|
odinson posted:Quick rules question. Surely by not being proficient you miss out on bonuses, why would you also get another -4 from disadvantage? P.S. I don't know the rules
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 04:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 02:51 |
|
|
Harrow posted:A level 1 monster with a save-or-die? What the hell. Why. It's a first level character. In this edition it'd take you out of the game for like, a minute, tops.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 04:08
|
|
|
My DM does something really similar, where he'll just throw Disadvantage at you for practically anything that you do that you might have, well, any kind of disadvantage on the attempt, rather than just applying a penalty to the roll or denying your bonus. And for the weirdest things, too. No, DM, I know you're the impartial arbiter of the rules and all but the rogue does not have to take a Disadvantage to his roll to attack that monster just because it's in melee range of the (prone, unconcious) ranger. There isn't even a penalty for doing that! Taking an already needlessly convoluted and frustratingly vague system of rules and then also using them wrong doesn't make things any better!
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 04:09
|
|
|
odinson posted:Quick rules question. Proficiency has nothing to do with advantage/disadvantage, however: PHB pg 173 posted:The DM can decide that circumstances influence a roll in one direction or the other and grant advantage or impose disadvantage as a result.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 04:10
|
|
|
Tunicate posted:It's a first level character. In this edition it'd take you out of the game for like, a minute, tops. Well, sure, but all it's going to lead to is players going all, "Well, my carefully thought-out character, Margnax the Wizard, is dead. I will now proceed to join the campaign as his brother, Jargnax the Wizard."
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 04:11
|
|
|
Harrow posted:Well, sure, but all it's going to lead to is players going all, "Well, my carefully thought-out character, Margnax the Wizard, is dead. I will now proceed to join the campaign as his brother, Jargnax the Wizard." Exactly. Your little chess piece only deserves to get a real name and background after he's a proven survivor. EDIT: At low levels, this would be a well-executed random encounter 
Tunicate fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Jul 2, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 04:15
|
|
|
Harrow posted:Well, sure, but all it's going to lead to is players going all, "Well, my carefully thought-out character, Margnax the Wizard, is dead. I will now proceed to join the campaign as his brother, Jargnax the Wizard." My second character would be the REAL Margnax the Wizard--that first guy must have an incompetent imposter.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 04:16
|
|
|
Harrow posted:Well, sure, but all it's going to lead to is players going all, "Well, my carefully thought-out character, Margnax the Wizard, is dead. I will now proceed to join the campaign as his brother, Jargnax the Wizard." Don't forget, back in those days you would also be randomly rolling your stats, so there was no guarantee your next character would qualify to be a magic-user.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 04:46
|
|
|
odinson posted:The DM's at my FLGS make us roll on ability checks at disadvantage if we are not proficient. It certainly never tells the DM to do that anywhere in the rulebook. Which doesn't matter, because since you asked your DM and they told you, it is now you who are wrong.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 04:51
|
|
|
Harrow posted:A level 1 monster with a save-or-die? What the hell. Why. All poison that wasn't paralytic was fatal in earlier versions, anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 04:56
|
|
|
I thought Disadvantage was a good idea but it can be an incredibly feel-bad mechanic, especially when you roll a 20 on one die.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 05:16
|
|
|
Lightning Lord posted:I thought Disadvantage was a good idea but it can be an incredibly feel-bad mechanic, especially when you roll a 20 on one die. Hence why everyone should take the lucky feat!  Go on and take that random shot underwater with your eyes closed, you'll probably hit!
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 05:19
|
|
|
Lightning Lord posted:I thought Disadvantage was a good idea but it can be an incredibly feel-bad mechanic, especially when you roll a 20 on one die. A bunch of people pointed this out back when Next was an "open playtest"...the combination of Advantage/Disadvantage and "flat math" meant that it was increasingly likely that everything players did was going to revolve around finding ways to avoid/mitigate Disadvantage and chase Advantage because mathematically Dis/Advantage breaks down to something like a -/+5 on a roll, and there's not a lot of middle ground since the designers were keen to promote it as the only modifier you'd ever need.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 05:26
|
|
|
Mecha Gojira posted:I had a level 3 Barbarian get eaten by a CR 6 Roper in an official published adventure because he didn't check to see if there was a lever behind the kobolds he had just decapitated.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 05:49
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:And finally Room 7 also contains Green Slime: Harrow posted:A level 1 monster with a save-or-die? What the hell. Why. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Jul 2, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 05:57
|
|
|
Generic Octopus posted:Proficiency has nothing to do with advantage/disadvantage, however: Thanks Generic Octopus and all the others that responded. It doesn't come up that frequently so I haven't bothered to double check until now. My current DM may have been using some of that p.173 DM Fiat. My previous one called for DAdv. frequently enough that I'm pretty sure he just misunderstood the rules. The difference between them is coincidentally similar to the two different play/DM styles that were just mentioned (Ooze falls on you and deal with it vs. shrug it off, roll initiative). Old DM once started out the night with "Are you all ready to die?"( I believe right before Castle Naerytar-hotdq) Another time seemed to brag/gloat a bit after one encounter in a swamp in which we were in canoes. We were attacked by alligators/crocs mid short rest. I had cast Alarm before hand and questioned why I wasn't alerted, but "because I wasn't specific" the 20' Cube's bottom end was @ water/canoe level. He kinda gave me a chance to retcon it, but I figured the fight was inevitable so I said to forget it. After they were defeated he said something along the lines of "Well, I could have just had the gators flip the canoes over and lay on top of them so you would drown to death." My current DM is much better and doesn't have that antagonistic "me vs. the party" mentality that the first seemed to have on occasion. He's pretty chill and knowledgeable Hats off to Alpha Dog an ADporp's comments. Got a good laugh outta those.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 06:09
|
|
|
odinson posted:Quick rules question. Your DM is incorrect. To make an ability check, roll d20+ability score modifier. If you are proficient, also add your proficiency bonus. If you are not proficient, then nothing more is added. Advantage and Disadvantage, when they aren't specifically called for in the rules, is supposed to be a situational modifier. If you're making an Arcana check and you're not proficient in Arcana, then it's a d20+INT. Disadvantage would be something like if you're trying to decipher the runes on a tome while gale force winds are blowing against the pages.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 06:17
|
|
|
Thinking about the swingyness of using 1d20 for things; how would 3d20 and take the middle result for a normal roll work? I think Advantage and Disadvantage should still use 2d20 take best/worst or their effects are really magnified.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 13:33
|
|
|
Please don't start making attack rolls as ridiculous as rolling for stats. I don't want to hear about people's "elegant" houserules where they roll 12d20, drop lowest, divide the sum by 2, convert to base 8, find the nearest number in the Fibonacci sequence(round up on odd-numbered days, down on even-numbered) and use that to look up the attack result on Custom Tables A through JJJ.
Hwurmp fucked around with this message at 13:52 on Jul 2, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 13:47
|
|
|
Tunicate posted:Exactly. Your little chess piece only deserves to get a real name and background after he's a proven survivor. This has convinced me, somehow, if only because I do love seeing my players looking totally blindsided. A Darker Porpoise posted:Hence why everyone should take the lucky feat! My vote: get rid of Lucky, give everyone 3 luck points baseline. Call 'em Action Points if you want.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 13:58
|
|
|
Angrymog posted:Thinking about the swingyness of using 1d20 for things; how would 3d20 and take the middle result for a normal roll work? And now, for an actual answer, it would look like this.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 14:00
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:And now, for an actual answer, it would look like this. I actually like that curve, if only because it reminds me of the 2d6 curve you get in PbtA games, where it's weighted towards the middle of the range. Part of the problem, though, is that d20 systems tend to have more modifiers in play and don't tend to have clearly-defined "partial successes," so the value isn't quite as high. I could see it working if your group wanted to do it, though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 14:35
|
|
|
3d20-take-middle might be okay, but I personally would start looking at a digital die roller for rolls like that. To mitigate swinginess in combat, I'd just use the Escalation Die mechanic.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 15:08
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Your DM is incorrect. Hey now, attempting a check while lacking proficiency is situational...it's just a situation that occurs constantly! Seriously though I understand that's how a dm is supposed to adjudicate Advantage, but the game is written so that the dm can really do no wrong, because while there are rules, they are free to ignore them, explicitly.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 15:21
|
|
|
Babylon Astronaut posted:The best way as a barbarian to deal with ropers is just run a straight line and use lucky on your dex saves. Well, Barbarians by level 2 already have advantage on Dex saves, plus mine picked up the charger feat because... Wait, why the gently caress is charging a feat at all?
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 15:51
|
|
|
FRINGE posted:In any case, Megaman's Jockstrap was implying that I was saying "lovely games" are fun, and I was not. First of all, there's really no such thing as an objectively lovely game, if you enjoy Fantasy Vietnam that's your jam. Have fun, you're not hurting my feelings. Unless you deify that style of play in which case I get annoyed and start posting all butt-hurt. While I feel that anyone seriously interested in RPGs should have to play "low magic" (aka high lethality aka Cowardly Lion Dungeon Delve) Old School D&D as part of their education I don't think the majority of them will enjoy it because it produces a lot of robotic behavior and unsatisfying, lovely narratives. Let's face it: millions of people bought D&D during the eighties and most of them didn't stick with it. It's not because RPGs are bad, it's because the experience of playing D&D sucked for most of them and they didn't have some tribal affinity to help them keep going. It was a bad game for them and it's understandable why it was bad: it was a completely original style of game and a work made at a time where there was no internet to help run it or other examples of different RPGs to consult. Instead the game and its published material encourages the ref to jerk around the players and get in stupid pissing contests or force the player to deal with mechanically unbalanced random encounter table. And this isn't bitter old nostalgia talking - I went back and played a 2e game with a bunch of grogs in 2009 and it was the same old stupid poo poo I remembered from years before. I remember the party spent 15 minutes of table talk discussing what to do after finding a stoppered potion bottle in a sack near a troll lair. They finally decided to go back to town and hire a peasant to open it in the middle of a field outside during the day because who knows, it might have started spewing endless poison fog or blasted fire or summoned an angry djinn to annihilate anyone nearby. When it opened fine and nothing happened, they spent another 10 minutes hemming and hawing about whether someone should sniff it or taste it, how it could be identified (this was a low-level "low magic" game so...no real way to non-magically identify a potion short of a taste test) etc etc etc. and this was one piece of treasure. It's my experience that people who like Fantasy Vietnam style-games are the people who criticize protagonists in movies for "being stupid" by not immediately running out of the house when they get a scary phone call or trying to rescue their girlfriend from the kaiju monster instead of running away and leaving her to die. In other words, "tactical realism" nerds. They might be fine and upstanding people who contribute to their community and such but I personally find that behavior insufferable and participating in that process intolerable.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 16:01
|
|
|
Mecha Gojira posted:Well, Barbarians by level 2 already have advantage on Dex saves, plus mine picked up the charger feat because... Because the designers are dumb and bad. They didn't get the point of feats in 3E - guys, it's not "anything that's conceivably beneficial to the player", and especially not "something that the player could already do before that now they need a feat before they can do" They still didn't get the point of feats in 4E - okay, you got better with the basic design since the benefits were much more focused, but if you're going to patch/errata the game, patch/errata the game, don't make people take feats to make the errata take effect. Also, maybe don't make a billion of them, and if you're going to make an Essentials line that "locks in" your class progression, maybe include the feats because that's the most taxing part of creating a character They still didn't get the point of feats in 5E - you kind of got better still with the design by making it so that the bonuses aren't just purely numerical anymore, except when they are because you need the +1 INT from Linguist to let it have a snowball's chance in hell of competing with War Caster, which kind of still means you still don't get the point of feats. But anyway, making feats purely optional doesn't give you a pass on having to design feats well, especially when you yet again pull a 3E and lock away something that the player could do before, like Charge, except now they might not even have the option of being able to take a feat for Charge, and when they do, it's at the cost of +2 stats! Megaman's Jockstrap posted:It's my experience that people who like Fantasy Vietnam style-games are the people who criticize protagonists in movies for "being stupid" by not immediately running out of the house when they get a scary phone call or trying to rescue their girlfriend from the kaiju monster instead of running away and leaving her to die. In other words, "tactical realism" nerds. Listening to RPPR play Dungeon Crawl Classics was such a breath of fresh air because having 5 character sheets at a time meant that they were more than willing to stick arms into corpses (that contained Rot Grubs) and dive right into pools to retrieve mysterious rings (that were then cursed). All those extra (and disposable) lives gave the players the freedom to act stupid and kept the game moving even as they were traipsing across a dungeon full of gotchas and ridiculous bullshit.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 16:23
|
|
|
P.d0t posted:And now, for an actual answer, it would look like this. Oh gosh, that's a nice site. Yeah, I have thought about porting the Escalation die to my 5e game.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 16:41
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Listening to RPPR play Dungeon Crawl Classics was such a breath of fresh air because having 5 character sheets at a time meant that they were more than willing to stick arms into corpses (that contained Rot Grubs) and dive right into pools to retrieve mysterious rings (that were then cursed). All those extra (and disposable) lives gave the players the freedom to act stupid and kept the game moving even as they were traipsing across a dungeon full of gotchas and ridiculous bullshit. You may have just sold me on Dungeon Crawl Classics.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 16:49
|
|
|
Harrow posted:You may have just sold me on Dungeon Crawl Classics. There's a lot to like about DCC, but what I described in particular (what the game calls the Character Funnel - because only one falls out at the end!) is functionally similar to what you described as Margnax the Wizard blinking into existence as soon as Jargnax the Wizard bites it, except instead of waiting for Jargnax to die before rolling up Margnax, you show up to the DM's house with those two along with Bargnax, Largnax and Yargnax already rolled up and ready to step in at a moment's notice Angrymog posted:Yeah, I have thought about porting the Escalation die to my 5e game. It's really gotten to the point where I think it's a good fit with any of the d20-driven games.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 16:54
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Listening to RPPR play Dungeon Crawl Classics was such a breath of fresh air because having 5 character sheets at a time meant that they were more than willing to stick arms into corpses (that contained Rot Grubs) and dive right into pools to retrieve mysterious rings (that were then cursed). All those extra (and disposable) lives gave the players the freedom to act stupid and kept the game moving even as they were traipsing across a dungeon full of gotchas and ridiculous bullshit. Yeah this sounds pretty good. One thing I'll say is that it's really disingenuous to act like old D&D was all about getting killed and rolling up a character no problem. RAW you started at level 1, and the books were full of high-level monsters and high-level items. Basic D&D had 4 books (3 of which were playable) dealing with what to do after level 8. Lots of modules were mid-to-high level as well. I remember when I was a teenage DM I got so frustrated at characters getting killed that I just leveled them up in a magic room one time, just so we could run a module I had purchased. One of the radical things about Dark Sun was that it had an alternate character system baked in because it was crushingly lethal even by D&D's standards. Having characters on standby was something that you had to puzzle out for yourself, the rules didn't help.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 16:57
|
|
|
Let me tell you about a really fun way to play Basic D&D. Get someone to be DM and make a semi-fair yet very deadly dungeon and a big pile of pregen characters. This dungeon has a magical barrier placed on the entrance that means only <number of players> good guys can enter at the same time. If <more than number of players> good guys try to enter, they all fall over vomiting and are easy prey for monsters. This has been extensively tested by the local peasantry and can be treated as definitely true. The barrier even glows blue when there are fewer than <n> good guys in there and red when there are more. This isn't anywhere near as silly as some of the published material. Anyway, someone has to go in the dungeon and defeat the bad guy. Tell each player to take the topmost facedown character sheet from the pile. Should anyone's PC die, they are replaced by the next one on the pile in 1d6 rounds. If you like, you can make it a rule that you have to finish your drink every time your guy dies. Megaman's Jockstrap posted:One thing I'll say is that it's really disingenuous to act like old D&D was all about getting killed and rolling up a character no problem. There sure were plenty of rules dealing with high levels (like what, 35 levels in BECMI?) but chances that your level one guy would survive were pretty low if you were playing the game as written and emulating the examples. And it really is easy to make a character - you could replace "in 1d6 rounds" above with "as soon as you roll your new guy up" without it changing much. That said, characters get way more survivable after level 3 (ie, as they leave the red box) and again around level 10 towards the end of the blue book. The first few levels are bullshit kinds of deadly. After that you get way more likely to survive. I'm pretty sure this is what the DCC funnel is riffing on. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Jul 2, 2015 |
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 17:18
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:There's a lot to like about DCC, but what I described in particular (what the game calls the Character Funnel - because only one falls out at the end!) is functionally similar to what you described as Margnax the Wizard blinking into existence as soon as Jargnax the Wizard bites it, except instead of waiting for Jargnax to die before rolling up Margnax, you show up to the DM's house with those two along with Bargnax, Largnax and Yargnax already rolled up and ready to step in at a moment's notice Oh yeah, for sure. And for the right kind of campaign, I'm totally fine with that. I'd want players to be ready for the "don't get attached to a specific character early on" thing right off the bat. My money's on Largnax to survive. AlphaDog posted:Anyway, someone has to go in the dungeon and defeat the bad guy. Tell each player to take the topmost facedown character sheet from the pile. Should anyone's PC die, they are replaced by the next one on the pile in 1d6 rounds. If you like, you can make it a rule that you have to finish your drink every time your guy dies. My friends have been looking for a good way to turn tabletop RPing into a drinking game...
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 18:13
|
|
|
Angrymog posted:Thinking about the swingyness of using 1d20 for things; how would 3d20 and take the middle result for a normal roll work? 3d20 and take the middle is what Tavern Tales ( http://www.taverntalesrpg.com ) uses. I played it once and thought it worked pretty well, though we were playing online.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 18:26
|
|
|
You can achieve a similar spread using 3d6, though you're giving up the top and bottom ends of the range for it, so I'm not sure what it'd do to the system math overall. I know it's what they recommend for those "D&D for kids" games if you don't have a d20 to work with, but again, those are "D&D for kids" things so the math's notably less important.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 18:28
|
|
|
Harrow posted:You can achieve a similar spread using 3d6, though you're giving up the top and bottom ends of the range for it, so I'm not sure what it'd do to the system math overall. I know it's what they recommend for those "D&D for kids" games if you don't have a d20 to work with, but again, those are "D&D for kids" things so the math's notably less important. Replacing the 1d20 with a 3d6 was an officially supported variant rule for 3.5: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/bellCurveRolls.htm What it generally means is that fights/skill checks are more 'pre-determined', or that if the target number is within your average, you're very likely to hit it. Comparing a 1d20+5 versus a 3d6+5 (or a hypothetical +3 attribute modifier and a +2 proficiency bonus): DC 12, or 3 lower than the average of [10.5 + 5]: The d20 has a 70% chance to succeed, but the 3d6 has a 90.74% chance DC 18, or 3 higher than the average of [10.5 + 5]: The d20 has a 40% chance to succeed, but the 3d6 only has a 25.93% chance Translating this to combat, if your attack bonus is higher than the target's AC bonus (and vice-versa of their attack bonus vs your AC), you're much more favored to win. Conversely, it's so much more difficult to defeat an enemy that's rated to be tougher.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 19:21
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:Anyway, someone has to go in the dungeon and defeat the bad guy. Tell each player to take the topmost facedown character sheet from the pile. Should anyone's PC die, they are replaced by the next one on the pile in 1d6 rounds. If you like, you can make it a rule that you have to finish your drink every time your guy dies.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 19:22
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Replacing the 1d20 with a 3d6 was an officially supported variant rule for 3.5: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/bellCurveRolls.htm Incidentally, this makes buffs and debuffs that much stronger, which is a good thing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 19:51
|
|
|
Dirk the Average posted:Incidentally, this makes buffs and debuffs that much stronger, which is a good thing. It also reduces the importance of Advantage/Disadvantage, provided you use 'add one d6, drop lowest or highest'.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 19:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 02:51 |
|
|
Angrymog posted:Thinking about the swingyness of using 1d20 for things; how would 3d20 and take the middle result for a normal roll work? It would ultimately be excrutiatingly agonizing, as it means throwing away virtually every time you roll a 20.
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2015 21:44
|
|
