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How is 5th edition coming from 4th? I'm looking to start DMing a new game and I was wondering if I should dabble with 5 or stay with 4. I remember for the first year or two of 5th, everyone was complaining about it being bad and every decision from the playtests making it worst. I grew up on 3.5 but loved the move to 4, despite the overly lengthy combat encounters. Does 5 have anything for me?
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Oct 18, 2016 16:31
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If you enjoy 4th, 5th is almost certainly going to be a step backwards, as it actively repudiated and dialed back much of the design learnings since.
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Oct 18, 2016 16:34
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Mordiceius posted:How is 5th edition coming from 4th?
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Oct 18, 2016 16:40
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The biggest hurdles for me as a 4e fan going into 5e: Martials are mostly back to being auto-attackers with Paladin having the most fun options. The movement system is floatier and less precise. You get weird edge cases like the skill monkey classes outgrappling Barbarians. Levels 1-3 are a lot more lethal. Personally if you want something like "4e without the grid and fiddly +1s" I'd check out the 13th Age thread. 5e feels more like a brightened up 3.5 than anything that was working off 4e.
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Oct 18, 2016 16:45
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Splicer posted:Caster supremacy is back, "I attack" as Martials' only verb is back, natural language mechanical descriptions are back, healing surges are a crippled shell, ability score issues are still bad but slightly differently bad, CR is back, balance is non-existent, D&D is now and always has been "theatre of the mind" of which 4E was the exception by using grids. Ugh. I wish there was a good happy medium. I enjoy the more balanced approach to class design in 4e but I get severely fatigued by how loving long combat encounters can get.
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Oct 18, 2016 16:46
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One of my friends wants to play a necromancy-type character, someone who summons skeletons and such (he's leaning towards death cleric) but he doesn't want to be evil or stereotypically edgelord (unless it would be funny). Do you guys have any suggestions for what kind of person a good or neutral skeleton summoner might be? All I've got is John Constantine and "priest who helps ghosts with lingering grievances pass on to the afterlife."
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Oct 18, 2016 16:51
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Mordiceius posted:I get severely fatigued by how loving long combat encounters can get.
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Oct 18, 2016 16:54
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Mordiceius posted:Ugh. I wish there was a good happy medium. You might check out Gnome7s new playtest in the Fellowship thread. Its a grid game that tries some things to make combat run faster while retaining tactical crunch. But I don't know if recommending systems counts under discussion so I'll leave it at that.
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Oct 18, 2016 16:56
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FAT BATMAN posted:One of my friends wants to play a necromancy-type character, someone who summons skeletons and such (he's leaning towards death cleric) but he doesn't want to be evil or stereotypically edgelord (unless it would be funny).  "
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Oct 18, 2016 16:57
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Mordiceius posted:Ugh. I wish there was a good happy medium. It's a lot of fun! Kind of a mix between 4e, Fate, and *World games. Combats are tactical yet quite a bit shorter than 4e ones.
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Oct 18, 2016 16:59
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FAT BATMAN posted:One of my friends wants to play a necromancy-type character, someone who summons skeletons and such (he's leaning towards death cleric) but he doesn't want to be evil or stereotypically edgelord (unless it would be funny). There are cultures that think the spirit departs the body at the moment of death, so the body (and skeleton) is just something to be disposed of rather than respected. Not a huge jump from that to using bones/corpses as manual labor since it's stupid to waste perfectly useful skeletons. Then suggest a background like a an apprentice of a really successful mine foreman until fantasy OSHA came in and wondered why the miners never had lunch breaks.
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Oct 18, 2016 16:59
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Splicer posted:"I make skeletons because they're very useful. Why are you being weird about this We're never going to lift these peasants out of poverty unless we provide them the tools and equipment and skellingtons they need to industrialize.
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Oct 18, 2016 17:02
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FAT BATMAN posted:One of my friends wants to play a necromancy-type character, someone who summons skeletons and such (he's leaning towards death cleric) but he doesn't want to be evil or stereotypically edgelord (unless it would be funny). All you have to do is mentally divorce the remains of the dead from the actual dead. Skeletons are just bones, after all, that happen to retain an intrinsic link to animating necromantic energies, making them more cost efficient to create than say, golems - not to mention drastically easier to control. If you can save a dozen human lives because you send your skeletons to perform mining operations or put out fires, there's a pretty solid utilitarian argument in favor of skeletons.
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Oct 18, 2016 17:02
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alternatively: steampunk skeletons
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Oct 18, 2016 17:04
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Splicer posted:Caster supremacy is back, "I attack" as Martials' only verb is back This is why I make sure that to tell my martial players, whenever they kill something meaningful, "it's gonna die, describe it." That way, while the casters shut down or blast the monsters and get to be cool sort-of-inherently, the martials usually get the last hit (for now) and can coup de grace it however they like, no checks required. I've had people slide under a monster, then twist and backstab it, leap from a stairway and airshot it Assassin's Creed style, and a bunch of other fun stunts. I do sometimes fudge HP so that a melee player kills something rather than leaving it at 1-3 health. It kinda sucks having the ranged guy blow away the thing you've been hacking at for three rounds, after all. Then again, my players also like to pump near-dead things for information, so the "it's gonna die" line also gives them a chance to subdue them instead, without me having to backspace my description of how it perishes. I'll always be fond of the few times I've had this happen: "You hit from 12 damage, the monster is on its last legs." "I'll use my second attack- critical!" "It's now on no legs."
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Oct 18, 2016 17:05
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His skeletons rise from the dead with a sunny disposition and a can do attitude
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Oct 18, 2016 17:06
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I seem to recall a roll20 vs tabletop simulator breakdown in here but can't find it. Anyone know what I'm referencing ?
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Oct 18, 2016 17:24
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Novum posted:His skeletons rise from the dead with a sunny disposition and a can do attitude https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h03QBNVwX8Q
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Oct 18, 2016 17:51
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Mordiceius posted:Ugh. I wish there was a good happy medium. Play Strike! dude. It's like 4e but with a load of stuff that makes encounters take a long time fixed.
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Oct 18, 2016 19:48
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FAT BATMAN posted:One of my friends wants to play a necromancy-type character, someone who summons skeletons and such (he's leaning towards death cleric) but he doesn't want to be evil or stereotypically edgelord (unless it would be funny). He's a priest or Wizard that represents a church that promises eternal bliss in the afterlife for the low price of your mortal remains. All his zombies and ghouls have creepily pleasant grins. His skellingtons try to sell the party on signing up. Wherever he comes from is like a mix of Shaun of the Dead's ending and Pleasantville. A post scarcity society that runs on undead labor and people buying things on post-mortem credit.
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Oct 18, 2016 20:18
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ImpactVector posted:They're supposed to be minion add-ins for high level mind flayer encounters. But since we don't have any kind of status or flag anymore that would denote them as such, they get lumped in with the stuff you're supposed to fight at level 2. I don't have the MM since I'm a really new player. Is there something in there that has a flag like "this is for use for stronger parties, dumbass"? If not, I can imagine a lazy DM just looking at the CR and being like "yeah, this seems good." mormonpartyboat posted:My group of level one newbies ran into a pair of hobgoblins and also a v spooky light monster with a deep booming voice telling them to run away and they did because light monsters are scary. Then they saw the hobgoblins ride off into the sunset while laughing maniacally but did not see the light monster leave with them! So they went back in all cautious like to try to take the monster on its own and the monster was gone!!!!! This is a good story and I enjoyed it. mormonpartyboat posted:There are cultures that think the spirit departs the body at the moment of death, so the body (and skeleton) is just something to be disposed of rather than respected. Not a huge jump from that to using bones/corpses as manual labor since it's stupid to waste perfectly useful skeletons. Then suggest a background like a an apprentice of a really successful mine foreman until fantasy OSHA came in and wondered why the miners never had lunch breaks. Holy poo poo. Fantasy OSHA. That would make a great campaign. You gotta go around checking all these work places, make sure everyone's up to code.
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Oct 18, 2016 20:27
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Re: good necromancers, there was a kit for 2e necromancers called the Anatomist where you're not evil, you're just very dedicated to medical science and learning how bodies work. Reanimating corpses is just an easy way to study the muscular and skeletal systems without all that pesky skin. And after you kill the griffon that's been harassing the King's horses, you have a fascinating new subject to study!
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Oct 18, 2016 20:32
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Gort posted:Play Strike! dude. It's like 4e but with a load of stuff that makes encounters take a long time fixed. Strike! is pretty darn cool. I like the class/role split. And you can even use it for more board-gamey stuff like a HeroQuest conversion or something. For more crunch and "build your own powers" mentality, Valor is also pretty neat.
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Oct 18, 2016 20:35
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Mordiceius posted:Ugh. I wish there was a good happy medium. Other people have already brought up Strike!, which is great, and possibly the best answer, but I feel like we need an obligatory "You've tried playing with the improved monster math / Monster Manual 3 monsters right?"
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Oct 18, 2016 20:48
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FAT BATMAN posted:One of my friends wants to play a necromancy-type character, someone who summons skeletons and such (he's leaning towards death cleric) but he doesn't want to be evil or stereotypically edgelord (unless it would be funny). Skeletons are much more acceptable when they're properly upholstered. Add plush and stuffing and button eyes and everyone's going to be lining up for a hug.
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Oct 18, 2016 21:00
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FAT BATMAN posted:One of my friends wants to play a necromancy-type character, someone who summons skeletons and such (he's leaning towards death cleric) but he doesn't want to be evil or stereotypically edgelord (unless it would be funny). The distinction could be philosophical. If all you are doing is mechanically animating remains and not calling souls back from their eternal rest, then why would raising corpses or skeletons be wrong? It's possible to take a clinical angle on it, and see raising the dead as a way to avoid injury and suffering to real people, while those who balk at it are expressing medieval-era superstitions around autopsies and working with cadavers. If you didn't believe in an afterlife, or felt that the body was merely a vessel permanently abandoned postmortem, then there's nothing necessarily evil about animating skeletons, apart from it potentially being disrespectful to the corpse's living relations.
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Oct 18, 2016 21:13
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Mordiceius posted:How is 5th edition coming from 4th? Speaking as someone who still likes 4th and tried 5th, loving dreadful.
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Oct 18, 2016 21:17
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xiw posted:Skeletons are much more acceptable when they're properly upholstered. Add plush and stuffing and button eyes and everyone's going to be lining up for a hug. I'd say the safest way is to avoid actual humanoid skeletons. Go for dachshunds.
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Oct 18, 2016 21:30
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TheChirurgeon posted:The distinction could be philosophical. If all you are doing is mechanically animating remains and not calling souls back from their eternal rest, then why would raising corpses or skeletons be wrong? It's possible to take a clinical angle on it, and see raising the dead as a way to avoid injury and suffering to real people, while those who balk at it are expressing medieval-era superstitions around autopsies and working with cadavers. When you animate human remains as useful automatons, the animating force is the only thing that will absolutely positively 100% separate any lingering "person-ness" (or soul, if you prefer) from the pile of rotting meat and old bones. This means that having your loved ones turned into useful skellingtons: a) Ensures that they go on to their eternal reward, and b) Prevents the formation of angry ghosts.
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Oct 18, 2016 21:32
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Mordiceius posted:How is 5th edition coming from 4th? If you want to kill your entire PC group in the first combat of the first encounter of the Starter Set made for new people, 5e is for you. I'm working through the Starter Set, first time playing D&D. Wiping on the first encounter sure was a thing. Combat so far has been over in maybe 4 or 5 rounds tops but we're all still very low level in the starter campaign. Having not played 4e I've heard numerous people complain about really long combat. Why is that? Is every PC and mob just a HP sponge? If that's the problem then can you just half everyone's HP and call it a day or are there too many mechanics that something like that would interfere with?
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Oct 18, 2016 22:08
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BambooEarpick posted:Holy poo poo. Fantasy OSHA. That would make a great campaign. You gotta go around checking all these work places, make sure everyone's up to code. Or a fantasy NTSB where you gotta go investigate accidents/catastrophes and the party has to write up a report about the hapennings and/or goings on at the end of each adventure.
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Oct 18, 2016 22:11
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BambooEarpick posted:If you want to kill your entire PC group in the first combat of the first encounter of the Starter Set made for new people, 5e is for you. I'm working through the Starter Set, first time playing D&D. Wiping on the first encounter sure was a thing. Combat so far has been over in maybe 4 or 5 rounds tops but we're all still very low level in the starter campaign. The biggest single issue was the first two monster manuals using enemies with gobs of hp but low damage output. By the time they fixed this it was firmly cemented in the published material so using much of the games content results in sloglike battles. Beyond that there is quite a lot of stuff to track in battle in 4e because everybody can do something that isn't just "I swing", that applies to enemies as well, and grid tactics are extremely important. Combine with lots of different pluses and minuses you have a lot of things to track or do on a given turn and it slows the experience tremendously. This is like the one positive I can say about 5e where they cut out most fidly bonuses and status effects in favor of advantage, even if that makes it hard to design soft bonuses or penalties. 4e is like perfection to run on a virtual table where those things are fracked for everyone and there is no cleanup but sadly they never coincided.
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Oct 18, 2016 22:15
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Razorwired posted:He's a priest or Wizard that represents a church that promises eternal bliss in the afterlife for the low price of your mortal remains. quote:[GARK]
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Oct 18, 2016 22:18
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Barudak posted:4e is like perfection to run on a virtual table where those things are fracked for everyone and there is no cleanup but sadly they never coincided. Yeah, I guess all the extra calculations would bog things down. It'd be like playing Final Fantasy Tactics but you have to figure everything out by hand. "Oh, ok, my zodiac sign is Pisces which gains +5% chance to hit against Virgo but reduces damage by 3% against Gemini, hmmm...." So far combat in 5e has been very easy to figure out and do. I do like the idea of being to shift people around in combat and I also like the idea of having melee characters be more interesting. I'm playing a halfling rogue and he's not that boring. Mechanically a bit simple but whatever. I can do stuff like move 10 feet to be behind an ally, use my bonus action to try to hide, then maybe try to peak out and do a sneak attack with my bow for sweet damage, then move 15 feet someplace else to sorta be safer. When it's our warrior's turn it's like "I attack. I miss. End turn." And hits are only slightly better. "I attack. I hit. *rolls* 2dmg. End turn." Granted, fighters have that one archetype or whatever that's a little more interesting but the starter set characters are all really straightforward and boring combat-wise. Edit: Does anyone have some resources for 4e I could look at? I'd like to one day run my own homebrew campaign but give certain classes more fun stuff. I know 4e has attacks that move enemies and that sounds neat. I think maybe having a threat mechanic would be neat, too. Like, what's to stop ranged guys from just peppering the PC's backline? A caster usually doesn't have very good AC so a few shots past the Fighter and suddenly damage output drops dramatically. Maybe have the Fighter taunt a mob so it can only attack him or can attack other things but with penalty or something. Or, really, just any tabletop style resources where combat is a bit more interesting than it is in 5e. Watching two melee based guys taking turns hitting each other is really boring and I'd like to be able to spice that up. Edit 2: VVVVV Ah, ok. Cool. Yeah, I wasn't really thinking filez kinda stuff. Just if there was anything out there that had a bunch of info. Like, I don't have any of the books for 5e yet but I use 5thSRD.org and I think WotC is cool with it? Like, it doesn't have everything but most of the rules and break down of character class stuff. Also, the fact that 4e had a threat system but 5e doesn't is sorta weird. I mean, I know it might seem video game-y or whatever but if a PC gets focus fired in 5e they're dead and that's it. BambooEarpick fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Oct 18, 2016 |
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Oct 18, 2016 22:35
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BambooEarpick posted:I think maybe having a threat mechanic would be neat, too. Like, what's to stop ranged guys from just peppering the PC's backline? A caster usually doesn't have very good AC so a few shots past the Fighter and suddenly damage output drops dramatically. Maybe have the Fighter taunt a mob so it can only attack him or can attack other things but with penalty or something. The "Mark" mechanic and Defender's (a 4e class role) interaction with it are exactly this. As far as resources, the most valuable thing 4e had was its online tools (Character Builder + Compendium); the former had the character/player stuff, the latter was a searchable database of basically everything. Offline versions of these exist but are  . You might be able to subscribe to DDI and gain access still, it's been a while since I've bothered to check. Better place to ask for 4e specific stuff is the 4e thread.
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Oct 18, 2016 22:54
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Generic Octopus posted:The "Mark" mechanic and Defender's (a 4e class role) interaction with it are exactly this. Unfortunately, DDI's been dead for some time now.
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Oct 18, 2016 23:09
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slap me and kiss me posted:Unfortunately, DDI's been dead for some time now. This link still works for me: http://ddi.wizards.com I don't know if they take new subscriptions, but my existing one is still going strong.
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Oct 18, 2016 23:31
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Kibner posted:This link still works for me: http://ddi.wizards.com My group tried to subscribe a year ago, and wasn't able to access anything. Had to eventually call Wizards to get them to refund our CC.
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Oct 18, 2016 23:33
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slap me and kiss me posted:My group tried to subscribe a year ago, and wasn't able to access anything. Had to eventually call Wizards to get them to refund our CC. Yea iirc correctly they stopped taking new subs, but if you were already in you were fine. I hadn't checked in years to know if that was still the case.
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Oct 18, 2016 23:37
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Dead in the sense that it requires Silverlight.
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Oct 18, 2016 23:39
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