handicap Paladins and Rogues. At least with spellbooks and Wizards (past level 5), they were curtailing a class with the power to disrupt their entire campaign. What can a rogue? If youre an adversarial DM instead of a "lets make a story" type you could probably fall into the "you dont get to cheat me" mental trap. Maybe the detect evil thing has the same issue. Or its the microscope-focus problem wherein the book calls out "if a player does this you get to do that" and since it is spelled out some people fixate on it.
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May 19, 2015 00:34
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The AD&D PHB presented Paladins as this super-powerful elite class. Some people believed it.
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May 19, 2015 00:42
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Cavaliers lived up to the hype.
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May 19, 2015 00:50
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moths posted:Writing clear rules is hardly "worst case scenario" though. Yeah, but "Some rear end in a top hat somewhere might twist this into characters with farmer backgrounds literally only know how to plow earth" is hardly a compelling argument against backgrounds as skills. "Extrapolate skills from the background you have created" is pretty clear to me.
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May 19, 2015 01:34
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I haven't seen it mentioned in here yet, but the latest Sage Advice says that Crossbow Expert won't let you make multiple crossbow attacks in one turn, but it says that its bonuses do apply to spellcasters making ranged attacks. Those martials almost had an advantage over casters for a second! Glad we dodged that bullet.
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May 19, 2015 02:52
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Jimmeeee posted:I haven't seen it mentioned in here yet, but the latest Sage Advice says that Crossbow Expert won't let you make multiple crossbow attacks in one turn, but it says that its bonuses do apply to spellcasters making ranged attacks. Those martials almost had an advantage over casters for a second! Glad we dodged that bullet. Not quite. It says you can make multiple attacks if you have a class feature that allows you to multi-attack (e.g. Fighter, Valor Bard), but you must have a free hand to draw and reload ammunition. This does totally kill my badass two-fisted handcrossbow build, though.
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May 19, 2015 02:57
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Jimmeeee posted:I haven't seen it mentioned in here yet, but the latest Sage Advice says that Crossbow Expert won't let you make multiple crossbow attacks in one turn, but it says that its bonuses do apply to spellcasters making ranged attacks. Those martials almost had an advantage over casters for a second! Glad we dodged that bullet. quote:It means Crossbow Expert makes it possible to fire a hand crossbow more than once with a feature like Extra Attack
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May 19, 2015 02:57
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Mecha Gojira posted:Not quite. It says you can make multiple attacks if you have a class feature that allows you to multi-attack (e.g. Fighter, Valor Bard), but you must have a free hand to draw and reload ammunition. This does totally kill my badass two-fisted handcrossbow build, though. Oops, my mistake. Rereading it, I'm not really sure what distinction he's making in the second and third points there. So we're not allowed to fire off multiple shots, unless we have the Extra Attack feature? What other situations would we be firing off multiple shots in one action? Is the distinction just that you have to have a hand free for loading?
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May 19, 2015 03:03
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Jimmeeee posted:Oops, my mistake. Rereading it, I'm not really sure what distinction he's making in the second and third points there. So we're not allowed to fire off multiple shots, unless we have the Extra Attack feature? What other situations would we be firing off multiple shots in one action? Is the distinction just that you have to have a hand free for loading? Part of the feat says if you have a loaded crossbow in one hand, you can take a bonus action to fire it after making an attack with a one-handed weapon. Like I said, this clarification kills my double-fisted hand crossbow build because you require a free hand to load, ao it's not like I could use the bonus action after firing with another hand crossbow. Then again, I'm not sure how you're supposed to make a bonus action with a loaded crossbow if you need a hand free to load it? I guess you sheathe your other one-handed weapon and then pull it back out next round? After all, drawing and stowing weapons is part of the "action" now. Hell, their clarification doesn't make any sense. The feat says you must have a loaded crossbow to fire it with the bonus action, and the Sage article says you can do it from the same handcrossbow you already fired, but if you've already loaded and fired it as part of the action, your handcrossbow ISN'T loaded. "Sage Article posted:Does Crossbow Expert let you fire a hand crossbow and then fire it again as a bonus action? It does! Take a look at the feat’s third benefit. It says you can attack with a hand crossbow as a bonus action when you use the Attack action to attack with a one-handed weapon. A hand crossbow is a one-handed weapon, so it can, indeed, be used for both attacks, assuming you have a hand free to load the hand crossbow between the two attacks. PHB p. 165 posted:When you use the Attack action and attack with a onehanded weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a loaded [emphasis added] hand crossbow you are holding. What I'm saying is gently caress 5e. Mecha Gojira fucked around with this message at 03:26 on May 19, 2015 |
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May 19, 2015 03:12
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Jimmeeee posted:I haven't seen it mentioned in here yet, but the latest Sage Advice says that Crossbow Expert won't let you make multiple crossbow attacks in one turn, but it says that its bonuses do apply to spellcasters making ranged attacks. Those martials almost had an advantage over casters for a second! Glad we dodged that bullet.
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May 19, 2015 03:13
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I'm at a loss for words describing the feeling I've got knowing that my Half-Orc Assassin is only getting worse with official ruling. I'm pretty sure the word I'm looking for is either Russian or German, though.
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May 19, 2015 03:23
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Father Wendigo posted:I'm at a loss for words describing the feeling I've got knowing that my Half-Orc Assassin is only getting worse with official ruling. I'm pretty sure the word I'm looking for is either Russian or German, though. The article might as well say, "It's up to your GM," since the author apparently didn't even bother to read the feat he was trying to clarify. Except I guess this is worse because it totally contradicts RAW? Or better because it salvages the bonus attack? I don't know. I mean, I can see the reasoning behind the idea. You load a weapon as part of your action, I guess including the bonus action attack. But then why throw the word "loaded" in the feat? What does that accomplish or clarify? It only muddles things. How are these people employed and why do people want to play this lovely, half-assed edition? Mecha Gojira fucked around with this message at 03:32 on May 19, 2015 |
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May 19, 2015 03:25
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Mecha Gojira posted:Part of the feat says if you have a loaded crossbow in one hand, you can take a bonus action to fire it after making an attack with a one-handed weapon. Like I said, this clarification kills my double-fisted hand crossbow build because you require a free hand to load, ao it's not like I could use the bonus action after firing with another hand crossbow. The rules are, as usual, really shittily written, but I think you can still pull that off. Do some matrix poo poo, drawing and dropping a new hand-crossbow every round.
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May 19, 2015 03:37
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Tunicate posted:The rules are, as usual, really shittily written, but I think you can still pull that off, provided you do some matrix poo poo, drawing and dropping a new hand-crossbow every round. Honestly, according to the article you'd basically get the overall same effect from just using the single one-handed crossbow for your Extra Attacks and Bonus Action Attack. After all, you're still getting that extra attack in either way. You just don't get to carry a shield or use a different weapon in your other hand, the latter of which is what I assumed the feat was actually for. Also, I learned that I was cheating by using a hand crossbow and a shield at the same time earlier in our current campaign. Oh well! Edit: If you want to attack with a hand crossbow as a bonus action while carrying a different weapon in your other hand, here's how you do it if I got my RAW straight. You can draw your weapon during your movement, sheathe it as part of the attack action (so I guess hit then stow), then use your bonus action to load the handcrossbow in your other hand and fire. Then rinse and repeat. Basically nothing has changed from how I figured it worked except now I have the extra steps of declaring extra crap. Mecha Gojira fucked around with this message at 04:05 on May 19, 2015 |
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May 19, 2015 03:40
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Given how incoherent 5e's design is, I am wondering if it would actually warp anything if you just.. gave your players free Feats every time they would normally get an Ability Score Improvement? and of course a free feat at level one. Why should Humans get all the fun?
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May 19, 2015 04:07
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Strength of Many posted:Given how incoherent 5e's design is, I am wondering if it would actually warp anything if you just.. gave your players free Feats every time they would normally get an Ability Score Improvement? and of course a free feat at level one. Why should Humans get all the fun? Some feats actually have ability score improvements built into them on top of stuff like adding saving throw proficiencies. So, it'd might actually make the game playable at higher levels since you wouldn't be completely hosed out of 2/3's of your saves.
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May 19, 2015 04:13
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So you can't repeatedly fire twice with two hand crossbows because you need a hand to load, but you can fire repeatedly with a single hand crossbow including that bonus attack from the feat. This is clearly better than double-crossbow-john-woo-jumping-sideways-through-the-air tricks because
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May 19, 2015 04:14
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quote:LUCKY What? So now Lucky turns Disadvantage into Super Advantage? You don't even roll two dice, pick the lowest and then roll a new die and take the better of those two. Or roll two dice, take the lowest, roll another two dice and take the lowest. Then take the highest of the two sets. Nope. Just roll three dice and take the one you want.
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May 19, 2015 04:15
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Since the math team was undoubtedly fired after they made their adjustments to the core books, and now it's just regular non-math-understanding game designers making rules, this is only to be expected.
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May 19, 2015 04:25
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The hand crossbow ruling more or less made sense to me. The only practical thing lost was being able to use a shield in one hand while still getting to use your bonus action for an extra attack. While not overpowered relative to the crap casters can pull, it was out of line with basically any other weapon/feat combo. As for the "can't dual wield them" thing, that part of the ruling is easily left ignored. If you get # of attacks + bonus shot per turn with one hand crossbow, flavor those attacks however you want. The real ridiculousness in that sage advice column was the clarification on "Lucky": quote:For example, if you have disadvantage on your attack roll, you could spend a luck point, roll a third d20, and then decide which of the three dice to use. You still have disadvantage, since the feat doesn’t say it gets rid of it, but you do get to pick the die. So someone could close their eyes to get disadvantage, but use lucky to have super advantage on the attack?
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May 19, 2015 04:25
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dwarf74 posted:So you can't repeatedly fire twice with two hand crossbows because you need a hand to load, but you can fire repeatedly with a single hand crossbow including that bonus attack from the feat. This is clearly better than double-crossbow-john-woo-jumping-sideways-through-the-air tricks because Really, the only thing this article does is basically say, "You can't use a shield and a hand crossbow at the same time, even with this feat, because you still need a free hand to load." I'd go further and say you can't have any other thing in your other hand, including another weapon, but again, I rules lawyered the RAW in a way to say you can. I mean, after all, if you can load your crossbow as part of a bonus action (what the article implies), there's nothing stopping you from drawing and sheathing your other weapon when needed as part of your move and attack actions. Now the real question is can I draw/sheathe a weapon as part of a reaction ie opportunity attack. Also, Lucky is insanely awesome and I wish I picked a Human so I could have it. Because gently caress giving up ability score improvements for feats. And by awesome I mean broken and overpowered. Mecha Gojira fucked around with this message at 04:31 on May 19, 2015 |
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May 19, 2015 04:29
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I'm glad Sage Advice is still as useful and knowledgeable of it's own rules as it's always been.
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May 19, 2015 04:40
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As I start gearing up to run a campaign again after a long hiatus, I am making the rounds on some houserules I played around with when 5e first came out. If you feel like obliging, I am looking for any feedback and criticisms you guys can throw at me. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_FqMPP17Ild_B_JCzY0ccjCL8qre_kvxE2sLCnUxGZU/edit?usp=sharing
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May 19, 2015 05:26
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Jimmeeee posted:I haven't seen it mentioned in here yet, but the latest Sage Advice says that Crossbow Expert won't let you make multiple crossbow attacks in one turn, but it says that its bonuses do apply to spellcasters making ranged attacks. Those martials almost had an advantage over casters for a second! Glad we dodged that bullet. Whoah whoah okay, have to step in here and point how loving dumb this is because... None of this makes any loving sense? Let's take a look-see at this choice quote here: "You’re still limited, however, by the fact that the weapon has the ammunition property (PH, 146). The latter property requires you to have a bolt to fire from the hand crossbow, and the hand crossbow isn’t going to load itself (unless it’s magical or a gnomish invention). You need to load each bolt into the weapon, and doing so requires a hand." Nowhere in the Ammunition property does it say ANYthing about needing a hand free, nor does it mention hands in any way, shape or form. Where did they pull this from? Their rear end? They just totally made that poo poo up! Everything they JUST said is a bald-faced LIE, holy poo poo! And people are going to believe this.
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May 19, 2015 06:05
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Mecha Gojira posted:Really, the only thing this article does is basically say, "You can't use a shield and a hand crossbow at the same time, even with this feat, because you still need a free hand to load." I'd go further and say you can't have any other thing in your other hand, including another weapon, but again, I rules lawyered the RAW in a way to say you can. It's pretty clear, at least to me, that the intended use of Crossbow Expert with a Hand Crossbow was always for the character to have a melee weapon in one hand and a Hand Crossbow in another - you stab a dude in the face, then shoot with the Hand Crossbow as a bonus action, and you can shoot in melee because you no longer have disadvantage when doing that. And if you're not in melee range of someone, you sheathe the weapon so you have a free hand so you can make multiple attacks with the Hand Crossbow. That I chose to interpret it as being able to use a shield with it so you can go around SWATing monsters was just the rule of cool at play. quote:You still have disadvantage, since the feat doesn’t say it gets rid of it, but you do get to pick the die. What the gently caress  if you have disadvantage, but you get to pick the die, you don't have disadvantageStrength of Many posted:As I start gearing up to run a campaign again after a long hiatus, I am making the rounds on some houserules I played around with when 5e first came out. If you feel like obliging, I am looking for any feedback and criticisms you guys can throw at me. I like what you've done! The only other thing I would do to try and improve 5e off-hand would be to give players precise control of their Hit Dice Healing - turn it into Reserve Points equal to their max HP, and they can exchange Reserve Points into HP at a 1:1 basis, and a Long Rest restores half their Reserve Points.
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May 19, 2015 06:12
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gradenko_2000 posted:I like what you've done! Yeah, I'm debating on how I would overhaul the whole system. I might scrap Fighter self healing in favor of putting Second Wind back in for Everyone.
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May 19, 2015 06:19
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gradenko_2000 posted:It's pretty clear, at least to me, that the intended use of Crossbow Expert with a Hand Crossbow was always for the character to have a melee weapon in one hand and a Hand Crossbow in another - you stab a dude in the face, then shoot with the Hand Crossbow as a bonus action, and you can shoot in melee because you no longer have disadvantage when doing that. And if you're not in melee range of someone, you sheathe the weapon so you have a free hand so you can make multiple attacks with the Hand Crossbow. Well, again, since the action economy for retrieving and stowing items is pretty nice, either way it works. You just might have to declare a few extra steps if your DM is an rear end in a top hat, but mechanically it is identical. Edit: Or not, since rereading it, it says drawing and loading is part of the attack, not the action, and some characters can attack multiple times per action and would be hosed out of all ammunition based weapons. But, wait, regular bows are considered two handed, right? Where is their free hand to draw and load? If the second hand is what does the drawing and loading, why is the hand crossbow a one-handed weapon? Double Edit: Before anyone thinks I'm being pedantic on that last part, again, this wouldn't even be an issue if the rules weren't written and then interpreted by complete loving morons. Mecha Gojira fucked around with this message at 06:49 on May 19, 2015 |
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May 19, 2015 06:25
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gradenko_2000 posted:What the gently caress It's even worse than that, because you're now rolling 3d20 pick highest which is better odds than regular advantage at 2d20 pick highest. So if you're going to use a luck point, close your eyes first I guess.
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May 19, 2015 06:30
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gradenko_2000 posted:What the gently caress
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May 19, 2015 06:49
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Stray thought on healing for the (few?) people that track time and healing in days: Assign variable rates by class? Something like Wiz=1/day and Fighter = 5/day and everyone else in between? (This is partially mixed in my thinking with the split hp/health system I used though. That would take a lot more typing to explain.) Crossbows: not related to book rules at all, but straight out of my verisimilitudinous penchants, I like the idea of crossbows being big damage/ accurate fire-and-drop items. Dedicated ranged people would stick with bows, but every fantasy warrior that knew anything about fantasy war could pop off a quarrel on the way in.
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May 19, 2015 06:51
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FRINGE posted:Crossbows: not related to book rules at all, but straight out of my verisimilitudinous penchants, I like the idea of crossbows being big damage/ accurate fire-and-drop items. Dedicated ranged people would stick with bows, but every fantasy warrior that knew anything about fantasy war could pop off a quarrel on the way in. Nothing's wrong with the concept, but my immediate thought is "if you're going to treat crossbows like fire-and-drop guns, why not just bite the proverbial bullet and include guns in your D&D fantasy at that point?"
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May 19, 2015 06:59
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MadScientistWorking posted:Yeah that is the weirdest thing about this. The rules aren't even ambiguous in this case. It literally is roll 2 dice and keep lowest/highest. So RAW its roll 2 dice keep lowest/highest and then reroll and pick between that one and the one you didn't discard. It sort of ties back to how they defined Lucky in the first place. They could have just said "You have three Luck points. Whenever you make an attack roll, ability check or saving throw, you can spend a Luck point to have Advantage on the roll. You can also spend a Luck point when an enemy makes an attack roll against you to cause the attacker to have Disadvantage" And then there'd be no ambiguity with how that's all defined - if you have Disadvantage on the roll, you activate Lucky, gain Advantage, and per the rules they'd cancel each other out and you simply 1d20 and take that result. FRINGE posted:Stray thought on healing for the (few?) people that track time and healing in days: Assign variable rates by class? Something like Wiz=1/day and Fighter = 5/day and everyone else in between? Variable healing rates were a thing in OSR D&D because the assumption was that you'd have a regular stable of characters to play: Your Fighter goes into a dungeon with Bob's Wizard on day 1, you both get a bit beat up, you both get out, go back to town and sleep. It's day 2, you tuck away your Fighter's character sheet and bring out your Cleric. Bob sets his Wizard aside and gets his Thief. You go into another dungeon. I don't know that it'd be particularly useful to have variable healing rates nowadays unless you wanted to emulate that model or you had a different effect you wanted to achieve.
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May 19, 2015 07:04
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Also, another example of casters getting leeway noncasters don't.quote:Any advice on handling Clerics/druids with shields and spell casting? They seem disadvantaged without a hand free for S/M comps.
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May 19, 2015 07:07
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