|
web should probably be a 4th level spell, it's so good in so many situations
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 02:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 20:20 |
|
|
I briefly played a divination wizard in a 5th Ed campaign and owl familiar was so broken and irritating I eventually put it away during combat. I had enough tools to gently caress things up. Edit: oh and initially the dm didn't want to deal with the owl having its own init so he just told me to have it act on my turn. He took that back after I demonstrated how I'd just give myself free advantage permanently. siggy2021 fucked around with this message at 03:20 on Sep 14, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 03:17
|
|
|
siggy2021 posted:I briefly played a divination wizard in a 5th Ed campaign and owl familiar was so broken and irritating I eventually put it away during combat. I had enough tools to gently caress things up. Yeah, I ended up using my owl primarily for scouting after a while. The constant helping seemed a bit weird though totally legal as written. Like you said, I could gently caress stuff up just fine with lucky and portent.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 03:55
|
|
|
mastershakeman posted:web should probably be a 4th level spell, it's so good in so many situations No. It literally cannot be a 4th level spell, it has been 2nd since 1st edition if not before. Gygax decreed it a 2nd level spell and thus it shall stay.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 03:56
|
|
|
Oh are we talking about Famliars? My invisible Quasit spends every round humping the enemy as his Help action to give me advantage. Him or I delay our turns so we're always in sync.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 05:38
|
|
|
Admiral Joeslop posted:Oh are we talking about Famliars? My invisible Quasit spends every round humping the enemy as his Help action to give me advantage. Him or I delay our turns so we're always in sync. Whoah there buddy that's not RAW! (I'm being facetious - yes you cannot delay turns per the rules, but that was a dumb omission from what's already been established in 3rd and 4th Edition)
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 05:42
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Whoah there buddy that's not RAW! Per the rules, he or I set our actions. He waits till I attack and reacts with Help, I wait till he Helps to attack. Also he's invisible but the GM never attacks him. Despite this, I'm on Mr. Noodle the 4th due to various circumstances.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 05:46
|
|
|
My DM prohibited the owl dive bomb help action 
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 07:00
|
|
|
meatbag posted:My DM prohibited the owl dive bomb help action Given how powerful wizards are and how useful an Owl is out of combat this is actually an entirely reasonable decision. Even if it happened partway through a campaign, rather than you being told in advance, by the time you're level 5 or so you have so many interesting things to do that the owlvantage is just icing on the cake. It helps that my DM has, for this campaign, agreed to "as RAW and/or Sage Advice says, so shall it be" and allowed me to go full godwizard on it though. I'm already going to be limited when it comes to skeletons because he's enforcing encumbrance rules and ration rules and so I can't afford to spend a week starting a skeleconomy, so I'll only be carrying around four skeletons maximum to make it easier on the both of us.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 07:09
|
|
|
mango sentinel posted:Fighter is easy to fix since the core design of "gets a ton more actions in combat" is solid, they just need real progression options and non-combat utility. Banneret was a good idea but a weak execution and stuff they should just roll into the other archetypes. Also erase Eldritch Knight. Ranger is easier to fix because it's a spellcaster by default, and the solution is just "give it more spells that make sense with the theme" which is easy since the loving Druid spell list is right there, not to mention Nature Clerics and Oath of Ancients Paladins. By contrast, what spells should all Fighters have? I'm sure there is an answer, it just involves a lot more digging than the previous case.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 07:38
|
|
|
Rangers were easy to fix because people would admit that they needed to be fixed in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 09:18
|
|
|
Hey if this is a bit dodgy to ask then I deeply apologise but recently http://ephe.github.io/grimoire/ was taken down (I heard it was a DMCA takedown by WotC). It was a really excellent 5th ed spell list and I am wondering if there are any other spell list sites like it out there?
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 09:21
|
|
|
ProfessorCirno posted:Rangers were easy to fix because people would admit that they needed to be fixed in the first place. Yeah, this. Good luck getting people to admit that the Champion is a poo poo-lousy design, or that it doesn't actually deal more damage than the Battlemaster unless your encounter pacing is completely hosed up.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 09:24
|
|
|
Arivia posted:No. It literally cannot be a 4th level spell, it has been 2nd since 1st edition if not before. Gygax decreed it a 2nd level spell and thus it shall stay. things that shouldn't have existed when gygax ran things: 2nd level web rangers maybe monks? I hate monks
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 13:31
|
|
|
Monks are one of those weird things where I don't understand how kung fu masters ended up being a class in the western medieval fantasy adventure roleplaying game. Was someone just a massive kung fu cinema fan and desperately craved monks in there?
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 14:00
|
|
|
Sodomy Non Sapiens posted:Was someone just a massive kung fu cinema fan and desperately craved monks in there? An early player was a big fan of the Kung Fu TV show and wanted to play a character like David Carradine's and he wrote up some rules and sent them to Gygax and he liked them enough to print them and well now here we are. And D&D didn't start out as medieval - the early stuff is full of world mythology and weird fantasy and fairy tale and sword & sorcery stuff; it only later took on the familiar form of Tolkien-goes-to-RenFaire (I blame the heavy initial uptake of D&D by medievalist groups like the SCA for that)
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 14:10
|
|
|
Sodomy Non Sapiens posted:Monks are one of those weird things where I don't understand how kung fu masters ended up being a class in the western medieval fantasy adventure roleplaying game. Also the cleric was created for someone who wanted to kill one of the undead players' characters. This game is really weird and always has been is what I'm saying. My understanding is Gary would just make up rules for whatever people wanted to do pretty much on the fly.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 14:11
|
|
|
It seems like D&D in the early days had more in common with some of the more freewheeling systems out there nowadays!
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 14:20
|
|
|
ImpactVector posted:People played undead (who, as they levelled up became entirely different types of undead, from skeleton to vampire) and a balrog journalist in those old games. The cleric is the real stand out "not western medieval fantasy" thing. But please prove me wrong by finding the pre-D&D story about the guy who's so religious that he can cast magic spells and make zombies explode (not by casting magic spells though) but the tradeoff is that he's not allowed to use any sharp weapons.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 14:20
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:The cleric is the real stand out "not western medieval fantasy" thing. On top of that, typical D&D Clerics are henotheistic and do not wield the power to bestow imperium. They're a ludicrously artificial element of the game that do not reflect medieval Europe in any way.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 14:41
|
|
|
FMguru posted:All accounts point to that being the exact explanation. Jim Ward was the player in question, and I've heard the Remo Williams/"Destroyer" books cited as another inspiration for the monk. And when we're talking about characters from Gygax's campaigns who would give modern grognards conniptions, we can't forget Murlynd, Don Kaye's character who was basically a D&D cowboy. Complete with Stetson hat and magic six-shooters (Kaye was a Western buff). Murlynd ended up becoming a minor god in the Greyhawk setting, even.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 14:50
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:The cleric is the real stand out "not western medieval fantasy" thing. Isn't the Cleric just the bastard love-child of archbishop Turpin and Abraham Van Helsing? Admittedly, those are two completely different characters from two works written almost 1000 years apart.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 16:06
|
|
|
golden bubble posted:Isn't the Cleric just the bastard love-child of archbishop Turpin and Abraham Van Helsing? Admittedly, those are two completely different characters from two works written almost 1000 years apart. I don't know who Turpin is, but Van Helsing yes, absolutely - the Cleric originally began as a counter-point for another player who was playing a vampire.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 16:15
|
|
|
It goes Blackmoor by Dave Arneson -> Gygax makes Greyhawk based on the idea of Blackmoor -> Collaborate and make the original Dungeons and Dragons, though it was nearly all Gygax due to him wanting to publish ASAP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmoor_(supplement) Blackmoor was published for D&D in 1975, and contains the first monk and assassin. It was also "contradictory, confusing, incomplete, partially incomprehensible, lacking huge bits and pieces and mostly gibberish". so who is the first creator of the Monk? Probably just the tortured brain of Arneson and with help from Tim Kask, the editor. If anyone would know, it would be Kask. Anyway Blackmoor was goofy as gently caress and filled with crazy poo poo like Aliens and injokes and a billion cursed items with humorous and stacking effects. Monk back then was like a Fighter-Thief with special cleric rules. Mentzer, Ward, Kask and Clark are all contributing off and on to Eldritch Enterprises, which coincided with the enthusiasm for 'old-school' style modules. http://www.eldritchent.com/page/Buy-Now.aspx You can see things such as Monty Haul's Lesser Tower of Doom, 40 pages with an 80% fatality rating. I believe the intention is that one dies, then generates a new character, and finds such new character in a room further in the dungeon. Definitely a style of play, but not a modern one.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 16:28
|
|
|
Laphroaig posted:It was also "contradictory, confusing, incomplete, partially incomprehensible, lacking huge bits and pieces and mostly gibberish". Keep in mind Tim Kask was firmly on team Gygax/TSR, and had strong career interest in minimizing any Arneson contribution to D&D. Like, trust it as much as you'd trust a Zuckerberg sycophant's opinion of Eduardo Saverin's work product.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 16:51
|
|
|
The 0th Edition/Blackmoor Monk seems pretty cool: * free good unarmed attacks * 75% chance stunning fist as long as you exceed your needed attack roll by 5 * increased movement speed * multiple attacks per round * naturally increasing AC (equal to plate by name level!) * harder to surprise * can open locks, remove traps, listen at doors, climb walls, move silently, hide in shadows, like thieves * can speak with animals, and then later plants * can feign death * can naturally heal damage * can become immune to suggestion and hypnotism and quests and geas * can learn the quivering palm ability which in this version is a straight-up kill target, no save * can use saving throws to dodge missile attacks * can learn a proto-Evasion ability; zero damage on successful saves, half damage on failed saves * can start attracting followers by as early as level 6 (50k XP), as compared to a level 9 Fighting Man (240k XP) The only drawback is the d4 hit dice if you're playing with variable HD sizes Laphroaig posted:I believe the intention is that one dies, then generates a new character, and finds such new character in a room further in the dungeon. Definitely a style of play, but not a modern one. It still exists, but just got transferred to different media.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 16:55
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Yeah, this. Good luck getting people to admit that the Champion is a poo poo-lousy design, or that it doesn't actually deal more damage than the Battlemaster unless your encounter pacing is completely hosed up. Legit. I know a guy who's a big 5e honk and he's like "man there's this Champion Fighter in my party and they do CRAZY damage~"
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 18:23
|
|
|
NachtSieger posted:But we already had 4e Edition F will be the nostalgia bait version of 4e. FMguru posted:All accounts point to that being the exact explanation. Not to mention there's at least one old adventure module where the party dungeon crawls through a derelict spaceship.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 18:29
|
|
|
Doresh posted:Not to mention there's at least one old adventure module where the party dungeon crawls through a derelict spaceship.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 18:48
|
|
|
FRINGE posted:The fantasy -> ancient advanced technology crossover was pretty big in the 70s. Lots of crazy fantasy novels back then like that. Yeah specifically primitive fantasy settings built upon the ruins of advanced sci-fi setting.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 18:53
|
|
|
mango sentinel posted:Yeah specifically primitive fantasy settings built upon the ruins of advanced sci-fi setting. Also: the monsters are actually genetically designed that way for a reason, the magic is actually psi powers, magical items and artifacts are all high-tech baubles, and the erratic god is actually the damaged AI computer from the crashed starship that brought them here to this crazy planet.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 19:01
|
|
|
FRINGE posted:The fantasy -> ancient advanced technology crossover was pretty big in the 70s. Lots of crazy fantasy novels back then like that. I believe the Might & Magic series started out this way, then turned into straight fantasy. I didn't know that was a common theme.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 19:10
|
|
|
The entire Ultima series of games also features sci-fi elements, and the avatar is just a dude from the real world who gets transported to Britannia at the start of every game.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 19:12
|
|
|
Japan jumped on the premise and never really let it go, what with how sci fantasy alot of the Final Fantasy games are. The Genesis series Phantasy Star is clearly post apocalyptic and has cyborg team mates and interplanetary travel.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 19:15
|
|
|
FMguru posted:the magic is actually psi powers Thank you, James Randi. e: well, science adjacent. Splicer fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Sep 14, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 19:19
|
|
|
Splicer posted:It always cracks me up that psionics was considered science only half a century ago.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 19:29
|
|
|
FRINGE posted:The fantasy -> ancient advanced technology crossover was pretty big in the 70s. Lots of crazy fantasy novels back then like that. Didn't fantasy novels basically start as pulp stories released in sci-fi magazines? The gap between fantasy and sci-fi generally wasn't that big originally. Stuff like Flash Gordon did basically both, and you had sci-fi pulp heroes like Northwest Smith who frequently came across supernatural critters and gods. Zomborgon posted:I believe the Might & Magic series started out this way, then turned into straight fantasy. I didn't know that was a common theme. Man, playing Wizardry VII as a kid was pretty strange. It was fantasy, but then you also had lost of space stuff. And though I've never played them, I've heard the first couple Ultimate games let you go into space. remusclaw posted:Japan jumped on the premise and never really let it go, what with how sci fantasy alot of the Final Fantasy games are. The Genesis series Phantasy Star is clearly post apocalyptic and has cyborg team mates and interplanetary travel. It's pretty hard in general to find a sci-fi setting from Japan that doesn't have swords as viable weapons and/or strange, more or less magic-like abilities. Especially if the setting is from a video game.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 19:39
|
|
|
Yeah, any idea that fantasy was considered a totally separate genre from sci-fi back in the 70's is wrong.  Tolkien is an outlier, honestly. Most other fantasy from those time periods that I can think of went to great lengths to give "scientific" justifications for everything. They were usually on other planets, colonized by Earth from some point, etc. Heck; I don't even remember a separate Fantasy section in Waldenbooks in the 80's. It was all lumped under Sci-Fi dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Sep 14, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 19:43
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:I don't know who Turpin is, but Van Helsing yes, absolutely - the Cleric originally began as a counter-point for another player who was playing a vampire. In the Song of Roland, Turpin is the Archbishop of Rheims and one of the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne. He spends most of the song giving moral advice and sermons to the other knights while killing "saracens".
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 20:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 8, 2024 20:20 |
|
|
dwarf74 posted:Yeah, any idea that fantasy was considered a totally separate genre from sci-fi back in the 70's is wrong. Granted that I haven't been inside a Barnes and Noble in about seven years now, but the one I used to go to had a Sci-Fi/Fantasy section rather than separate ones. It's still common to keep them together.
|
|
#
?
Sep 14, 2016 20:15
|
|
