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Agent355 posted:Oh I enjoyed the conversation before the edition wars showed up. e: It didn't really matter until 3e though. Splicer fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Apr 15, 2018 |
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Apr 15, 2018 20:49
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Agent355 posted:Oh I enjoyed the conversation before the edition wars showed up. I don't really understand your perspective on character building. I think it's fundamentally flawed to want to be able to make 'any' character since not 'any' character really has a valid spot in a narrative. Especially when its a cooperative narrative where one person shouldn't be stealing the spotlight. That's fair. For what it's worth, I don't understand your perspective on character building either, so it's ships in the night 
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Apr 15, 2018 20:50
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I don't think it's so much that anybody wants to build a character who is good at everything, but rather, people are objecting to the idea that for some reason it's okay for one class to be arbitrarily good at these three things but another class shouldn't hope to be good at more than one thing. Interesting characters are defined by their flaws, sure, but also their strengths. "Fighter who is secretly a bookish nerd" is way more interesting than, "Fighter who is also clumsy" even though the first concept can include the second.
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Apr 15, 2018 20:52
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It's not edition warring, there is no edition of D&D where being being a charismatic fighter doesn't mean that you are taking resources away from being actually good at fighting.
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Apr 15, 2018 20:54
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Mendrian posted:I don't think it's so much that anybody wants to build a character who is good at everything, but rather, people are objecting to the idea that for some reason it's okay for one class to be arbitrarily good at these three things but another class shouldn't hope to be good at more than one thing. Yeah. There are problems with anchoring everything to stats but IMO they aren't that important. You can be a bookish nerd without stats, regular old people can be bookish nerds. To be a wizard and study history is farther than bookish nerd. I'd like to see more class parity and variance within each classes but it's also not such a massive problem, to me, that I feel the need to address it beyond wizards existing. Basically I think there is more than ample room to make a character you would find interesting within the system. You can think of chracters that would have to sacrifice power to fit within the system and thats fine too IMO, I don't give a toss that you hit 5% less often because you had to use a 16 in int instead of str to fit your character concept. It's important that everybody feel good and useful inside their niche in the party and that can be accomplished with a 5% lower accuracy just fine. I don't think it's nessecarily wrong to state that you can't make X character in DnD, there are obvious examples where that is objectively true. It's just that I'm okay with those cases and many of the other cases are more accurately described as 'you can't make this character in DnD without sacrificing something' which I'm also just fine with.
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Apr 15, 2018 20:57
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The thread tends to be pretty good when arguments like this don't pop up. In other news we got some preview of Mordenkainen's tome of foes from Fantasy grounds from some sceenshots. Also the chapter layout.  https://www.sageadvice.eu/2018/04/14/preview-mordenkainen-tome-of-foes-from-fantasy-grounds/ MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Apr 15, 2018 |
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Apr 15, 2018 21:08
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Conspiratiorist posted:Dungeons and Dragons: The Fifth One is a crunchy game where combat is anchored into an overwhelming portion of the ruleset, so utilizing my system mastery I make characters that are good at that, with some attention paid to the most common out-of-combat challenges in so far as how they intersect with mechanics. Not emptyquoting. For example, if I've got a cool story idea for a charismatic healer type... I'm not going to build a cleric with high CHA when they're so reliant on WIS, CON, and STR/DEX. I'm going to build a CHA spellcaster like a Divine Soul Sorceror or Celestial Pact Warlock or a Lore Bard that steals a bunch of cleric spells, because that will probably result in a more capable character that matches my initial concept. Or, building in the other direction, if I really want to play a Cleric, then I'm going to build out the character mechanically first -- picking a domain whose abilities interests me, and then choosing ability scores, race, background, etc. that synergize with Clerics and that domain. And then I'd build out the character and the roleplay from that result. Building inside-out or outside-in, either way can be fine, and either way can be done while putting effort into both optimization and roleplay. And that's just focusing on build choices. Going back to the example that kicked this off, I see no reason to start sounding the alarm bells over a Rogue that actually understands that the rules-as-written allow them to get a second sneak attack by using their reaction (either Haste, Action Surge, or attack of opportunity). In isolation, that's a good thing. I want to play with people who try their best to understand their abilities and the rules. It only becomes a problem if they're argumentative and immature about it. Or, if they're only engaging in combat mechanics and not the RP side of things, then that's a separate issue to discuss -- maybe you can find better ways to pull them in over time, or maybe they're not a great fit for your particular game. For me, D&D-like TTRPGs are not fun as a zero-RP tactical combat wargame -- I'd rather play a board game or video game for that. It's not fun as a Mary Sue who's the smartest wisest most liked guy who's also great at both magic and fightermans, because it's a group game that should allow niches for each to shine. And it's not fun when your supposedly competent level 9 rogue misses 20% more often because you've only got 14 DEX because you took the Linguist and Keen Mind feats instead, or your spellcaster struggles to do much because the spells they picked are thematically appropriate but ineffective. Again, that's my taste. People can play however they want. But I think the pendulum has generally swung much further into the "RP over optimization" side of things these days, and I don't understand why people view them as mutually exclusive. The general sense I get is that there's a great many people for whom "optimization" is a four letter word.
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Apr 15, 2018 21:13
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moments will just happen. I like being able to handle these situations.
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Agent355 posted:Legitimately sorry that this has all of a sudden become edition wars. I'm outie, this is such a tired argument. what an amazing display of posting jiu jitsu, invoking something that didn't happen, using it to duck out of the argument, and then returning as if it never happened extremely powerful technique
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Apr 15, 2018 21:43
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Serf posted:what an amazing display of posting jiu jitsu, invoking something that didn't happen, using it to duck out of the argument, and then returning as if it never happened
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Apr 15, 2018 22:13
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Agent355 posted:Basically I think there is more than ample room to make a character you would find interesting within the system. You can think of chracters that would have to sacrifice power to fit within the system and thats fine too IMO, I don't give a toss that you hit 5% less often because you had to use a 16 in int instead of str to fit your character concept. It's important that everybody feel good and useful inside their niche in the party and that can be accomplished with a 5% lower accuracy just fine. What kind of thought process are you following that sacrificing power to fit concepts within the system is good, but multiclassing is bad? Also, the difference between 15 STR and 16 STR is actually about 17% less damage.
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Apr 15, 2018 22:17
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escalator dropdown posted:
Yeah. I'm not sure where the idea that "optimization" = "rear end in a top hat" comes from. I don't know if it's pure meme, or if everyone has similar formative experiences. I do know that assholes do tend to try to twist the game to their own ends (because they're assholes) and some of them use optimization tricks to get there. But in my experience the rear end in a top hat in the group that everybody says is the rules guy actually knows dick all about the rules and levies his superior ability to pretend he knows then against the DM.
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Apr 15, 2018 22:18
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Mendrian posted:Yeah. I'm not sure where the idea that "optimization" = "rear end in a top hat" comes from. I don't know if it's pure meme, or if everyone has similar formative experiences. I do know that assholes do tend to try to twist the game to their own ends (because they're assholes) and some of them use optimization tricks to get there. But in my experience the rear end in a top hat in the group that everybody says is the rules guy actually knows dick all about the rules and levies his superior ability to pretend he knows then against the DM. Warnings telling young GMs to stay on guard against powergamers has a long and pedigreed history going back at least to the early 80's letters pages of Dragon magazine. It's hardly anything new, and it was always based on some fundamentally flawed assumptions about the best way to play a game.
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Apr 15, 2018 22:55
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Mendrian posted:Yeah. I'm not sure where the idea that "optimization" = "rear end in a top hat" comes from. I don't know if it's pure meme, or if everyone has similar formative experiences. I do know that assholes do tend to try to twist the game to their own ends (because they're assholes) and some of them use optimization tricks to get there. But in my experience the rear end in a top hat in the group that everybody says is the rules guy actually knows dick all about the rules and levies his superior ability to pretend he knows then against the DM.
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Apr 15, 2018 23:02
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MonsterEnvy posted:The thread tends to be pretty good when arguments like this don't pop up. Based on the pics I want to see a mashup where the gith wars or the blood war spills out onto the halflings.
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Apr 15, 2018 23:04
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These hit drivethrough now, both were good reads back in the day and would probably still be decent setting material. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16829/FOR2-The-Drow-of-the-Underdark-2e https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17275/The-Factols-Manifesto-2e
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Apr 15, 2018 23:06
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FRINGE posted:Based on the pics I want to see a mashup where the gith wars or the blood war spills out onto the halflings. Today marked the 450th Annual Spring Pie Eating Contest in Derbyshire. Morbo Voice: THERE WERE NO SURVIVORS.
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Apr 15, 2018 23:08
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MonsterEnvy posted:The thread tends to be pretty good when arguments like this don't pop up. that's a good goat
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Apr 15, 2018 23:12
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Xae posted:Today marked the 450th Annual Spring Pie Eating Contest in Derbyshire. I want to see some animation genius to a short clip of one of the Blood War plains in full camera-moving 3d. Back when all demons/devils had Teleport without Error at will, and the entire scene would be a massive 3d cloud of the worst terrors in the planes cutting loose.
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Apr 15, 2018 23:20
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Have there been any homebrew attempts at making something akin to the pathfinder Brawler shield throwing archetype? That was one of my favorites to play just so I could be captain america.
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Apr 15, 2018 23:36
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Does 5e have any equivalent to ricochet toss, returning weapons, or the blinkback belt (or returning shield, in the case of the shield champion brawler), or does a throwing weapon character just buy 50 daggers and give up on using a +X item?
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Apr 15, 2018 23:47
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Elysiume posted:Does 5e have any equivalent to ricochet toss, returning weapons, or the blinkback belt (or returning shield, in the case of the shield champion brawler), or does a throwing weapon character just buy 50 daggers and give up on using a +X item? I know the Dwarven Thrower is included by default. https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Dwarven%20Thrower#content I believe that the returning enchantment is only an uncommon ability, so it wouldn't be too hard to get an item that would stand in for one of those specific items. FRINGE posted:I want to see some animation genius to a short clip of one of the Blood War plains in full camera-moving 3d. Back when all demons/devils had Teleport without Error at will, and the entire scene would be a massive 3d cloud of the worst terrors in the planes cutting loose. I hear you, but I think any attempt to move it out of the realm of imagination would inevitably make it disappointing.
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Apr 15, 2018 23:53
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Agent355 posted:But nvm, this is not even the point of the original 'focusing on character power often signals to me, as a DM, that a player is more interested in stomping battles than engaging with the party or the story' point I was making. This is a pretty dumb comment. DnD5e has its rules be about combat. If I make the best possible combat monster I can (within the confines of my class) I am not powergaming, I am correctly playing the game. That's like complaining that a soccer player is "too good at running and kicking" or that a chess player is "too good at protecting themselves from check". DnD is a game about having six to eight encounters in an adventuring day, in which (being charitable to the game) maybe half will be combat. That is what the game is about. If someone didn't want that experience they wouldn't be playing DnD. Other games have great mechanics for party engagement or story engagement. You play those if you want players to do that and be rewarded for it. There's no such thing as a power gamer, just someone who is good at the game. It's an RPG. I expect someone to RP the the fullest (to the extent of their comfort and the tone of the table) and I expect them to Game to the max too.
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Apr 16, 2018 00:01
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Elysiume posted:Does 5e have any equivalent to According to these people, not yet? https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/103023/is-there-an-official-5e-equivalent-of-the-the-blinkback-belt-from-pathfinder No reason to not steal from the previous decades of combined dnd items though. RP wise, if youre a throwing weapon character, I would keep a few rounds worth of them around anyway. Throwing knives on the legs, chest, back. Youll just look like one of those 3e pictures with clothes made out of straps and buckles, except yours will be for an actual reason. Just slowly swap +x ones in as you collect them, and yeah carry the best +x melee thing around you can find as a backup.
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Apr 16, 2018 00:03
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Really the underlying problem is that D&D designers have the same philosophy as Bethesda designers and expect you to pay them $50 for a product you need to fix.
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Apr 16, 2018 00:06
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Splicer posted:All RPGs are bad. Some are very bad, some are only mostly bad. Some are bad because they're a labour of love by someone who's not very good at making games. Some are bad because they're a labour of love by someone who is good at making games, but is stymied by the horrible state of the art that exists. Some are bad because the designers realised marketing trumps functionality. But they're all bad. Quoting for later.
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Apr 16, 2018 00:32
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Just roll your stats and hope for good everything or play the character you get who cares.
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Apr 16, 2018 00:34
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What system is being used as the anti-D&D where you can have your character be good at fighting and high charisma and whatever else you want with no drawbacks?
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Apr 16, 2018 01:02
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/\/\/\ A homebrew called "just making cool stories with your friends" I think i like to roll cool dice, drinks beers, and smoke weed d&d owns Also powergamers/"munchkins" are usually only called out because it's the focus on being so mechanically competent at the expense of the other stuff in the game. Usually people don't say, "but he roleplayed his rear end off and his character was memorable" about the optimized character, because it's probably another halberd dude with sentinel or whatever. There's legit traps in the game, and if you are knowledgeable enough, you can walk into it and be the 'this is fine' fire dog with the right choices and mindset. The internet is full of "help me optimize this bar drunk who only uses table legs to fight", and the results grogs come up with are usually pretty drat good. You can do both! Also as cool as it is to kill the BBEG when he makes his first appearance before the DM can have him throw a smoke bomb and escape, the most memorable moments for me are not rolling a huge pile of dice to kill some mook. Just chiming in on the subject, I think most of the good points have already been made, but it's an interesting thing to discuss if nobody gets mad about it. Firstborn fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Apr 16, 2018 |
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Apr 16, 2018 01:02
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bewilderment posted:There's no such thing as a power gamer, just someone who is good at the game. It's an RPG. I expect someone to RP the the fullest (to the extent of their comfort and the tone of the table) and I expect them to Game to the max too. I'm asking not to argue, but just curious what you think about people who make less than ideal combat/character building decisions for the sake of RP. For instance, a lv3 character I've made for a campaign my group is starting tomorrow is a Tome Warlock that has an insane obsession with fire. A couple of my starting spells and a couple of my extra cantrips are not ideal choices (Produce Fire, Burning Hands, Hellish Rebuke, a few others), but were chosen to fit the RP. I'm trying to tread the line between 'full out RP' and 'still being useful to the party', so I still have all the poo poo I need to have to be effective (basically eldritch blast and ritual casting), but would you see a character like that at your table as wasting time or gimping the group?
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Apr 16, 2018 01:30
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Naelyan posted:I'm asking not to argue, but just curious what you think about people who make less than ideal combat/character building decisions for the sake of RP. For instance, a lv3 character I've made for a campaign my group is starting tomorrow is a Tome Warlock that has an insane obsession with fire. A couple of my starting spells and a couple of my extra cantrips are not ideal choices (Produce Fire, Burning Hands, Hellish Rebuke, a few others), but were chosen to fit the RP. I'm trying to tread the line between 'full out RP' and 'still being useful to the party', so I still have all the poo poo I need to have to be effective (basically eldritch blast and ritual casting), but would you see a character like that at your table as wasting time or gimping the group? Stuff like playing a Fighter with a 16 CHA is generally the go to example. Playing a charismatic/likeable warrior who isn't particularly smart or wise is a pretty common archetype and it's something that will shaft a D&D Fighter pretty hard as it usually means you are sacrificing your STR/DEX/CON choices for it. This gimps your class features and will not really make you a very good talky character either, especially if your group contains any CHA based character or rogue.
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Apr 16, 2018 01:36
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Charisma should have never been pegged as a spellcasting trait, except specifically for Bards, who explicitly use performance skills for their magical effects. Its another WotC era fuckup.
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Apr 16, 2018 01:48
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kingcom posted:Stuff like playing a Fighter with a 16 CHA is generally the go to example. Playing a charismatic/likeable warrior who isn't particularly smart or wise is a pretty common archetype and it's something that will shaft a D&D Fighter pretty hard as it usually means you are sacrificing your STR/DEX/CON choices for it. This gimps your class features and will not really make you a very good talky character either, especially if your group contains any CHA based character or rogue. But if you go with a 13cha fighter and take the right proficiencies you're going to be ok with doing it. You're not a trained and dedicated bullshitter like a bard or a rogue but you can still be good at a few skills with standard array and proficiency. E: DM should also give you social stuff where you can flex and bully using your str or athletics stats.
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Apr 16, 2018 01:49
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What's some good ancillary/world-building material for reading on your own? I really liked thumbing through the Monster Manual and I'm curious about all the extra books (e.g. the crazy planar poo poo), but buying material meant for actual play and reading it like it was an encyclopedia or something seems kinda strange.
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Apr 16, 2018 01:51
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Volos is really cool.
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Apr 16, 2018 01:53
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I'm a turbonerd, because I sometimes just read the books for fun/no reason
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Apr 16, 2018 02:01
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Naelyan posted:I'm asking not to argue, but just curious what you think about people who make less than ideal combat/character building decisions for the sake of RP. For instance, a lv3 character I've made for a campaign my group is starting tomorrow is a Tome Warlock that has an insane obsession with fire. A couple of my starting spells and a couple of my extra cantrips are not ideal choices (Produce Fire, Burning Hands, Hellish Rebuke, a few others), but were chosen to fit the RP. I'm trying to tread the line between 'full out RP' and 'still being useful to the party', so I still have all the poo poo I need to have to be effective (basically eldritch blast and ritual casting), but would you see a character like that at your table as wasting time or gimping the group? For DnD I expect basically the 'baseline competence' level. So for warlock it's pretty obvious, you max CHA and take Agonizing Blast for your Eldritch Blast and you're all good. Like I did the same thing, I made a Ftr1/Warlock who eventually got rewritten to be Hexblade and my spells aren't necessarily the optimal spells but they support the theme of the character. Basically I think you did the right thing, I don't actually expect everyone to be hyper-optimal, just to understand the rules and clear the "pretty competent" bar because this is a game about playing pretty competent people. The problem is when people do dumb things like "hurr I'm a sucky apprentice wizard I only have 12 INT because it's about my character's personality and story, why does the rest of the group not like me". Like there are games where "explicitly lovely wizard" is a useful and entertaining party member but DnD is not that game.
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Apr 16, 2018 02:03
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JBP posted:But if you go with a 13cha fighter and take the right proficiencies you're going to be ok with doing it. You're not a trained and dedicated bullshitter like a bard or a rogue but you can still be good at a few skills with standard array and proficiency. Or you could just roll a paladin!
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Apr 16, 2018 02:12
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bewilderment posted:For DnD I expect basically the 'baseline competence' level. So for warlock it's pretty obvious, you max CHA and take Agonizing Blast for your Eldritch Blast and you're all good. I think the thing here is, you can roleplay being a lovely wizard and still have good stats so that when the chips are down, you're at least not a liability. People see helpless/lovely characters in books and like them, and those just don't tend to translate well to tabletop, unless it's something the group and DM have discussed ahead of time. It's also one thing when you're playing with buddies who you've talked about the character to, and entirely another to bring it to game with strangers/Adventure League/meetup or whatever. I'd have zero issue with someone cool I know bringing Useless Wizard of Comic Relief. When it's unexpected and played by someone who's not actually funny or roleplaying it well.....that's just lovely.
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Apr 16, 2018 02:17
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kidkissinger posted:Or you could just roll a paladin! Yeah but you can more freely choose to be mean to people as a fighter and you not constrained as much when you RP. A fighter can be literally anyone with any kind of politics. I like playing Oath of Ancients pallys myself though because you can be an ineffable fuckhead but also take powergamer stats 
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Apr 16, 2018 02:25
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The Gate posted:I think the thing here is, you can roleplay being a lovely wizard and still have good stats so that when the chips are down, you're at least not a liability. Yeah exactly. The bummer is when people decide that it's apparently in their RP to basically not be able to do a combat at all. I'm the player in a 5e game with some friends (Storm Kings Thunder) and we've got a Drow Sorcerer who has literally no offensive spells (apart from Ray of Frost) because she doesn't think her character would want to fight in battle. We had a Druid who also wouldn't fight, a Bard who--god bless him--basically doesn't know the mechanics of D&D, and a non-UA Ranger, who's just bad at fighting. The DM and the rest of the players are good friends of mine and we have a lot of fun just hanging out and essentially free form roleplaying during the not fighty bits, but all of the players so clearly do not want to play this system, they just don't know it because they only know D&D exists. It's just absolutely not a game where a character who won't fight at all is a thing that like...can be.
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Apr 16, 2018 02:29
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