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gradenko_2000 posted:Spheres of Might forms an interesting counterpoint and alternative to the Tome of Battle model and I really want to try and run a campaign centered around it It honestly seems pretty cool, I'm just hesitant because it requires engaging with PF to play.
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Mar 24, 2019 20:28
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Kibner posted:I guess I misunderstood how it worked, then. Yeah, your way makes it easier. I can only assume they didn't do it that way because it removed a sense of progression from the player making his numbers go up every level. That’s my read, but it seems like the strictly worst way to do it because it actually and explicitly reifies the infuriating misreading people had of that one “skill DCs by level” table back in 4e. Like, the point of those numbers wasn’t that slime mysteriously becomes more slippery every time you level up, it’s that an epic tier dungeon is likely to contain fractal chaos matter with an imaginary coefficient of friction rather than patches of slime.
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Mar 24, 2019 20:40
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Evil Mastermind posted:At this point, all D&D has to do to succeed forever is just be the same thing. That's it. D&D is the old comfy sweater of RPGs. The old grease-stained, poo poo-smelling hoodie full of holes, which has been puked on a couple of times.
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Mar 24, 2019 21:01
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Ferrinus posted:That’s my read, but it seems like the strictly worst way to do it because it actually and explicitly reifies the infuriating misreading people had of that one “skill DCs by level” table back in 4e. Having your numbers and the challenge's numbers go up in unison creates an ever-widening gap between characters who have the skill trained, and characters who don't. If you don't make both sets of numbers go up, then the 20th level rogue will always only be moderately better than the 20th level paladin at climbing those walls, even if they're non-euclidean walls made of the ghosts of slime people.
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Mar 24, 2019 21:09
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Evil Mastermind posted:At this point, all D&D has to do to succeed forever is just be the same thing. That's it. D&D is the old comfy sweater of RPGs. There's plenty of room even in that definition to improve upon 5e, though. You can leave the sacred cows in place and still fix horseshit like the Intellect Devourer.
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Mar 24, 2019 21:31
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Lemon-Lime posted:The old grease-stained, poo poo-smelling hoodie full of holes, which has been puked on a couple of times. Let it go.
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Mar 24, 2019 21:37
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Leperflesh posted:Having your numbers and the challenge's numbers go up in unison creates an ever-widening gap between characters who have the skill trained, and characters who don't. If you don't make both sets of numbers go up, then the 20th level rogue will always only be moderately better than the 20th level paladin at climbing those walls, even if they're non-euclidean walls made of the ghosts of slime people. What you describe was already the case, because everyone’s numbers went up thanks to the 1/2 level bonus to basically all checks and static traits (the rogue’s DEX also going up did widen the gap over time, admittedly). I guess making the slime get slipperier, the rogue get nimbler, but the paladin stay the same would produce a different dynamic, but I think it’s be a worse one where what used to be dangerous squares become strictly impassible ones. Heck, even the as-is regime had problems because the paladin would go from having a higher but manageable vulnerability to vs. Reflex attacks to being almost categorically unable to evade them. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Mar 25, 2019 |
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Mar 24, 2019 22:05
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Increasingly, I am coming to believe that experience points and levels are a mistake.
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Mar 24, 2019 23:26
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Enola Gay-For-Pay posted:Increasingly, I am coming to believe that experience points and levels are a mistake. I think the concept of experience points as a marker of advancement is solid, but I feel the modern philosophy of "you get XP (or comparable advancement markers, like skill checkboxes) for hitting concrete goals/plot beats, and sufficient XP grants concrete new skills/powers/story achievements" is substantially better than the nebulous classic model of "levels." Most people get excited about levels because of getting new cool things, not because of abstracted number-go-up.
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Mar 24, 2019 23:59
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Evil Mastermind posted:At this point, all D&D has to do to succeed forever is just be the same thing. That's it. D&D is the old comfy sweater of RPGs. Eventually that's going to fail. Nothing lasts forever. Not even forever itself.
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Mar 25, 2019 00:11
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Covok posted:Eventually that's going to fail. Nothing lasts forever. Not even forever itself. They'll put out a new edition eventually, sure, but sales and free advertising from AP streams and podcasts hasn't bottomed out, so they can keep coasting fine on a periodic supplement and Dungeon Masters Guild cuts for the moment. A new edition right now would be more disruptive than anything. I expect they'll coordinate with some of the big sponsored podcasts on the next ruleset and have them run public playtests to get the hype going on whatever comes next.
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Mar 25, 2019 01:16
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Nuns with Guns posted:They'll put out a new edition eventually, sure, but sales and free advertising from AP streams and podcasts hasn't bottomed out, so they can keep coasting fine on a periodic supplement and Dungeon Masters Guild cuts for the moment. A new edition right now would be more disruptive than anything. I expect they'll coordinate with some of the big sponsored podcasts on the next ruleset and have them run public playtests to get the hype going on whatever comes next. It might almost be worth it to change it to 'Critical Role: The RPG' just for Pundit's head to explode.
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Mar 25, 2019 02:51
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WotC would manage to gently caress it up, but if they got several APs on board for special edition PHBs with custom character art etc they could probably make a disturbingly large amount of money.
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Mar 25, 2019 03:57
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i mean with the popularity right now is a great time for them to release a big supplement but 5e is the  eddition
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Mar 25, 2019 09:19
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From the standpoint of making money off tabletop books, sure it'd be a good time. But I suspect Hasbro doesn't really care much about that, given the return by their standards is pretty piddly. They'll put out enough so that people don't start asking "is D&D dead?" too much, but other than that selling books is only important insomuch as it helps generate brand interest. I'd wager many a  that any licensing deals they're working on right now for movies, tv shows, games, etc. start with "look at how much money people are paying just to watch other people play DnD", followed by "double digit growth" commentary, with actual revenue third and any information on margins (which they probably don't share, but if they did) buried in an appendix.
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Mar 25, 2019 13:29
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Here's a comparison of how the skill check DC table for Pathfinder 2e has changed from the original release in Aug 2018, to the final errata pass released in November: Green means the errata made the DC easier, yellow means the errata did not change the DC, red means the errata made the DC harder. I highlighted the High/Hard DCs in cyan because that's supposed to be the most common DC to be used, defined as: quote:A hard skill DC, the most common in the game, represents something that an average commoner might not try but that adventurers attempt frequently. This DC challenges even characters who have strongly focused on the skill and can often be overcome by a character who has increased their modifier or proficiency rank. A character who’s really strong in the skill starts at around a 50% chance of succeeding but ends up almost certain to succeed at higher levels. I don't really expect you/us to grasp what the numbers mean off-hand but I do think it illustrates that the developers looked at the feedback and saw that the math was off, if they were willing to tinker with the numbers that way: quote:Characters’ rates of success were too flat across levels, even for characters who were putting lots of effort into getting better. Now, they’ll get much better against DCs of their level over time. The DCs started out a bit too low, and scaled up to be too high at higher levels. The names of the categories of DC have also changed, since their challenge level is no longer analogous to the terms used to describe encounter challenge. Lastly, we’ve also introduced a simpler guideline for setting the DC of tasks when it really only matters if one person in the group succeeds (such as when everyone in the party searches the same area by rolling Perception): in such a situation, increase the DC by 4. ___ Treat Wounds is another big change that deserves its own separate mention: quote:TREAT WOUNDS quote:Introduced in Update 1.4, this new use of the Medicine skill is meant to address demands for more ways to heal up between battles, reduce dependence on magical healing, and extend the adventuring day. In Pathfinder First Edition, the desire to recover as many Hit Points as possible was often filled by wands of cure light wounds, or by using lots of low-level healing spells. So this is supposed to be the replacement for Wand of Cure Light Wounds spam. You can't craft Wands of CLW anymore, and trying to buy lots of healing items is going to be expensive, so you use this ability, plus whatever healing spells your Cleric or other caster might have. It's not exactly the same as the strict cap on healing that 4e Healing Surges dictates, but since characters can become "immune" to the use of Treat Wounds on critical failures, then even in a situation where the time investment means nothing for whatever reason, you can't just "spam" this ability forever, and you're still going to run out of opportunities to heal, which would mandate ending the adventuring day. ___ Other changes I've noticed, in no particular order: * They added a bunch of alchemical items and increased the damage of the existing ones, in response to feedback that Alchemists weren't really capable of dealing significant amounts of damage at high levels * Barbarian Rage was changed from a flat "2 turns on, 1 round off" model, to a randomly rolled model that varies the duration from a guaranteed minimum of 1, to as long as 4 rounds, averaging 2, then 1 round off. * The Druid's shapeshifting abilities were changed to make fighting as a shapeshifter available earlier, as well as being stronger * The Paladin was released from a lot of the alignment-locked restrictions that came with the original playtest * Rogue design was opened up to allow for "brutes", or high Strength rogues I suppose what's worrying is that the Fighter only received very minor changes across the six errata releases. The developers claim that it's because according to player feedback, the Fighter is already in a good place, but I'm wary if those opinions are colored by the D&D 3e/5e perception of Fighters that should be weak, compared to what a 4e Fighter is capable of. That said, it's also true that the on-release Fighter does already have a number of different combat abilities available - as early as level 1, a Fighter already has a choice of being a dual-wielder, a grappler, an archer, a two-hander, or a defender, with a matching "move" for each.
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Mar 25, 2019 14:21
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gradenko_2000 posted:* They added a bunch of alchemical items and increased the damage of the existing ones, in response to feedback that Alchemists weren't really capable of dealing significant amounts of damage at high levels they actually didn't, they just moved the alchemical bomb's damage increase from a class feature to higher-level version of existing bombs. what they did give the alchemist was multiple specializations (instead of all alchemists being bomb-focused) & the ability to make certain weaker alchemical items at-will, though that ability also has some significant issues
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Mar 25, 2019 15:35
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Arivia posted:What made me think of this was a very vocal playtesting group from like 4chan that tried to rules-as-physics the playtest and did not listen to the game working that way. They never made it past the second adventure because their GM kept using a manticore’s Charisma to Intimidate party members into jumping off cliffs and dying. Yea, that was very hard to judge. For example, one of the sample adventures had the PCs trying to prevent enemies going down a staircase. The adventure didn’t seem to suggest that the opponents would actually try very hard to get to the stairs, and in fact the ending if they made it there didn’t make any sense. But at the same time, the ability for enemies to just walk past martial PCs was a big problem in 3.5e and PF1 that was fixed in 4th, so it was an important thing to possibly test. And sure enough the monsters could just shove the PCs out of the way or teleport by, so it wasn’t a fun session but the test made a point. I’m not sure which I was supposed to prioritise. Don’t even get started on the failure to address 3D, which I bet even the final print doesn’t fix. hyphz fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Mar 25, 2019 |
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Mar 25, 2019 16:37
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I mean if it's a good game I'll probably play it but goddamn if I won't be bitter about Paizo being lovely at/about 4E since before 4E and then turning around and glomming onto a lot of 4E's better design elements to get their 'new' edition
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Mar 25, 2019 16:38
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Darwinism posted:I mean if it's a good game I'll probably play it but goddamn if I won't be bitter about Paizo being lovely at/about 4E since before 4E and then turning around and glomming onto a lot of 4E's better design elements to get their 'new' edition It's also the case that a couple of their designers are literally 4e alumni
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Mar 25, 2019 16:42
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Okay but technically so is Mearls.
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Mar 25, 2019 16:45
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gradenko_2000 posted:It's also the case that a couple of their designers are literally 4e alumni Which ones? I can't think of any offhand. Also Wes Schneider is the new 5e editor, so that might make 5e marginally better? He's a good egg. edit: One thing I am looking forward to in 2e is getting rid of a bunch of gummy old inherited rules language. I've been helping new players make Pathfinder 1e characters recently and explaining that the exact wording of "trapfinding as if a rogue" and "gain one extra step of maneuverability when flying" is really important was just embarrassing. What the gently caress are steps? Well you see no one's really redone the flying rules since loving 1st edition so lol Arivia fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Mar 25, 2019 |
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Mar 25, 2019 16:46
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Arivia posted:Which ones? I can't think of any offhand.
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Mar 25, 2019 16:58
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Of course looking at the Pathfinder 2 Fighter and it's just as aggressively boring and bad as Pathfinder. At fourth level I can shoot two different things at -2! At eighth level I can attack an enemy that critically fails to attack me if I also have a 2nd level feat that requires I fight with a single one-handed weapon and nothing else! The excitement fuckin courses through me.
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Mar 25, 2019 18:51
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4e's modules were generally rear end so you should probably leave those off your resume
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Mar 25, 2019 18:57
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Gort posted:4e's modules were generally rear end so you should probably leave those off your resume Creighton Broadhurst should have a shining star on his chest for Madness at Gardmore Abbey though.
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Mar 25, 2019 19:03
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Arivia posted:Creighton Broadhurst should have a shining star on his chest for Madness at Gardmore Abbey though. I threw it away
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Mar 25, 2019 19:04
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Gort posted:I threw it away Why? It's basically the ideal of that style of module; it'll fit into just about any setting with minor tweaks, it's got pretty good writing and hooks for players, the idea of just giving my party a pet NPC Defender was great, etc. For me it's the perfect kind of, "My brain refuses to be creative enough right now, here let's have a fun dungeon crawl," module
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Mar 25, 2019 19:11
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Darwinism posted:Why? It's basically the ideal of that style of module; it'll fit into just about any setting with minor tweaks, it's got pretty good writing and hooks for players, the idea of just giving my party a pet NPC Defender was great, etc. For me it's the perfect kind of, "My brain refuses to be creative enough right now, here let's have a fun dungeon crawl," module It was enough work to set up that I felt better just writing and running my own stuff. I think I kept some of the cards for a while, they were OK props. I will say it wasn't anywhere near as bad as that Platonic Ideal of rear end Modules, Keep on the Shadowfell. Gort fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Mar 25, 2019 |
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Mar 25, 2019 19:17
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Gort posted:I will say it wasn't anywhere near as bad as that Platonic Ideal of rear end Modules, Keep on the Shadowfell. H3 and P3 are both worse. And P1 was a slog. Really only H2 and P2 are worth saving, and those just happen to share a setting. (I have no idea how bad the E series are, because P3 killed us and we switched to Dark Sun after that, which ALSO had an awful published adventure, but at least there were a handful of good ones in Dungeon.)
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Mar 25, 2019 19:48
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dwarf74 posted:Doesn't Dogs in the Vineyard lean into this? Dogs in the Vineyard can deal with the interactions between Faithful communities and the Mountain People, who are who you think they are, but it doesn't lean into that as much as it makes it an option. You may be thinking of fellow canine-themed indie thing Dog Eat Dog, a storytelling game about the deliberate and less-deliberate cruelties of colonizing an island civilization. It's not a game where you're supposed to have a good time.
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Mar 25, 2019 21:32
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It might make for an interesting one-session rpg if you're conscripted into a totalitarian Bad Guy organization and your goal is to undermine their goals for as long as possible before you're demoted from power / killed for treason. Maybe it would work better if youre explicitly a group of spies or traitors in the SS. Then at the end you get a tally of how many lives you've saved / baddies killed. Of course, the entire game fails if you're an irl nazi which imo is a strong selling point.
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Mar 25, 2019 21:46
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Antivehicular posted:I think the concept of experience points as a marker of advancement is solid, but I feel the modern philosophy of "you get XP (or comparable advancement markers, like skill checkboxes) for hitting concrete goals/plot beats, and sufficient XP grants concrete new skills/powers/story achievements" is substantially better than the nebulous classic model of "levels." Most people get excited about levels because of getting new cool things, not because of abstracted number-go-up. Levels are much better, and easier to design for. Point buy leads really quickly to homogenization, especially in the sense that very high-level characters become less distinct and specialized rather than more.
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Mar 26, 2019 04:08
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Yeah, I feel that for combat-focused games where you want a stable difficulty curve and balance between players, level mechanics are much easier to work with. It helps that levels being a discrete package of advancement goodies is a nice little dopamine boost on top of that for players, and I'd argue that less experienced / savvy players are going to have an easier time with the pacing and predictability of levels, instead of having to decide which of X dozen stats to raise this time.
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Mar 26, 2019 08:35
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Zeerust posted:Yeah, I feel that for combat-focused games where you want a stable difficulty curve and balance between players, level mechanics are much easier to work with. It helps that levels being a discrete package of advancement goodies is a nice little dopamine boost on top of that for players, and I'd argue that less experienced / savvy players are going to have an easier time with the pacing and predictability of levels, instead of having to decide which of X dozen stats to raise this time. As a counterpoint, I have never seen levels actually work for that in practice.
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Mar 26, 2019 09:23
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I also wasn't really thinking about combat-focused games; tbh, when I wrote that post, I was thinking of the Chuubo's or PbtA model, where characters will still have specific defined progression paths (arcs in Chuubo's, playbooks in PbtA) that guide their advancement to keep them relatively distinct. (PbtA games vary in how much they let the characters stray outside the playbooks, and I feel like the better ones restrict your options along appropriate thematic lines instead of just being able to grab whatever from whichever splat you want.) I certainly agree that most point-buy systems that are "spend XP on this big broad array of things" tend to have problems/create samey characters, particularly when there's a lot of combat focus or other ways in which players are forced to purchase certain things just to survive. I played Exalted 1E for years, and that game had worlds of character variation in theory... and, in practice, about three pretty samey builds that were at all worthwhile, all of which included spending a ton of XP on "you need these not to die" defensive Charms. I imagine it would be theoretically possible to do a point-buy combat-focused game with good balance and variety, but I think you'd have to have impressive development chops to manage it.
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Mar 26, 2019 10:20
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Completely off topic but I'm having a mental blank. What's the other elfgames safeword-y type rule/system/thing that's not an X card?
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Mar 26, 2019 11:36
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Elector_Nerdlingen posted:Completely off topic but I'm having a mental blank. What's the other elfgames safeword-y type rule/system/thing that's not an X card? Lines and veils is the main one, although there's a few similar things https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/30906/what-do-the-terms-lines-and-veils-mean I really recommend adding this sort of thing to your game, it looks clunky from the outside but it really helps a lot. It lets you get closer to uncomfortable territory since you can pull back, is good for the table's environment, and even if you aren't ever going near torture or sexual assault, smaller stuff like Arachnophobia pops up a lot. Wrestlepig fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Mar 26, 2019 |
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Mar 26, 2019 11:40
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That was it, thanks! I've used both, I just had a total blank and couldn't remember the name for lines and veils while trying to explain this stuff to someone who wants to run games for schoolkids. And yeah, I don't think I'll run a public game without x cards ever again. If nothing else it's a surefire way to spot that guy when he inevitably complains about them. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Mar 26, 2019 |
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Mar 26, 2019 11:45
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Hell I'm almost considering introducing them into my game now that I've met Shitpants McGee. I never really realized until I got on the internet how incredibly lucky I've been with my main group, we're all automatically on one wavelength with that stuff, or outside of the game too, politically and in terms of general interests and such. Makes recruiting new players seem like more trouble than a game of D&D is worth sometimes, but mostly only in more introspective moments.
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Mar 26, 2019 12:42
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