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gradenko_2000 posted:This one book rule is kind of a pandering reaction to the idea that there was too much splatbook bloat in earlier editions, much like how a slow and sparse book release schedule was spin-doctored into being a good thing. Yeah, that makes sense. It aligns well with their strategy of spending as little money as possible on the RPG part of the brand.
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Dec 22, 2017 18:35
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I mean, I sort of see the rationale. With the +1 rule, it would help keep from slowing down the games since you don't have to skim through a dozen rulebooks to figure out one spell effect or class ability. That, and not having those crazy multiclass characters that have one or two levels split between 15 different classes and 9 different books. On the other hand, it kinda sucks if a new book comes out with better class options for you and you can't use it because you're past the reroll threshold.
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Dec 22, 2017 18:59
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Would giving the healers the option to heal for free when they hit with a weapon be too broken?
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Dec 22, 2017 20:29
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Looking to get into a new game now that the campaign I was running has finished. I wanna do something less spell oriented and more "fun things to do in combat." Stuff I'm looking at: Mastermind Rogue, polearm master Battlemaster, a rogue/shadow monk combo, or some kind of Shield Mastery grappler guy. Any suggestions from these or other possibilities if I'm looking to beat people up but have lots of decisions and positioning choices and stuff?
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Dec 22, 2017 20:35
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ReapersTouch posted:Would giving the healers the option to heal for free when they hit with a weapon be too broken? It was in 4e and it worked quite well, so of course it'll never happen.
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Dec 22, 2017 20:36
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Someone needs to make 5.5e, but it's just 4e with simplified math (no stacking bonuses or multiple sources of bonuses), and re-name everything to 5e flavor.
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Dec 22, 2017 21:24
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ReapersTouch posted:Would giving the healers the option to heal for free when they hit with a weapon be too broken? Did you guys play Warhammer: Age of Reckoning? I loved the Warrior Priest and Disciple of Khaine classes. They were healers that had an offensive and defensive target; attacking your offensive target built resources you spent to heal/protect your defensive target. I'd like to design a class like that for 5e, and I think I'll fiddle with it over the long weekend. If any of you have any ideas you want to spitball, feel free to post them!
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Dec 22, 2017 21:37
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One of my players is rolling and asked me if they could roll a Samurai Fighter for my new campaign. I read through the new archtype and decided to just give him both the Samurai archtype and the Battlemaster archtype because fighters are so boring.
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Dec 22, 2017 22:08
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CubeTheory posted:One of my players is rolling and asked me if they could roll a Samurai Fighter for my new campaign. I read through the new archtype and decided to just give him both the Samurai archtype and the Battlemaster archtype because fighters are so boring. You are wise beyond your years.
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Dec 22, 2017 22:14
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NeurosisHead posted:Did you guys play Warhammer: Age of Reckoning? I loved the Warrior Priest and Disciple of Khaine classes. They were healers that had an offensive and defensive target; attacking your offensive target built resources you spent to heal/protect your defensive target. I'd like to design a class like that for 5e, and I think I'll fiddle with it over the long weekend. If any of you have any ideas you want to spitball, feel free to post them! I've been thinking about combat healing for a while. Here's some vague ideas. You could use a marking mechanic to mark an ally who gets healed/buffed/temp-hp'd whenever you hit an opponent. You could have a frontline ability where you get level * (number of adjacent allies including yourself) healing to distribute as you choose to adjacent allies as a bonus action. You could do a simple harm/heal spell like "pick an ally and enemy within range, roll xdy. The enemy takes that much damage (save for half), the ally heals that much (unaffected by enemy save). The same as above as a life leech/transfer, works on a bonus action, lower xdy, enemy's save affects heals. Either a cantrip or not a spell at all. Link an opponent to an ally. Until the end of your next turn, all damage suffered by that opponent is gained by that ally. A self-centered AoE that drains (your level?) hp from all opponents in range. Takes an action, adds those hp to a pool that you can give out to allies as bonus actions. You could also raid 4th ed for ideas. For all I know some of these are in there as cleric abilities or something, I never played any healer that wasn't a warlord in that edition.
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Dec 22, 2017 22:54
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NeurosisHead posted:Did you guys play Warhammer: Age of Reckoning? I loved the Warrior Priest and Disciple of Khaine classes. They were healers that had an offensive and defensive target; attacking your offensive target built resources you spent to heal/protect your defensive target. I'd like to design a class like that for 5e, and I think I'll fiddle with it over the long weekend. If any of you have any ideas you want to spitball, feel free to post them! Sounds great! AlphaDog posted:I've been thinking about combat healing for a while. Here's some vague ideas. I like alot of these ideas.
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Dec 22, 2017 22:59
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User0015 posted:Someone needs to make 5.5e, but it's just 4e with simplified math (no stacking bonuses or multiple sources of bonuses), and re-name everything to 5e flavor. Try this: Simplified modifiers for D&D 4e Or try this:       I thought p.d0t's Unnamed Project was also quite good, but I've lost the PDF.
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Dec 23, 2017 01:27
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AlphaDog posted:I've been thinking about combat healing for a while. Here's some vague ideas. Thinking further, it could be cool to build up healing points and be able to distribute them as a bonus action with "when you take the attack action..." as the trigger. I don't like "healing points" or "healing pool" as the word for that store of points, maybe someone can think up something cooler. So you'd have a bunch of fighting abilities that do damage to opponents and build up your points, and then your healbot ability which is "when you take the attack action, as a bonus action you can give an ally points from your healing pool", and action-based big heal or oh-poo poo abilities like "as an action, you empty your healing pool, all allies withing (range) are healed that many points" or "as an action, spend X healing points, remove (condition) from ally", or "as a reaction, spend X healing points, an attack on an ally that was successful is now unsuccessful" or whatever. e: Hmmm... If you take this to the same level with a slightly different core concept (maneuver points? rage? momentum?) you could make a really cool martial character type. e2: Like... casters get Slots, which are a resource that you spend on Spells which replenishes automatically at certain points. Martials get Abilities (talents? moves? maneuvers? techniques? forms? red mist berserk ragesmashes?), which require the use of points which are built during combat and disappear at the end of the fight. e3: gently caress it, it's just build/consume like in The Secret World. It'd still be cool though. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Dec 23, 2017 |
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Dec 23, 2017 01:28
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the_steve posted:I mean, I sort of see the rationale. With the +1 rule, it would help keep from slowing down the games since you don't have to skim through a dozen rulebooks to figure out one spell effect or class ability. But you still have to have the resources, as an AL DM, to research every book because you've got no idea what mix of +1 books your table is going to have. Personally I figure they just want to avoid obvious best builds if they allowed all splats. Yuan-ti with SCAG and Xanathar content would be goddamn amazing.
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Dec 23, 2017 06:11
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Looking to get into a new game now that the campaign I was running has finished. I wanna do something less spell oriented and more "fun things to do in combat." Stuff I'm looking at: Mastermind Rogue, polearm master Battlemaster, a rogue/shadow monk combo, or some kind of Shield Mastery grappler guy. Any suggestions from these or other possibilities if I'm looking to beat people up but have lots of decisions and positioning choices and stuff? Mastermind isn't particularly good; their lvl 3 ability is obsoleted two levels later. If you want options on a Rogue then do Thief and gently caress around with Bonus Action 'Use an Object', and UMD if you get to 13. BM gets various buttons to press in combat but it's a bit deceiving, since 95% of the time the optimal call is to save your SupDie for Precision in case you miss. PAM + Sentinel + Trip is funny tho. Barbarogue is cool but takes a bit to really get going, however if your party and your DM are good about making positioning and the environment work then Grappling can be great fun. Otherwise it's really just going about knocking enemies down and poking them with your rapier, with the occasional Uncanny Dodge thrown in.
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Dec 23, 2017 07:50
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The rogue archetype features are really spread apart for some reason. Honestly that kinda sucks since assassin is usable from level 3 while thief takes until 13 to really get started. And gently caress the errata that says fast hands cant be used to activate magic items.
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Dec 23, 2017 08:54
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Assassin is never usable; it's a broken archetype.
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Dec 23, 2017 09:46
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Conspiratiorist posted:Assassin is never usable; it's a broken archetype. Can you explain this? It seems a bit extreme. I’ve never played a rogue in 5e but I’ve played with AL assassins before and they seem to do decent alpha strike damage.
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Dec 23, 2017 13:31
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Not the one who made the statement but I can take a crack at why Assassin isn't as good as some people think. Well to start the first half of the Assassinate feature at level 3 is nice if you can manage to go first. But only a little useful. If you happen to go first and fire from a distance you can manage to get Sneak Attack because you have advantage. If you don't go first and an ally goes before you and reaches your target, well at least you get advantage on the shot but you would have already gotten Sneak Attack on them. If you don't go first, and an enemy goes before you then your first half of your feature doesn't work on them, even if they are surprised. The first half is only good on one, maybe two, attacks per encounter. At most. The Assassin Rogue, unlike the Swashbuckler, doesn't natively get anything to improve Initiative over just Dex modifier. It is entirely possible that you go encounters, or perhaps in game days, without this coming up as you fail to go before any important targets. Now on to the second half of the Assassinate feature at level 3. This is where we need to deal with the Surprise rules. Getting a crit on a hit, no matter the attack roll, is great for a Rogue. But the target needs to be surprised which means it can only happen in the first round of combat. And the combat must open with the enemy being surprised. This doesn't happen often as the DM determines whether or not the option of one or other side being surprised is even possible, and that can only happen if every member of your party is using Stealth. Then if the enemy detects any member of your party they are not surprised during the first round of combat. And thus the second half of the Assassinate feature doesn't work. Furthermore what a lot of people don't understand or misrule is that there is no surprise round. There is the first round, and possibly some people are surprised until they go. Thus even if someone was surprised, if they rolled better than you on Initiative and go before you they will no longer be surprised after their turn where they do nothing, and you will not get to get a crit on them as they will no longer be surprised by the time your turn comes up. The second half is good on one or maybe two attacks per encounter. But that is unlikely to happen because not only do you need to go before the enemy like in the first half of the ability, but you also have to have your entire team acting stealthy and surprising that target and your DM has to determine that the situation could involve the otherside being surprised. This is the main feature of the Assassin for most of its career. Now its good if you are actually going out being an Assassin, going off on your own, stealthing, and slitting throats, or attacking single enemies by their lonesome. It is not good as part of a group, or if your target survives your first round of combat. And even if you are going off on your own, and surprise your target, you STILL have to roll higher than them on Initiative to even get to use EITHER part of this ability. Now a lot of DMs don't run Surprise like this, because either they don't like the official rules, or because they don't understand them. 9th level feature is pretty much a ribbon feature, but it costs gold. A Disguise Kit with proficiency, let alone expertise, will probably do enough to make this feature pointless. Unless you really need a disguise that has some background information that the guards or whoever can look up. But if you are in a situation where this is useful you are probably doing some espionage stuff away from your party, and if anything goes wrong you are probably dead. Again this is a ribbon feature. At 13th level you get what is likely just another ribbon ability. You can spend 3 hours, or more, studying a person speaking, writing, and mannerisms to be able to mimic them. This is going to be rather hard to pull off most of the time. When are you going to be able to listen to someone speak for 3 hours? How often can you sit and read someone's writing for 3 hours? How often can you just sit or stand there observing someone's mannerisms? Without being suspicious or coming off as some kind of creep or stalker? Again a ribbon ability that will not likely come into play in most games. Oh and the Actor feat may be able to imitate a lot of this without all these restrictions. Now 17th level and Death Strike. This could be a good feature, albeit at level 17. Hit a creature, save or take double damage. This is great if you manage to crit and have sneak attack. Also I am not sure this needed to be a level 17 feature. Still it could get some good damage. Then again some of the other Archetypes get a 2nd attack that can apply sneak attack, or a whole extra turn which again could apply sneak attack again. Now its kind of hard to say which is better, one has the chance for super high numbers if they fail their save, the other makes you feel like a blender of death. Still all and all this is probably the best feature of the Assassin as the others are largely ribbon abilities or super restrictive.
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Dec 23, 2017 20:12
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Beaten while looking up the details and typing pretty much the same thing. I'll add that we had an assassin in one game, and yeah, it played out pretty much like Ryuujin described. We talked about changing the surprise rules to compensate, but the Assassin player decided to make a different character instead, since on top of the mechanics not working out that great, their general concept didn't match the rest of the party very well either.
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Dec 23, 2017 20:34
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Thanks, that was super helpful!
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Dec 23, 2017 22:29
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Yeah, it's a matter of being an archetype whose mechanical effectiveness relies almost entirely on DM fiat, and whose flavor and abilities incentivize a kind of gameplay that just isn't conductive to group play.
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Dec 23, 2017 22:57
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Ryuujin posted:Furthermore what a lot of people don't understand or misrule is that there is no surprise round. There is the first round, and possibly some people are surprised until they go. Thus even if someone was surprised, if they rolled better than you on Initiative and go before you they will no longer be surprised after their turn where they do nothing, and you will not get to get a crit on them as they will no longer be surprised by the time your turn comes up. Can I get a page reference for the bolded part of the surprise rules? I might be blind, but I can't see it on page 189 of the PHB where the surprise rules are.
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Dec 24, 2017 04:35
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thefakenews posted:Can I get a page reference for the bolded part of the surprise rules? I might be blind, but I can't see it on page 189 of the PHB where the surprise rules are. http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/rules-answers-november-2015
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Dec 24, 2017 05:14
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Thanks. This is a dumb ruling that isn't supported by the text they put in the book. thefakenews fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Dec 24, 2017 |
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Dec 24, 2017 05:36
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Most of them are like that. Overall it seems my cities DnD community sees things related to melee weapon attacks etc as meaning it's still a melee weapon attack even if done from range, which means that martial classes can actually do stuff with their tertiary weapons.
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Dec 24, 2017 07:48
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thefakenews posted:This is a dumb ruling that isn't supported by the text they put in the book. Thats the correct response to all of their rulings lol.
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Dec 24, 2017 09:26
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thefakenews posted:This is a dumb ruling that isn't supported by the text they put in the book. It... kind of is? The salient text is this bit on page 189: "If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends." Now, the PHB mentions turns, not rounds. You are able to take reactions after your first turn. So the "ruling" that you're no longer surprised after your first turn is in line with that.
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Dec 24, 2017 10:43
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Sage Genesis posted:It... kind of is? The salient text is this bit on page 189: It makes sense on a certain level. I mean, let's say that NPC has crazy high Initiative. They get surprised, but, since they have high Initiative, they react quickly enough that even though I got the drop on them, I wasn't able to capitalize. If you're a Rogue, then you should be winning the Initiative race anyways unless your d20 hates you.
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Dec 24, 2017 10:51
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Sage Genesis posted:It... kind of is? The salient text is this bit on page 189: I see your point, but that text in pretty slim in terms of textual support. The ruling does not contradict that text but it can't be necessarily inferred from it. The quoted line is a statement of the effects of the condition of being surprised, not a statement about how long the condition of being surprised lasts (at least, in any sane way of communicating, so--you know--not how 5E is written). The rules are silent about the duration of surprise. A ruling that the condition of being surprised lasts until the end of the first round of combat (i.e. you can assassinate even after their turn in initiative has passed, so long as it is still the first round) doesn't contradict the effects of being surprised as set out in the PHB either. This is a dumb tangent by me though. The writing in 5E is so dogshit that just about any rules text might have been intended to convey something that it actually fails to convey.
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Dec 24, 2017 13:12
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quote:Any character or monster that doesn’t notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter. If you’re surprised, you can’t move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can’t take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren’t. 1) You stop being surprised after your first turn. 2) The surprised condition never actually goes away, it just has no effect after your first turn. I don't see end of the round as an option though. This is something that could easily be resolved by some concrete errata.
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Dec 24, 2017 15:29
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Let's break this down.quote:Any character or monster that doesn’t notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter. This is where you get the whole thing about if the enemy notices even a single party member they won't be surprised at all. quote:If you’re surprised, you can’t move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can’t take a reaction until that turn ends. This breaks down what surprise does, all of what surprise does except in special situations like the Assassin features. You can't move or take an action or use a reaction until your turn is over. Once your turn is over you can. Now yes it doesn't outright spell out that your surprise ends at the end of your turn, nor does it ever mention anything about a round, and remember there is no such thing as a Surprise Round in 5e. Yes the game is poorly written, poorly edited, etc. Now everything surprise actually does by itself ends at the end of your turn, so either Surprise ends at the ends of your turn, or Surprise NEVER ENDS. That said either way the actual effects of surprise end at the end of your turn. So if Surprise actually doesn't end when your turn ends, even though all the effects end, then you would never lose the surprised condition. And then Assassin would become crazy good, in those EXTREMELY RARE situations where your party manages to surprise the enemy. Again unless your party is stealth focused that is unlikely to happen. quote:A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren’t. And this indicates that not everyone has to be surprised on a team for you to be surprised, or a specific enemy to be surprised. Which is more permissive than I thought it was off hand. Still doesn't change the fact that if you are aware of even one of your opponents you aren't surprised. Though this also brings up the question for the Assassin. If your group does manage to surprise some of the enemy. How do you determine which enemy are still surprised? After all you are going to want to go after the surprised enemy for the best benefits. Suffice to say the Assassin is not a very good archetype, because of the restrictions on its main abilities, but it can be flavorful and if the DM is not following the rules it can be powerful for a Rogue.
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Dec 24, 2017 19:27
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One of my players used the Assassin archetype in the holiday game. I don't know if the rules supported it; anytime he wanted to attack someone that hadn't initiated combat themselves, I let him do his attack then everyone rolled initiative and we went to combat as normal.
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Dec 24, 2017 19:34
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What's especially strange about the Assassin is that its key ability only works during the very first round of combat. Afterwards? You might as well not even have a subclass. You could safely bump their Sneak Attack damage dice to d8's. It's basically just +1 average damage every other level (aka chump change) but at least it stays relevant throughout an encounter and it fits their flavor.
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Dec 24, 2017 20:52
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Has no one ever tried having the assassin go off alone ahead of the party? It's weird to see the complaint about the group being noticed comes up so often without that ever being addressed
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Dec 24, 2017 21:01
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mastershakeman posted:Has no one ever tried having the assassin go off alone ahead of the party? It's weird to see the complaint about the group being noticed comes up so often without that ever being addressed No, nobody in the history of D&D has ever thought of splitting the Rogue off the party to then go initiate combat on their own. This is a brilliant strategy you've shed light on, and I can't find any flaws in it.
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Dec 24, 2017 21:10
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That’s a bad idea, combat balance is really reliant on the party’s action economy and assumed access to healing, rogues are reliant on flanking to work and it’s really boring to have n-1 players with nothing to do. Don’t Split the Party is an important guideline.
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Dec 24, 2017 21:13
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Conspiratiorist posted:No, nobody in the history of D&D has ever thought of splitting the Rogue off the party to then go initiate combat on their own. This is a brilliant strategy you've shed light on, and I can't find any flaws in it. I get that the movement rules are completely idiotic but the problem here is those rules, not they enemies can hear full plate dwarfs clanking around
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Dec 24, 2017 21:19
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Scout ahead yeah but not initiate combat and possibly spend 1-3 rounds on theur lonesome.
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Dec 24, 2017 21:29
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Conspiratiorist posted:Mastermind isn't particularly good; their lvl 3 ability is obsoleted two levels later. If you want options on a Rogue then do Thief and gently caress around with Bonus Action 'Use an Object', and UMD if you get to 13. I think the thing that made me wanna do battle master was seeing the cool synergy of the frightening attack with positioning stuff, and doing that with polearms would give a lot of control of positioning and movement and stuff. But if it's pretty thin gruel after that, I'd look into other options. Basically I just want a reason to do poo poo in combat that gives me a reason to play something other than a full caster, which I always do, and care more about my positioning. Maybe I just suck it up and play yet another cleric and do a gish nature domain thing with scag cantrips.
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Dec 24, 2017 21:31
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