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Xae posted:Just reskin weapons at will. The only place the "visual" matters is head canon. This. There's no reason the best dagger fighter in the world should do less damage than a strong farmer with a greatsword, with how HP abstraction works Ribbon abilities should differentiate weapons (can't take reactions to dagger attacks, disadvantage on concentration checks against maces, stuff like that) instead of damage dice.
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Mar 15, 2019 19:21
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I think about that weapon type vs armor type chart all the drat time, because to this day I cannot make heads or tails of it
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Mar 15, 2019 19:23
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I mean yeah, reskin everything. I just want it enshrined in the rules for the future.
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Mar 15, 2019 19:46
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I'm messing around trying to optimize a Longtooth Shifter for fun. Any suggestions? Anything really take advantage of that bite attack?
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Mar 15, 2019 20:32
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Infinite Karma posted:This. There's no reason the best dagger fighter in the world should do less damage than a strong farmer with a greatsword, with how HP abstraction works This is a silly argument. The "best dagger fighter in the world" will have a bunch of levels to add proficiency bonus, feats to bonus finesse weapons, extra attacks, etc. A ton of other mechanics account for a difference in lethality. Instead of going back to 2e critical hit tables and called shots as lethal strikes, "this 7lb sword has a ton of momentum and causes more trauma than your 6oz knife" makes sense, no matter how skilled the user. While I don't want to go back to 2e/3e "100 weapons in the table which are basically the same other than critical range/multiplier" or "piercing weapons are better against plate, slashing against padded", they've done a reasonably good job in trimming the options to only things which are mechanically different outside of battle axe/longsword and whatever. If I had a player who really wanted a knife fighter and didn't want to use an existing specialization for some reason, I'd find a way to make it work (extra attack earlier, larger crit range, something), but I don't agree with "level = damage" any more than it already does through feats, class abilities, proficiency mods, superhuman stats, access to magical items, whatever. It's already a system where, in 3.5, a 10th level fighter can step off a 100 foot cliff and proceed to butcher an entire town without being touched Same for druids and metal. No real reason why a guardian of nature would mine, smelt, or smith given the environmental damage. At least at starting level -- no real (non-ethical) reason to avoid it later, but I'd rather have my players be a nature cleric with a druid spell list than "I want wild shape and druid spells with cleric equipment so I have mechanical advantages" Everyone runs it their own way. Sourcebooks are non-prescriptive guidelines that you can change as a DM, and you should if you don't like something about it, in the same way that lots of DMs say "you want to be a class/race that's not in the PHB? Run it by me first"
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Mar 15, 2019 20:35
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CeallaSo posted:I'm actually in favor of cutting out damage dice and HP in favor of "wounds," where the hits you take have some effect and having so many wounds at once knocks you out. The HP system feels like a lot of unnecessary math when the design philosophy is built around the idea that you should be able to survive X number of hits per combat. It 100% is. As a DM in particular, I'd love to see monsters just have hits, rather than hit points. I don't need to know or care if that attack did 32 or 33 hit points of damage, I care whether it shoudl take roughly 8 or 9 or 7 successful attacks to kill the drat thing. This is especially prevalent on disposable-goon types where they tend to have functionally, but not exactly, one hit point - i.e. a good hit will despatch them, but a poor roll will keep them standing.
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Mar 15, 2019 21:51
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thespaceinvader posted:It 100% is. As a DM in particular, I'd love to see monsters just have hits, rather than hit points. I don't need to know or care if that attack did 32 or 33 hit points of damage, I care whether it shoudl take roughly 8 or 9 or 7 successful attacks to kill the drat thing. Yeah, I've been switching between running a 5e campaign and some PbtA stuff. I miss how simple wounds/harm are and flat damage on specific attacks/weapons.
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Mar 15, 2019 22:01
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I personally use the 4e weapon approach where daggers/longswords/shortbows are garden variety weapons. Meanwhile kukri/katana/atlatl "exotic" weapons are pricier and require going to a trade city at the very least. To make up for their rarity they have wider crit ranges or let you reroll 1s on damage or something.
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Mar 15, 2019 22:39
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mastershakeman posted:Why do you want things as bland as possible This is a bad argument because as others have already pointed out there’s no difference between a Druid wearing some make belived creatures “just as tough as metal” skin and metal armor. The biggest critism ive seen from my group about d&d (and I agree with it) is that in d&d what your character is is defined by their character sheet, not what your character actually does. I’ve seen this time and time again when I’ve asked players “... and what do you do?” After describing a situation and the players start looking at their character sheets looking for permission to take action rather than just doing what their character would do. I don’t see how removing a completely arbitrary restriction makes “the game more bland” unless you totaly lack imagination. It’s way more interesting if the Druid player voluntarily doesn’t not wear metal items because “the druids of the silver grove do not cage themselves in metal”. Or wearing metal blocks the druids ability to shape change. 99% of theses issues are solved by just role playing instead of rules lingering.
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Mar 15, 2019 22:41
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Numlock posted:I don’t see how removing a completely arbitrary restriction makes “the game more bland” unless you totaly lack imagination. A majority of D&D players don't necessarily lack imagination, but do need to be told exactly what to imagine and how to imagine it.
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Mar 15, 2019 23:25
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inthesto posted:I think about that weapon type vs armor type chart all the drat time, because to this day I cannot make heads or tails of it It reminds me of the DMG's optional variable initiative system, where every potential action is associated with an initiative penalty and must be called before each round - ensuring that combat takes approximately 4000% longer. I had a DM who really disliked combat and wanted to use that system (along with creating a special medium rest system so mages could reset their spells without letting the fighters use their hit dice). A great roleplayer but the guy just has the oddest sense of mechanical balance.
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Mar 15, 2019 23:37
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Kaal posted:It reminds me of the DMG's optional variable initiative system, where every potential action is associated with an initiative penalty and must be called before each round - ensuring that combat takes approximately 4000% longer. I had a DM who really disliked combat and wanted to use that system (along with creating a special medium rest system so mages could reset their spells without letting the fighters use their hit dice). A great roleplayer but the guy just has the oddest sense of mechanical balance. I was about to say "No, this is a completely standard rule in 2e" and then I realized you were talking about 5e and said to myself "no way, they would never bring back speed factor" Then I checked the DMG, a book I have only ever opened to snoop around for magic items they loving brought back speed factor in 5e
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Mar 15, 2019 23:40
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Kaysette posted:I witness a debate during a game about whether the studs in studded leather armor would preclude a druid from using it and what % of the armor had to be metal for it to be metal armor. Druids can't wear studded leather armor. No one can wear studded leather armor, because studded leather armor is not a thing that can actually exist. It's a misinterpretation of depictions of people in brigandine - y'know, a coat of metal plates - with a leather overcoat attached by studs. It's possible to have a similarly-constructed garment with hard leather plates instead of metal ones, and you wouldn't need metal fasteners in that case. You could charitably say that's what studded leather represents, being to hide armor what brigandine is to platemail. In that case druids would be fine with it.
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Mar 15, 2019 23:42
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The main holy text of Druidism unambiguously forbids the wearing of metal garments. Every single individual
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Mar 15, 2019 23:51
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CeallaSo posted:I'm actually in favor of cutting out damage dice and HP in favor of "wounds," where the hits you take have some effect and having so many wounds at once knocks you out. The HP system feels like a lot of unnecessary math when the design philosophy is built around the idea that you should be able to survive X number of hits per combat.
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Mar 15, 2019 23:51
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inthesto posted:they loving brought back _______________ in 5e me every time they release “new” content
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Mar 15, 2019 23:53
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Xae posted:Just reskin weapons at will. The only place the "visual" matters is head canon. The ghost of Gary Gygax now wants to hurl a copy of the 1E Unearthed Arcana at you. 5e has gotten fairly close, with most weapons doing 1d6 or 1d8 damage. While you could readily abstract damage away, or abstract damage rolls away (make damage based on the attack roll, with a few categories based upon attack total minus target AC; permit glancing blows on negative numbers to reduce instances where an attack does nothing), it is more fun to roll more dice. It just takes longer in-play. Given that more and more people are playing online and not rolling dice at all, I wonder if that will change things. The 5E "average damage" monster stats are a step in the direction of fixed damage. Fake edit: Speed factor, wow! Although it was important if you were also playing casting times, as otherwise it was really easy to get interrupted in the midst of that 6 segment CT spell by some idiot with a halberd or maybe a ranseur, a bec de corbin, a glaive-guillsarme... did I mention that I owned a copy of Unearthed Arcana?
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Mar 15, 2019 23:56
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Kaal posted:It reminds me of the DMG's optional variable initiative system, where every potential action is associated with an initiative penalty and must be called before each round - ensuring that combat takes approximately 4000% longer. I had a DM who really disliked combat and wanted to use that system (along with creating a special medium rest system so mages could reset their spells without letting the fighters use their hit dice). A great roleplayer but the guy just has the oddest sense of mechanical balance.
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Mar 16, 2019 00:18
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So I'm a very inexperienced DM, and I typically don't allow homebrew classes/mechanics because I don't feel confident that I can handle extra variables yet. One of my players has really been hammering the point that he wants to play a Blood Hunter, so to placate him I told him he could do it for the next adventure (now my current adventure). Now, our druid wants to beast shape into a pseudodragon. I don't want to allow it because it's not a beast, and I really don't want to go changing even more rules that I don't know super well. She's not high enough level yet so I have some time to think about it, but when I told her I'm leaning towards "no" she made snarky comments and digs at me for the rest of the night. I'm torn because I want to be a DM people enjoy playing with, but I feel like this is the first step towards everyone wanting their "cool ideas" implemented and getting upset with me if I don't allow it. Am I just being spergy and unfair?
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Mar 16, 2019 00:25
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Narsham posted:The ghost of Gary Gygax now wants to hurl a copy of the 1E Unearthed Arcana at you. The 5e budget for melee weapons is pretty simple. Mace is the base weapon in the game. It requires no special proficiency and has no special abilities. It does 1d6 damage. If it requires Martial proficiency add a "d2". If it is Two handed add a d2. If it is Heavy add a d2. If it is light subtract a d2. If it can be thrown subtract a d2. If it has reach subtract a d2 There is some weirdness with 1d12 vs 2d6, but overall if you follow the above rules you'll get a decently balanced weapon. With this budget Handaxe and Javelin are technically over budget, but who gives a poo poo?
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Mar 16, 2019 00:28
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Fresh Shesh Besh posted:I'm torn because I want to be a DM people enjoy playing with, but I feel like this is the first step towards everyone wanting their "cool ideas" implemented and getting upset with me if I don't allow it. Am I just being spergy and unfair? No, that's fine. "I don't want to read through homebrew" is a perfectly valid reason to not allow it at your table. You have enough on your plate already doing the game as is. And why does the Druid even want to wildshape into a pseudodragon?
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Mar 16, 2019 00:29
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:The main holy text of Druidism unambiguously forbids the wearing of metal garments. Every single individual lmao this is why wearing full plate is acceptable, but a mithril chain shirt - far closer to a garment - is forbidden
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Mar 16, 2019 00:33
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Conspiratiorist posted:No, that's fine. Blood Hunter is actually very well balanced/written, at least. I pretty much tell druids "follow the PHB, no quirky stuff even if it's the same CR", or you'll have them digging up crap from Volo's
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Mar 16, 2019 01:09
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Splicer posted:*slowly slides Warhammer third edition into view* Looking into it, this is some of what I was looking for: simple counters for injury, on a sliding scale that ranges from "you're a little hurt" to "you're going to die if someone doesn't fix you up immediately." I could definitely do without a lot of the fiddly modifiers or long tables, though, since they seem like they would slow things down to a crawl crunching numbers and "adding extra calculations and table references" is the opposite of what I want. I bet it works great for a game like Warhammer, though.
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Mar 16, 2019 01:24
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Kung Food posted:Forgetting all other factors like RP, flavor, mechanics, ect, why would any DM choose to give themselves this sort of workload? Well a lot of that workload would still be on the players, since they'd be the ones who would have to call and track their initiative v. actions undertaken. I think that he underestimated how much work it would be to do that sort of thing every round, largely because his games are typically very slow and non-combat focused. We'd spend several sessions between having any combat at all. They reminded me of the D&D I used to play as a kid, which was 95% first-person storytelling and very little in the way of mechanics. To be fair, I think that I'd have been down to try it out as part of a one-shot or a single-session mechanic. He seemed excited about the idea and I'm all for trying out different things. But as a basis for an ongoing campaign, particularly when the game was already struggling with pacing issues, I think it was wildly overambitious. I might try introducing it for a session with him at some point, just to honor his intentions, but personally I found the whole thing rather unwieldy and introduced far more problems than it solved. Kaal fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Mar 16, 2019 |
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Mar 16, 2019 01:36
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inthesto posted:I was about to say "No, this is a completely standard rule in 2e" and then I realized you were talking about 5e and said to myself "no way, they would never bring back speed factor" Why did they bring that back when attacks don't interrupt spells? Sure it makes the dagger user hit before the greatsword but the times that matters is super rare Kung Food posted:Forgetting all other factors like RP, flavor, mechanics, ect, why would any DM choose to give themselves this sort of workload? Tsr based games (2.5 and before) weren't turn based like 3 -5 are. So if you wanted to whack someone with a weapon, you had to count off the initiative to reach them, and if they had a ranged weapon they could often go before you. This really, really matters for spells since they could get interrupted. So that DM is probably playing off legacy memories of How Things Worked without really thinking it through One side effect of the old system is you didn't have all the issues of "gentlemen's agreements" because if all the orcs ran after the wizard he could just run around the fighters or whatever , who could also move to body block . That's all gone now for simplicitys sake The homebrew I play in uses that system and it's not that bad - every player announces general action at start of round - attack , spell, defensive, hold action, etc. Then dm counts down from 10 to 1 and we track when our attacks/spells go off. It gets messy if you change your mind a bunch or are doing complicated stuff but overall it works well and it's always the spellcasters poring over options that slows stuff down mastershakeman fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Mar 16, 2019 |
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Mar 16, 2019 01:41
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If you're going several sessions without combat, you're playing the wrong system.
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Mar 16, 2019 01:42
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CeallaSo posted:Looking into it, this is some of what I was looking for: simple counters for injury, on a sliding scale that ranges from "you're a little hurt" to "you're going to die if someone doesn't fix you up immediately." I could definitely do without a lot of the fiddly modifiers or long tables, though, since they seem like they would slow things down to a crawl crunching numbers and "adding extra calculations and table references" is the opposite of what I want. If you get hit, you take wounds (HP equivalent). If you get crit (much more common than in D&D) you draw a critical wound card which has a minor ongoing negative effect. If you run out of wounds you fall unconscious and draw a critical wound card. If you run out of wounds AND have too many critical wounds you die. Even cakewalk fights are likely to have mid term and potentially long term effects on your character and combat death is more "If we go in there I'm probably not coming out" than "whoops I'm dead lol".
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Mar 16, 2019 02:00
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Fresh Shesh Besh posted:So I'm a very inexperienced DM, and I typically don't allow homebrew classes/mechanics because I don't feel confident that I can handle extra variables yet. One of my players has really been hammering the point that he wants to play a Blood Hunter, so to placate him I told him he could do it for the next adventure (now my current adventure). I definitely understand not wanting to have to learn too many moving parts at once. But I would lean towards letting them do it, tell them that you'll see what it's like playing with it, and ultimately be comfortable with changing your mind as a DM down the road if you need to. Being able to rule case by case without aggravating players is a useful skill. The Blood Hunter is known for being relatively balanced, and if it's a real problem then I'd just tailor a scenario that would write off that character. I would be uncomfortable with someone multiclassing with one though. For what it's worth, I rely heavily on the MPMB character sheet - if a class isn't popular enough to be get incorporated into that sheet, or if it's starred as being unbalanced, then I'd be quite hesitant about letting anyone use it. Conspiratiorist posted:If you're going several sessions without combat, you're playing the wrong system. Oh 1 million percent agreed. We brought that game to a close and he focused his DMing on a different group. When playing he can still bring a session to a crawl by talking every NPC to death, but he's a great face so long as the rest of the party keeps things moving. Kaal fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Mar 16, 2019 |
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Mar 16, 2019 02:00
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So my party just rode a dragon turtle into battle with the avatar of Zargon(my dick god). We fought the array of tentacles it was using to grapple the turtle as well as 3 stone golems on the back of the dragon turtle. During the fight, Zargon and Thrym(frost giant god) fought for my soul. Every turn I made a charisma saving throw. By standing by our paladin I rolled between 17-23 everytime. During the battle I(dwarf cleric) grew from medium to huge size. I picked up the big bad controlling Zargon and held him in a wall of fire until he died. Then Thrym channeled through me and punched Zargon in the face. Then he froze over and died. Then I shrunk down to dwarf size again with a white/blue beard and the ability to channel divinity maximize my cold damage spells. 10/10 would do again.
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Mar 16, 2019 02:02
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mastershakeman posted:Why did they bring that back when attacks don't interrupt spells? Sure it makes the dagger user hit before the greatsword but the times that matters is super rare I believe the reasoning presented is that some people prefer the unpredictability of not knowing the turn order, but not wanting it entirely random either. Personally it seems just as open to mechanical manipulation as the far simpler standard initiative system.
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Mar 16, 2019 02:10
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RC Cola posted:Zargon This is some rad poo poo. Tomorrow is my second session with the first time school group. A fellow teacher is joining up for the fun as well. Last time the group started investigating the disappearance of wagons around the area. Upon checking the attack sites and stumbling upon a goblin camp, they connected the dots of only caravans with priests in them are being attacked. For this session I am going to lay out a small variety of plot hooks they can choose to pursue. 1. The wealthy human in the town needs help catching thieves snooping around his holdings. It is a thief but he is just there wanting to run away with the guys daughter. 2. Old miners in the area can tell them about a creepy abandoned mine they barely entered, hinting at something more sinister further in. 3. The atlantean at the docks inform them a priest of Poseidon is traveling with the next ship out of port. 4. The temple in town just sent a priest north to bless the new exchange in the next town over. All these will give little bits and pieces of clues as to who or what is wanting priests killed. As people suggested, I will emphasize they should try to act as how they feel thier character would act and be willing to use resources such as spells more. Trip report to follow. Nash fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Mar 16, 2019 |
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Mar 16, 2019 02:43
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Zargon the Returner is pretty rad.
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Mar 16, 2019 02:57
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Kaal posted:The Blood Hunter is known for being relatively balanced, and if it's a real problem then I'd just tailor a scenario that would write off that character. I would be uncomfortable with someone multiclassing with one though. For what it's worth, I rely heavily on the MPMB character sheet - if a class isn't popular enough to be get incorporated into that sheet, or if it's starred as being unbalanced, then I'd be quite hesitant about letting anyone use it. I'd be careful of the Blood Hunter, its a hot mess of a class design and only works if you are doing specific things with it.
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Mar 16, 2019 03:12
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Kung Food posted:Forgetting all other factors like RP, flavor, mechanics, ect, why would any DM choose to give themselves this sort of workload? There are a lot of DMs who seriously underestimate how much they add to their own work load, have no idea what a normal work load for a DM would even be, and think "the more I work on it, the better it must be!" D&D largely does nothing to persuade them otherwise, and the culture around D&D in fact mostly does the opposite. quote:reskinning 5e's place as a response to 4e makes it extremely unfriendly to reskinning. After all, that'd be "cheating." That simply isn't always a viable answer to a problem.
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Mar 16, 2019 03:55
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ProfessorCirno posted:5e's place as a response to 4e makes it extremely unfriendly to reskinning. After all, that'd be "cheating." That simply isn't always a viable answer to a problem. Reskinning monster stat blocks is openly encouraged in the DMG. Although the word used is modifying. So just modify the stats for a halberd to get a glaive-guisarme.
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Mar 16, 2019 04:42
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MonsterEnvy posted:Zargon the Returner is pretty rad. Yeah we fought a version of that. I don't know what, but it's body took 800 damage. It's tentacles took 25 each to dislodge from the turtle. And we did at least 12. And the turtle was hitting it with a breath attack every other turn. We cast protection from good and evil on the turtle so Zargon had disadvantage. He still hit on every attack with a +16 to hit. It was definitely not even close to winnable without the help of another god and the dragon turtle. I just googled Zargon the Returner. And gently caress. That.
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Mar 16, 2019 06:19
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RC Cola posted:Yeah we fought a version of that. I don't know what, but it's body took 800 damage. It's tentacles took 25 each to dislodge from the turtle. And we did at least 12. And the turtle was hitting it with a breath attack every other turn. Zargon in older D&D media (He has not been officially updated for 5e yet) actually was not a particularly strong being. Back in 1e, he was a boss for a Module that covered levels 1-3. He got buffed in later editions, but was still only an upper mid tier monster. His claims to fame were that he was quite powerful for when he would be fought, and more importantly was immortal. Zargon had incredibly powerful regeneration, (In 3e I think it was 50 Hp a round) and while it could be overcome and his body slain, his horn was indestructible and Zargon's whole body would regrow from it within a few days. His 3e backstory in Elder Evils was that he was one of the original denizens of Hell, before Asmodeus and the Devils defeated and kicked him out. He terrorized the Material plane for a while and slew gods that tried to deal with him. (His species was uniquely anti divine in nature, and the god's powers could not affect him, while his attacks were super effective against them.) So the Gods hired Asmodeus to deal with him again who was not a god at this point, but still a much more powerful being then Zargon. Resulting in Zargon being sealed underground as Asmodeus could not destroy his horn. However in all of Zargon's incarnations, he does have a weakness, the place believed to be his origin on the material plane. An underground volcano called the Eye of Zargon can destroy his horn if it's tossed in Lord of the Rings style.
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Mar 16, 2019 09:22
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Kaal posted:I believe the reasoning presented is that some people prefer the unpredictability of not knowing the turn order, but not wanting it entirely random either. Personally it seems just as open to mechanical manipulation as the far simpler standard initiative system. I do enjoy the classic "roll initiative each round", but that came part and parcel of the older system where you also pre-declared your actions and had to go through with them or do nothing at all regardless of the changing situation. Additionally, each action had an initiative modifier attached to it, so choosing to do something like prying a door open would have a slower initiative than simply running for your life or attacking. None of that translates well into 5e without a lot of work, and it isn't worth it for the kind of game (and combat) 5e has. inthesto posted:I think about that weapon type vs armor type chart all the drat time, because to this day I cannot make heads or tails of it What are you talking about? Is there one for 5e, because the 2e one was pretty simple - some damage types had a bonus or penalty to attack certain armors, with full plate being extremely good vs. slashing (something like -2 AC base, or 22 AC for 5e) before shields or magical bonuses. Chronische fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Mar 16, 2019 |
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Mar 16, 2019 14:21
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Question Is this the thread for world building dnd environments? I'd love to have a fun dialogue trying to build a couple. 
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