|
Argyle Jelly posted:After comparing and contrasting, the rule in the DSCS, p. 209 is called Fixed Enhancement Bonus and includes a +Xd6 damage bonus, where the X is the Fixed Enhancement Bonus to the attack roll. The DMG2 is the first iteration of the inherent bonus rules, and is, as you've identified, incomplete, as it was not intended to a complete replacement for magic items. The Dark Sun version of the inherent bonus rules is the more correct/updated one. You are also correct that I wrote the houserule in my blog unclearly: what I meant was that you should have an additional +1d6 damage for every +1 enhancement bonus, and not the whole attack bonus. I've since corrected this in the blog itself. Thanks a lot for pointing that out.
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 07:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 22:40 |
|
|
Lemon-Lime posted:Just generally cut down the amount of races, classes and items in the game to trim the fat. Just kinda singling this one point out to say that honestly, I can't think of too many classes in 4E that I'd want to cut. Oh there are definitely some I wouldn't miss, the psionic stuff has always felt very half-baked, Seekers and Runepriests as well, but between the first two PHBs I think one of 4E's strengths was taking all the classes and (for the most part) making them pretty rad. Admittedly some of that radness came from later material patching gaps and giving a leg up here and there but to me that's an argument more for shoring things up and cutting away the fat from the classes rather than cutting the classes away themselves. You could make a 4E-derivative that consolidates and compacts the class list, but I don't feel like it's as pressing the way, say, culling feats (either in number or as a concept) would be.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 12:23
|
|
|
Most of the Essentials classes can probably go or at least be properly separated from the existing ones.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 12:27
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:Most of the Essentials classes can probably go or at least be properly separated from the existing ones. Okay yeah I suppose when I talk about 4E I always have an unspoken "the Essentials classes are largely forgettable if not outright garbage" thing going through my mind so I suppose I should have clarified. e; and I mean poo poo like the Spellblade barely even counts as a class in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 12:31
|
|
|
I waited so long for the Necromancer class and when it came out it was just a horrible sub-class.
|
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 13:03
|
|
|
I mean, I do feel like there's room for simplified classes, just not as subclasses of the classic four where they're snuck in as the new default and mess up the character builder with a million additional options.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 13:07
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:I mean, I do feel like there's room for simplified classes, just not as subclasses of the classic four where they're snuck in as the new default and mess up the character builder with a million additional options. Like I kiiiiiinda get this sentiment but my own personal opinion is that 4E didn't really need simplified classes. It wasn't an onerous, exhausting challenge to play a vanilla sword-and-shield fighter and Just Hit Stuff, you didn't need a simplified subclass for the hypothetical player who seemingly can't handle the rigorous complexities of Marking like someone in one of those informercials who can't pour milk into a glass without setting their kitchen on fire. Or hell, a vanilla Rogue with a dagger, you get Combat Advantage and you do BIG MONEY DAMAGE, rinse repeat. The Wizard might have been a scooch more involved with things like copious forced movement and swappable Dailies but, I mean, Warlocks were there. Sorcerers too. Mike Mearls didn't actually identify a niche that 4E had been lacking up to that point, is the thing. The ability to "just play a simplified character" was in the game from the word go, Essentials was just an excuse for him to try and play to the "4E sucks!" crowd on his way to making 5E. So I don't really see a lot of value to the simplified Essentials style classes. A scant few like the Berserker tried to do something interesting but things like the Slayer and Thief and whatnot are entirely superfluous and could be jettisoned without losing anything of value. 4E's baseline PHB1 classes are perfectly simple and I don't think you have to be an Extremely Elfgame person to think so.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 13:31
|
|
|
I feel like the whole, "new players need simple classes" thing is straight up just shittyness from the same kind of players who used to brag about how playing D&D made them smarter than other people because of how it made them use math and poo poo. D&D has always been a messy complicated game for new players to get into and acting like the general layout of 4th edition characters is a bridge too far for bringing in new players is just an excuse for complaining about a game they already hate for other reasons.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 13:38
|
|
|
Some of my own players intentionally gravitate towards the Essentials classes. I'm glad they're there. In our mid-op group they work fine.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 14:16
|
|
|
I'm one of the hypothetical people who actually enjoyed the comparative simplicity of Thief/Slayer/Knight/Hunter/etc. I've also used them a lot for players who are either new or get analysis paralysis from having too many options. Building a "simple" Ranger can boil down to "take Twin Strike and also every encounter/daily that mimics Twin Strike," but if you're new, you don't know that as you're poring over the mile-long lists of powers. So unless someone else is building your character for you (which my tables/friends generally find insulting), it can be a lot of work compared to selecting "Thief" and then figuring out later if you want to retrain to something more complex/customizable after you're more familiar with how things work. I personally use the Thief a lot more than the Rogue 'cause I like the Tricks it gets more and its damage is still really good for satisfying the Striker role.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 14:22
|
|
|
i think a lot of the essentials classes have pretty cool gimmicks that draw me more to them than there phb1 counterparts. also i've never been in a game where the reduction in optimization was ever a problem. heck, one of my favorites was a hunter/ranger crossbow sniper who basically could never be seen and would always hit and, combined with magic ammo, was a pretty fun way to ruin a monsters day.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 14:36
|
|
|
Yeah, I personally have never played and see no reason to play an essentials class. But I've had players that do stuff like "Magic Missile every turn" and I think for that kind of player, giving them an elementalist for instance, is a good deal.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 14:49
|
|
|
I had a wizard player who did "Thunderwave every turn" and over the levels managed to make Thunderwave into something pretty scary and decently multipurpose, but it still meant a ton of powers were going to waste and I'd have loved to give her a variant class that actually supported "Thunderwave every turn."
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 14:54
|
|
|
I think that there was a space in 4e for "here is a locked-in list/build for a character, from 1 to 30, that will work generically well" so that you don't have to choose poo poo. The problem with the Essentials classes is that they also made the classes less capable, on top of making their progression completely deterministic. It's one thing to say that a Fighter is always going to have Tide of Iron and Sure Strike, it's quite another to reduce them to only just swinging a basic attack. Now, there was a line of Dragon Magazine articles that kind of did this, such as the Weaponmaster Fighter and the Arcanist Wizard, but then that exposes the other problem of Essentials, in that they didn't tell you what feats to take.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 14:59
|
|
|
Yeah, I'm specifically saying Elementalist for a class for simple-inclined players. Otherwise I'd just ask the player to give me an idea, and I'd build them a character with a flowchart.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 15:02
|
|
|
Generic Octopus posted:So unless someone else is building your character for you (which my tables/friends generally find insulting), I've built characters for other players multiple times, so this is definitely a "depends on who you're gaming with" thing. "Ok, you're a ranger. You want to use this Quarry thing on a dude to do more damage. Once you've done that, SHOOT AS MANY ARROWS AS POSSIBLE, here are the moves that shoot more arrows, have fun."
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 15:16
|
|
|
Kai Tave posted:Just kinda singling this one point out to say that honestly, I can't think of too many classes in 4E that I'd want to cut. There aren't any 4E classes that are redundant and barely any that are bad (Vampire/Assassin/Seeker), so the desire to cut options isn't because I think some of the options that exist for 4E shouldn't exist, it's just that there's too much content. I'm also completely ignoring the Essentials stuff, which is loving garbage (as is the idea of "simple classes"). Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Aug 1, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 16:27
|
|
|
D&D's unique place in the market as the number-one-by-an-order-of-magnitude entry point means that it's probably worth the trouble to offer options that go all the way down to "you literally chose nothing after character creation", which Essentials only partially did right because of loving Feats. I can also see the virtue in having classes which have fewer powers than the full AEDU spread, because again that's a possible sticking point and 3/3.5/5 show us that for whatever brain damaged reason, there are a statistically significant chunk of people out there who really just want to do "I attack" every single round.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 17:47
|
|
|
Those people don't need to play 4E. There are at least three other games in the D&D brand alone for them. Games should never be designed on the assumption that they're supposed to be all things for all people, because all that leads to is a muddled lack of vision. Just make a game that's good at what it does.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 17:56
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Games should never be designed on the assumption that they're supposed to be all things for all people, because all that leads to is a muddled lack of vision. Just make a game that's good at what it does. This is probably true for literally any other game in existence exceptDungeons & Dragons - I don't think there is anything even under the brand umbrella that has remotely the pull of the flagship pen & paper game. Anyone interested in the hobby will probably play this as their first game, and if you lose them then you stand a good chance of losing them for good. It would be great if we had multiple on-ramps into the hobby (Vampire was almost certainly one, possibly Shadowrun as well) but I don't think we do any more.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 18:03
|
|
|
I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea of minimizing decisions during character creation, because much as I enjoy charop, it's the kind of thing that will eventually become a solved problem; there's nothing dynamic, no meaningful variables to respond to, when it comes to making a better character (and "failing" at character creation isn't a good feeling since it's so much effort and so permanent.) Minimizing the decisions you have to make in combat, however, is incompatible with what makes 4E good in the first place. It doesn't matter how popular it is or whether it's an onboarding route or not, making a good game is more important.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 18:07
|
|
|
Sounds like we need to return to Basic vs. Advanced.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 18:29
|
|
|
I dunno, man - I've seen some of the Essentials classes go from 1-30. Now, we used normal Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies, but they all worked out just fine. The power level gap for a group that's otherwise mid-op or low-op just isn't that enormous for the better E-classes, and I know that in the case of my players at least, they ended up just fine. (I've seen Hexblades and Thieves to 30; Hunters, Scouts, and Elementalists to 19ish. I have only seen Knight and that weird pet Druid at Heroic - both were pretty bad - and haven't seen the Divine classes at all.). I see absolutely nothing wrong with the game trying to deliver a tailored experience to players who want fewer options mid-battle, so long as it's done well. And these five at least were all were done pretty well. I don't understand why their existence gives so many players heartburn to the point where it's argued that they shouldn't exist at all. Yes, feats need to be fixed, badly, but that's for every class, not just the E-classes.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 18:29
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Those people don't need to play 4E. There are at least three other games in the D&D brand alone for them. Tuxedo Catfish posted:Minimizing the decisions you have to make in combat, however, is incompatible with what makes 4E good in the first place. I don't see how you can really argue that the mere existence of the E-classes alongside the AEDU classes makes the overall game experience objectively worse, since it's very easy to make mixed parties. E-classes can hit the same combat benchmarks as the AEDU classes fairly easily.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 18:30
|
|
|
Generic Octopus posted:I don't see how you can really argue that the mere existence of the E-classes alongside the AEDU classes makes the overall game experience objectively worse, since it's very easy to make mixed parties. E-classes can hit the same combat benchmarks as the AEDU classes fairly easily. Benchmarks are only half the problem. The point of having tactical combat is that you succeed or fail based on the decisions you make. If you have a class where you have no options and just fail to contribute no matter what you do, sure, that's bad. But if you have a class where you have no options and you succeed no matter what you do, that invalidates the entire premise. (This is presenting it as a binary when it's really more of a spectrum but the same problem still applies, just as a matter of degrees rather than absolutes.)
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 18:34
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:Benchmarks are only half the problem. Combat generally has more going on than "which power do I use?" Even then the E-classes still have a couple switches they can flip. Movement, terrain, hazards, target selection...all these affect combat way more than whether or not the player has 2 situational at-wills vs an empowered basic attack. Beyond the restricted power sets, E-classes have basically the same functionality, so if the narrowing of one set of choices is all it takes to cripple a game's tactical depth, I'd argue it didn't have much in the first place.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 18:42
|
|
|
The parenthetical and the end of that post is pretty important. Besides, this conversation isn't being framed in terms of "different classes can have depth baked into them in different ways." That's fine, although it can make balance tricky and I think it's generally better to have robust universal mechanics as a backbone. It's "some people are so afraid of making decisions that we need to help them avoid this in case they're scared away from TRPGs forever" that I object to. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Aug 1, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 18:44
|
|
|
Tuxedo Catfish posted:The parenthetical and the end of that post is pretty important. Didn't see the edit. In any case I still disagree with saying players with a preference for e-classes should be playing a different game. Tuxedo Catfish posted:Besides, this conversation isn't being framed in terms of "different classes can have depth baked into them in different ways." That's fine, although it can make balance tricky and I think it's generally better to have robust universal mechanics as a backbone. Tuxedo Catfish posted:It's "some people are so afraid of making decisions that we need to help them avoid this in case they're scared away from TRPGs forever" that I object to. Generic Octopus fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Aug 1, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 18:47
|
|
|
kaynorr posted:This is probably true for literally any other game in existence exceptDungeons & Dragons - I don't think there is anything even under the brand umbrella that has remotely the pull of the flagship pen & paper game. Anyone interested in the hobby will probably play this as their first game, and if you lose them then you stand a good chance of losing them for good. This is real dumb. The solution isn't to have D&D try to be everything for everyone and thus be garbage, it's to have D&D be a game that is well-designed for a specific audience, and have incoming players be aware that there are other options out there they can play instead of the thing that is currently the Monopoly of RPGs (except Monopoly at least has an excuse for being poo poo).
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 18:59
|
|
|
There isn't another edition of D&D that has a fighter nearly as good as the 4e one.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 21:54
|
|
|
Is there any game with a fighter that good? If the answer is that Shadow of the Demon Lord or whatever, I have no idea where to find games
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 22:34
|
|
|
2e makes you into a lord which helps out of combat but yeah, combat is still lethal for you though.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 22:56
|
|
|
Gharbad the Weak posted:Is there any game with a fighter that good? SotDL fighters are super strong in combat, and most spells in SotDL are specifically attack powers rather than "I'm better at everything you have to roll skill checks to do, and I Just Succeed when I do it", but there's still a significant disparity in the number of options a pure martial character has vs. a caster.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 23:02
|
|
|
We talking about things we'd change in a hypothetical 4E++? 1) Embrace scaling powers. A lot of late-game power choices are "That thing you liked at level one, but with more damage/targets!" Toward the end of the run scaling powers started to show up, and if they'd been in since the beginning half the power glut wouldn't exist. Once the game hits the replacing powers stage the only "new" powers should be ones that introduce entirely new effects. Replace the "like that one, but better!" powers with that one just getting better. 2) Destroy feats. Or at least destroy passive and at-will feats. If a feat is "Get benefit whenever you do <repeatable thing>" then that's how charop starts snowballing. Combat effects from feats should be per encounter at most, either improving a single encounter power (I think 13th age does this?) or being a standalone once-per-encounter bennie. 3) Stop forcing people to choose between in-combat and out-of-combat benefits. We're back to feats again here, where +2 damage on all attacks competes with skill focus, but Utility Powers are also major culprits. Being able to reroll a missed attack should not be in the same decision space as using Arcana to Diplomacy people. Either have a hard division between combat and RP abilities and when you choose which, or have the feat/utility power type things always give both combat benefits and noncombat benefits. Scaling powers also comes in here again. 4) Create a more unified +X system. 5E's on/off advantage system is too simplistic for my taste, but there's got to be a happy medium. 5) Scale the per-level increase down a bit? Maybe cap stats? I mean DTAS d'uh, or failing that I'd like to see training replacing rather than stacking with skill modifers + merging con and str, but we're talking something realistic within the D&D milieu. Splicer fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Aug 1, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 23:32
|
|
|
Splicer posted:We talking about things we'd change in 4E? Hell, Skill Focus can be one of the more useful "non-combat" feats because certain esoteric builds use a couple of skills for all sorts of weird things, like rolling initiative or movement abilities. Can I just add: 6) Go way easier on "control" abilities and get rid of controllers as a role. Control in 4E is either quite underwhelming or obviates all combat ever/forces the GM to constantly plan around it. Usually it also slows things way down, which is not good. There are too many stuns and prone fields. The heaviest control should generally be a mark.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 23:36
|
|
|
So weird dumb question : I've posted about this before, but I'm playing a brawling fighter in a game right now*, and I have a rules clarification question. My DM is quite a newbie and very rules as written. Like, dude still looks at me for rules clarifications a dozen times a session because he knows I know the rules pretty drat well and he's used to me being the DM. Boss fight with an adult green dragon last session, he suddenly springs this idea that you can't grab things more than one size category bigger than you. I didn't want to do a thing because he's the DM and I don't want to be lovely and while I'll help with rules poo poo that's just cause I've been playing for years and he hasn't and I'm willing to cite rules, but never interpret them because it's his game. But... Isn't that made up? I remember that in 3rd edition, but I thought they got rid of it. And that's why this whole build works. And I tried looking it up but I can't really prove a negative. I haven't found anything, but maybe I'm just being blind. Help? Am I going crazy? If he wants to house-rule this, I guess that's a thing he could do although it's pretty lovely to invalidate my entire build, but he's citing this as RAW which I can't find. If he is right, please tell me how to counter this. (Or I'll just respec as a warlord because our cleric is thinking about respecing as an invoker so whatever). *which I loving love, especially since I've been a designated DM for god drat years so this is just ecstatic. I grabbed a giant the other game and was drowning him in a river! Then I used Crushing Foot so he was stuck underwater and drowned to death. Then I opened up a Macho Man Randy Savage soundboard and just unleashed OH YEAHS for a good 45 seconds. gently caress it was glorious.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 23:42
|
|
|
Your GM's wrong or making poo poo up, sorry fam.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 23:47
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:So weird dumb question : That's completely made up. The entire point of the brawler fighter is grabbing and suplexing anything. Even if it weren't, shutting off your entire build is bad.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 23:47
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:So weird dumb question : Target: One creature that is no more than one size category larger than you Splicer fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Aug 2, 2018 |
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 23:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 22:40 |
|
|
The Grab action, specifically, can only target things up to one size category bigger than you per the PHB (unless that was errated out at some point). There is not, however, anything that says powers that grab the target are limited by that (AFAIK).
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 23:48
|
|
