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Arivia posted:That’s Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere, not sure if that’s in 5e yet. Yeah its countered by disintegration in this but it doesnt do the whole 'when target attacks you, you are moved' thing. MonsterEnvy posted:It would be fun. Common ground  Also to say something nice about Xanathar's book of stuffs, I think the Arcane Archer is a legitimate step in the right direction. I think its a bit concerning that they never increase the amount of arcane shots they get but that is the easiest fix. I would just change it to number of uses = Intelligence bonus per short rest and then do the same thing people did with the battlemaster and throw some bigger and scarier arcane shots you can choose until higher level. EDIT: Most importantly those arrows are actually having legitimate effects in the fight and giving some actual legitimate options and a toolkit to deal with problems. kingcom fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Nov 13, 2017 |
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Nov 13, 2017 06:46
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kingcom posted:Yeah its countered by disintegration in this but it doesnt do the whole 'when target attacks you, you are moved' thing. That would be a good opportunity for some DM descriptive fiat since you are just jamming people in balls and getting them stuck in there.
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Nov 13, 2017 06:53
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Arivia posted:That would be a good opportunity for some DM descriptive fiat since you are just jamming people in balls and getting them stuck in there. lol yeah but this is 5e so you can only move it with magic and not a fight mans hitting it.
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Nov 13, 2017 06:59
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kingcom posted:lol yeah but this is 5e so you can only move it with magic and not a fight mans hitting it. Incorrect I just looked at it and it can be moved physically like a hamster ball. That’s a good change, 5e.
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Nov 13, 2017 07:00
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Arivia posted:Incorrect I just looked at it and it can be moved physically like a hamster ball. That’s a good change, 5e. I didn't look I was just making a bad joke 
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Nov 13, 2017 07:01
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kingcom posted:I didn't look I was just making a bad joke Now I want to see an adventuring party stick themselves in resilient spheres so they can fall down a waterfall or something. Just bouncing all the way through and down a cliff.
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Nov 13, 2017 07:08
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Admiral Joeslop! Sorry I didn't respond to this earlier, as I was out-of-town all weekend. That monster seems really great - the only thing I'd mention is that action economy is a bigger concern when scaling up a monster for multiple players than the raw HP. A single monster against 4 players is liable to get dunked-on and "crowd-controlled" really easily, though it does seem like this Headless Horseman in particular is a hectic-enough fight that it shouldn't be a huge problem. I don't really think about ability scores, but to work backwards from a player's viewpoint, you can visualize them in terms of Primary-Secondary-Tertiary: 1. A Primary stat, such as STR for a Warrior or INT for a Wizard, is going to be 17/+3 from level 1 to 3, then 19/+4 from level 4 to 7, then 20/+5 from level 8 to 20 2. A Secondary stat is going to be 14/+2 from level 1 to 7, then 15/+2 from level 8 to 11, then 17/+3 from level 12 to 15, then 19+4 from level 16 to 20 3. A Tertiary stat is going to 13/+1 at best, and 8/-1 at worst, and won't ever improve. Of course, monsters don't have to follow this, so you can have a Dragon with 25 Str or a "Death Knight" whose bad Charisma score is either much lower than 8 or still high at a 12 or something, or a boss with multiple primaries, etc., but that should give you an idea of the scale. As for a sample monster: https://songoftheblade.wordpress.com/2015/12/08/designing-boss-monsters/
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Nov 13, 2017 07:13
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Mendrian posted:I like 5e and I routinely homebrew stuff up for it for fun, but I also recognize that it's a poorly designed game with lots of messy edges and I mostly like it because I have a fetishistic relationship with D&D rulebooks going back to my childhood. Also its the game everybody around here plays. I definitely know what you mean, I've been building up D&D books since 1988 and used to read the AD&D manuals for fun (...yeah, I know). I'm not a fan of 5e as presented in the books, but I know the DMs of both groups I play in from way back and they both like to pull rules apart and reassemble them (like I do), so I have a pretty great time playing and we all have fun discussing how to make a better game out of the game that we're playing. This is the only game I get to play, apart from the occasional Dread or Fiasco. I end up GMing everything else, and gently caress if I can be bothered working out the 5th ed game I'd want to run. I think what shits me the most about the "ask your DM" thing is that I don't want to run a game where there's hundreds of pages of detailed rules to learn and players still have to ask if they can even try to do X or Y. I like freeform-ish roleplaying, but to me that means "let's improvise some ficton", not "let's improvise some rules for a roleplaying game". The "if I was writing it..." game is fun and all, but not while your'e also trying to play.
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Nov 13, 2017 07:13
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Yeah collecting new rule books for the sake of collecting new rulebooks has always been great. That’s why I like Pathfinder because it’s a torrent of more books to go with all my other 3e rulebooks. Just bury me in hardcover rulebooks thanks.
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Nov 13, 2017 07:19
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AlphaDog posted:I think what shits me the most about the "ask your DM" thing is that I don't want to run a game where there's hundreds of pages of detailed rules to learn and players still have to ask if they can even try to do X or Y. I like freeform-ish roleplaying, but to me that means "let's improvise some ficton", not "let's improvise some rules for a roleplaying game". The "if I was writing it..." game is fun and all, but not while your'e also trying to play. A flippant definition of "D&D" that I keep coming back to is if you're playing World of Warcraft, but you have the choice to sympathize with Van Cleef and the Defias and throw in your lot with them. The game could be as restrictive or as free-form as it wants to be with regards to the mechanics, but the primary distinguishing factor is that you have a choice with regards to the plot, even if the procedure for, say, disarming a weapon is very strictly defined.
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Nov 13, 2017 07:24
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Arivia posted:Yeah collecting new rule books for the sake of collecting new rulebooks has always been great. That’s why I like Pathfinder because it’s a torrent of more books to go with all my other 3e rulebooks. Just bury me in hardcover rulebooks thanks. I never really collected just to be collecting/reading. Apart from some of the 2e campaign stuff, all my rulebooks have been used in play. Not to say I didn't read them at the time or that I don't still sometimes leaf through them for nostalgia or to mine ideas, but I can't think of a single D&D book I've got that's never been used at the table. gradenko_2000 posted:A flippant definition of "D&D" that I keep coming back to is if you're playing World of Warcraft, but you have the choice to sympathize with Van Cleef and the Defias and throw in your lot with them. I agree. What I was getting at is that I like both planning and improvising plot (or fiction) stuff. I also like planning rules stuff, be it building an adventure or rewriting something so it fits the group better. What I don't like is being put on the spot to come up with a rule now. Or even to provide a fair interpretation of a complicated rule now. The reason (for me) is that using improv tricks (ie, "yeah, you strangle him, he's unconscious but...") clashes with the detailed rules of D&D, and trying to sort out what combination of attacks, grapples, opposed STR rolls, etc might work like D&D takes everyone out of the action right at a tense moment. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 07:54 on Nov 13, 2017 |
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Nov 13, 2017 07:33
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I get stuff to use, but I know I have stuff that I’ve never used - adventures, some books with stuff that seemed cool at the time but never quite fit and so on. There’s so much in many 3e and later books, it’s easy for stuff to fall through the cracks.
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Nov 13, 2017 07:36
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All of the Good DM stuff also suggests a universal understanding of the math, implications, and blind spots of the game, which is... a pretty hefty assumption. I've had DMs and whole groups that were staunchly anti-Fighter in 3.5 / Pathfinder. I don't just mean they disagreed about the Fighter's balance issues, I mean they straight up had come to the consensus that the Fighter was weak on purpose, and the Fighter was intentionally designed to be dipped into, NOT to be ran as a straight class to 20. Like, it was a feature, not a bug. The Fighter was somehow not a real class, full stop, and this was a fact everyone knew. I don't know how the hell they all reached this conclusion, but I had three people all informing me of this like I was the crazy one. Same DM also helped "fix" combat by having characters provoke attacks of opportunity when they moved into threatened squares, in addition to out of. He was a Good DM, to that group. His answer to "Can Fighter do other stuff?" was "Play a different class." Most of those players played casters. Every DM I've ever had wanted to tinker with the game, but they all had very different ideas about balance and good mechanics. Getting the DM to improvise Fighter powers is like step 5, with step 1 being "Convince the DM the Fighter should even have this in the first place."
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Nov 13, 2017 10:51
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There's a section right after the bit esquilax quoted which gives numbers for winging damage. They're incredibly bad, being rolls of multiple d10s with no static mod, but if guidelines on adjudicating improvised applications of effects were anywhere, it would be there. They're not. The problem with excusing 5e's gaps with "5e is the just wing it/make shot up edition!" is that 5e completely lacks any effective tools or advice for doing so.
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Nov 13, 2017 11:06
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That sounds like step one would be "convince the group, as a whole, that the Fighter is real class". You've touched on another part of the problem with discussing issues with the rules - many people (or whole groups) work around bad rules (which is good!) but somehow manage to internalise their solution to the point where they can't recognise it as a solution they came up with, or sometimes even that the problem exists in the first place. Splicer posted:The problem with excusing 5e's gaps with "5e is the just wing it/make shot up edition!" is that 5e completely lacks any effective tools or advice for doing so. Did you somehow miss all the parts where it tells you exactly how to deal with this stuff? You just ask your DM what to do. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Nov 13, 2017 |
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Nov 13, 2017 11:07
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gradenko_2000 posted:Admiral Joeslop! Sorry I didn't respond to this earlier, as I was out-of-town all weekend. So, saving throws. You get your great/average/bad, then the other three are just a straight roll? This will be a level six fight; would adding a damaging lair action and two more Legendary Actions be fine? An action to fly into the air (without provoking OA), another to perform a Longsword attack. Since two of its actions don't do direct damage, the Lair could add to that. Vines appear from the ground at everyone's feet; DC 12 Str save to avoid being restrained. If they start their turn in the vines, they catch fire, doing 13 damage each round the character is restrained. They can attempt another throw at the end of their turn, or another player can spend an action to get them out. Also give it Legendary Resistance.
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Nov 13, 2017 13:02
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I vaguely feel the need to bring up, in the wake of all that spell conversation, that bards still exist, and can steal the good poo poo. 5e ain't wizard edition. It's bard edition. I mean, accidentally so, but it still is.
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Nov 13, 2017 13:26
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ProfessorCirno posted:
For me, this is almost a redeeming feature.
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Nov 13, 2017 13:49
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ProfessorCirno posted:I vaguely feel the need to bring up, in the wake of all that spell conversation, that bards still exist, and can steal the good poo poo. I love playing with Bards at a table. Mostly it takes the DMs eyes off my character because the Bard is too busy ruining the DMs day all day every day.
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Nov 13, 2017 18:46
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Philthy posted:I love playing with Bards at a table. My GM was very sad the first session I had Counterspell as a Bard. "You're upsetting my spellcaster NPC." "Talk magic poo poo, get magic hit."
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Nov 13, 2017 18:51
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kingcom posted:Yeah its countered by disintegration in this but it doesnt do the whole 'when target attacks you, you are moved' thing. On the other hand, Arcane Archer already has an errata: https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/11/07/arcane-archer-the-arcane-shot-feature-is-not-intended-to-require-a-magic-arrow-errata/  I’d love to hear thoughts on Arcane Archer vs. a Battlemaster archer. AA is largely unchanged from the last UA version (main changes are that you also get either Prestidigitation or Druidcraft from Arcane Archer Lore at 3rd level, and you get Magic Arrow at 7th level instead of 3rd and instead of +1 to attack/damage, your attack counts as magical to avoid non-magical resistance/immunity). After looking it over, I still think I’ll prefer BM.
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Nov 13, 2017 19:08
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Admiral Joeslop posted:It never fails; every few weeks some new poster or lurker comes barreling in to whine about this thread being full of 5e haters. They always have the same done to death arguments and lovely attitudes, that people would dare talk bad about senpai. I dropped by because Xanathar's is coming out and thought it would be fun to discuss the new stuff coming out that I'm excited to try. I'm not sure it is "new posters" that have an attitude problem: ProfessorCirno posted:Do you actually play D&D, or do you just freeform with character sheets? That kind of response probably isn't moving the conversation in a positive direction. Anywho... I was thinking about putting together a Tabaxi Rogue using the Swashbuckler subclass that is in SCAG but I want to multiclass it with Fighter or Ranger to get proficiencies with whips and shields. I'm leaning towards Ranger just to pick up one of the new subclasses in Xanathar's. Gloom Stalker and Monster Slayer both look interesting. What is the threads thoughts on the two and how well they'd work with Rogue?
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Nov 13, 2017 20:05
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SwitchbladeKult posted:That kind of response probably isn't moving the conversation in a positive direction. you have misunderstood the post, comrade
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Nov 13, 2017 20:08
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escalator dropdown posted:On the other hand, Arcane Archer already has an errata: https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/11/07/arcane-archer-the-arcane-shot-feature-is-not-intended-to-require-a-magic-arrow-errata/ I can't believe they kept the two arrows per rest instead of scaling # of uses by level. Only improving the effect at 18th level is also dumb. I was excited about potential changes they could make after seeing the UA but the final product is not very exciting.
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Nov 13, 2017 20:12
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Philthy posted:Mostly it takes the DMs eyes off my character That sounds sort of unfun.
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Nov 13, 2017 21:05
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I was looking over the spell Catapult in Xanathars. It seems pretty OP if I'm reading this right.quote:The object flies in a straight line up to 90 feet in a direction you choose before falling to the ground, stopping early if it impacts against a solid surface. If the object would strike a creature, that creature must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, the object strikes the target and stops moving. In either case, both the object and the creature or solid surface take 3d8 bludgeoning damage. The object, goes 90 feet from an object that might be sitting 150ft. away. That is a long range at level 1. It has no to-hit, anything in it's path must make a DEX save. If the creatures DEX save fails, the object does 3d8 (Extra 1d8 per slot over 1), the object stops. If the creatures DEX save is made, the creature STILL takes 3d8, and the object continues on it's path. If it hits another creature, repeat damage, and see if it's still going. This is a crazy cool spell when the DM lines up a bunch of creatures accidentally. Subjunctive posted:That sounds sort of unfun. Depends on the class you're playing. I mostly play a Warlock. I get picked on either way, but a Bard in the party helps. Philthy fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Nov 13, 2017 |
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Nov 13, 2017 21:08
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jesus christ wizards are taking jobs from siege engineers and not even being fancy about it
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Nov 13, 2017 21:09
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MonsterEnvy posted:Can you elaborate here. Hexblade Warlock, the warlock patron where you can use a weapon but also can use Pact of the Blade, and also Hexblade Curse, which is like Hex but is different, but also you can cast Hex.
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Nov 13, 2017 21:36
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mango sentinel posted:Hexblade Warlock, the warlock patron where you can use a weapon but also can use Pact of the Blade, and also Hexblade Curse, which is like Hex but is different, but also you can cast Hex. Yeah you can use that stuff and it tends to make your stuff better.
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Nov 13, 2017 21:40
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Philthy posted:I was looking over the spell Catapult in Xanathars. It seems pretty OP if I'm reading this right. That's the older version of the spell, from the EE Player's Companion. XGE revises it to only deal 3d8 only to the thing that it hits. You can still catapult flasks of oil at people and then use fire on them, but it's not the kind of line attack you're hoping for.
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Nov 13, 2017 21:44
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SwitchbladeKult posted:That kind of response probably isn't moving the conversation in a positive direction. Only if you believe freeform is inherently negative. My point that you missed, and I made this point because nearly all D&D groups end up here, is that freeform isn't D&D. Eschewing the mechanics and just roleplaying together and maybe rolling a dice through the night is a goddamn blast, and it's also not D&D in the slightest. It's purely freeform. I believe that most groups WANT to freeform. The rules and all that, it's just dressing for them making their character. You hear it a lot - "our best games are ones where we never even roll the die!" "I like roleplaying a lot, but the combat is kind of a drag." "Nobody wants to get bogged down in the game's minutiae." All of those statements boil down to: "The game is more fun when we don't play the game, and instead of talk and bullshit." I think this is one of the reasons why freeform roleplay has such a weirdly negative reputation, beyond the ones that boil down to weird classism or sexism or other hangups. It's because, at heart, that set of D&D books cost you over a hundred dollars, and you end up barely using them. You gotta justify your purchases.
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Nov 13, 2017 22:04
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mango sentinel posted:Hexblade Warlock, the warlock patron where you can use a weapon but also can use Pact of the Blade, and also Hexblade Curse, which is like Hex but is different, but also you can cast Hex. My hasted Pact of the Blade Hexblade uses Hexblade's Curse (dealing psychic damage due to Maddening Hex), casts Hex, then attacks with my Hex Warrior pact blade. If that kills it, I switch my Hexblade's Curse to another enemy via Master of Hexes and will use Armor of Hexes to defend myself. To hex with all that!
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Nov 13, 2017 22:26
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ProfessorCirno posted:Only if you believe freeform is inherently negative. At my table, the DM having to winging it or go outside the rules doesn't seem to happen very often. At least it doesn't seem to happen any more often than when we are playing other systems (3.0/3.5, Pathfinder, 4E, or Eclipse Phase). We use the crap out of our books. I even had to get a second PHB because I wore out the spine of my first one. I just don't see how you can say you aren't getting any use out of your rule books. Help me see things from your perspective since my experience with 5E seems to be much different than yours. How often are you finding the rules in 5E don't support what you are trying to accomplish? Can you provide examples?
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Nov 13, 2017 23:18
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Emy posted:That's the older version of the spell, from the EE Player's Companion. XGE revises it to only deal 3d8 only to the thing that it hits. You can still catapult flasks of oil at people and then use fire on them, but it's not the kind of line attack you're hoping for. drat you Wiki! At least I have an older version of my new Wizzie printed out still. Thanks for the catch!
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Nov 13, 2017 23:57
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SwitchbladeKult posted:At my table, the DM having to winging it or go outside the rules doesn't seem to happen very often. At least it doesn't seem to happen any more often than when we are playing other systems (3.0/3.5, Pathfinder, 4E, or Eclipse Phase). We use the crap out of our books. I even had to get a second PHB because I wore out the spine of my first one. I just don't see how you can say you aren't getting any use out of your rule books. Help me see things from your perspective since my experience with 5E seems to be much different than yours. How often are you finding the rules in 5E don't support what you are trying to accomplish? Can you provide examples? I've never DMed anything else so it's hard to compare them. I'm not saying I never use my phb but I don't use it much outside of looking up random spell X that a player wants to cast. I pretty much never use the DMG.
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Nov 14, 2017 00:08
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Hey it's me again and I've got my problem child complaining that his Abjuration Wizard is too neutered by concentration. He says it's forcing him to play a "boom wizard" and "boom wizards are boring." Should I just give up on trying to make him happy in an edition that he'll never be happy in?
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Nov 14, 2017 00:10
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SwitchbladeKult posted:At my table, the DM having to winging it or go outside the rules doesn't seem to happen very often. At least it doesn't seem to happen any more often than when we are playing other systems (3.0/3.5, Pathfinder, 4E, or Eclipse Phase). We use the crap out of our books. I even had to get a second PHB because I wore out the spine of my first one. I just don't see how you can say you aren't getting any use out of your rule books. Help me see things from your perspective since my experience with 5E seems to be much different than yours. How often are you finding the rules in 5E don't support what you are trying to accomplish? Can you provide examples? There's just been several pages of discussion about this, with people pointing out specific examples of stuff that's not covered under the rules, and talking about how they might write rules to cover those situations.
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Nov 14, 2017 00:13
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SwitchbladeKult posted:At my table, the DM having to winging it or go outside the rules doesn't seem to happen very often. At least it doesn't seem to happen any more often than when we are playing other systems (3.0/3.5, Pathfinder, 4E, or Eclipse Phase). We use the crap out of our books. I even had to get a second PHB because I wore out the spine of my first one. I just don't see how you can say you aren't getting any use out of your rule books. Help me see things from your perspective since my experience with 5E seems to be much different than yours. How often are you finding the rules in 5E don't support what you are trying to accomplish? Can you provide examples? There's some stuff you gotta break down in that post because it's not necessarily obvious to anyone who hasn't been in this debate for like six years. First, a lot of groups judge the quality of their play based on how little they interact with the system. Not every group, obviously. We hear it a lot in here! "I spent the entire session without touching the dice and it was great!" Sometimes people judge a player harshly if they interact too much with the system too. "Optimization" is a dirty word in lots of circles because it suggests mastery of the rules, whereas a Good Roleplayer doesn't care if he numbers-good. The other part of this is about improvisation in general. I'll give you a general example. I'll use a classic because why the gently caress not. Lets say you want to swing on a chandelier and have it crash down on a group of enemies. You're on the second floor, you're diving over the banister and swinging on that poo poo. There's no direct ruling for that kind of thing. Here's what a lot of groups do: * Can you jump to reach the chandelier? Make an Athletics check. * Can you swing on that sucker? Make an Acrobatics check. * Can you hit with it? Make an attack roll or alternatively, have enemies roll a saving throw. * How much damage does it do? That procedure is garbage because while it is 'realistic' in the sense that it simulates the action, it has three or more points of failure in it. A lot of rolls have a 10-25% chance of failure even if you're good at it, so each time you have to roll there's a chance you'll whiff. This means that 'I attack with sword' becomes optimal practice, since you only have one chance of failure and are not ground beneath the might of the RNG gods. That's just one stupid example off the top of my head.
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Nov 14, 2017 00:17
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Here's an example from a bit earlier: "I want to choke him out". What page(s) should I look at to find out how to do that?
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Nov 14, 2017 00:20
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Malpais Legate posted:Hey it's me again and I've got my problem child complaining that his Abjuration Wizard is too neutered by concentration. He says it's forcing him to play a "boom wizard" and "boom wizards are boring." Yeah I dunno man. Ask him what the gently caress it is he's trying to do. 'Boom' wizards have to interact with HP so like, they also have limitations. What is it he thinks Abjuration of all things should be able to accomplish?
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Nov 14, 2017 00:21
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