D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

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Negative Entropy: Nov 30, 2009

Even clerics: "Your god hears your prayers but has different plans"
And rangers: "you're not entirely familiar with these wilds and a malign spirit answers instead."
and druids: "You call upon nature to aid you, but the elements betray you because nature is a cavalcade of endless, random horror."

Snipe

"Redgar, you worm. Waving your sword around like a feather duster, my teeth are longer and harder than your steel. Such impudence. Human."
The red dragon snatched up the scale clad human fighter as his companions scurried back from the monstrous drake. Tossed in the air his armaments scattered like leaf litter thrown by a child, then the dragon bit him out of the air.
Redgar, an adventurer of few words and his average intellect no match for the Dragon responded far less eloquently. He pulled a hatchet from his belt and as the dragons teeth sank into his body and broke his legs he shouted; "gently caress. you. Dragon. gently caress. you." punctuating every word with a blow.

Negative Entropy fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Aug 12, 2016

# ? Aug 12, 2016 00:15

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# ? May 14, 2024 13:01

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

KingKalamari posted:

I just picked up Ultramodern5, I haven't had enough time to read over it too thoroughly but it looks quite interesting. It's basically D20 Modern for 5e and uses a revised character class system that breaks your character into a combination of a class, a ladder and an archetype.

It sounds like that will suffer from the problem of 5e not being built to be generic. Not that it can't be good, nor is that any reason why you'd be wrong for liking it, but it seems like 5e might hold a plan like that back.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 00:32

Angrymog: Jan 30, 2012; Really Madcats

Kommando posted:

"Redgar, you worm. Waving your sword around like a feather duster, my teeth are longer and harder than your steel. Such impudence. Human."
The red dragon snatched up the scale clad human fighter as his companions scurried back from the monstrous drake. Tossed in the air his armaments scattered like leaf litter thrown by a child, then the dragon bit him out of the air.
Redgar, an adventurer of few words and his average intellect no match for the Dragon responded far less eloquently. He pulled a hatchet from his belt and as the dragons teeth sank into his body and broke his legs he shouted; "gently caress. you. Dragon. gently caress. you." punctuating every word with a blow.

I don't think that that's Redgar.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 01:00

Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Angrymog posted:

I don't think that that's Redgar.

Yeah, that's Tordek, the real 3e fighter iconic.

Also Cirno your comparison of rangers over the years elided the 3.0 and 3.5 ranger together, which is really confusing - the 3.0 one was changes from 2e, and then the 3.5 one was changes from how popular the ranger was as a multiclassing option in 3.0.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 01:04

Negative Entropy: Nov 30, 2009

Angrymog posted:

I don't think that that's Redgar.

In my story its Redgar. Because hes in an unfortunate situation.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 01:05

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Regdar

Arivia posted:

Yeah, that's Tordek, the real 3e fighter iconic.

Also Cirno your comparison of rangers over the years elided the 3.0 and 3.5 ranger together, which is really confusing - the 3.0 one was changes from 2e, and then the 3.5 one was changes from how popular the ranger was as a multiclassing option in 3.0.

All versions of the 3.x ranger are just about as bad, with some quality-of-life changes to the 3.5 ranger that really didn't affect its relative power level.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 01:11

ProfessorCirno: Feb 17, 2011; The strongest! The smartest!
The rightest!

I know absolutely nothing about the 3.0 ranger, which is why I compared it to the 3.5 ranger. I admit I also checked the srd as I went to make sure I didn't forget anything, and, well, 3.5 again.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 02:01

Red Metal: Oct 23, 2012; Let me tell you about Homestuck; Fun Shoe

The 3.0 Ranger had the following:

d10 hit die
4 + Int skills
Good Fort save, poor Reflex and Will saves
Armor up to medium & shields
Free Ambidexterity & Two-Weapon Fighting feats while in light or no armor (but not in medium armor)
Track as a bonus feat
Favored Enemy (the bonus damage didn't apply to enemies immune to crits)
Slightly worse spell progression than 3.5 (they didn't get spells until level 5, vs. level 4 in 3.5)

Red Metal fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Aug 12, 2016

# ? Aug 12, 2016 02:19

P.d0t: Dec 27, 2007; I released my finger from the trigger, and then it was over...

Red Metal posted:

The 3.0 Ranger had the following:

[...]
Free Ambidexterity & Two-Weapon Fighting feats while in light or no armor (but not in medium armor)
Track as a bonus feat

This gives me a thought. Monk and Barbarian have restrictions to their class features based on the armor they're using; maybe you could do something similar with the Ranger?
Dual Wielder is the first feat that comes to mind, but you'd probably need more/better stuff to make Ranger actually good.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 07:28

Cassa: Jan 29, 2009

Make them all one class, limit the fighter based on what armour he's wearing.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 07:32

Negative Entropy: Nov 30, 2009

Eldritch Knight is now a fighter archetype why can't Ranger

# ? Aug 12, 2016 07:41

Spiteski: Aug 27, 2013

Isn't that what Mearls said about a non magic ranger? He'd just make a fighter archetype instead of a class.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 07:45

P.d0t: Dec 27, 2007; I released my finger from the trigger, and then it was over...

Now that you mention it, you could probably tie some free bonus feats to Armor usage + Fighting Style, and make it applicable to Rangers and Fighters.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 08:03

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

ProfessorCirno posted:

AD&D ranger was straight up Aragorn with some D&D dust sprinkled on top.

This was a good post, and I appreciate it.

For content, I'm looking at the OD&D Ranger from The Strategic Review, Vol 1 No 2 and it's about the same as how you described the AD&D Ranger:

* A sub-class of Fighters
* Must always be Lawful, and requires a minimum of 12 Intelligence, 12 Wisdom, and 15 Constitution
* Starts with 2 Hit Dice at level
* Cannot own anything beyond what they can wear and carry, and any wealth they accumulate needs to be donated
* Cannot hire hirelings
* Cannot have more than two Rangers in a party together (this is sort of a peek-behind-the-curtain as to how groups/parties would have been organized back in those days, as putting such an explicit restriction suggests there were either a lot of players, or a lot of characters per player, or both)
* Has a 33% XP gain bonus (but no bonus from a high Prime Requisite)
* Can use a percentile die rolling chart to track monsters. Inside dungeons it's a base 65% chance to track a monster that ran down a normal corridor, scaling down to 30% if they fled through a secret door. In the wilderness it's a 90% chance of following a trail, -10% for every day that the trail is old.
* Can only be surprised on a roll of 1 (on a 1d6)
* Gains +1 damage per level (!) against all Giant-type enemies

* A level 8 (Ranger-Knight), they can start using magic items, including scrolls, if they are healing items or disease-curing items
* At level 8, they can start casting Cleric spells. They gain another level of Cleric spellcasting every even level
* At level 8, they do unfortunately lose the 33% XP bonus

* At level 9 (Ranger-Lord), attracts 2d12 followers
* At level 9, can start casting Magic-User spells. They gain another level of Magic-User spellcasting every odd level
* At level 9, can use any items that deal with Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, ESP, Telepathy, Telekinesis, and Teleportation (this is a very explicit link to Aragorn and the Palantir)

# ? Aug 12, 2016 10:01

Elfgames: Sep 11, 2011; Fun Shoe

Kommando posted:

Eldritch Knight is now a fighter archetype why can't Ranger

a ranger as a druid+ fighter thing would be fine i feel the same about the paladin too for cleric+fighter

# ? Aug 12, 2016 10:05

Slab Squatthrust: Jun 3, 2008; This is mutiny!

So apparently Mearls tweeted that the next UA is going to have a new Ranger in it. Didn't say whether it was an archetype or a rework based on the other couple UA versions, but he did say it would be official, whatever that means.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 13:40

Dick Burglar: Mar 6, 2006

Can you use UA stuff like the ambuscade ranger in RPGA or whatever it's called now? If not, maybe that's what he means by "official"?

# ? Aug 12, 2016 18:55

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

I am tempted to into 3E, find an option that lets you replace wild shape with [something not as good], and play that as a ranger. Or reskin wild shape.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 18:59

Ryuujin: Sep 26, 2007; Dragon God

You cannot use Unearthed Arcana in Adventurer's League. Though a few things, the Swashbuckler Rogue and Storm Sorcerer is all I believe, eventually made it into an "official" product and were allowed.

# ? Aug 12, 2016 19:08

Kestral: Nov 24, 2000; Forum Veteran

D&D 5e goons, how does one make character creation for a whole group of inexperienced players go as quickly as possible, while minimizing downtime for each individual player?

I�ve been asked to run a D&D 5e campaign for a group of kids at my FLGS, ranging in age from 8 to 12 or so. I�ve played a lot of RPGs with kids before and I�m comfortable with my ability to manage it, but part of my strategy in the past has been to choose games where character creation is quick, or to use pregens that they can select from. Pregens aren�t happening here, and 5e chargen is not quick except in comparison to, I don�t know, HERO or Burning Wheel, so I�m trying to figure out how to get 5-6 kids� characters built while keeping engagement high.

I�d like to do character creation together, both because that�s good RPG practice in general but also as a much-needed teambuilding activity � these kids don�t know each other well and have some of the socialization issues you�d expect from tiny nerdlings, so it�s a necessary exercise. That precludes walking each kid through the process individually, which would just leave the others sitting around bored on their phones anyway, but it means we need a good way to get the whole group through chargen together. Part of the challenge to that approach is that while these kids have played 3-5 sessions of D&D each, they�ve never made characters for themselves: store employees have been making them using Fantasy Grounds, so they aren�t familiar with the process or even the options other than vague notions of there being elves and dragonborn (hoo-boy do they love dragonborn) and clerics and wizards, etc.

I�ve been considering something like printing out all the classes separately like Apocalypse World playbooks, then walking the whole group through character creation in stages: �What�s your concept? You could be something like X, or Y, or maybe Z?� then handing them the appropriate class package and a character sheet, going back to ability scores, and working through each section of Class Features for the whole group before moving on to the next section. All that said, I�ve never done anything like this for 5e, so I�d love some perspective from people who play it actively.

# ? Aug 13, 2016 04:02

Negative Entropy: Nov 30, 2009

I too would. like to know because I spent four hours with total adult newbies just generating characters.

you will need multiple books I know that much

# ? Aug 13, 2016 08:23

Razorwired: Dec 7, 2008; It's about to start!

Maybe try something like giving them all a character sheet and prepare some cards/sheets breaking down racial selections and class features. Prepare a stat array for a maxed primary stat, two 14s, etc and have them pick one. Then when you ask their race hand out cards with racial abilities and let them write. Repeat for class/background.

Spellcasters get a prepped spell list for the first session with the option to bring a custom list next time.

# ? Aug 13, 2016 08:33

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Yeah the more pre-built stuff the better for what you want. Maybe even bring in 15-20 complete(ish) characters with mini-backstories and let them pick from that pool. Let them know that they can make some changes for the second game. Having a small (generic) paragraph for "who the character is" will start them imagining stuff to get the RP going. Like: "You grew up as a blacksmith, but when your family was killed by raiders you joined the guard/army and learned ..." helps a lot more than "Youre a level 1 (or 3) fighter".

_{(This is the opposite of my normal preference with adults that are willing to start a long lasting game, where I like super involved character creation for the narrative.)}

# ? Aug 13, 2016 08:41

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

I wrote this 3.5e, but most of it should apply to 5e as well:

gradenko_2000 posted:

When I had to do this last week for a D&D 3.5 game, my first question was what kind of character they wanted to play. Most people are already familiar with the concept of a "class" in an RPG, and he decided on a Barbarian.

I then gave him a standard array of attribute scores: 16/14/14/14/10/10. I told him that he should probably put his highest score into Strength, and then the second highest into Constitution, and then Dexterity, and then the third "14" into any of the three remaining mental attribute scores that he wanted to buff up. You are in a sense dictating what the player should do at this point, but it shouldn't be a big deal because you're disallowing them from shooting themselves in the foot.

I then explained the difference between ability scores and ability modifiers.

I then taught him, over the course of maybe a 15 minute conversation:

* Okay, your hit points is 14, because that's 12 base, plus your +2 Constitution modifier

* Your AC is 10, plus 4 for being a Barbarian, plus your Dexterity modifier, so that's a ... right, an AC of 16
(I used the Base Defense Bonus variant rule for this game, so I wouldn't have to worry about people having to deal with buying armor and armor check penalties on skills)

* Your Fortitude save is +4, because that's +2 base, plus your +2 Constitution modifier
* Your Reflex save is +2, because that's 0 base, plus your +2 Dexterity modifier
* Your Will save is 0 base, plus your Wisdom modifier. What did you put in for your Wisdom? 14? Okay, so then it's a ... yeah, that's right .. a +2
* Don't worry about what that means just yet, I'll tell you when we get there

* Your Base Attack Bonus is a +1
* Your melee attack is a +4, because that's a +3 on your Strength modifier, and then a +1 from your Base Attack Bonus.
* You start with a greataxe, which uses a d12 for damage, and a +3 from your Strength

* Now we get to skills
(I sent him a pdf of the character sheet, so he can see the skill list)
* Every skill has a matching ability modifier, go fill that out now
* All right, so your Intelligence is a flat 10, so no extra skill points. Barbarians get 16 skill points at level 1 that you can distribute among your skills, and you can put up to 4 points into a skill, so practically speaking you want to just pick four skills and to "max out"
(for this game I considered all skills to be class skills, again for simplicity's sake so I wouldn't have to deal with explaining "two and a half ranks on a cross-class skill")
(this part took a while, while the player filled out the list)

* Okay, we're almost done. Now we get to talk feats. You should have three: one just for being level 1, a second for being a human, and a third that I decided to give everyone as a bonus.
[We have a back-and-forth with me asking what he'd like to be able to do with the character as a special ability, and also suggesting the default package feats like Cleave and Power Attack]

* And then just write down your Rage as an ability so you can remember you still have it

===

That ended the "creating the character" part of the conversation. From there we just started the game with the characters on a dirt road headed to a town, with a goblin ambush in wait. I asked who was on point.

For whoever was on point, I asked for a Listen check

"Okay, so look for your Listen skill, and check for the total modifier, which is the Wisdom modifier that you should have written down, plus the number of ranks that you put into it. I'll usually tell you what the target number is. Type slash roll dee-twenty, plus your modifier, and hit enter. If you get a number that's equal to or higher than the target number I set, you succeed"

And a similar thing for combat: first I discussed move and standard actions, and charging, and how to roll to meet-or-beat AC, and how to roll for damage, and so on.

Our second session was this morning, and we were fighting in tight confines, and I had to teach five-foot-steps and flanking.

In summary, I taught them just enough to get their character sheet filled out, only lightly touched on what those numbers actually mean (but they're either self-explanatory or should be familiar with most people depending on their level of pop-culture osmosis), and then pivoted into telling them how to roll and use those numbers as the specific situations calling for mechanics to be used, came in. "I want to do THIS. Okay, this is how we'll define you doing it"

The final thing I would mention is that I told the players that they can change their feats and skills in-between sessions to what works (or what they think will work) better for them, now that they have a feel for what the actual game is like. That Barbarian player ended up dumping his Improved Bull Rush since he never used it once in two sessions.

I call this the Diablo III approach: all the crap about D&D needing a high degree of system mastery and needing to avoid trap options can be heavily mitigated if you remove the permanence of these choices. That said, I do like my RPGs heavy on the combat and a stickler for mechanics, so games where you want to enforce a high degree of, I don't know, in-character investment? in-universe consistency? may not be as good fits for this last piece of advice.

One bit I would add is that most people have a strong enough cultural influence from video games and general nerd culture that should have an idea of what most class words mean, and all you have to do is to explain are the D&D-specific idiosyncrasies, such as the difference between a Paladin and a Cleric, or the difference between a Wizard and a Sorcerer.

gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 09:38 on Aug 13, 2016

# ? Aug 13, 2016 09:01

Nancy_Noxious: Apr 10, 2013; by Smythe

Another alternative is using coredraw (or a similar software) to fabricate Dungeon World playbooks using D&D's logo, fonts and overall visuals and tell the group it's D&D.

If they start RPGs wih D&D proper, they will become physically unable to understand other RPG systems.

# ? Aug 13, 2016 10:52

NachtSieger: Apr 10, 2013

I and a bunch of my friends began with 3.5e and we're all perfectly capable of learning other RPGs, and have been doing it for a long time. I know anecdotes aren't data, but being stuck on D&D permanently is far more complex than "if you play D&D as your first RPG you'll be ruined forever because it's a mind virus."

Also tricking people into playing Dungeon World is pretty loving scummy.

# ? Aug 13, 2016 12:00

Admiral Joeslop: Jul 8, 2010

The intro adventure for Storm King's Thunder is out; I've been working all day and haven't had a chance to look. Anyone else checked it out?

# ? Aug 13, 2016 16:19

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Admiral Joeslop posted:

The intro adventure for Storm King's Thunder is out; I've been working all day and haven't had a chance to look. Anyone else checked it out?

You can't say that and just not link us the hook-up, man

# ? Aug 13, 2016 16:44

Admiral Joeslop: Jul 8, 2010

gradenko_2000 posted:

You can't say that and just not link us the hook-up, man

I..don't know if I can. The person who handles League at the store has a online box thing that contains all the adventures that aren't in books and such. Is this a thing that all the coordinators get as an Ease of Access thing? If they're free and clear I'll figure out somewhere to upload it.

# ? Aug 13, 2016 16:48

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Admiral Joeslop posted:

I..don't know if I can. The person who handles League at the store has a online box thing that contains all the adventures that aren't in books and such. Is this a thing that all the coordinators get as an Ease of Access thing? If they're free and clear I'll figure out somewhere to upload it.

Oh. I thought it was going to be like that level 1 Ravenloft adventure that was released for free on PDF. Carry on then.

# ? Aug 13, 2016 16:51

Admiral Joeslop: Jul 8, 2010

I sent her a message asking if they're OK to hand out.

Or if there's no way to track where it came from (so she doesn't get in trouble) I'll do it anyway.

# ? Aug 13, 2016 16:57

goatface: Dec 5, 2007; I had a video of that when I was about 6.

I remember it being shit.; Grimey Drawer

I think they're releasing the first intro bit at the start of September. Like the Strahd thing.

# ? Aug 13, 2016 16:58

HidaO-Win: Jun 5, 2013; "And I did it, because I was a man who had exhausted reason and thus turned to magicks"

So Mike Mearls posted on Twitter than the 5e PHB has outsold every other PHB from 3.0 on.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/764241988128419840

Given that the 3.0 PHB sold about 500,000 units, is this utter bollocks or is 5E an insane runaway success?

# ? Aug 14, 2016 02:01

Ryuujin: Sep 26, 2007; Dragon God

Sounds like outright lies to me. There is no way that is true, or they wouldn't basically be mothballing 5e already. But hey maybe they are actually doing well and have some other reason why they have so few people working and basically not putting products out at all.

# ? Aug 14, 2016 02:04

cheetah7071: Oct 20, 2010; honk honk; College Slice

Maybe previous editions showed only the core books sold enough to really justify making them? It seems weird but it's a possible explanation

# ? Aug 14, 2016 02:06

Admiral Joeslop: Jul 8, 2010

Why did they go with the short DM screen and the "Something Happens, Roll A D20" chart?

DM screens are supposed to be tall! I feel naked behind this.

# ? Aug 14, 2016 02:06

Kurieg: Jul 19, 2012; RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20

HidaO-Win posted:

So Mike Mearls posted on Twitter than the 5e PHB has outsold every other PHB from 3.0 on.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/764241988128419840

Given that the 3.0 PHB sold about 500,000 units, is this utter bollocks or is 5E an insane runaway success?

I can think of two explanations: A) this is a ludicrous outright lie. B) People have realized that the PHB is basically the only book that's only ever going to come out and don't feel so bad about picking it up. There is absolutely no way that 5e has actually generated more profit than either 3.5 or 4e as a whole since even if they have a large install base the install depth is shallow as gently caress.

# ? Aug 14, 2016 02:13

HidaO-Win: Jun 5, 2013; "And I did it, because I was a man who had exhausted reason and thus turned to magicks"

Make 3 corebooks, sell it to the rubes, then crack out 6e in 3 years? Fill the gap with the occasional third party adventure?

I can see the business plan of largest return for minimal investment working for a bit, but I just don't buy 5e PHB outselling the 3e PHB.

# ? Aug 14, 2016 02:14

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Nancy_Noxious posted:

Another alternative is using coredraw (or a similar software) to fabricate Dungeon World playbooks using D&D's logo, fonts and overall visuals and tell the group it's D&D.

If they start RPGs wih D&D proper, they will become physically unable to understand other RPG systems.

This is still a terrible posting gimmick.

# ? Aug 14, 2016 02:18

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# ? May 14, 2024 13:01

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

I don't think Mearls is lying. It's entirely possible that 5th Edition has sold more copies than 4th, 3.5e or 3.0e individually.

I would attribute this more to the growth of the RPG playerbase in absolute numbers than anything else. "Nerd culture" is far more mainstream, and the "Twitch streaming" culture has also gotten to D&D, and I think those are some significant industry drivers.

# ? Aug 14, 2016 03:41

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