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Rogues are fine if you never fight invisible things, or in the dark, or things that can inflict basically any status effect or cast any spell other than direct damage. Otherwise they lose all their damage unless they can beg off some way to get advantage to cancel out their disadvantage and have a flanking buddy or are a Swashbuckler (the suicidal melee archetype). It's all worth it though when you get to do almost as much damage as a fighter sometimes, or almost bypass an obstacle without having to ask a caster to turn you invisible or something. I still enjoy playing a human rogue though, you just have to work a little harder. My guess for the best class for a former 3.5 player: Favored Soul (it's online) Sorcerer with Warcaster. Most people I know who liked 3.5 liked multiclassing, metamagic, sky high concentration checks the DM stopped even calling for, cherrypicking the best spells, and crushing everything, all while somehow not being a glass cannon. This class gets all that while being the least thrown by the spellcasting balance changes made between those editions.
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Sep 16, 2015 06:51
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gradenko_2000 posted:That's already one more attack per round than even a level 20 Fighter can (passively) achieve, and without yet delving into any tomfoolery about the 24-hour control duration versus an 8 hour Long Rest to regain spell slots.
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Sep 16, 2015 06:58
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gradenko_2000 posted:Animate Dead is a level 3 spell, so the Wizard can start casting it at character level 5. The Wizard will have two level 3 spell slots, so they could summon two skeletons with 1 attack each. Technically, after a week a wizard has up to 5 skeletons at level 5.
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Sep 16, 2015 08:05
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I don't see anything in the spell that says you can re-assert control after you have lost it. Isn't natural language fun?quote:The creature is under your control for 24 hours,
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Sep 16, 2015 08:05
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captain innocuous posted:I don't see anything in the spell that says you can re-assert control after you have lost it. Isn't natural language fun? Getting the spell slots to control 4 skeletons at level 5 is trivial, though, since you can regain a level 3 slot on short rest. You can also do all sorts of tom foolery if you make the game really slow and boring so you can do exacting time management. But if your combat build is making dozens of ranged attacks, somehow I don't think that will bother you.
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Sep 16, 2015 08:08
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A necromancer being accompanied by a platoon of bone buds is good and cool.
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Sep 16, 2015 08:18
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slydingdoor posted:Rogues are fine if you never fight invisible things, or in the dark, or things that can inflict basically any status effect or cast any spell other than direct damage. Otherwise they lose all their damage unless they can beg off some way to get advantage to cancel out their disadvantage and have a flanking buddy or are a Swashbuckler (the suicidal melee archetype). It's all worth it though when you get to do almost as much damage as a fighter sometimes, or almost bypass an obstacle without having to ask a caster to turn you invisible or something. My personal favourite way is to play an Arcane Trickster with the Find Familiar spell. Pick an owl and have it use its action to Help your attack on every turn. Owls have Flyby so they don't prompt attacks of opportunity when moving out of enemy range 
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Sep 16, 2015 08:23
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Boing posted:My personal favourite way is to play an Arcane Trickster with the Find Familiar spell. Pick an owl and have it use its action to Help your attack on every turn. Owls have Flyby so they don't prompt attacks of opportunity when moving out of enemy range does this cost meter?
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Sep 16, 2015 09:07
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That comment about Champion Fighters being dull as dishwater could really be applied to 5E as a whole, it's probably the blandest version of the game that's ever been made, even Essentials I'd say is more exciting
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Sep 16, 2015 11:08
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Skellybones posted:A necromancer being accompanied by a platoon of bone buds is good and cool. Agreed. It is definitely something I'd include in my version of D&D. However, I would also abstract her bone buds so that they were the means by which she executed her abilities, rather than a bunch of additional bodies with their own actions/hp/etc.
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Sep 16, 2015 12:45
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Re: the Champion, didn't somebody in this thread run the numbers and find that they were just flat-out numerically less effective than the Battlemaster even before you took wasted crits into consideration, unless you were doing crazy numbers of fights per day?
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Sep 16, 2015 12:54
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Masiakasaurus posted:Re: the Champion, didn't somebody in this thread run the numbers and find that they were just flat-out numerically less effective than the Battlemaster even before you took wasted crits into consideration, unless you were doing crazy numbers of fights per day? Pretty much. I can't find the original but I can do a quick and dirty version right now. We'll assume these guys are level 3 for now. Let's say we have a Champion with a greatsword. Now, this setup already favors the Champion quite a bit because his bonus damage dice are determined by weapon instead of class features or level. Assuming you'll take the logical weapon style to go with that, your bonus damage on a crit is 7.8333~. We'll just call it 8 instead for sanity's sake (and once again favor the Champion). We'll also disregard wasted crits - once again stacking the deck in such a way as to make the Champion look better than it really is. Now, what does it actually mean to crit on a 19-20? It means that when you attack there is a 1-in-20 chance that you'll hit with an extra +8 damage. That's not really fantastic. Assuming you have a 50-50 chance to hit with an attack, this means that: 50%: You miss, as usual. 40%: You hit and do normal damage, as usual. 5%: You crit! Oh frabjous day, you hit with an extra +8 damage! Whoo! 5%: You crit, but it was a natural 20 so you would've done that anyway. If this guy attacks 20 times in a row, rolling each number on the d20 exactly once, then over the course of these attacks his class feature has earned him +8 damage. If you had given him a simple +1 damage bonus instead he would've gotten +10 damage. That's right, critting on 19-20 is worth even less than the lowest possible damage bonus you can give. And this is with the most powerful weapon we could've picked, to make the Champion look good. Now, how does the Battlemaster do? Even at this very low level he's got 4d8 bonus damage. Which he can control so they're never wasted on near-dead enemies. Plus they come with extra benefits, like knocking people prone and poo poo. So inherently the Battlemaster has some nice advantages. Now, 4d8 translates to 18 damage per rest-period. For the Champion to do more, he needs to roll a 19 three times during a rest period (and again, this is with the very lowest dice the Battlemaster can have). So about 60 attacks then. That's a lot of combat. Oh, and when the Battlemaster does crit he can choose to spend a die and have it doubled. So while the Champion is fishing for 19s to do +2d6 damage, the Battlemaster is fishing for 20s to do +2d8 damage up to four times per rest period. At higher levels the Champion's numerous attacks and expanded 18-20 crit rate make him somewhat better, but by then the Battlemaster has like 6d12 or something. Plus never wasted on near-dead opponents. Plus extra rider effects. The Champion is just not very good. It's ironic that the Champion is the one martial that crits the most often... and also has the least use for critical hits. Battlemaster dice, sneak attack dice, Barbarian crit-dice, Paladin smites, they all benefit from crits. Only the Monk is off worse but, you know, Monks.
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Sep 16, 2015 13:30
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My $0.02: when I DM I let my players pick the race and class they want and see it as my job to make sure they have fun. But I run a more RP and less hack and slash game, so non combat skills are just as important as optimized damage. The DM I am playing with (apart from not telling one player to stfu) has been really good about this too, so my human rogue has been very busy. Underworld contacts and thieves' can't have both been used a lot to progress the story.
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Sep 16, 2015 13:43
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Boing posted:My personal favourite way is to play an Arcane Trickster with the Find Familiar spell. Pick an owl and have it use its action to Help your attack on every turn. Owls have Flyby so they don't prompt attacks of opportunity when moving out of enemy range Masiakasaurus posted:Re: the Champion, didn't somebody in this thread run the numbers and find that they were just flat-out numerically less effective than the Battlemaster even before you took wasted crits into consideration, unless you were doing crazy numbers of fights per day? Same deal if the Champ isn't allowed to use a big weapon. In fist fight on top of Metal Gear, the Champ crits do no extra damage. They have to get a probably crappy improvised weapon somehow or take a feat for alcoholics for their class feature to do anything. Meanwhile the BM can do that too, but even if they don't they're outdamaging the Champ (and the monk, actually) until they run out of SD.
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Sep 16, 2015 13:43
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slydingdoor posted:Try this one: I used handle animal and backstory to train alley cats and stray mutts and a bag of rats to use help and flank for me from level 1. Then I went human and took Sentinel to double the pain if an enemy tried to (easily) kill them. Pretty sure that's why Urchins start with a pet mouse. The bag of rats rides again! It really is 3rd Edition's greatest hits!
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Sep 16, 2015 14:04
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There are times I feel the battlemaster abilities should be made part of the base fighter class and then you get either the champion or eldrich knight features as your specialization.
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Sep 16, 2015 14:31
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Soylent Pudding posted:There are times I feel the battlemaster abilities should be made part of the base fighter class and then you get either the champion or eldrich knight features as your specialization. The Champion shouldn't exist because the features are horrible and boring. Like, I don't mind playing characters with passive benefits who don't really do much aside from Basic Attack (some of my favorite 4e stuff was from Essentials), but only if they're actually good. It comes up every so often in this thread but seriously, go track down the Playtest fighter and see how much better it was before they gutted it's features and distributed them to the Barbarian, Paladin, and Monk. Oh, and battlemaster dice that recharged per turn or round instead of per hour.
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Sep 16, 2015 14:38
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I remember earlier playtest docs had versions of the fighter and rogue that were pretty good, and my friend did nothing but sing the praises of 5e's design. Then when the book came out he couldn't figure out why i kept saying the fighter sucked. Until I showed him the book and he got very very confused for the next hour.
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Sep 16, 2015 14:46
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Soylent Pudding posted:There are times I feel the battlemaster abilities should be made part of the base fighter class and then you get either the champion or eldrich knight features as your specialization. That's pretty much how it worked in the early Fighter playtests: * Fighters started with a single d6 Expertise Die. This grew to a d8 by level 3, then two d8s by level 5 * All Expertise Dice would regenerate at the start of the Fighter's turn * They knew two Combat Maneuvers at level 1: Deadly Strike and Parry * Deadly Strike would let you roll the Expertise Die and add its result to your damage roll after a successful hit, and the die would be automatically maximized on a crit * Parry would let you roll the Expertise Die and use its result to reduce a damage roll against you after you were hit * On top of this, you would learn additional Combat Maneuvers as you leveled up: The Duelist could Tumble, Jab and Shift, the Protector could Protect, Push and Knock Down, the Sharpshooter could Precise Shot, Snap Shot and Shift, and the Slayer could Glancing Blow, Cleave and Jab. All of these would use the Expertise Dice in some way
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Sep 16, 2015 15:00
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This is what I remember from the playtest.quote:Defy Death
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Sep 16, 2015 15:17
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slydingdoor posted:This is what I remember from the playtest. I mean, both of those still exist on multiple classes. Defy Death just got a rising DC or 1/long rest clause on the ones who still have it. But yea, immortal Fighter|Paladins were sort of an issue. Naturally the solution was to kneecap the fighter.
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Sep 16, 2015 15:24
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Yeah, Indomitable was just moved to level 17 and given to casters in the form of Foresight. Since you only get it at level 17, it got buffed up a tiny little bit.
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Sep 16, 2015 16:22
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By the time I was in the playtest casters already had 4site. But something changed about it at the last second...Playtest posted:Foresight
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Sep 16, 2015 16:34
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WotC community forums being shut down on 10/29.
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Sep 16, 2015 17:52
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slydingdoor posted:By the time I was in the playtest casters already had 4site. But something changed about it at the last second... One hour? Wow, what a joke of a 9th level spell. 6th level, maybe. Maybe!
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Sep 16, 2015 17:54
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I thought this was clickbait and they were just doing maintenance, but they're actually shutting it down and not replacing it with anything. Not that there was much worth saving, but  How hard up for cash are they that they can't afford to keep servers up?
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Sep 16, 2015 19:36
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It's the whole shebang, mtg forums too. They're saying that forums are so ten years ago and aren't worth the hassle of running anymore. But SA is still relevant right? Right?
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Sep 16, 2015 19:39
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Splicer posted:It's the whole shebang, mtg forums too. They're saying that forums are so ten years ago and aren't worth the hassle of running anymore. Is it relevant to you? Is it relevant enough to pay, say, a dollar a month to read and post here? Because ultimately that's where this is going.
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Sep 16, 2015 19:44
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Is that like the "get banned once a year" plan? I remember the traffic boom shortly after 9/11 (and of course the chain of ripoffs with ad networks) that brought about the controversial  but I also think that went a long way to stabilize the forums from the "Every 10th person you meet is probably an rear end in a top hat" effect being multiplied by the size of the internet: a phenomenon that has caused so many other community-sites to collapse under their own popularity into a into a kingdom of hot garbage.
Bhaal fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Sep 16, 2015 |
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Sep 16, 2015 21:05
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One of many hives of scum and villainy. Will they have no more forums or will they relaunch?
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Sep 16, 2015 21:48
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Xelkelvos posted:One of many hives of scum and villainy. Will they have no more forums or will they relaunch? Implication is it's hosed for good. Now I will have nothing to get my grognards.txt from. Meh, it was cheating anyway.
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Sep 16, 2015 22:30
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thespaceinvader posted:Implication is it's hosed for good. There is always more. It is always worse.
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Sep 16, 2015 22:44
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Could be worse. They could be shooting for Gleemax 2.0.
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Sep 16, 2015 22:50
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Guess I'll go welcome WOTC forum-goers into the open arms of the SA Next thread.
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Sep 16, 2015 22:58
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Oh what?! I use that place for build advice and everything. It makes sense that the first place to talk D&D is on the D&D website. This looks kinda bleak to me. I remember when 4e was rolling along and there was an article every other day or at least 2 times a week. The Dragon/Dungeon magazines every month with new stuff. Paying the subscription was more than worth it for me as not only were there the tools to use, but constant updates, new stuff and advice articles. I still pay the sub as I'm really happy with 4e. But now there's so little content and you can't even comment on the posts anymore. I don't even visit the main site now so if I wasn't reading this thread I wouldn't have found this out.
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Sep 17, 2015 08:32
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So little content like once a month there is an Unearthed Arcana article, that may or may not have any use whatsoever, and may or may not be made by WotC. Nothing else being put out is done by WotC, its all 3rd party, or maybe a nebulous 2nd party thing because there is at least some vague communication with WotC on some of it. Almost no content has actually been put out, and it is all done by someone else. I don't know how they expect to make money like this. I really don't. I guess licensing. But yeah I used the forums a lot, and still go there to read what is going on, I don't know where I will go for that afterwards. This forum really only has the one thread, two if you go to the advice thread. ENWorld just seems so hostile, well maybe not to 5e but it seemed so hostile when I was playing 4e. I don't really post on any of the other forums and I don't think they are really organized that well for actually finding specific areas for topics. And where are you going to go for the guides?
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Sep 17, 2015 08:49
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The unearthed arcana articles are barely compatible with D&D5e. The new ranger for example seems like she's from a different game.
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Sep 17, 2015 08:55
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So I am occasionally playing this game on Wednesdays and as long as I am playing a class the designers liked (bard, paladin, really any gish-type class) it is... OK. These types of classes have all the tactical options and can essentially play any style or several.Splicer posted:It's the whole shebang, mtg forums too. They're saying that forums are so ten years ago and aren't worth the hassle of running anymore. We were of course eclipsed by Reddit many years ago, but I find myself coming back to this forum because crowdsourced content is brutally repetitive and often dumb on any subject. That and most of the worst shitheads departed for Reddit.
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Sep 17, 2015 09:28
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This is all but confirming for me that 5e will probably be the final WOTC edition of D&D unless that new movie does really drat well, with WOTC either keeping D&D buried for the foreseeable future or licensing/selling it to another company to produce
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Sep 17, 2015 09:32
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This is probably going to come off as elitist, but the dndnext subreddit is so pedestrian. It's just people making lots and lots of homebrew. There's probably some article waiting to be written about people who buy RPGs just to read and muse about them, and how that interacts with modern social media. drrockso20 posted:This is all but confirming for me that 5e will probably be the final WOTC edition of D&D unless that new movie does really drat well, with WOTC either keeping D&D buried for the foreseeable future or licensing/selling it to another company to produce Hand it off to Chris Pramas and Green Ronin. Fantasy AGE is a fairly bog-standard d20-to-3d6 conversion, but it's incredibly newbie-friendly. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Sep 17, 2015 |
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Sep 17, 2015 09:34
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