|
Angrymog posted:Thinking about the swingyness of using 1d20 for things; how would 3d20 and take the middle result for a normal roll work? P.d0t posted:And now, for an actual answer, it would look like this. Make sure you set the data graph to "at least" when you're interpreting results. After all the d20 system doesn't care if you're 1 over or 10 over. Things at either extreme are 1 in a 100 events, but for most target numbers in actual play it's just like giving the player +1 to all their checks and defenses. There's no way outside of memory based system to make a 60% chance of success "less swingy." If you do want to try a memory based system there's a whole wealth of unexplored options. Off hand something that feels good is to automatically grant advantage to players after a failure, and players automatically succeed after failing with advantage. Monsters, on the other hand, would receive disadvantage after a success, and monsters would automatically fail if the succeeded a check with disadvantage.
|
# ? Jul 2, 2015 22:48 |
|
|
# ? May 14, 2024 04:50 |
ProfessorCirno posted:It would ultimately be excrutiatingly agonizing, as it means throwing away virtually every time you roll a 20. In Tavern Tales their version of (dis)advantage is taking the lowest/highest of the 3d20, and then there's a greater version of (dis)advantage which is an automatic 1 or 20. I can't recall off the top of my head if a natural 20 even matters or where the highest tier of success starts.
|
|
# ? Jul 2, 2015 23:23 |
|
PublicOpinion posted:In Tavern Tales their version of (dis)advantage is taking the lowest/highest of the 3d20, and then there's a greater version of (dis)advantage which is an automatic 1 or 20. I can't recall off the top of my head if a natural 20 even matters or where the highest tier of success starts. The highest tier of success is 17 and up. Also there are tons of way to get advantage in Tavern Tales.
|
# ? Jul 3, 2015 01:27 |
|
fool_of_sound posted:It also reduces the importance of Advantage/Disadvantage, provided you use 'add one d6, drop lowest or highest'. no, lowest die for disadvantage, middle for normal rolls and top die for advantage. Probably a bigger swing but less mental gymnastics
|
# ? Jul 3, 2015 02:14 |
|
starkebn posted:no, lowest die for disadvantage, middle for normal rolls and top die for advantage. Probably a bigger swing but less mental gymnastics Wait what? I'm talking about bell curve variant using 3d6, not d20s. Under that variant, Advantage and Disadvantage add an additional die, and remove the highest/lowest. Nothing complex about that.
|
# ? Jul 3, 2015 02:46 |
|
One issue with going to a 3d6 is that you're almost definitely going to need some bonus AC from somewhere, or else you're going to be hit very often in your mid-teens due to a lack of AC scaling.
|
# ? Jul 3, 2015 03:06 |
|
Harrow posted:My friends have been looking for a good way to turn tabletop RPing into a drinking game... Sounds like someone should check out the Crit Juice podcast...
|
# ? Jul 3, 2015 04:14 |
|
Angrymog posted:Oh gosh, that's a nice site. 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
|
# ? Jul 3, 2015 06:22 |
|
Babylon Astronaut posted:I burnt out on 5e and 13A at the same time when I realized what each did well could be ported into anything, and what they sucked at was baked into everything. Yeah, I used to be pretty "woo man 13th Age sounds rad!" but actually getting to play it I've never found it very satisfying as a game, it's got a few decent ideas to pilfer but otherwise I find it resoundingly boring.
|
# ? Jul 3, 2015 07:21 |
|
Kai Tave posted:Yeah, I used to be pretty "woo man 13th Age sounds rad!" but actually getting to play it I've never found it very satisfying as a game, it's got a few decent ideas to pilfer but otherwise I find it resoundingly boring. I feel the same way about DungeonWorld, actually, while liking 13th Age quite a bit.
|
# ? Jul 3, 2015 08:04 |
|
Kai Tave posted:Yeah, I used to be pretty "woo man 13th Age sounds rad!" but actually getting to play it I've never found it very satisfying as a game, it's got a few decent ideas to pilfer but otherwise I find it resoundingly boring. Having played it a couple of times I sort of ended up with the same feeling, though stuff like their bestiary and the Eyes of the Stone Thief megadungeon are really cool. There are bits I like about, and world concepts that are awesome (living dungeons for starters), but one of the things I didn't like about it is that the OUT seems to encourage people to be LOLrandom for the sake of it, or unless the GM and other players are clear on the tone of the game you get characters with very tonally dissonant OUTs.
|
# ? Jul 3, 2015 17:39 |
|
Angrymog posted:Having played it a couple of times I sort of ended up with the same feeling, though stuff like their bestiary and the Eyes of the Stone Thief megadungeon are really cool. There are bits I like about, and world concepts that are awesome (living dungeons for starters), but one of the things I didn't like about it is that the OUT seems to encourage people to be LOLrandom for the sake of it, or unless the GM and other players are clear on the tone of the game you get characters with very tonally dissonant OUTs. I really think your OUT issue comes down to players rather than mechanics. I've DM'd 6 different campaigns (so 30 something characters) and I don't think a single OUT could be considered LOLrandom. Maybe I'm the lucky one though 13th Age has certainly been exactly what I've wanted out of a TTRPG though. It's just crunchy enough for my players (they never liked quite how freeform DW/FATE are) without being bogged down in stupid minutiae. The setting stuff has also resonated with me quite a bit, which is a nice plus
|
# ? Jul 3, 2015 21:48 |
|
New Unearthed Arcana: The Awakened Mystic, a Psionic class http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/awakened-mystic @mikemearls posted:For folks looking at the psionics material in today's UA, looks like there was a minor error. Not all the material is there. Whoops! EDIT: It's fixed now The Mystic is a 1d8 HD class with medium armor and simple weapon proficiency. They use psi points (regenerates every Long Rest) to cast their psionic abilities and their main modifier is INT. They have a basic Mind Thrust at will that deals 1d8 psychic damage on a successful attack roll against a target's INT score replacing AC. And it only goes up to level 5 gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Jul 6, 2015 |
# ? Jul 6, 2015 18:05 |
|
Sounds like there are going to be a bunch of wildly disparate classes all welded together into one. the Order of the Immortal is the Psychic Warrior, the Order of the Knife is almost assuredly going to be the Soulknife, and the Order of the Awakened is a social skill monkey telepath that can shoot through walls.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 19:36 |
|
gradenko_2000 posted:They have a basic Mind Thrust at will that deals 1d8 psychic damage on a successful attack roll against a target's INT score replacing AC. Only one of the archetypes (Order of the Awakened) actually gets that. The other one is reliant upon weapon attacks, and doesn't even get Extra Attack at level 5. I do like that Mind Thrust is an attack roll that targets a creature's Intelligence score. It would help to make it less of a dump stat if it were something you could expect to ever have to deal with from monsters.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 20:43 |
|
I'm looking to play this game at some point. How is it in comparison to 3e and 4e? It looks currently more 3e but it took some good things from 4e like rituals and more options for martial classes. Also magic weapons are back to being unique and special while feat-bloat is down and prestige classes don't exist. It looks like a really solid dnd experience from first reading. Also hot drat the monk looks buff.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 20:48 |
|
KyloWinter posted:I'm looking to play this game at some point. How is it in comparison to 3e and 4e? It looks currently more 3e but it took some good things from 4e like rituals and more options for martial classes. Also magic weapons are back to being unique and special while feat-bloat is down and prestige classes don't exist. It looks like a really solid dnd experience from first reading. Also hot drat the monk looks buff. It's a mediocre 3.x clone. Basically.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 20:50 |
|
KyloWinter posted:I'm looking to play this game at some point. How is it in comparison to 3e and 4e? It looks currently more 3e but it took some good things from 4e like rituals and more options for martial classes. Also magic weapons are back to being unique and special while feat-bloat is down and prestige classes don't exist. It looks like a really solid dnd experience from first reading. Also hot drat the monk looks buff. Martial classes have less options, not more. It's very much a watered-down 3E.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 20:52 |
|
KyloWinter posted:I'm looking to play this game at some point. How is it in comparison to 3e and 4e? It looks currently more 3e but it took some good things from 4e like rituals and more options for martial classes. Also magic weapons are back to being unique and special while feat-bloat is down and prestige classes don't exist. It looks like a really solid dnd experience from first reading. Also hot drat the monk looks buff.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 20:56 |
|
thespaceinvader posted:It's a mediocre 3.x clone. Basically. This isn't true. It doesn't actually play like 3.x much at all. It's been dramatically simplified, mostly in good ways. Unfortunately it did throw out a lot of the better 4e gameplay while it was at it. Basically, if you want good combat, try 13th Age or Strike. If you want heavier RP, try FATE or I guess Dungeonworld. If you want a structured game that isn't going to intimidate new or (for lack of a better word) casual players, 5e is fine.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 20:57 |
|
It's really not. It's only not going to intimidate new players if they're used to the basic ideas behind D&D already.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:00 |
|
thespaceinvader posted:It's really not. It's only not going to intimidate new players if they're used to the basic ideas behind D&D already. Nah, a friend of mine (CaPensiPraxis) ran it for a middle school after-school activity thing, mostly for kids who had never played before, and it went fine. I'll have him come post about it in the thread if you want.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:03 |
|
Sure. I'm not saying it's impossible, by the way. I'm saying it has several 200+ page rulebooks, moost of which are dedicated to explaining the combat system. I'm sure it's possible to teach, but it's also pretty intimidating...
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:07 |
|
thespaceinvader posted:Sure. That's blatantly untrue. There are exactly 10 pages in one book about the combat system, and a whole lot of that is rules that don't come up that often. Everything else, from class features to spells, is introduced slowly over the course of a campaign.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:10 |
|
fool_of_sound posted:That's blatantly untrue. There are exactly 10 pages in one book about the combat system, and a whole lot of that is rules that don't come up that often. Everything else, from class features to spells, is introduces slowly over the course of a campaign. Many feats, spells, and class features are also part of the combat system.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:11 |
|
Kibner posted:Many feats, spells, and class features are also part of the combat system. fool_of_sound posted:That's blatantly untrue. There are exactly 10 pages in one book about the combat system, and a whole lot of that is rules that don't come up that often. Everything else, from class features to spells, is introduced slowly over the course of a campaign.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:12 |
|
fool_of_sound posted:If you want a structured game that isn't going to intimidate new or (for lack of a better word) casual players, 5e is fine. Is this not true of the other games you mentioned?
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:13 |
|
Kibner posted:Many feats, spells, and class features are also part of the combat system. New players don't really need to know about anything that their character isn't using. 5E reminds me a lot more of 2nd than 3.5 but 3.5 came out when I was in college so I didn't play it a whole lot before it was a bloated mess. 3/3.5 was definitely a hell of a lot more complex even just at a core level.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:13 |
|
alg posted:New players don't really need to know about anything that their character isn't using. They do in order to pick what character they want to play.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:15 |
|
Red Metal posted:Is this not true of the other games you mentioned? 13th Age and Strike are simple for some classes, but have more technical and complex mechanical concepts than 5e. 13th Age is more complex on the whole than 5e, and while Strike is less complex, the initial learning curve is steeper. Dungeonworld and FATE are equally or more simple mechanically, but my experience as a GM is that (more) freeform RP is very intimidating for new players, and even for experienced players who aren't used to it.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:17 |
|
Kibner posted:They do in order to pick what character they want to play. Not really. The middle school kids I was talking about were able to figure out they what they wanted to play based off of one sentence descriptions.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:18 |
|
Kibner posted:They do in order to pick what character they want to play. Some might. In my group I gave people an overview of the classes and that was enough for them to pick. When I taught people 4E (used to run a huge Meetup group so I taught probably 100 people to play 4E over the course of a few years) I found that new players were worried less about the nitty gritty of classes and more about the concepts. Once they picked a class they could learn the rules.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:19 |
|
I'm going to agree with fool of sound that you can distill the core mechanics to a single page and a level 1 class to about one page each, because I already did that, and also that you can pick a class based on their concept, but that says nothing of how well the game holds up if you ever actually get deep within a campaign.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:23 |
|
UA Psion thoughts n' stuff: Starting Human can give you prof in Wis, Con, and Dex with the resilient feat and strength of mind. Mind thrust seems like an okay "I need to do a lot of damage right now and it needs to hit" option with the Int replacing AC feature. The "perceive but not see " is a little vague. Object Reading seems strong, but fun The Awakened Order's Conquering Mind (Broken Will) seems pretty powerful. Have the target attack its own allies with its strongest spell/attack. Then move it past your line to provoke opportunity attacks or jumping off a cliff. 5/day at lvl 5. Not seeing a reason why Immortals don't get extra attack at 5 when warlocks do. I believe Bards and Favored Souls are the only classes that get it at 6. Psychic smite is probably why. *e No MC requirements. Will probably be 13 int. Psionic Regen dosen't require you to be conscious Iron Hide dosen't have a duration. Psi Points follow the Spell Point by Level progression. Anyone ever used these in a campaign? odinson fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Jul 6, 2015 |
# ? Jul 6, 2015 21:54 |
|
fool_of_sound posted:Not really. The middle school kids I was talking about were able to figure out they what they wanted to play based off of one sentence descriptions. I forgot about the middle schoolers. I am probably also projecting my own tendencies on this, too. Even when I first learned how to play a tabletop game, I spent hours looking at all the classes in 3.0 and their level progression, spells, and feats.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 22:00 |
|
Im contemplating running my group through the old G-D-Q series, modded to 5th. I think they're about powerful enough to deal with it. Good idea, bad idea? Anyone have any suggestions? I have 6 PCs about level 6-7. Wizard loves his fireball.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 22:32 |
|
KyloWinter posted:I'm looking to play this game at some point. How is it in comparison to 3e and 4e? It looks currently more 3e but it took some good things from 4e like rituals and more options for martial classes. Also magic weapons are back to being unique and special while feat-bloat is down and prestige classes don't exist. It looks like a really solid dnd experience from first reading. Also hot drat the monk looks buff. 5e is not going to meet any of your first impressions, especially if you think martials have more options or the monk looks good.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 22:33 |
|
UA Psion: Using Intelligence as an AC score is a bad decision. This is exactly why Intelligence saving throws were invented, you have zero reason to re-invent the wheel here. It also causes some problems with the rest of the system. The tarrasque is supposed to be innately protected against mind-whammies (it has a +5 Int save bonus) but if you get to bypass that and tackle the ability score directly then it has... AC 3. And none of its resistances or other defenses apply here so it's completely helpless against any mystic fakir on a flying carpet who can just shred its mind apart. It takes about fifteen minutes without spending any psionic points (676 hp divided by 4.5 for average rolls = roughly 150 rounds = 15 minutes). You want a literal, honest to god 15 minute workday? How about killing the tarrasque? With mind bullets? At level 1. Making psionics explicitly different from magic is a bad idea, we've been over this so many times. Even 3e knew better than this. Magic resistance now does jack poo poo against this new form of powers, which makes them unusually good against certain monsters which are meant to be harder to nail down. Occluded Mind is so good it obsoletes the later, more expensive Broken Will ability. So for 5 points you can determine one action... or for 3 points you can make the enemy believe "I'm your master whom you must completely obey." And then for 5 minutes you get to verbally control all his actions. Concentrating on a psionic discipline works just like concentrating on a spell. But can you concentrate on a spell and a discipline at the same time? They use the same rules for their own respective types but it's unclear if you can only concentrate on one thing or only one spell and one discipline. Why is the psi point progression +2, +8, +3, +10? Who came up with that? Why? And why not simply make it work like ki points and sorcery points, which use identical and uniform progressions? Even for a work in progress this is pretty poor stuff. Which makes it about average for a UA article then.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 22:47 |
|
Really Pants posted:5e is not going to meet any of your first impressions, especially if you think martials have more options or the monk looks good. Depends. They have more options than 3.x, but fewer than 4e.
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 22:58 |
|
|
# ? May 14, 2024 04:50 |
|
alg posted:New players don't really need to know about anything that their character isn't using. How does 5e remind you of 2e? The difference in martials, movement, restricted class/race combos, level limits, xp differences per class, etc make for wildly different games. I suppose if you house ruled every last bit of that away they'd be similar?
|
# ? Jul 6, 2015 23:13 |