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gradenko_2000 posted:Actually, I think you'll find that dragons as spellcasters is a variant rule Since the variant Dragon
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Feb 28, 2016 22:04
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Well, you see, dragon breath is still innate magic, which is different from spell magic because
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Feb 28, 2016 22:05
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No but there was that recent errata and the variant dragons says that it's a spellcaster and that obviously has to be balanced with a downsi..... poo poo.
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Feb 28, 2016 22:33
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You and your DM can do battle over whether or not you've left the dragon's reach in the Theatre of the Mind! (The DM always wins.)
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Feb 28, 2016 22:53
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You always take AoOs for moving within a dragon tyrant's territory, because their influence reaches far and wide. 
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Feb 28, 2016 23:03
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NachtSieger posted:You always take AoOs for moving within a dragon tyrant's territory, because their influence reaches far and wide. As a hypothetical, if their influence was worded as being "far reaching" instead, would you still take an OA if you only moved sideways?
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Feb 28, 2016 23:16
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I loving hate natural language. Is a dragon magical or not. The wotc people say its not but based on their rules they just put out it is magical. How is anyone not losing their minds trying to understand these non-Euclidean rules.
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Feb 29, 2016 00:11
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kingcom posted:I loving hate natural language. Because lots of people don't make an active effort to follow through and try to implement rules strictly. And then others still use GM fiat to lay down their own specific interpretation of rules whenever they come to a pain point. The latter is fair, but the former is having blinders on, and the ugly part is when you claim the ability to do either excuses designers from their obligation to deliver a well-written product.
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Feb 29, 2016 00:17
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They literally do not know how to describe something fantastic and supernatural and powerful as anything but "magic," but then they have a spell that literally removes magic, and need to find reasons fantastic and supernatural and powerful things can still exist in there despite still being "magic."
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Feb 29, 2016 00:24
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gradenko_2000 posted:Because lots of people don't make an active effort to follow through and try to implement rules strictly. I don't see any scenario where this survives contact with eachother. If someone who understand the rules, uses them to build a character are almost always way better than someone who doesn't. Are they a filter WAAC or something now.I mean I play with some groggy rear end fuckers who are loving pathfinder and even 5e is a bridge too far to them. ProfessorCirno posted:They literally do not know how to describe something fantastic and supernatural and powerful as anything but "magic," but then they have a spell that literally removes magic, and need to find reasons fantastic and supernatural and powerful things can still exist in there despite still being "magic." I mean yeah I get it, they're straight bad at roleplaying but why use the word 'magical' as something that can trigger a hard mechanic. Now every single time a writer comes up with something they might accidentally add hard mechanics to the game without even knowing it.
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Feb 29, 2016 00:31
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NachtSieger posted:You always take AoOs for moving within a dragon tyrant's territory, because their influence reaches far and wide. Did I ever tell you all how much I love this thread? Because I do love it, a lot.
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Feb 29, 2016 01:21
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ProfessorCirno posted:They literally do not know how to describe something fantastic and supernatural and powerful as anything but "magic," but then they have a spell that literally removes magic, and need to find reasons fantastic and supernatural and powerful things can still exist in there despite still being "magic." Remember when we had a word for non-magical abilities that don't play by the real world's rules?
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Feb 29, 2016 02:03
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NachtSieger posted:You always take AoOs for moving within a dragon tyrant's territory, because their influence reaches far and wide. You make an AoO when a creature leaves your reach, thus we come to the conclusion that dragons are incapable of making AoOs in any area they control! 
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Feb 29, 2016 02:17
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Variant dragons' spell-like spell abilities are only magical if the dragon-like dragon is actually a True Polymorph-ed wizard.
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Feb 29, 2016 02:30
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There's something I read recently, which now I wish I saved, which said that while everything in a fantasy world is fantastical, that doesn't mean everything is magical, because magic is just one way to accomplish a fantastical thing in these settings. The problem they're run into with that dragons vs anti-magic field is that now they don't have a word for accomplishing these fantastical things without using magic. 4e powers aside, the Su/Ex/Sp tags worked well, especially when you get to 3.5e's Monster Manual 5* where things just happen instead of making any sort of reference to a pre-existing magical spell. * which I have recently discovered after being mentioned in the TG industry thread as being another example of late-stage 3.5e innovation. It's pretty good as far as solving the problems of "here's a statblock of a monster that casts spells which are in the PHB, figure it out" kingcom posted:I don't see any scenario where this survives contact with eachother. If someone who understand the rules, uses them to build a character are almost always way better than someone who doesn't. Are they a filter WAAC or something now.I mean I play with some groggy rear end fuckers who are loving pathfinder and even 5e is a bridge too far to them. That's because even Pathfinder (and 3.5e) isn't really "natural language". It has keywords out the rear end, and spells everything out according to its own procedural context of Standard, Move, Swift and Free Actions, and so on. quote:Smiting Reversal (Combat) That's not vague, and is actually quite mechanistic, and leaves little room for ambiguity. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Feb 29, 2016 |
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Feb 29, 2016 02:30
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So is anyone looking to run the Death House thing on the forums? Or perhaps the Curse of Strahd book when it comes out? Also it seems the preview for the Haunted background doesn't have the right number of skills/languages compared to all the other backgrounds in the game.
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Feb 29, 2016 02:59
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A Darker Porpoise posted:You make an AoO when a creature leaves your reach, thus we come to the conclusion that dragons are incapable of making AoOs in any area they control! This is why we need fields of overlapping dragon territories.
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Feb 29, 2016 03:03
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The problem has to do with their understanding of "magic", full stop. Magic is really just about establishing a causal relationship between things that absolutely should not have a causal relationship. The whole idea that magic is a unified substance that exists at both the rules and fictional level is so loving stupid. I'm cool with wizards countering each other - they play like free wheeling mathematicians imposing their will through arcane formulae and it makes sense for them to one-up each other. When you talk about Clerics or Sorcerers being in the same class of entity as a Wizard by virtue of "magic" you start to lose me and when you make a unicorn stop existing because you un-magic it my brain leaves my head completely. Or gently caress it, just go whole hog and make magic a foundational unit of existence but be prepared for and embrace the weirdness that happens in the aftermath.
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Feb 29, 2016 03:17
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Mendrian posted:\Or gently caress it, just go whole hog and make magic a foundational unit of existence but be prepared for and embrace the weirdness that happens in the aftermath. That's pretty much Exalted in a nutshell. It's sort of odd, but it actually works for the setting.
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Feb 29, 2016 03:46
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NachtSieger posted:This is why we need fields of overlapping dragon territories. Do anti-magic fields work in Venn dragongrams?
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Feb 29, 2016 05:48
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Kaysette posted:Do anti-magic fields work in Venn dragongrams? How likely are you to lose concentration on it while getting targetted by a minimum of one attack* per dragon-area per round? * For the purposes of discussion, assume that you asked your DM to hit the fighter instead and your DM said no
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Feb 29, 2016 06:29
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kingcom posted:I mean yeah I get it, they're straight bad at roleplaying but why use the word 'magical' as something that can trigger a hard mechanic. Now every single time a writer comes up with something they might accidentally add hard mechanics to the game without even knowing it. Because they saw what happened with 4e. To put it frankly, because large amounts of this hobby do not have imaginations. Like, at all, period. The only way something they can't immediately imagine can happen is if it happens by "magic." Remember, "Come and Get It," the power where the fighter smirks and all the baddies move to surround him, was labeled unrealistic because only magic could do something like that. Marking someone and following and harrying them so they can't fight was labeled unrealistic because only magic can do that. Etc, etc. Calling it supernatural isn't enough - they're loving nerds, they need to find a way to categorize it.
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Feb 29, 2016 06:49
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ProfessorCirno posted:To put it frankly, because large amounts of this hobby do not have imaginations. Like, at all, period. The only way something they can't immediately imagine can happen is if it happens by "magic." Remember, "Come and Get It," the power where the fighter smirks and all the baddies move to surround him, was labeled unrealistic because only magic could do something like that. Marking someone and following and harrying them so they can't fight was labeled unrealistic because only magic can do that. Etc, etc. Calling it supernatural isn't enough - they're loving nerds, they need to find a way to categorize it. Oh my god, THIS. I'm so amazed at the lack of imagination in some of the groups I've played with over the years. Some games are amazing with how people embrace their characters while some are just so... so... bland and lifeless.
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Feb 29, 2016 07:18
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:Oh my god, THIS. I'm so amazed at the lack of imagination in some of the groups I've played with over the years. Some games are amazing with how people embrace their characters while some are just so... so... bland and lifeless. In my experience with D&D, the less detailed the character rules are, the more it sparks people's creativeness. Basic D&D, you pretty much picked a thing from the list (I'm a Fighter), made a couple of basic choices (...with a sword and a longbow), and mechanically, you were done. Anything that made your character detailed had to come from you, not from the rulebook. Some people didn't really want to add detail, and that was fine. Others came up with all kinds of awesome stuff. By the time you get to Next and it's race/class/archetype/background/skills/feats, the game itself has piled a hell of a lot of detail onto your character before you get to add detail, and lots of people feel constrained by that, or feel that a Dwarf Barbarian with an Eagle Totem who used to be Soldier and is thus Athletic and Intimidating, who played Dice and drove a Cart in the Infantry before rising to the rank of Sergeant and quitting but not before learning to be a Grappler is already enough detail and where the gently caress am I supposed to cram anything else into this?
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Feb 29, 2016 09:25
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And that feeds back into the related problem of people coming up with detail and then feeling like they have to go back and add the mechanics to support that. Because what is a pirate without ranks in Profession: Sailor, Use Rope and...
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Feb 29, 2016 10:52
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I think it's important to note that while I think it'd be better to leave more room for players to make things up, I'm not actually saying a high level of detail is bad. It's just that in my experience, the more options you codify into lists of stuff to choose from, the less people feel like making their own stuff up - and often the existence of those lists makes people feel like they can't or shouldn't (or shouldn't let others) make something up instead. I mean, I've seen people saying that they want their players to stick to the Backgrounds in the book, despite the book literally saying that the ones presented are samples and having a section about customising them (...and there isn't even one for "Gladiator", for gently caress's sake). Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:34 on Feb 29, 2016 |
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Feb 29, 2016 11:32
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It's all down to 3e's boringly mechanistic approach of "the monsters must be able to do anything the players can do, and vice versa", isn't it? Pre-3e, if a DM wanted to have a mini-encounter with, say, a painting of a figure that could come to life and grab a PC to pull them into the picture, then they could just say it happens and be done. Now, it probably needs some ridiculous combination of spells and pocket dimensions, and the painting would have to have its own statblock with half a dozen feats to 'explain' exactly how it works in case a wizard PC wants to create one of his own. I much preferred the old way of "there's some poo poo in life you just can't do. Deal with it." It's a lot less work for the DM, for a start! (The retroclone I'm writing on-and-off gives monsters Gimmicks, which are explicitly things they can do which the players can't - including casting certain spells.)
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Feb 29, 2016 11:33
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There's a hell of a lot of stuff in older modules that the villains do (or have done in the past) that players will never, ever get to do, and those work just fine.
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Feb 29, 2016 11:47
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I've found that "NPC creation" flows a lot better if you let the monsters do whatever the hell is thematically appropriate, as long as it targets AC or one of the saving throws, and stays within a certain band of damage/status effects. A Medusa requires a A Cerberus can attack two (or more) people at the same time, one per each head. A Mummy requires a Wisdom (Charisma?) save or else will cause you to inflict minimum damage on your attacks as you now have the Mummy's Curse. An Ent's successful melee attacks will root you in place if you fail a Strength saving throw A Cyclops hurls massive stone boulders at you, so you can't "avoid" it via AC, but rather through Dexterity saving throws This resembles the Dungeon World "tag" system more than anything else though, and is mostly in ignorance of the written book.
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Feb 29, 2016 12:08
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AlphaDog posted:I think it's important to note that while I think it'd be better to leave more room for players to make things up, I'm not actually saying a high level of detail is bad. It's just that in my experience, the more options you codify into lists of stuff to choose from, the less people feel like making their own stuff up - and often the existence of those lists makes people feel like they can't or shouldn't (or shouldn't let others) make something up instead. This isn't just a Next thing, I've seen this happen with virtually every game that doesn't effectively force you to do it. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen someone playing 4E tear their hair out over not being able to find the right Background out of the eleventy million published ones even though the game itself straight-up tells you that you can make your own up and the formula for making one is fairly basic (+2 or add-to-class-skill-list for one of two skills, or for one skill and you know a language, done). Reskinning hits a similar mental roadblock.
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Feb 29, 2016 12:42
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Kai Tave posted:This isn't just a Next thing, I've seen this happen with virtually every game that doesn't effectively force you to do it. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen someone playing 4E tear their hair out over not being able to find the right Background out of the eleventy million published ones even though the game itself straight-up tells you that you can make your own up and the formula for making one is fairly basic (+2 or add-to-class-skill-list for one of two skills, or for one skill and you know a language, done). Reskinning hits a similar mental roadblock. I wasn't trying to imply it was just a Next thing, I've seen the same kind of thing happen in D&D since 2nd ed kits, and I'm sure it was around before that.
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Feb 29, 2016 12:51
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AlphaDog posted:I wasn't trying to imply it was just a Next thing, I've seen the same kind of thing happen in D&D since 2nd ed kits, and I'm sure it was around before that. Yeah I know, I was just remarking that this just sort of seems to be a thing, people gravitate towards "official" choices even when there's nothing requiring them to.
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Feb 29, 2016 13:06
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Payndz posted:It's all down to 3e's boringly mechanistic approach of "the monsters must be able to do anything the players can do, and vice versa", isn't it? Pre-3e, if a DM wanted to have a mini-encounter with, say, a painting of a figure that could come to life and grab a PC to pull them into the picture, then they could just say it happens and be done. Now, it probably needs some ridiculous combination of spells and pocket dimensions, and the painting would have to have its own statblock with half a dozen feats to 'explain' exactly how it works in case a wizard PC wants to create one of his own.
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Feb 29, 2016 15:45
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Did anyone ever actually put points into Perform or Craft: Bread for "role-playing" purposes? And wouldn't that make 3rd Edition just "tabletop Ultima Online"?
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Feb 29, 2016 15:55
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I have done things like that in not-D&D. If I join a friend's campaign he is putting together I might do it again. Hunting for ways to use your 6 year apprenticeship to a master potter is fun sometimes.
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Feb 29, 2016 16:30
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There are absolutely people who will laser focus on niche skills that will never see use under normal circumstances, usually as a way to prove to everyone else that they are a superior roleplayer, not rollplayer. To a certain subset of people, being near useless at the combat or adventuring parts of the game for the sake of character concept is a badge of honor.
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Feb 29, 2016 16:51
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goatface posted:I have done things like that in not-D&D. If I join a friend's campaign he is putting together I might do it again. Though in Fate you're a stunt away from using your Mining skill to attack with mining equipment (which is what he did).
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Feb 29, 2016 17:01
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You have to balance it rather than focus on it, especially in dungeon crawling games. In something like Reign though, where being a Master Cobbler is a possible result of the random creation tool, you grab that poo poo and run with it.
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Feb 29, 2016 17:45
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Okay, so here's a question, although perhaps not 5e-specific: Have you ever given out, or received, feats, special abilities, and/or skills (points) outside of the normal leveling process? It occurred to me that if a Wizard needs to either quest for, or hope for a random drop of, a Polymorph spell to learn it, couldn't we say the same for a Fighter, say, learning Improved Trip as an organic reward for tipping over an Ogre at a crucial moment? Or a Rogue learning to cast Blink, and specifically only Blink, once per day after they've trained extensively under Maiev Shadowsong? For that matter, does D&D even explicitly say that you could do this if you wanted to? Apart from the generic "they're your rules, change whatever" principle.
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Feb 29, 2016 18:44
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Judgement posted:There are absolutely people who will laser focus on niche skills that will never see use under normal circumstances, usually as a way to prove to everyone else that they are a superior roleplayer, not rollplayer. To a certain subset of people, being near useless at the combat or adventuring parts of the game for the sake of character concept is a badge of honor. I play a bard in Pathfinder who's highest skill is Profession: Cook. I'm pretty bad at combat, but that doesn't matter because the Magus in the party one-shots all encounters anyways. 
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Feb 29, 2016 18:49
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