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gradenko_2000 posted:They also at one time did away with a specific skill system entirely and just went by ability scores only: roll a [d20 + Charisma modifier] whether it's for Bluff, Gather Rumors, Intimidate, Perform, or Persuade. What's interesting is that in the DM guidelines, they're still using the same 5-10-15-20 DC scale for most tasks, but it never got updated even after the game switched to the final modifier + proficiency model. An "Easy" check is still DC 10, a Moderate check is still DC 15, and a Hard check is still DC 20. Yeah, I think this was made a big deal of in one of the very first Monte Cook blogs: their original image of 5e was an extremely simplified D&D where everything was just an ability check, which tied into the idea that because numbers wouldn't be inflating you could throw a bunch of orcs at the players even at level 10 and still have it be a challenge. Of course they ultimately did away with this when they realized that all of your modifiers staying the same throughout the game wasn't all that great because it didn't give characters any discernible sense of advancement (well, apart from Wizards and Clerics who were still getting spells). And that's another thing: I absolutely think that you can do a game where leveling up means that you gain power in ways other than your numbers steadily going up. Hell, Strike! does it, as do most PbtA games (I mean, you can increase a couple of your stats in those games, but they have a very hard cap), advancement in those games being mostly tied to getting more options as you level up, not simply inflating your attack bonuses. It could be done theoretically but I'm not sure how it would mesh with people's expectations of growing stronger in D&D.
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Feb 15, 2017 11:07
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Ratpick posted:because numbers wouldn't be inflating you could throw a bunch of orcs at the players even at level 10 and still have it be a challenge. You can still kinda sorta see it now where the AC / attack bonus scaling only breaches the mid-20s if you completely min-max for it, such that throwing 50 goblins at a mid-level party is still going to be somewhat challenging. And this is even supported by the CR / encounter building rules allowing you to feasibly use low-CR monsters long after you would expect to be able to if you were assuming a 1:1 relationship between CR and character level. Further and finally, it's faintly reminiscent of old-school D&D where you actually could throw 50 goblins at a mid-level party and have that be a session-long running battle, particularly and especially because old-school D&D's AC and attack bonus ranges were not that big. I don't know how much of this was intentional, and how much just "came out in the wash", but the intent, if not a great execution, was definitely there. Ratpick posted:I'm not sure how it would mesh with people's expectations of growing stronger in D&D. I assume that most people would be perfectly fine with being able to completely write-off goblins by the time they're level 10, or even level 5, and that they would consider power-growth to be more important than that, but they just don't want the heavy math and the loot treadmill that goes with it.
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Feb 15, 2017 11:21
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On one hand I think it's cool that even a bunch of goblins, in large enough numbers, can still be a challenge for high level characters, because on paper it allows for stuff like the Battle of Helm's Deep at higher levels. The problem, of course, is that such things are an absolute pain for the GM to run if there isn't a way to abstract a large number of creatures into a more easily manageable chunk, unless of course you divide the greater battle into a bunch of smaller set-piece encounters and let the rest of the battle rage around the characters as color. But on the other hand, characters becoming so strong at some point that they're killing 1d8 goblins with one attack is also insanely good. I personally think that once Wizards start casting wish spells and rewriting the rules of the universe, Fighters should be facing entire armies and winning. That isn't really supported by 5e's model, where the Fighter is still at risk of being picked to death by an army of goblins, 1d6 points at a time. e: Truth be told, no edition of D&D has really supported that out of the gate. 4e definitely could support it thematically (I could see a 4e Fighter being an engine of destruction on the battlefield) but because 4e's combat rules were always focused on small skirmishes instead of mass battles we never got to see what kind of destruction a 4e Fighter could sow against a literal army. Ratpick fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 11:33
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AlphaDog posted:Remember modules and how you were going to be able to mix and match them to make your perfect D&D? The DMG still ended up with a buttload of optional (read: banned) rules, like marking and cleaving; the PHB likewise has a bunch of optional (read: mandatory) rules, like multiclassing.
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Feb 15, 2017 12:12
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MonsterEnvy posted:We may be getting a new one next week. Thanks for the answer. I wish I'd had chance to fill in the survey for it because we didn't really like the class. It was strong generally - thought spear is nice because things tend to have low int - but it was very boring to play.
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Feb 15, 2017 12:49
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Ratpick posted:But on the other hand, characters becoming so strong at some point that they're killing 1d8 goblins with one attack is also insanely good. I personally think that once Wizards start casting wish spells and rewriting the rules of the universe, Fighters should be facing entire armies and winning. That isn't really supported by 5e's model, where the Fighter is still at risk of being picked to death by an army of goblins, 1d6 points at a time. D&D has absolutely supported that before. 3e had rules to represent groups of creatures as a single "mobs" or "crowds", while 4e, as you said, has the Minion and the Swarm creature types. What it cannot do well is trying to pull off this kind of combat versus lots of creatures and shy away from engaging in the abstraction of "mobs" or Minions at the same time. Even if we go back to TSR-era D&D, there wasn't any sort of clever mechanic for dealing with "the Fighter faces down 50 kobolds" or "the Fighter and his posse of a dozen lower-level Fighters". All of those creatures still have to be run through the combat engine one by one. We just believe (or perhaps know) that it's easier to manage because A. the statblocks and mechanics were much simpler and B. between Fighter multiple attacks and morale checks and easy kills you could whittle the 50 kobolds down to nothing very easily. I've run an AD&D game where I had the party face down two dozen mermen at a time, and the only thing that kept it from turning into Mikan's rat swam clusterfuck was roll20 macros letting me evaluate attack rolls and hits by the dozen. And then we still got to finish within 3-5 combat rounds because the 3-man party could slay 3-4 mermen at a time. 5e, in the meantime, only ever tries to mitigate it with a section in the DMG where you're supposed to determine the number on the d20 required to hit a target, cross-reference that with the number of attackers in the crowd/mob, and look up on a chart if there were enough them to hit. That is, if you have 8 kobolds wailing away at a Fighter, and the kobolds need to roll a 15 or better to hit, then the chart will say you need 4 attackers to generate one hit, and so the 8 kobolds will hit the Fighter twice. I suppose it works, but it's rather cumbersome. P.d0t posted:The DMG still ended up with a buttload of optional (read: banned) rules, like marking and cleaving; the PHB likewise has a bunch of optional (read: mandatory) rules, like multiclassing. The majority of which, by the way, are taken from 3e: * Success at a cost * Degrees of failure * Critical success or failure * Hex-based grids * Facing * Insanity / madness rules * Proficiency dice * Hero points * Honor rules * Massive damage * Spell points
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Feb 15, 2017 12:51
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gradenko_2000 posted:One of the earliest skill systems of the game was that instead of d20 + [ability modifier] + [proficiency bonus if you had it for the skill], you would use d20 + either ability modifier or skill bonus These underlined parts don't seem to jive. That being said, if it works the latter way, that kinda just seems like a stripped down version of 3.5's skill points. And what did "having" a skill entail? Like, did it mean "on your class skill list" or "trained/proficient"-kinda thing? ... As kind of an aside, it was around the time I started staring into the inner workings of 4e, that I noticed being able to stack both ability mod and Training was kind of stupid, in terms of trying to set DCs. I think 5e did it a bit better by keeping ability mods from scaling too high; proficiency scales a little too much for skills, IMHO, and Expertise can take it into 'stupid' territory. The version of the rules where Expertise was just a flat +5 to a few skills seemed fine; IIRC prof didn't exist at the time, or maybe started at +1 and scaled slower? But the idea of "you would use d20 + either ability modifier or skill bonus" I think is a good one, hence why I utilized something similar for skills, in my D&D clone. I also liked playing with 1- and 2-hit minions back in my 4e days, so I tried to work that in there from the ground up. gradenko already knows this, though. I'm just shilling to the general audience right now 
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Feb 15, 2017 13:14
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Anyone done the Tempest Cleric into Sorcerer multiclass? Is it really worth bailing on cleric at 2 and just having one Channel Divinity per short rest?
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Feb 15, 2017 13:22
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P.d0t posted:These underlined parts don't seem to jive. It meant the latter, as in a Cleric can choose to be proficient in two of History, Insight, Medicine, Persuasion and Religion. If you're proficient in Medicine, you roll [d20 + Wisdom mod + 3] If you're not, you roll [d20 + Wisdom mod] When you reach level 2, and on every even level afterwards, you can choose to increase your skill bonus (the +3) by one, up to a maximum of +7 for any one skill.
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Feb 15, 2017 13:26
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Talking about the playtest makes me so sad because there was so much cool stuff in there like the really good lategame martial resilience features, a finesse greatweapon, the cleric's whole divine intervention mechanic, per round or turn resource refreshing, unlimited iconic spells as a wizard capstone; so much stuff that made me really excited about playing the game that got continually cut until there was barely anything inspiring left
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Feb 15, 2017 13:26
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Hey man, Rogues getting expertise and the ability to treat 1-9 results as a 10 is what lets them be the ones who explicitly break open skill checks. Thats their entire niche. You can't take that away. It'd be like taking away the fighter's niche at being a great single target damage dealer....oh.... Well you still can't take it away. Agent355 fucked around with this message at 13:38 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 13:28
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gradenko_2000 posted:D&D has absolutely supported that before. 3e had rules to represent groups of creatures as a single "mobs" or "crowds", while 4e, as you said, has the Minion and the Swarm creature types. That's true, but I'm specifically talking about situations where it's literally a group of PCs against an army, not just a big mob of creatures. A couple of editions have had mass combat rules, but they usually don't integrate characters very well into the action. The mobs from 3e and swarms from 4e do work, but what I'm talking about would be, well, scaling those things up even more where you have a single entity that represents an entire army so you can have your players fight against it. That would be an interesting tonal shift. My issue isn't with the rules specifically, because I know what was done with the rules in 3e and 4e, but with the fact that the rules weren't extrapolated on enough to allow for the sort of experience I'm talking about. I mean, I love 4e, but I really feel the tiers had a lot of missed potential: sure, as you leveled up your opposition got much more mythical in tone and color, but you were still fighting small skirmishes against roughly equal numbers of enemies (and maybe a small mess of minions) from level 1 to level 30. I would've been cool had the actual mechanics been abstracted to a great degree, but I personally would've preferred for the different tiers to feel significantly different: at Heroic you might take on a single squad of soldiers at a time during a great battle, at Paragon tier you might take on an entire regiment as a group, at Epic level you're literally facing off against the armies of darkness, just you and your friends. Basically, I think Epic levels in D&D should have the group feeling like a bunch of Dynasty Warriors characters. And the thing is, it could be done. I know this because it's been done: it's been done by a game designer who works entirely in games that maintain compatibility with old-school D&D. And he's done it twice: first in An Echo Resounding (which had a very simplified mass combat system which also allowed for characters to take part in mass combat, eventually making them heroes that were effectively equivalent to an entire regiment of soldiers by themselves) and later in Godbound (which has mob rules similar to those in 3e and allows characters to take on entire armies of mooks without the game grinding to a halt). The fact that a game with decidedly retro design has solved the problem of fighting a huge mess of foes at once and done it elegantly makes it all the more mysterious that these things are still a problem in 5e. e: The designer I'm talking about is Kevin Crawford of course and he owns Ratpick fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 13:36
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Whenever mass-combat comes up, I'm always going to contend that the answer is in mashing up D&D with Axis&Allies. Essentially, have a bunch of units on the battlefield, with an attack value that they need to roll under (d6) to score a hit; each hit deals 1 hp of damage, and these units all have 1 hp (some might have 2 hp.) Have PCs just roll damage and kill that many dudes; have units roll attacks and kill off that many of each other, or deal that much HP damage to the PCs. Generally in A&A, the side taking the hits chooses their "casualties," so you don't have to worry about "Heroes" getting focus-fired to death. It'd take some fine tuning, but I think there's some merit to it.
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Feb 15, 2017 14:13
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Yeah I'd say "serious" mass combat is better left to the realm of an entirely different streamlined ruleset designed specifically for it. Like in RPPR's Iron Heroes campaign, they switch to Reign / One-Roll Engine for it. The critical part is having those rules available and on-hand (and willing to be learned and played by the group), as well as force compositions that are fair and take into account the accomplishments of the party.
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Feb 15, 2017 14:17
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Allstone posted:Talking about the playtest makes me so sad because there was so much cool stuff in there like the really good lategame martial resilience features, a finesse greatweapon, the cleric's whole divine intervention mechanic, per round or turn resource refreshing, unlimited iconic spells as a wizard capstone; so much stuff that made me really excited about playing the game that got continually cut until there was barely anything inspiring left If you had a finesse greatweapon wouldn't every character just use dex and forget strength altogether? I mean assuming the rest of the game worked the same way.
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Feb 15, 2017 14:56
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Taear posted:If you had a finesse greatweapon wouldn't every character just use dex and forget strength altogether? I mean assuming the rest of the game worked the same way. Depends how much pushing/pulling/carrying of heavy poo poo and/or shoving/grappling you want to be doing.
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Feb 15, 2017 15:06
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They already rewrote the stats to allow you to complete dump str or dex when that was never super feasible in 3.5 (gently caress 4e) iirc. There was always some reason to still invest at least a little bit into dex if you were str and str if you were dex. In 5e my rogue has 9 str and I don't feel particularly held back by that. So I don't understand what having a dex great weapon would do to suddenly make everybody go dex and ignore str. To specify, I'm not saying it doesn't exist, merely I don't see it myself.
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Feb 15, 2017 15:14
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Agent355 posted:They already rewrote the stats to allow you to complete dump str or dex when that was never super feasible in 3.5 (gently caress 4e) iirc. There was always some reason to still invest at least a little bit into dex if you were str and str if you were dex. Having a higher dex bonus to AC and dex save is more important than having a higher str save.
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Feb 15, 2017 15:26
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This is why 4e pasted STR/CON, DEX/INT, and WIS/CHA together. Except in a few edge cases you probably had a good score in at least two of those pairings.
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Feb 15, 2017 15:31
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Kurieg posted:This is why 4e pasted STR/CON, DEX/INT, and WIS/CHA together. Except in a few edge cases you probably had a good score in at least two of those pairings. I would be 100% behind a houserule to: * STR/CON, DEX/INT, and WIS/CHA saving throw proficiencies are one and the same * use whichever ability score modifier is better between the two paired stats * spells targeting these saving throws are also similar paired off
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Feb 15, 2017 15:34
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Hey at one point was there a sheet that had the character classes with movie analogs. I have someone coming in who has never played before and I wanted her to have something to look over to get an idea on classes. I was going to make one but if there is one available it would save me sometime.
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Feb 15, 2017 15:39
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Kibner posted:Having a higher dex bonus to AC and dex save is more important than having a higher str save. but plate mail exists.
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Feb 15, 2017 15:40
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gradenko_2000 posted:I would be 100% behind a houserule to:
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Feb 15, 2017 15:48
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Kibner posted:Having a higher dex bonus to AC and dex save is more important than having a higher str save. It might just be me as a DM but there's so few times that STR saves come up.
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Feb 15, 2017 15:56
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Nihilarian posted:why not just fuse them into 3 ability scores at that point. Flavor mostly, which is a perfectly fine and valid reason. I don't like 4e at all but thats a pretty good aspect of it all the same.
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Feb 15, 2017 15:57
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IamnotJoe posted:Hey at one point was there a sheet that had the character classes with movie analogs. I have someone coming in who has never played before and I wanted her to have something to look over to get an idea on classes. I was going to make one but if there is one available it would save me sometime. I've never seen this but that sounds fascinating. Barbarian would be The Rock in The Scorpion King (or Hercules, either or) Bard would be that guy playing the flaming guitar in Mad Max Fury Road Cleric would be Hugh Jackman in Van Helsing, or maybe Keanu Reeves as Constantine Druid would be Liam Neeson in The Grey Fighter would be Russell Crowe in Gladiator Monk would be Keanu Reeves in The Matrix (or Man of Tai Chi, either or) Paladin would be Ranger would be Dar the Beastmaster Rogue would be Sorcerer would be Storm from the X-Men Warlock would be Enchantress from Suicide Squad maybe? Edward Norton's tortured interpretation of The Hulk? Wizard would be Gandalf, no two bones about it * these are all more thematic concepts than actual reflections of performance and capability Nihilarian posted:why not just fuse them into 3 ability scores at that point. Why yes I have played Microlite20
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Feb 15, 2017 16:04
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WerrWaaa posted:Wanting my Boar to scale better with level when I finally get one, is it too much to ask the DM to have the Charge and Resilient features use a formula? Replace Charge DC with 10 + Str + Prof and the Resilience damage cap become 5 + HD? On a similar note, barding for a pig... should I really have to pay 4x? Seems excessive. I'm playing a Kenku UA Pigmaster and we're all having a blast... except for whenever we try to actually interact with the mechanics at which point things tend to go titsup fuckwise.
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Feb 15, 2017 16:07
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Agent355 posted:but plate mail exists. So does Barbarian.
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Feb 15, 2017 16:08
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There are also more dex than str skills, iirc, and more spells and abilities that target dex saves than str saves.
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Feb 15, 2017 16:10
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Oh, initiative is also dex based.
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Feb 15, 2017 16:14
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Strength can matter for grappling, wearing heavy armor, or if your DM is a monster and wants you to track encumbrance. Otherwise, it's just one of two possible weapon attack stats, which happens to enable the Great Weapon Mastery feat.
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Feb 15, 2017 17:03
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Also jumping across gaps. You gotta jump across gaps.
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Feb 15, 2017 17:07
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What could I do for an Undying Light familiar? None of the listed ones are really on point flavor-wise. The things that came to mind as representing the spark of life would be like a bound Will o the Wisp or a miniature golem. Is there any guidance or useful outside material on adapting a custom familiar?
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Feb 15, 2017 17:11
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Celestial animal? One of the low rankings angels/guardinals? Or I think one of the old monster manuals had things that were basically just balls of semi-sentient positive energy. Just grab an existing familiar and reflavor to taste.
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Feb 15, 2017 17:18
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gradenko_2000 posted:I've never seen this but that sounds fascinating. Thanks that helps.
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Feb 15, 2017 17:24
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Also jumping across gaps. You gotta jump across gaps. And climbing which is RAW only strength. I always felt you should be able to use acrobatics to climb or leap across gaps as well and have had most games house rule it like that, but one of my two current DMs disagrees. A thing I'm still slightly salty about. Climbing and Jumping are suuuuuuper useful to 'do cool thing' typically.
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Feb 15, 2017 17:32
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Kurieg posted:Celestial animal? One of the low rankings angels/guardinals? Or I think one of the old monster manuals had things that were basically just balls of semi-sentient positive energy. Just grab an existing familiar and reflavor to taste. Agreeing with this. A Will-o'-the-wisp re flavored as a Lantern Archon could work. Or you could ignore all senses of flavor and crunch and just use this guy. 
MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Feb 15, 2017 |
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Feb 15, 2017 17:48
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MonsterEnvy posted:Agreeing with this. A Will-o'-the-wisp re flavored as a Lantern Archon could work. This thing always looked like a Pokémon to me. I like to think it just goes around saying its own name.
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Feb 15, 2017 17:55
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Found it, it's called a Xeg-ya and it's a barely sentient ball of positive energy that hates undead. Dude on the top there.
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Feb 15, 2017 17:58
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I worked a flumph into my current campaign as an NPC who regularly shows up and it was the first time I've actually gotten to use a flumph (or seen one as a player) in a capacity that wasn't simply 'lolflumphs' and I'm so happy about it.
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Feb 15, 2017 18:04
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