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If you want to use 5th Edition as an introduction to the game/hobby, I'd like to put forward this little guide I wrote as a supplement And then I also put together this guide for how to create monsters: https://songoftheblade.wordpress.com/2015/09/09/improved-monster-stats-table-for-dd-5th-edition/ FRINGE posted:THAC0 is no big deal. You just have to be able to count to 10 and both add and subtract. For the sake of discussion I'd like to point out that Basic D&D isn't/doesn't use THAC0. Your character sheet is supposed to include a section where you write down: code:
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Mar 15, 2016 03:28
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Yea. I still use hit arrays because they work with any system and you don't need to do math.
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Mar 15, 2016 05:41
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I don't think dungeon world is great for new players but "the fiction" is way better than a DR chart for keeping a player in check. like he says "i wanna headbutt the wall" and then you say "okay you headbutt the wall your head hurts moving on." like there's no rules that say he should be allowed to roll there's no DR chart that he can work towards beating to justify this.
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Mar 15, 2016 05:53
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Elfgames posted:I don't think dungeon world is great for new players but "the fiction" is way better than a DR chart for keeping a player in check. like he says "i wanna headbutt the wall" and then you say "okay you headbutt the wall your head hurts moving on." like there's no rules that say he should be allowed to roll there's no DR chart that he can work towards beating to justify this. Plus, and here's the punchline, "ask your DM" isn't just a joke that this thread has run into the ground, it's at the heart of Next's design philosophy. Somewhere in there, several somewheres in fact, your players are going to stumble onto stuff that the book doesn't address with any charts or rules...not even really weird and esoteric stuff, but things like "okay how does reach interact with this feat" or "can or can't I reload a hand crossbow this way" or "so do my Monk's unarmed strikes count as weapons or weapon attacks or weapon-like attacks or what" and the only recourse you have is to make something up on the spot and stick with it. Relying on Next's rules to have your back and help keep your boundary-pushing gamebud in check isn't going to work because the game likes to absolve itself of responsibility and in the end it's going to come down to you telling him "because I said so" anyway.
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Mar 15, 2016 06:03
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Yea. I still use hit arrays because they work with any system and you don't need to do math. It's super handy to have a pre-calculated table of "I rolled X = I hit AC Y".
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Mar 15, 2016 06:11
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gradenko_2000 posted:For the sake of discussion I'd like to point out that Basic D&D isn't/doesn't use THAC0. Your character sheet is supposed to include a section where you write down:
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Mar 15, 2016 07:20
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FRINGE posted:Oh man I vaguely remember having some oooooold green (or blue?) character sheets with the list built in. The one in the red box has a pre-filled one since it's the same for everyone anyway. The boxed set "The Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game" (I think it was a forerunner to the Rules Cyclopedia?) has a blank hit matrix on the character sheet.
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Mar 15, 2016 07:52
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TorakFade posted:
Next time, remind him that the rulebook doesn't specifically state that the DM can't punch a player in the face and take away all his XP. 
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Mar 15, 2016 08:33
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To wit, the rules exist so that the group (not even just the GM, specifically) has a shared, mutual framework by which to discern how any given action should be adjudicated, but it's still up to the GM to determine if that thing is even going to be allowed to be attempted in the first place.
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Mar 15, 2016 08:54
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TorakFade posted:RPG libertarian sagas As others have said, pointed to a rulebook to deal with this dude is basically shifting responsibility, "it's not me stopping you, it's the rules", regardless of the fact that you decide when those rules apply. The problem here is that 5e then throws the ball back to you with "ask your DM", which makes this tactic unviable. Also this seems to show that your friend has more respect and is less likely to argue with the rules than you, which makes him seem kindof a dick. Even in stuff like Nobilis or Mage, where arguing you can do a thing based on stuff you have written down on your sheet there is a limit to this. Our group usually runs about 2-3 minutes debate, if still not resolved skip your turn and come back to you after the next player - you have until then to come up with a better argument, find sources to back yourself up, or decide on something else to do. Arguing past these limits results in your character being struck by a mystical God-slaying flaming piano of Fate that bypasses all resistances and kills them stone dead, no save.
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Mar 15, 2016 13:08
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http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2013/10/on-objective-design-player-types.htmlquote:There is no category for the disruptive player, griefer, overtalker, rules-lawyer or other various common ailments, because those are social ills, and cannot be resolved by rules or design.
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Mar 15, 2016 13:30
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What are everyones thoughts on this thing here? https://dungeonmusings.wordpress.com/2015/07/17/the-masters-of-sword-and-spell-return-revised-magus-class-for-5th-edition-dungeons-dragons/
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Mar 15, 2016 19:51
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TorakFade posted:Sorry I think I might have derailed the thread a bit, I get what you all say, and I assure you I don't give a flying drat about my carefully constructed plot (because most of the time it's not existent, unless I run a pre-made adventure I don't even have the details, just the start - end points and everything in the middle is kind of dynamic depending on what players do ... at least I try to make it so) Nah, this is easy, you just need to frame things as bait rather than dead ends. Rather than "No, you can't headbutt it, you'd need a catapult or battering ram." try "You can't headbutt your way through it, but if you had a battering ram you could probably smash right through it." The first is dismissive and highlights a lack of capacity. Both mention the battering ram, but the first frames it as something they don't have, while the second frames it as something they could have. The point is to take that momentum and redirect it rather than stopping it. quote:but sometimes it happens every ten minutes just to get away from a challenge or overcome an obstacle without working for it. LFK fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Mar 15, 2016 |
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Mar 15, 2016 20:34
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Traditional Games > D&D NEXT: Unrewarding and to be avoided
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Mar 15, 2016 20:49
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I am glad of all your advice guys and I'll seriously take all your suggestions to heart and hopefully be a better DM next time / convince my friend to behave better, but let's go back to talking about d&d now  LFK posted:especially in 5e where the combat is, frankly, unrewarding and to be avoided. In particular, I'm curious: what is so bad about D&D next's combat? I know 3.5 is terribly complicated and unbalanced especially in regard to magic vs. beating people with sticks, but one would think they'd get the hint since people have been mocking it all the time and improve upon it, and I thought they actually did with 4th and 5th ed. ... Why does it still suck so much? Can you provide some examples relevant to D&D next? TorakFade fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Mar 15, 2016 |
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Mar 15, 2016 21:24
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TorakFade posted:In particular, I'm curious: what is so bad about D&D next's combat? If you're a caster, things are slightly more interesting, but still not a whole lot. You'll generally have one good combat spell for every spell level you know, and they're all specialized enough that you generally know when to blow them. Are 3+ dudes bunched up? Fireball time. A bunch of low-str guys bunched up? Entangle. Boss time? Hold person. On the other hand, coming up with a cool plan to avoid combat is not only its own reward, it also generally saves a ton of party resources. Even if you have to blow a spell or daily ability to do it, it's still probably a net savings. HP are really expensive to get back with spells on top of the couple your party might cast during the combat.
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Mar 15, 2016 22:21
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TorakFade posted:I am glad of all your advice guys and I'll seriously take all your suggestions to heart and hopefully be a better DM next time / convince my friend to behave better, but let's go back to talking about d&d now There's not really much depth to it. It's billed as being all about the "theater of the mind" despite spells and abilities still having concrete ranges/radii given in feet of distance, so if you go full TotM prepare for arguments over how many kobolds can be hit by that fireball. It's also extremely prone to rocket tag syndrome on both sides. And for all of this, combat still isn't a lickety-split "done in five minutes" affair the way some folks were hoping it would be prior to its release.
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Mar 15, 2016 22:21
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TorakFade posted:I know 3.5 is terribly complicated and unbalanced especially in regard to magic vs. beating people with sticks, but one would think they'd get the hint since people have been mocking it all the time and improve upon it, and I thought they actually did with 4th and 5th ed. ... When it comes to the 4E -> 5E transition, "they" means Mike Mearls, who has all but officially stated that wizard supremacy is a Good Thing.
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Mar 15, 2016 22:22
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TorakFade posted:I am glad of all your advice guys and I'll seriously take all your suggestions to heart and hopefully be a better DM next time / convince my friend to behave better, but let's go back to talking about d&d now 5E's combat is still really unbalanced in much the same way that 3.5 is. Although the reduced spell list and inability to keep up multiple buffs at the same time has reduced overall caster power level, non-magical casters receive almost nothing by comparison to casters. Non-casters still find themselves outpaced at their central role by casters without any unusual resource investment by the caster. Bard is brought up frequently; it essentially occupies the space in 5E that clerics had in 3.5E--total versatility at no real drawback and the ability to wield god-like power. Warlocks are also very powerful, because unlike everyone else, it was decided to free them from the boring 1/day stuff. As far as combat meta, this is, like 3.5, weighted heavily toward rocket tag--come out with a wombo combo, because you can't really tank anything between the monsters doing nutty damage and your saving throws and AC being unreliable and entirely hittable except in the most extreme cases. 1st-level combat in particular is extremely dangerous. Much like 3.5E, 1st-level characters are treated like "dirt farmers" and any amount of tactical depth or choice starts filling in at 5th level or so. As in 3.5, tactical movement is basically non-existent, so you just grind up on monsters until one of you runs out of hit points.
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Mar 15, 2016 22:24
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Combat is basically the same as 3e since, well, 5e is basically 3e. They dropped the pretense of balance from 4e, both between classes and monsters versus players, so preparation on the DM's side becomes much more difficult. The first three levels are particularly deadly, since even "appropriate level" monsters can one-shot your players to death. Doesn't help that most prepublished adventures want to start at those levels either. Combat is best to be avoided, though, since the game expects 6-8 encounters, with hour long short rests every other encounter. Unfortunately, no one really has the resources for that (not enough HP or hit die, not enough spell slots, "encounter" powers take multiple encounters before they can be recharged, etc.). This generally leads to most games working on five minute adventuring days, throwing resource management's problems to the complete opposite problem: too many powerful options.
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Mar 15, 2016 22:26
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TorakFade posted:I know 3.5 is terribly complicated and unbalanced especially in regard to magic vs. beating people with sticks, but one would think they'd get the hint since people have been mocking it all the time and improve upon it, and I thought they actually did with 4th and 5th ed. ... Why does it still suck so much? Can you provide some examples relevant to D&D next? 4e did improve on combat, but the vocal grognards threw a shitfit and WOTC responded by throwing the baby out with the bathwater when they designed 5e. It's regressive in just about every way imaginable.
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Mar 15, 2016 22:28
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TorakFade posted:In particular, I'm curious: what is so bad about D&D next's combat? There's just enough rules about what can and can't be done that it inhibits a more free-form sort of approach. For example, in a more vague system you could say "I grab the bandit and try to bum rush him through the window" and the DM would fall back on some general task resolution system like, okay, roll D20 against your strength, if yes you do it. In 5e, however, there's just enough rules that there's a good chance the DM (or the players) will go "oh, wait, no, Bullrush is an action and you can only push something five feet, so you'll have to grapple, and if that works then next turn you can try to move the bandit, assuming he doesn't escape on his turn." However characters don't really have a lot of built-in interesting things to make up for it. 5e's claims to "broad simple combat" and theatre of the mind mean that things don't really interact all that much. There's not much tactical depth, there's little inter-class synergy, and classes generally don't do interesting things that keep combat dynamic. This is aggravated by a Monster Manual that is full of opponents that are equally devoid of interesting interaction and synergy. The vast majority of monsters that can do "interesting things" are spellcasters, which means you, as the DM, need an encyclopedic knowledge of the spell list in order to decipher what, exactly, a given monster is supposed to do. A good example of this would be the Orcs. The Orc Eye of Gruumsh has seven spells it can cast but no summary of what you, as the DM, should do with those spells. That's actually a pretty general problem - some monsters will have stat blocks that take up an entire column so you think "wow, that monster's really complicated" but that column boils down to "attacks twice" b/c half the stat block is describing how it can build a sand castle in its free time and it's immune to seduction, then you hit a short stat block with the landmine of "Spellcaster" that secretly gives that "simple" monster an extra 15 abilities. The sort of cherry on this is that the simplicity is fine, or at least tolerable, for speedbump combats that resolve in 10-15 minutes, but large set pieces are prone to turning into stagnant, repetitive, grinding affairs that take 60-90 minutes to resolve. TL;DR it's neither freeform nor tactically engaging, but still takes forever to resolve.
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Mar 15, 2016 22:32
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Just as a comparison, the Orc Eye of Gruumsh from 4e's entire stat block and powers can reasonably fit on a double-sided business card. I know this because I have that particular mini and its card from WOTC's attempt to sell a miniatures game based on 4e back in 2009-10.
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Mar 15, 2016 22:38
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God, I ran into the "sit and trade hp" problem pretty hard in the last one shot I ran. I had set up so that the party was guarding a caravan that was suddenly caught in a giant sandstorm. Then, gnolls attack. The only interesting parts of the fight were spells. Even though there was plenty of interesting battlefield things to use (sand blindness, caravan parts on fire, horses running around and lots of difficult terrain) basically everyone just said "I attack" in between running to the next enemy. Fun for them, amazingly, but I've never been so bored as a DM.
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Mar 15, 2016 22:47
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Oh dear. For something on its fifth iteration it sounds they didn't really learn much from past mistakes.. Is there really no redeeming feature? No amount of houseruling and fudging that can make it at least bearable? I guess being happy with CoC clunky, horrible combat isn't relevant since when you get to combat there you are most likely screwed anyway. What about skill based play/actions? Still as worthless as ever? Basically is there ANY reason to pick d&d as a system in this day and age?
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Mar 15, 2016 23:46
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IT BEGINS posted:God, I ran into the "sit and trade hp" problem pretty hard in the last one shot I ran. I had set up so that the party was guarding a caravan that was suddenly caught in a giant sandstorm. Then, gnolls attack.
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Mar 15, 2016 23:47
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TorakFade posted:Basically is there ANY reason to pick d&d as a system in this day and age? Sadly, no. 5e does nothing new, unique, or original.
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Mar 15, 2016 23:57
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TorakFade posted:Oh dear. For something on its fifth iteration it sounds they didn't really learn much from past mistakes.. Is there really no redeeming feature? No amount of houseruling and fudging that can make it at least bearable? D&D 5 has a lot of issues, but it's still perfectly playable. I've been doing a campaign for about half a year now and the group is really enjoying it. It helps we have a great DM and the players are all fun and don't take it seriously. It definitely is an imbalanced step back from 4th, but it's fine. Still, probably better of playing another system if you have the option.
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Mar 16, 2016 00:05
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TorakFade posted:Oh dear. For something on its fifth iteration it sounds they didn't really learn much from past mistakes.. Is there really no redeeming feature? No amount of houseruling and fudging that can make it at least bearable? Familiarity, basically. If you have a group of people who want to try this "Dungeons & Dragons" thing they've heard about...no, it has to be called D&D, but they've heard people on the internet say that 4th Edition literally killed a billion puppies and is bad...then Next is your choice. It's not as badly broken as 3.X despite sharing many of the same flaws, just in a slightly muted form. It's free of bloat (because practically nothing is being published for it).
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Mar 16, 2016 00:07
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It's serviceable and has name recognition, which can help bring in outsiders. Because of the general popularity of the D&D franchise, it generally means that more people are likely to have or be willing to buy (legal) copies of the game, which can make it easier to form pubbie playing groups.
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Mar 16, 2016 00:08
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ImpactVector posted:I don't know why, but the martials keep getting into themselves into 1v1 duels in the games I've been in, and it's especially bad there. Just back and forth: roll hit, roll damage, subtract HP until someone falls over. Splicer fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Mar 16, 2016 |
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Mar 16, 2016 00:36
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ImpactVector posted:I don't know why, but the martials keep getting into themselves into 1v1 duels in the games I've been in, and it's especially bad there. Just back and forth: roll hit, roll damage, subtract HP until someone falls over. Because they don't have anything that lets them do anything else?
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Mar 16, 2016 01:08
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gradenko_2000 posted:http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2013/10/on-objective-design-player-types.html Interesting. Then I came to this bit: quote:This is far from the first post on Player types. Wizards of the Coast even performed a quantitative analysis! It's interesting for a couple of reasons, first is that it was likely used to drive the development of 4th edition, which was not a commercial success for Wizards of the Coast. In general it seems that games based of a strong quantitative or theoretical background don't do particularly well in the market.
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Mar 16, 2016 03:38
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Skellybones posted:Because they don't have anything that lets them do anything else? Our 5e DM at least let us flank, despite the fact that we didn't actually use a grid. So, you know two guys ganging up and swinging at one dude for rounds on end. Again, as a comparison, I ran a three person encounter Saturday with three Crauds from 4e's MM3, and that was actually a tactically interesting encounter since the Crauds would force you into the water with them and grapple with you. As in they had built-in forced movement and grab abilities. Poor Thri-kreen Ranger was almost drowned and eaten by a giant crawfish and the Half-Elf Cleric almost got knocked the hell out when one of them critically smashed her in the face with a claw, pushed her a square, and knocked her prone. It helps that the party focused fired on the Leader Soldier (High Defense, Sticky, with Support powers) monster, who got to trigger attacks for his two Brute (Low Defense, High HP and Damage) buddies upon being bloodied. The Minotaur fighter was finally able to lock everything down, allowing the Cleric and Ranger to rally. They almost got wrecked, but they still have enough resources for like 2-3 more encounters. Which is good because 4 encounters is roughly an adventuring day and they are about to go into the Swamp Temple. It really shows how regressive 5e is in comparison. Mike Mearls' name is on Monster Manual 3, one of the most lauded products of the 4e line with not only improved math but also mechanically interesting yet simple to use and understand monsters - all laid out in nice, concise statblocks. Then 5e's Monster Manual comes out, and its math is all over the place, the challenge ratings are worthless, the monsters are mechanically boring, and half of them have abilities that must be cross-referenced with a completely separate source book. They knew better and had done better, and that's what bothers me the most.
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Mar 16, 2016 04:08
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Mewnie posted:Interesting. Then I came to this bit: Spergs will be spergs. At least it's some good, rather than all garbage like your average piece about D&D.
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Mar 16, 2016 05:01
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TorakFade posted:Oh dear. For something on its fifth iteration it sounds they didn't really learn much from past mistakes.. Is there really no redeeming feature? No amount of houseruling and fudging that can make it at least bearable? In the abstract it's broken, but it's not unplayably broken. If you avoid trying to tell a coherent story with meaningful antagonists and planned narrative beats than it works well enough. Stick to simple encounters that'll resolve quickly and smash+loot dungeon crawling where the players largely entertain themselves bantering like Legolas and Gimli and I doubt anyone will even notice the problems. It works best in that space because that's what Mearls was aiming for, the older editions where 90% of monster "customization" was giving one of the goblins a funny hat and having the others say "yes boss", then you'd throw thirty goblins in a room and just shrug at your players and say "I dunno, you figure out how to deal with this." I wouldn't say Mearls hit that mark in a super satisfying way relative to games like Dungeon World and Basic D&D, but of all the various things that D&D is, that's the one 5e is closest to being.
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Mar 16, 2016 09:00
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Mewnie posted:Interesting. Then I came to this bit: Yeah, I winced at that too, but it's a drat sight better than some of the dreck I've tried, so I'm willing to tolerate some grogginess. Like, this article is something I wish I had read when I was just starting out as a DM, especially: quote:A final word. A lot of advice is about how to handle problem situations. But the fact is, if you are having problems situations often it isn’t a problem with the game. It’s a personal issue. If you think to yourself “Ah-ha! He didn’t say he lit a torch! Take 1d6 damage because you fall in the dark!” you do not need advice on how to DM. You need advice on how to get your needs met in an appropriate way in life. TorakFade posted:Oh dear. For something on its fifth iteration it sounds they didn't really learn much from past mistakes.. Is there really no redeeming feature? No amount of houseruling and fudging that can make it at least bearable? The thing about "fifth edition" is that there isn't a direct line of iteration and improvement of design like there was in every other transition. They deliberately threw out most of the lessons from 4th Edition, so the problems were seeing here are still largely the same ones from 3rd Edition, except where they've invented new ones like the borked monster math and the relative uselessness of a character's bonuses (unless the DM is really well-aware of the underlying math). They still haven't "fixed" D&D by this, the so-called fifth attempt, because it was a conscious decision to step back from the honest attempts they tried with all the other ones. But, I editorialize. Call of Cthulhu's combat is, in a way, marginally better because the lethality and the unpredictability of it drives the theme of the game: combat is supposed to be avoided, and you're going to die if you try. 5e's combat is a problem because the lack of explicit mechanics means it's not rewarding in and of itself, while at the same time trying to pull off clever, off-the-cuff "stunts" is going to step on what few mechanics exist, and the lovely math means "you want to aim for the Orc's knees? -2 to-hit, but you can slow/prone him on a hit" isn't going to hold up when you've only got a 60% chance to hit at best. And I say at best because that assumes you maximize your attributes to a 16 STR or DEX. Which maybe won't happen either because the default method for attribute generation is 4d6-drop-lowest. If you then attempt to avoid combat, then any combats you end up getting into are going to be skewed one way or the other because you haven't been properly attritted. Now, it's perfectly possible to have an enjoyable session of D&D despite all this, but I've found that it's something that happens in spite of the rules, rather than because of them.
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Mar 16, 2016 10:36
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DJ Dizzy posted:What are everyones thoughts on this thing here? All in all the thing strikes me as too potent. It just does too many things. It copies abilities that normally you'd need a feat for or that others classes get, except sooner and better. I think they tried to ram a Pathfinder class into the 5e mechanics, but didn't quite realize that Pathfinder is 3.5 with the gonzo turned up to eleven, while 5e tried to turn it down to eight instead. The DC 10 constitution check of Spell Combat is a fine example: it's supposed to replicate the 3e/PF concentration check to cast defensively, but 5e just rejects that idea and it shouldn't have been brought back. Now it just adds extra dice rolls and wastes everybody's time. Pointlessly transplanting rule concepts from one system to another is not to the benefit of either. Spell Strike interacts weirdly with Extra Attack, because the former explicitly uses the Attack action instead of just an attack as an action. (God I love that terminology.) Because if you have two or more attacks, then all of them would gain the benefit of the spell. Read carefully and you'll note that it doesn't say that it only applies to the first attack you make, unlike something like True Strike which explicitly does for exactly this kind of reason. This makes the Magus complete bogus because he'll just Attack and cast Shocking Grasp on it all day every day. A single level dip into Magus to pick up Spell Strike and Shocking Grasp (the single cantrip in the game this ability works with btw) becomes a must for every warrior-type, especially people who plan to take 11+ levels of Fighter. (I know the True Magus capstone ability implies otherwise, but that is not what Spellstrike itself says. Just goes to show that the writer doesn't yet have a solid enough grasp of mechanics-lingo.)
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Mar 16, 2016 12:15
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That honestly may be intentional. Shocking Grasp is a gimme for the original Pathfinder magus.
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Mar 16, 2016 12:45
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gradenko_2000 posted:Yeah, I winced at that too, but it's a drat sight better than some of the dreck I've tried, so I'm willing to tolerate some grogginess. The important thing to remember about 5E is that they didn't try to make a good game, or a well balanced game, and a fun and easy to play game. They set out to make a game that feels like (3.x) D&D, and by god they did that. Shame they didn't shoot for any of those other things, though, so it's just a mediocre game that feels like 3.x D&D.
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Mar 16, 2016 13:59
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