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Arivia posted:That honestly may be intentional. Shocking Grasp is a gimme for the original Pathfinder magus.  That's all the Magus ever does in one of the campaigns I'm in. He pretty much one shots everyone.
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Mar 16, 2016 16:41
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I really wish I could get my gm to let me run 4e for our group, but he played once with the bad old monster math and now just thinks it's just world of Warcraft but on tabletop. Ugh.
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Mar 16, 2016 16:48
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Victorkm posted:I really wish I could get my gm to let me run 4e for our group, but he played once with the bad old monster math and now just thinks it's just world of Warcraft but on tabletop. Ugh.
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Mar 16, 2016 16:59
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My group I'm starting a campaign for is really against doing anything but 5e, tho I hopefully can talk them into somethin else after this campaign. Are there any rules I could add or change to make the combat less boring? I'm planning on the campaign being fairly light on combat, but I know I'll have some.
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Mar 16, 2016 17:08
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Less HP, more dynamism in the fight structure.
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Mar 16, 2016 17:15
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Victorkm posted:I really wish I could get my gm to let me run 4e for our group, but he played once with the bad old monster math and now just thinks it's just world of Warcraft but on tabletop. Ugh. If he thinks its Tabletop WoW, I don't think the fixed monster math is going to change his mind very much, sorry to say. Mr E posted:My group I'm starting a campaign for is really against doing anything but 5e, tho I hopefully can talk them into somethin else after this campaign. Are there any rules I could add or change to make the combat less boring? I'm planning on the campaign being fairly light on combat, but I know I'll have some. Have defined objectives or stakes per combat. Call fights early once the mission is accomplished.
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Mar 16, 2016 17:55
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:
Same with our Magus in my earlier PF game. Loaded up all the low slots with a bunch of metamagicked Shocking Grasps through a keen scimitar, with a few chill touches and the like on the side just in case. She used to pretty much one-shot one big enemy per round before we all switched to 4e (I'm not saying it was entirely the magus' fault, but it was one factor). Actually, I want to say it was a keen spell-storing scimitar for a double shocking grasp once per encounter. Shocking grasp. Forever. You will never escape.
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Mar 16, 2016 18:31
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Kai Tave posted:It's worth noting that there's a BECMI retroclone called Darkest Dungeons (nothing to do with the recent PC game) that's completely free to download and one of the few tweaks it makes is ditching THAC0 for a roll-over approach. Swords & Wizardry (based on OD&D) also comes with built-in rules to use 3rd edition Attack Bonuses and AC. Also has one of the easiest Save Throw mechanics, as everyone has just one they use for everything, with a situational modifier or two per class (like breath weapons for a Fighter). Though it also offers a more traditional approach. Doresh fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Mar 16, 2016 |
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Mar 16, 2016 18:43
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Hey gang. I'm a new DM starting a 5e campaign and I'm looking for some good pointers to determine when my players have failed a skill challenge. The DMG gives DC checks based on difficulty, but at what point do I just tell them they hosed it up? I'm thinking a system where I say they need to get 3 successful checks before 3 unsuccessful checks or something like that, but balancing that seems tricky. Any tips?
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Mar 16, 2016 18:51
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samu3lk posted:Hey gang. I'm a new DM starting a 5e campaign and I'm looking for some good pointers to determine when my players have failed a skill challenge. The DMG gives DC checks based on difficulty, but at what point do I just tell them they hosed it up? What you're describing is 4e's Skill Challenge, so I guess look there if you want to replicate it.
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Mar 16, 2016 18:54
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Generic Octopus posted:What you're describing is 4e's Skill Challenge, so I guess look there if you want to replicate it. Aah, nice. I've only ever played 4e, and I didn't know there were actual rules for those things. I'll find a 4e DMG and see what's up. Thanks!
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Mar 16, 2016 18:57
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samu3lk posted:Aah, nice. I've only ever played 4e, and I didn't know there were actual rules for those things. I'll find a 4e DMG and see what's up. Thanks! Incorrect! Grab the Obsidian Skill Challenge system and use that as your base instead. It's a much less boring way of going about things.
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Mar 16, 2016 19:06
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samu3lk posted:Aah, nice. I've only ever played 4e, and I didn't know there were actual rules for those things. I'll find a 4e DMG and see what's up. Thanks! The most important thing is that both succeeding and failing a skill challenge should be interesting.
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Mar 16, 2016 19:14
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Yeah, the Skill Challenge system is widely regarded as a failed experiment, even by people who like 4e. They're really boring and encourage players to either spam their best skills or sit out depending on whether they have anything relevant trained. They needed to be either more or less than what they were. If you want more, you need to build systems to interact with, like you have in combat. If less, just do skill checks as they come up in roleplay and guide the consequences from there. The key to that second approach though is that you never have a skill check that doesn't have interesting consequences. Or you drive related consequences from the failure. E.g. if they failed their lock picking roll, if that would normally bring the game to a halt, have the lock pop open just as some guards are walking past. Basically: Dirk the Average posted:The most important thing is that both succeeding and failing a skill challenge should be interesting.
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Mar 16, 2016 19:18
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Yeah, don't have any rolls unless you're prepared for the players to fail.
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Mar 16, 2016 19:18
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The 4e DMG 2 is what you'll want for skill challenges. That said, I'm not really a fan of that system as a whole, no matter how much it's been "fixed". Establish the problem and the stakes. A player/the group decides on a plan of action. They make a skill check to overcome either the entire problem in one go, or one step in the entire problem-solving process. If they succeed, good, they advance. If they don't succeed, then the stakes escalate and the plan suffers a setback. Or something it's a choice between the two: do you double-down on the plan at higher risk, or do you cut your losses and try a different approach at the cost of starting over?
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Mar 16, 2016 19:19
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Dirk the Average posted:The most important thing is that both succeeding and failing a skill challenge should be interesting. Wow, lots of responses here. I always liked the skill challenges in 4e, but maybe I just had a good DM. The campaign I'm running is gonna be pretty heavily roleplay based, so I wanted to work in more opportunities for my players to roll some dice where they're not just fighting. The idea for the campaign is they're cleaning up a town, so failures are going to have repercussions on their status and their relationships with the townspeople, I think. They piss somebody off or scare somebody with a failure, or make the problem worse or something. This has all been really helpful.
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Mar 16, 2016 19:41
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Splicer posted:Ask everyone else to play, say he can sit out if he's really against it. I would, but he's the guy who keeps the group together. I'm not close with them except through my friendship with him. Every time he's had to take a break in the past we just don't meet.
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Mar 16, 2016 20:07
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For the most part, you never want to have success contingent on rolling a bunch of times successfully. I don't think it's meaningfully different to need to roll 3 out of 6 successes or a single success with the same chances.
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Mar 16, 2016 20:25
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CaPensiPraxis posted:For the most part, you never want to have success contingent on rolling a bunch of times successfully. I don't think it's meaningfully different to need to roll 3 out of 6 successes or a single success with the same chances. From a roleplaying standpoint, I want the players to justify what skills they're using to solve a problem. I want to react to their solutions as much as they react to the problem. I'm starting to suspect I may be over thinking this.
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Mar 16, 2016 20:53
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samu3lk posted:From a roleplaying standpoint, I want the players to justify what skills they're using to solve a problem. I want to react to their solutions as much as they react to the problem. this is the final version of skill challenge rules from 4e Rules Compendium http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=456710523#post456710523
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Mar 16, 2016 22:48
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I've been following Angry GM's advice and it's worked fairly well. First, my players never state what they want to roll. They describe the action they want to take. I will have them roll the appropriate skill check if 1) there is a chance of success, 2) there is a chance of failure, and 3) their is a cost associated with failing. Every success or failure should lead to changed conditions. Otherwise they could just roll over and over again until they succeed or fail and that's boring. For example, if the rogue wants to pick a lock in the abandoned keep after the party has killed all the wandering monsters there is no time constraint. They can try until they succeed so I narrate "after fiddling with the lock for a little bit you work the door open." Now, if the party is trying to retreat from the evil catlady lich and the door stands in the way, the rogue will have to roll because a failure means the party is trapped in the room full of angry cat mummies for another turn.
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Mar 17, 2016 02:10
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So I recently had a look at 5e again, because I like to look at homebrew stuff and I'm constantly seeing everyone scream about how everything is broken when it's martial and flavorful when it's magic. Made me want to tackle the problem from a new direction to try and show just how difficult it'd actually be to make a 'broken' fighter using 5e as a system. So, I give you 5e Pointbuy It's a bit ugly at the moment, but I plan on cleaning it up a bit and dropping it on grognards everywhere. Before that, anything I could use to polish it up, any glaring errors or counterarguments I could try and head off, anything that makes it a more effective attack on the idea that "Remarkable Athlete is totally just as good as 4th level spellcasting." would be helpful.
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Mar 17, 2016 02:21
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Quadratic_Wizard posted:So I recently had a look at 5e again, because I like to look at homebrew stuff and I'm constantly seeing everyone scream about how everything is broken when it's martial and flavorful when it's magic. Made me want to tackle the problem from a new direction to try and show just how difficult it'd actually be to make a 'broken' fighter using 5e as a system. Like imagine Barbarians just getting Move Earth 1/day at level 11 (2/day at level 19) as a feature. Good work.
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Mar 17, 2016 03:21
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Quadratic_Wizard posted:So I recently had a look at 5e again, because I like to look at homebrew stuff and I'm constantly seeing everyone scream about how everything is broken when it's martial and flavorful when it's magic. Made me want to tackle the problem from a new direction to try and show just how difficult it'd actually be to make a 'broken' fighter using 5e as a system. The 16-inch-wide pages are really annoying, given that that's literally wider than the screen I'm using right now.
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Mar 17, 2016 03:27
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This is good work. It's very reminiscent of a similar point-based analysis of 3rd Edition classes in the Trailblazer and Dreamscarred's Complete Control supplements, although you're far more honest about the relative power of spellcasting.
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Mar 17, 2016 06:21
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gradenko_2000 posted:This is good work. It's very reminiscent of a similar point-based analysis of 3rd Edition classes in the Trailblazer and Dreamscarred's Complete Control supplements, although you're far more honest about the relative power of spellcasting. This is just giving me flashbacks to SKRs pathfinder point list for feats lol.
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Mar 17, 2016 06:35
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That seems like a good way to look at how classes relate to each other, and I'm going to go over it in detail when I'm not looking at it on my phone.
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Mar 17, 2016 06:44
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Roadie posted:The 16-inch-wide pages are really annoying, given that that's literally wider than the screen I'm using right now. Agreed on the size, and echoing that its really a solid bit of work. If only tummyfeels were vulnerable to actual math in a game built on math 
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Mar 17, 2016 08:50
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Moinkmaster posted:Agreed on the size, and echoing that its really a solid bit of work. If only tummyfeels were vulnerable to actual math in a game built on math Messed around with the margins a bit, should be a bit easier on the eyes. Also used some of the suggestions for typos and the like.
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Mar 17, 2016 17:59
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Very interesting analysis here! My only suggestion would be to adjust the assumption of "65% of the time, my spells will land for full damage" starting around level 10. Multiple saving throw proficiencies, >20 ability scores, and legendary resistance all come into play fairly often once you start hitting monsters above CR 8 or so. Also, what's the prevalence of elemental resistance at those higher CRs (let's assume the martials are given access to magic weapons)? Not that it changes your overall point that fighters are much further behind in non-combat situations than wizards are behind in combat...
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Mar 17, 2016 18:02
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I think you might be being too generous on the number of monsters with scores over 20, at least in the stats that actually matter for saves. While resistance might come up, or even outright immunity, it will usually only cover certain things and with the sheer number of options of a spellcaster you will likely be able to overcome it nearly every time. On the other hand you are way too expectant of the non casters having a magic weapon. Yes some of the prebuilt adventures eventually give one person a magic weapon, levels and levels after they have already been facing things that are resistant or immune to non magical weapons. Admittedly I haven't played a lot of high level adventures, but in my experience it is the weapon users that have more difficulty actually inflicting damage on things, because of resistances and immunities, than the spellcasters.
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Mar 17, 2016 18:15
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Yeah, the thing about the damage analysis is that it assumes a wizard is playing like the biggest idiot ever, using the same spell for every situation, in the same way that Fighters need to approach every fight the same way: hitting it with their weapon. Wizards don't have that kind of weakness though. Monsters don't just have weaknesses, they have vulnerabilities, they have poor saves, and wizards are able to target those. "Oh, a straw elemental? Let's try fire. Oh, an ogre? I bet its wisdom save is poo poo." etc. The "optimized, competent" wizard has a point total of several thousand. The analysis was to show that the idiot, dumb wizard who doesn't really understand the game, is still leagues ahead of the fighter.
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Mar 17, 2016 18:35
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ImpactVector posted:Yeah, the Skill Challenge system is widely regarded as a failed experiment, even by people who like 4e. They're really boring and encourage players to either spam their best skills or sit out depending on whether they have anything relevant trained. Skill Challenges never really fixed the problem of skill checks being binary. You either fail or succeed, but now you do it multiple times in succession. I've found an interesting alternative in the game Double Cross, which one might just adapt into D&D: successful skill checks have their total converted into points, of which you have to accumulate enough in a certain amount of turns to succeed. The GM can set an upper ceiling on the points one can get per check in order to enforce a minimum time for the challenge. Each skill challenge also comes with multiple milestones that trigger upon reaching a certain amount of points. These represent shifting conditions in the challenge, and can make further checks easier, harder and/or change the usable skills completely. And then you can roll up random events each turn that also mix things up.
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Mar 17, 2016 22:29
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Doresh posted:Skill Challenges never really fixed the problem of skill checks being binary. You either fail or succeed, but now you do it multiple times in succession. The Skill Challenge Handbook does a great job of making skill checks non-binary. Basically, this alt-system works by having the GM setup a list of possible outcomes with an attached target number (tiered successes). The GM also makes failure actions, bad things that can happen as a result of the actions. One player begins the challenge and creates the first result. The player can then keep that number or take a failure action so that another can do a thing. If the later, another player makes a skill check: if higher than the previous by 2, it replaces the original result and, if lower than the previous, it just raises the current result by 2. This continues until you run out of failure actions or the players choose not to take a failure action. When its done, you compare the final result to the closest lower tier to determine the overall outcome. I might have gotten that a little wrong, but I do suggest checking it out. It works for any d20 game so it can slip into your 5e games easily.
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Mar 17, 2016 22:37
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Quadratic_Wizard posted:So, I give you What the gently caress. I knew Wizards were more powerful that Fighters, but putting numbers on it and seeing it laid out like that is boggling my mind. Why did they release 5e with such a huge difference in power between the classes? Didn't they have a playtest for several months?  Really great work with the document, thanks for taking the time to write it.
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Mar 17, 2016 23:01
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Lamquin posted:Didn't they have a playtest for several months? The goal of the 5e playtest was free buzz and ad copy, not serious feedback.
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Mar 17, 2016 23:02
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The playtest found that fighters were too powerful.
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Mar 17, 2016 23:03
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It was closer to the modern type of "open beta". The ones you get on Steam which are actually "Oh poo poo we need some money, lets do an unfinished release now so we can get the hype train going, hopefully get some investors and sales".
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Mar 17, 2016 23:10
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Ay yo Quadratic Wizard, that is some good work you did there. Now I'm thinking about the level 20 ranger class feature in terms of point value and making myself sad.
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Mar 18, 2016 00:28
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