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What do I think is the biggest weakness D&D 5e has? Nothing. It's perfect and anyone who can't handle it deserves to go play FATAL.
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Mar 30, 2017 03:32
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| # ? May 28, 2024 05:52 |
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My party has leveled to 8, giving me my sixth level of Bard, which means two spells from any list of my choice. I'm getting Polymorph from Bard, Fireball, and what else? We don't really have a healer (not that such a thing works in 5e) so I've been making do with Healing Word from my Druid levels. Some kind of party wide buff if it exists? Edit: Or something real good that doesn't take concentration. I'm also seriously considering Shield to help my 18 AC. Actually Moonbeam might be good as well. Admiral Joeslop fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 30, 2017 03:36
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Admiral Joeslop posted:My party has leveled to 8, giving me my sixth level of Bard, which means two spells from any list of my choice. I'm getting Polymorph from Bard, Fireball, and what else? We don't really have a healer (not that such a thing works in 5e) so I've been making do with Healing Word from my Druid levels. Some kind of party wide buff if it exists? COUNTERSPELL! Seriously, it's so good in the hands of a Bard it isn't funny. It's like this: Jack of All Trades: "...add half your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make that don't already include your proficiency bonus." Counterspell: "...make an ability check with your spellcasting ability." Bards are THE BEST Counterspellers in the game because no one else can get a bonus to doing so the way a Lore Bard can. In the final battle in Dragon Queen my Bard Counterspelled every one of Tiamat's spells! It was hilarious!
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Mar 30, 2017 04:25
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Lore College is one of the most broken things in the entire system, the stuff it lets you do is nuts.
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Mar 30, 2017 05:14
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rumble in the bunghole posted:Lore College is one of the most broken things in the entire system, the stuff it lets you do is nuts. I'm pleased to hear this since I'm about to start a game as a Tiefling Bard and just want to do stupid poo poo since my occupation in the game is a lawyer. instead of having a musical instrument, I get around with a flaming pen.
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Mar 30, 2017 05:20
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I'm going rogue 1 / lore bard x for Yawning Portal to skill monkey and piss in the DMs cheerios.
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Mar 30, 2017 05:30
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MonsterEnvy posted:Though that feat is pretty good for battlemaster as it stacks with their features. Woe unto ye who forget the kits of olde.
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Mar 30, 2017 05:38
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Admiral Joeslop posted:My party has leveled to 8, giving me my sixth level of Bard, which means two spells from any list of my choice. I'm getting Polymorph from Bard, Fireball, and what else? We don't really have a healer (not that such a thing works in 5e) so I've been making do with Healing Word from my Druid levels. Some kind of party wide buff if it exists? If you want a heal there is an aura you can take from the paladin that is a concentration spell that drops 2d8 healing every round.
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Mar 30, 2017 06:59
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After our group's first small payday we had 200g to spend and as a moon druid I couldn't think of a single goddamn thing I need in this world. Don't even need a bedroll I make a lil pile of foliage and i'm good. So to introduce my flaw that I'm bad with money to everyone and make some friends I told the dm I wander off into the bazaar and do some private shopping. He makes me roll a general investigation check and with a 4 tells me I can come back in 2 hours with the things It took forever to find. Everyone barters and horse trades for their first improved item and when they're finally done I show up with a camel dragging three rowboats. I'm like oprah giving out cars but it's a 100 lbs of worthless rowboat. I give everyone a personalized speech and ended it with "so I got you a rowboat" DM's like can't have you carrying around a buncha rowboats all campaign oh remember that bad investigation roll? You bought off brand rowboats, two of which turned out to be mimics roll for initiative. The wizard set all three on fire just to be safe and I blew a spellslot and my first turn ordering the camel to run for safety so now I have no camel and we have no rowboats and our entire quest has either masterfully dovetailed into tracking down this shady mercantile guild or been entirely sidetracked with finding out who ripped off the druid with bad rowboats, and I cannot tell which. I've wanted to D&D for like 16 goddamn years and it's finally happening
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Mar 30, 2017 08:02
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jng2058 posted:COUNTERSPELL! Seriously, it's so good in the hands of a Bard it isn't funny. Why would Tiamat bother with spells when she could just step on the bard.
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Mar 30, 2017 08:07
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What's the status as far as timeline and such goes? The SCAG offers up a few potential deities for an Arcana Cleric but both of them seem to be dead. Are we in a time before that or am I just metal enough to worship a dead god?
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Mar 30, 2017 09:08
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Nehru the Damaja posted:What's the status as far as timeline and such goes? The SCAG offers up a few potential deities for an Arcana Cleric but both of them seem to be dead. Are we in a time before that or am I just metal enough to worship a dead god? Assuming you're playing in the 5e standard timeline, both Mystra and Azuth are around. They were only dead during 4e.
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Mar 30, 2017 09:13
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I got into a bit of a discussion with my DM about a houserule he's using, I wanted to get other opinions on it to see if there's an easy way I can explain to him how it's unbalanced or if I'm just completely wrong. He introduced a parry reaction, that as long as you've got a weapon, shield, or some sort of unarmed talent (monk for example), with a roll against whatever the attack roll was you can stop an attack. It's been in play for a couple of months, I didn't think it was that much of an issue but as the enemies are getting tougher I'm being blocked a lot more (I'm the only pure martial character). To be fair, once a turn I can block an attack too. Nobody else has the problem of their attacks being blocked though. My point of view is, the only thing this does is to add an extra chance for my attacks to fail while the casters don't have the same problem and even though they might not be as good at it, the casters are still able to parry as well provided they have a weapon in hand. So they get the bonus without the drawback. When I tried to get my point across I was met with comments like "If you look for inbalance in dnd. You will find it" and that several instances of me only barely hitting and then being parried were just bad luck and to go smelt my d20s if I wasn't happy about that.
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Mar 30, 2017 11:10
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Suggest the Wizard should have their spells be parried too.
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Mar 30, 2017 11:17
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Bring wighted dice that only roll 20s and tell him he only perceives an imbalance.
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Mar 30, 2017 11:19
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Sounds like a terrible GM. Making a house rule that screws martials, while giving the benefit to casters as well with no drawback?
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Mar 30, 2017 11:22
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Admiral Joeslop posted:Sounds like a terrible GM. Making a house rule that screws martials, while giving the benefit to casters as well with no drawback? It's not like this hasn't been common for decades and is exactly the kind of "make your own fun" navel-gazing 5e indulges. Critical misses have much the same effect, really.
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Mar 30, 2017 11:45
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Arivia posted:It's not like this hasn't been common for decades and is exactly the kind of "make your own fun" navel-gazing 5e indulges. Critical misses have much the same effect, really. Seems like an objectively unfair and lovely rule that fucks one player while making the game easier for the party. Feels like the GM played dark souls once.
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Mar 30, 2017 11:50
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Ansith posted:"If you look for inbalance in dnd. You will find it" What the gently caress is this. It's not even the rule that bothers me so much as the attitude that "welp D&D is going to be imbalanced if you look hard enough", as if that allows you to abdicate any responsibility to think for a microsecond about all the poo poo you're houseruling in.
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Mar 30, 2017 12:11
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Yeah, don't let that poo poo slide if you're the only one being affected by it.
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Mar 30, 2017 12:18
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JBP posted:Seems like an objectively unfair and lovely rule that fucks one player while making the game easier for the party. Feels like the GM played dark souls once. It's pretty much the exact opposite of that, really. Dark Souls is very well balanced and designed. If something goes wrong, you hosed up. 5e doesn't even try to be well designed, it just throws poo poo at the wall it thinks feels good. Unfair and lovely is something 5e wallows in.
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Mar 30, 2017 13:24
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Those parry rules are terrible. I play with house ruled parries as well but they basically boil down to fighters being able to parry with ease and casters only through blind luck, plus unintelligent monsters aren't going to be taking parries either he's right about balance in general though
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Mar 30, 2017 13:53
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Arivia posted:It's pretty much the exact opposite of that, really. Dark Souls is very well balanced and designed. If something goes wrong, you hosed up. 5e doesn't even try to be well designed, it just throws poo poo at the wall it thinks feels good. Unfair and lovely is something 5e wallows in. He played it once and saw you could block a physical attack with a weapon is what I mean. He wasn't paying attention to anything else.
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Mar 30, 2017 14:06
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He's not really a bad DM, he just gets very caught up with making house rules for a lot of things. In the end it took his housemate, another player in the game agreeing with me for him to come back to me and say we'll give it a few more sessions and maybe look at it.mastershakeman posted:Those parry rules are terrible. I play with house ruled parries as well but they basically boil down to fighters being able to parry with ease and casters only through blind luck, plus unintelligent monsters aren't going to be taking parries either I like that idea a lot more, I proposed something similar as a replacement but got the reply that it wasn't what he was trying to achieve with the rule, which left me thinking about what he was trying to achieve. The comment he made about the balance was him trying to hit back at me for bringing up that martial characters needed a few more options than "i attack with my sword". This was a week after he threw in a bunch of extra spells for casters and made a few weaker spells more powerful in the range of level 1-3.
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Mar 30, 2017 14:20
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Unlike other systems where blocking/parrying is an explicit battle option (Shadowrun comes to mind), in D&D I was under the impression that missing a melee attack roll could be flavored in a number of ways, including "the monster parries your attack". Basically, any rule that makes a monster arbitrarily harder to hit is a bad rule. "You hit, but I rolled well on the parry so you actually didn't. Now get out of the way so the wizard can cast super fireball, I spell I designed because casters need more cool spells, which also can't be parried btw." What it really sounds like is your DM has a chip in his shoulder about martial types. Does he let you play with the environment? Toss enemies around or other cool improvisations? If not then a martial character might be a lost cause.
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Mar 30, 2017 14:34
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Ansith posted:I got into a bit of a discussion with my DM about a houserule he's using, I wanted to get other opinions on it to see if there's an easy way I can explain to him how it's unbalanced or if I'm just completely wrong. Or murder your GM whichever. It's a stupid rule and he's stupid for making it, but stupid never admits stupid.
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Mar 30, 2017 14:42
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Ansith posted:He's not really a bad DM I'm having a really hard time reconciling these.
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Mar 30, 2017 14:44
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SettingSun posted:Unlike other systems where blocking/parrying is an explicit battle option (Shadowrun comes to mind), in D&D I was under the impression that missing a melee attack roll could be flavored in a number of ways, including "the monster parries your attack". I was under the impression that the attack missing/hitting your armour/parrying the attack was covered by AC. That's why a shield is +2 AC and not a reaction ability. However, as a fighter talent to add an extra option for something they could possibly do in battle I can see it being a good thing, but not as something every goblin and caster can do. I don't really have many options with my character at the moment. I'm mostly stuck with swinging my weapon. Out of combat there's been a few things where I just had to think why I'm being penalised, as an example I was given disadvantage to swim across a underground lake because I had my half plate on. I would understand that in most situations but my character is a Goliath with 20 strength and a decent Dex score. The sorcerer in robes with 8 strength? No problem though. Robes are not easy to swim in. All of the bad poo poo that goes on is remedied by the fact I love roleplaying as my characters. That's probably my only enjoyment I get out of DnD at the moment, sadly. Admiral Joeslop posted:I'm having a really hard time reconciling these. The more I type the more I have to really think about if I really meant that first statement or not. Ansith fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 30, 2017 14:47
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Skellybones posted:Suggest the Wizard should have their spells be parried too. This. Parrying rules like that are simply a double-slap against martials. It gives you a little bit of extra defense, yes, but it's weighted towards enemies since they are going to be doing multiple attacks against one target, while your ability to deal with multiple targets, already a weak point for martial characters, is further reduced by the fact that they all each get their own parry. Assuming all hits, attack one enemy three times and you'll get 2 hits in. Attack three enemies, and you will get none past parries. It's stupid. Plus it's the kind of stuff that's already abstracted into the AC mechanics: Do you need to roll to defend with your shield? gently caress no, it just adds an always-on bonus to your AC. And ask him what he's trying to achieve with a rule like this anyway. Is it because you're the only martial and are making GBS threads out damage? What's your party, what level are you guys. You say he's not a bad dude. My own experience with my current DM, long-ish time friend, great guy, decent enough at setting up encounters and descriptions and roleplaying. But he makes some on-the-spot rulings or long-term homebrewed rules that I'm sure he has the best intentions in implementing... but need a serious reality check on, and the way he responds to questioning them is the most annoying "If you don't like it, I'm sorry but that's just how I like running my games" that makes me want to punch him in the face. I give him a week or two and a good chat and he realizes he's being dumb. As Arivia said, it's the kind of "make your own fun" navel-gazing many RP systems indulge.
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Mar 30, 2017 14:49
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Martials need to have more things going on than just being able to move and attack. For example, what if their attacks could also be parried? 
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Mar 30, 2017 14:50
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Philthy posted:Lost Mine of Phandelver that comes with the starter set is pretty amazing. Fun encounters, great loot, lots of puzzles, a town with a small sandbox quest system. It'll last about 20-30 hours of play I think? Of all the pre-made adventures I've played thus far, it remains my favorite. A close second would be the Gary adventures that were just played at GaryCon. Fun poo poo. Given the number of posts that come up daily on reddit "Starting LMOP" and the number of new LMOP games on Roll20 every week, it's shocking to me that everyone in the world hasn't played, run or at least read this module yet. It is pretty good though. If you don't mind converting, I thought Reavers of Harkenwold in the 4e Essentials DM Vault was an excellent adventure, and I've been running Curse of Strahd, which is quite good, although a bit lethal in places (recommend using the optional Adventurer's League rules for coming back from death with weird curses). There's also tons of excellent old modules which can always be converted. Isle of Dread is a great wilderness adventure, and Caverns of Thracia is a fantastic megadungeon.
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Mar 30, 2017 14:58
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AC is supposed to be all things taken together - it works against arrows, swords, claws, firebolts, and anything else that needs to be aimed to an extent. It's size, quickness, reflexes, armour thickness and quality, dodging, parrying, blocking, rolling with blows, and magical deflection and absorption. An arrow barely drawing blood after getting stuck through plate armour is a miss vs AC. A guy rolling away from a giant's club is a miss vs AC. A spear sticking into a dragon but it's too big and tough to care about a shallow wound is a miss vs AC. A well trained and equipped warrior with 20AC, being attacked by a completely normal idiot with a pitchfork, has a 5% chance of being uncomfortably impaled. The nerd wizard standing behind them has 10AC, a 50% chance, because they're an uncoordinated goon wearing a dressing gown, but they still have a good chance at stumbling away from the pointy thing. And the fighter has more HP, representing them not giving a gently caress about being stabbed repeatedly. And on top of that, the fighter is supposed to be able to consistently put out loads of stabby damage points at whoever is standing in front of them, whether they be wolf, bandit, ghoul or dragon. Making the fighter take a penalty at fighting, the one, sole thing they're actually halfway decent at is pure poo poo.
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Mar 30, 2017 15:10
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For reference: In Holmes Basic, parrying meant that the attacker took a -2 penalty to the attack roll, but the defender that used a parry does not get to attack on their round. If the attacker gets the exact attack roll number needed to hit, the attack still does no damage, but the defender's weapon is broken. In BECMI's Companion set/Rules Cyclopedia, a Fighter, Dwarf, or Elf could declare themselves to be parrying, which would cause all attackers to suffer a -4 penalty to melee attack rolls against the parrying character. It was also only available to level 9 Fighters/demi-humans. In AD&D 1e, parrying was again something that you spent your own action on (not a reaction), and the penalty to attack rolls against you was equivalent to your Strength bonus. In AD&D 2e, parrying was called out as an Optional Rule because the designers specifically told you that parrying was already one of the things you "naturally" did that was abstracted during the one minute combat turn and the interaction of the attack roll with AC. But if you ever did choose implement parrying as a separate action, it meant you had to do nothing else during the round, and you would gain a bonus to your AC equal to half your level. Warriors would get a bonus to their AC equal to half their level +1. In D&D 3e, you could Fight Defensively as part of making an attack, which gave you a -4 penalty to all your attacks, in exchange for gaining a +2 dodge bonus to AC. Alternatively, you could also use Total Defense as a Standard Action, which gave you a +4 dodge bonus to AC. In D&D 4e, Total Defense was a Standard Action that gave you a +2 to all your Defenses. In all these cases, it was something that you did as your action. EDIT: As an OSR aside, the Fighter class in Swords and Wizardy Complete would have a passive Parry ability that basically gave attackers -1 attack roll penalty for every point of the Fighter's Dexterity in excess of 13, but this is specifically something that is afforded to Fighters and indeed, something that the game explicitly calls out as not being available to Paladins and Rangers, and by logical extension something that the DM could not and should not grant to every other monster either except if they were also Fighter-types. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 30, 2017 15:13
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Also 5e already has the Dodge action giving all enemies disadvantage on attacks against you.
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Mar 30, 2017 15:24
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It's a dumb rule, but if parrying is a *reaction*, then it might not be too imbalanced, just slightly. Anyone who parries doesn't get another reaction. They can can't make an attack of opportunity, and can't cast counterspell. I think a lot of the balance would depend on what the parrying character is rolling with and against. If it's a strength roll, and they lose their reaction just to make the roll, it could work. On the other hand, it's still dumb because it's giving someone two opportunities to not get hit, AC and Parry Saving Throw, and there's just else nothing in the game like that. Maybe if shield only gave a parry opportunity and not an AC boost.
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Mar 30, 2017 15:28
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lifg posted:On the other hand, it's still dumb because it's giving someone two opportunities to not get hit, AC and Parry Saving Throw, and there's just else nothing in the game like that. Maybe if shield only gave a parry opportunity and not an AC boost. You actually bring up yet another good point in that in every previous instance of parrying (or its rough equivalent) being put into the game, it was a penalty to attack rolls or a bonus to AC. It was interacting with the pre-existing system of "did you hit or did you not hit?" and not tacking another roll onto that.
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Mar 30, 2017 15:30
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Ansith posted:He's not really a bad DM, he just gets very caught up with making house rules for a lot of things. In the end it took his housemate, another player in the game agreeing with me for him to come back to me and say we'll give it a few more sessions and maybe look at it. Is your DM Mearls?
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Mar 30, 2017 15:58
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Parrying is already in 5e; it's a battlemaster maneuver, called "Parry".
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Mar 30, 2017 16:21
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Oh, Rust Monsters!
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Mar 30, 2017 16:26
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| # ? May 28, 2024 05:52 |
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So what are some good sources if I wanna read up on just general info on the settings and denizens of icewind Dale? I'm playing a ranger nomad in my current campaign and we're starting storm king, so I figure I might as well be an expert
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Mar 30, 2017 16:39
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