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Pussy Quipped posted:I DM'd my current campaign for almost a year before me and my players realized we were making this mistake. It makes the most sense when you read how ranges and cubes work. PHB posted:Cube 
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Jul 15, 2019 20:31
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MonsterEnvy posted:Don't make the mistake I did for years. For Thunderwave you are not in the middle of the cube. You are at the edge and can freely position it. Wait, what's the source for this? I have Thunderwave and almost never use it because RAW definitely sounds like the cube has you at the center. fake edit: huh, I'll be damned.
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Jul 15, 2019 20:38
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Pussy Quipped posted:I hate the way this is worded, but I guess it makes sense. I'm not sure how I would fix it. TBH I'd probably fix it by making it a cone instead of a cube.
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Jul 15, 2019 20:42
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Pussy Quipped posted:I DM'd my current campaign for almost a year before me and my players realized we were making this mistake. I think the fix is to not use the word cube to describe it. It's super non-intuitive for a cube to handle point-of-origin differently from spheres or cylinders, the other three dimensional shapes. You could even call the shape a "wave" or something to show that it originates at a point and moves in a single direction. There's also the implication here that a cube doesn't include height. Also, the diagonal handling of that makes no sense. It should look something like: Cube (also hits above and below) code:code:code:
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Jul 15, 2019 20:42
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In dnd's metric space, a cube is a sphere is a cylinder.
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Jul 15, 2019 20:43
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CobiWann posted:May I take this quiz if my shield has the ability to cast Acid Splash upon my Fighter taking melee damage? You could give me your opinion of how it’s going for your casters.
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Jul 15, 2019 21:04
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:In dnd's metric space, a cube is a sphere is a cylinder. Offset Cube, Centered Cube, Tall Cube
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Jul 15, 2019 21:11
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DalaranJ posted:Here’s my informal survey: Taking this based on my previous main, our current game started two weeks ago. Generally I play either roguish types or support casters. 1. Yes, a Trickery Cleric. I played her from level 1 to level 7 with more-or-less the same party (my teammates were a Paladin, Druid, Fighter, and Warlock). 2. Most, but not all. 3. Bless and Healing Word were my staple spells; I often used a level 3 slot on the former (to affect the entire party) and burned all my level 1 slots on the latter picking downed people up or doing a little triage with an otherwise-wasted bonus action. Level 2 was something of a "dead level"; the Trickery domain spells (Mirror Image and Pass Without Trace) were cool with the latter coming in major handy twice ever, but in practice I never cast spells like Mirror Image because pre-casting isn't really a thing with me and combats rarely lasted long (in terms of rounds) so spending one buffing my own survivability rarely felt "worth it" compared to attacking and helping to eliminate the threat. 4. I felt it was exactly enough, honestly. Much more (including if I were like, 8-10 levels higher) and the decision to use a spell slot wouldn't feel like it cost me anymore, while a more limited number would've made me feel like my character - as a classical "support" Cleric - wasn't helping after a round or two due to the generally weird and questionable nature of Trickery's first Channel Divinity (baby Mirror Image), my only real non-spell ability. Cleric cantrips didn't seem great. Baku fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jul 15, 2019 |
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Jul 15, 2019 21:59
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DalaranJ posted:You could give me your opinion of how it’s going for your casters. Can do. We have two casters - an Evocation Wizard and a Cleric of the Grave domain and I checked with them today. Both are 20+ year veterans of role-playing as well. X X X X X 1. Do you play a wizard or another primary caster? Preferably a non-multiclassed one. If so, which class? What is your party’s level? - The party hit level nine between the last session and yesterday's. We have two Fighters (Champion and Gunslinger), a Barbarian (Totem), a Ranger (Monster Slayer) and the above mentioned Wizard and Cleric. 2. Do you usually spend all or most of your memorized spells in a day? - Yes. Our DM will usually throw two-to-three encounters at us per long rest, and more often than not both are sucking fumes by the end, and this is with sprinkling cantrips/class abilities, and, for the Wizard, item use. 3. If not, why not? Are there specific types of spells that tend to go uncast? (Low level ones, or you’re just making poor guesses about utility?) Or does some other resource tend to be expended first? - See above question. 4. How do you feel about the number of spells you can cast per day in relation to the game’s challenge? - Both of them are satisfied, but that's because our DM has been running for 30+ years and in the five years this group has been playing together there have been maybe three encounters we as a party thought were incredibly unbalanced. More often than not the big fights come down to a razor's edge (in a good way, if that makes sense).
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Jul 16, 2019 01:43
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Also, someone mentioned free feats and no variants earlier, and one of my two 5e games went for that too: Everyone got a free feat at level 1, and variant human was banned. Instead we ended up with 3 half elves and a mountain dwarf. (Paladin, Hexblade, Sorcerer + Barbarian dwarf).
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Jul 16, 2019 02:40
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Without the free feat there's no mechanical reason to play human at all.
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Jul 16, 2019 02:42
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Help me flesh out a character for an upcoming campaign: a LG Half-Orc Zealot Barb with the Hermit background. He was ***this close*** to achieving enlightenment (or at least believes he was) when his hermitage was ransacked by bandits. Normally the most chill, peaceful guy - now every time he tries to connect with his god (praying for focus, calm) he remembers this offense and becomes incredibly angry and out of control. Questions: why did he become so devoted to his god in the first place? What is his relationship with other Half-Orcs?
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Jul 16, 2019 02:59
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Smashing Link posted:Help me flesh out a character for an upcoming campaign: a LG Half-Orc Zealot Barb with the Hermit background. He was ***this close*** to achieving enlightenment (or at least believes he was) when his hermitage was ransacked by bandits. Normally the most chill, peaceful guy - now every time he tries to connect with his god (praying for focus, calm) he remembers this offense and becomes incredibly angry and out of control. Questions: why did he become so devoted to his god in the first place? What is his relationship with other Half-Orcs?
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Jul 16, 2019 03:16
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Smashing Link posted:Help me flesh out a character for an upcoming campaign: a LG Half-Orc Zealot Barb with the Hermit background. He was ***this close*** to achieving enlightenment (or at least believes he was) when his hermitage was ransacked by bandits. Normally the most chill, peaceful guy - now every time he tries to connect with his god (praying for focus, calm) he remembers this offense and becomes incredibly angry and out of control. Questions: why did he become so devoted to his god in the first place? What is his relationship with other Half-Orcs? he viewed the struggle against his own anger as the greatest battle he could fight. maybe his god sent the bandits in the first place to try and teach him that the road to enlightenment isn't to never be angry, but to be angry at the proper times.
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Jul 16, 2019 03:24
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Conspiratiorist posted:Without the free feat there's no mechanical reason to play human at all. This is true, but with the feat there's basically no reason to play anything else. I just think it's funny how optimal Half Elf is for so many things.
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Jul 16, 2019 03:25
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KittyEmpress posted:This is true, but with the feat there's basically no reason to play anything else. I just think it's funny how optimal Half Elf is for so many things. yeahhh i've played a few half-elf casters and a lore bard, they're great
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Jul 16, 2019 03:26
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Thanks for the input, everyone. I appreciate it.
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Jul 16, 2019 03:34
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Conspiratiorist posted:Without the free feat there's no mechanical reason to play human at all. Vanilla human still gets a total of +6 of ability bonuses. More importantly, if you're playing with point buy, there's no difference between a +1 and a +2 racial bonus, since your modifier doesn't get better than a +3, so a vanilla human can get 16/16/16 in their three main stats, something I think only Half Elves can also do, since those are the only races with a bonus to three different stats. So ironically, giving everyone a free bonus feat still makes humans pretty drat optimal at any non-Charisma-based caster.
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Jul 16, 2019 03:46
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KittyEmpress posted:This is true, but with the feat there's basically no reason to play anything else. I just think it's funny how optimal Half Elf is for so many things. Our group is two half-elves, two humans, and a halfling (rogue of course).
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Jul 16, 2019 03:47
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KittyEmpress posted:This is true, but with the feat there's basically no reason to play anything else. I just think it's funny how optimal Half Elf is for so many things. Elven Accuracy lightrook posted:Vanilla human still gets a total of +6 of ability bonuses. More importantly, if you're playing with point buy, there's no difference between a +1 and a +2 racial bonus, since your modifier doesn't get better than a +3, so a vanilla human can get 16/16/16 in their three main stats, something I think only Half Elves can also do, since those are the only races with a bonus to three different stats. Wrong because: A) Few classes want 3 16s at the expense of a -1 mod on everything else. and B) +2/+1 races get 17 16 15, so even if you went that attributes equalize with the first ASI except non-humans get racial bonuses/skills on top.
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Jul 16, 2019 04:49
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Im DMing my first campaign with s group of all new players and it is a very very heavily modified dragon heist and im having a lot of fun!!!!!
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Jul 16, 2019 06:12
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ilikedirt posted:Im DMing my first campaign with s group of all new players and it is a very very heavily modified dragon heist and im having a lot of fun!!!!! Good luck! Hope you enjoy yourself.
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Jul 16, 2019 06:50
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Infinite Karma posted:His god was the greatest warrior, and enlightenment is what allowed the god to be the greatest warrior. Followed in the god's footsteps (whether that's literally true or just mythologically true), and actually started pursuing some kind of focused, calming enlightenment... and now he's here. Whether being violent and berserk is the next step of the enlightenment path, or a regression... that's a plot hook. Other Half-orcs think he's a hippie weaboo for treating the god like a pacifist instead of a conqueror, until he shows them how badass enlightenment is. juggalo baby coffin posted:he viewed the struggle against his own anger as the greatest battle he could fight. maybe his god sent the bandits in the first place to try and teach him that the road to enlightenment isn't to never be angry, but to be angry at the proper times. These are good. Thanks guys.
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Jul 16, 2019 14:29
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For my Curse of Strahd campaign, I told my players to use an array of "18, 16, 14, 12, 10, 8" (they're heroes, but have things they're weak at) and that I didn't want to see everyone sinking Wisdom or Charisma. They also had to be different races and classes from each other. If there was something they were desperate to play, they could talk to me about "breaking" the character creation rules. They all worked it out just fine and have characters that they're having a lot of fun with! No one was brave enough to sink Constitution, so I DID brand them as cowards, but mechanically speaking, I GET IT.
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Jul 16, 2019 15:12
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This is your weekly reminder to merge str and con e: "don't dump int or cha" basically means "don't play a strength based class"
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Jul 16, 2019 15:46
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I'm the guy that thinks rolling a bucket of d6s for 3 hours is objectively less fun than just running the first session.
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Jul 16, 2019 15:46
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Razorwired posted:I'm the guy that thinks rolling a bucket of d6s for 3 hours is objectively less fun than just running the first session. Why play your character and face the possibility of its mortality, when you can spend your time fantasizing about how awesome it is?
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Jul 16, 2019 15:58
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Splicer posted:e: "don't dump int or cha" basically means "don't play a strength based class" Good thing I said I don't want to see EVERYONE sinking those and not NO ONE sink those.
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Jul 16, 2019 16:00
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Arrrthritis posted:Why play your character and face the possibility of its mortality, when you can spend your time fantasizing about how awesome it is? I always get a chuckle when people ITT ask about characters others have played, and there's always like 2 guys who post about character concepts they haven't actually played but that would totes be awesome.
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Jul 16, 2019 16:02
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Splicer posted:This is your weekly reminder to merge str and con It’s not a bad idea, now that I think about it-or maybe make high strength scores have synergy with con? Above a 14 STR you can add your str ability mod to your con score or something?
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Jul 16, 2019 16:05
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Can you expound on your reasoning here? Is it just that every strength class also needs con and strength classes are already weaker so making them need two different stats makes theme even worse? Or am I missing something else?
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Jul 16, 2019 16:12
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It's because CON is a survival tax stat with hardly any gameplay aspects attached to it beyond "roll to not get crippled by an attack."
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Jul 16, 2019 16:12
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Is it just that every strength class also needs con and strength classes are already weaker so making them need two different stats makes theme even worse? Dex too.
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Jul 16, 2019 16:12
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DalaranJ posted:Hi, if you have familiarity with my posting habits you may know that sometimes I get intensely curious about a specific piece of D&Ds design. So, stop talking about that controversial design topic and start talking about this one! (I fully expect everyone will ignore me.) 1. Currently spellcasting in 2 games: - Paladin2/Sorcerer[Divine Soul]5 (Storm King's Thunder) - Cleric[Life]7 (Curse of Strahd) 2./3. Since I'm mainly the healer in both games, I'm usually plinking away with cantrips for damage, and only occasionally use magic to overcome obstacles. So I don't typically run out, before a long rest. Our wizard in CoS is constantly begging for rests. My SKT character also has a Wand of Lightning Bolt, so that gets used as my multi-target weapon a lot, which saves on using spells for offense. 4. I'm pretty conservative with my slots, particularly since I have a better idea (than most people I play with) about the rest/encounter paradigm that the game runs on. On a rough outing, I maybe come up to a long rest with only 1 or 2 slots left; on campaign- or major arc-ending encounter or adventuring day, I know I would be very close to empty. So I think that puts the tension right about where it should be. Conspiratiorist posted:It's because CON is a survival tax stat with hardly any gameplay aspects attached to it beyond "roll to not get crippled by an attack." CottonWolf posted:Dex too. This is why I say that if you're gonna roll stats, you should reroll any array that adds up to less than a +6 modifier. You basically need a +3 (main stat) and two +2s (DEX, CON) just to make a baseline-adequate character IMO; if you make it to +6, you can at least hit those benchmarks once you factor in racial modifiers. It's just easier if you roll high enough to not need that. I also recommend cutting out arrays that add up to more than +10. P.d0t fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Jul 16, 2019 |
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Jul 16, 2019 16:28
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DalaranJ posted:Hi, if you have familiarity with my posting habits you may know that sometimes I get intensely curious about a specific piece of D&Ds design. So, stop talking about that controversial design topic and start talking about this one! (I fully expect everyone will ignore me.) 1. Currently I'm playing a cleric in a 3rd level party. 2. I usually spend most of them, sometimes all. 3. I try to keep a Healing Word in pocket for if someone goes down, I use disguise self pretty often, and bless at the start of a big fight. 4. More spellsis the thing i look forward to most when leveling up.
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Jul 16, 2019 19:46
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Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Can you expound on your reasoning here? Kaiser Schnitzel posted:Is it just that every strength class also needs con and strength classes are already weaker so making them need two different stats makes theme even worse? Conspiratiorist posted:It's because CON is a survival tax stat with hardly any gameplay aspects attached to it beyond "roll to not get crippled by an attack." Infinite Karma posted:It's also that Con does nothing active. It increases your hit points and your Con save. So you get to trade the fun of actually doing something cool with your high stat (like you can with all the other ability scores) for more passive HP. Int and cha have the same problem with being easy dump stats, but they make better primary class scores than str because they come with a bunch of skills with a wide range of utility. Dex and Wis of course also have a bunch of cool active things to do. Strength just gets Athletics. There's a some lesser stuff like how dex being so good devalues strength further since you'll never be meleeing with str and dex simultaneously so str isn't even good splash for emergency stabbing, and as you said paying effectively double points leaves them with no points for putting into RP stats, but that's the main thrust. tl;dr if you lay out all the stuff wis or dex get, then write out everything str AND con get combined, you'll see they together cover the same approximate range and utility of one of those good stats. Splicer fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jul 16, 2019 |
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Jul 16, 2019 21:57
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Splicer posted:*scrambles out of the room and returns wheeling a board covered in string and spilling notes from an overstuffed binder* LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT STRENGTH AND C As a start, if Str/Con and arguably Int/Wis were combined, you would get to a more even keel on a lot of things. - Less weird balance problems that pop up from designers arbitrarily tying things to an ability score. - Less problems with saving throws that are worthless 90% of the time because designers didn't have the foresight to spread out save tests equally across the monster manual. - Easier to plan and visualize what your character is good at. Never again the strange indignity of playing a stronk warrior with anemia and an autoimmune deficiency. - Less obnoxious tropes unique to D&D, like "well my character is intelligent, but not wise, so I gently caress the chicken!" - Character concepts combine more easily. Never again worry about struggling to make a character with Int AND Wis abilities work correctly.
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Jul 16, 2019 22:28
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Splicer posted:Int and cha have the same problem with being easy dump stats, but they make better primary class scores than str because they come with a bunch of skills with a wide range of utility. Dex and Wis of course also have a bunch of cool active things to do. Strength just gets Athletics. I feel they could have probably brought back "INT mod gives you extra languages" from 3.5, without really breaking anything. Skill points can stay dead (although I have had one or two people pine for the old ways.)
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Jul 16, 2019 22:29
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P.d0t posted:I feel they could have probably brought back "INT mod gives you extra languages" from 3.5, without really breaking anything. "Extra languages" are one of those "bonuses" D&D is so fond of that in normal play do not matter at all. The test of this is, if you run into a situation where no one can do it, does the game stop? If the answer is no, it's more or less an irrelevant ability or something that should have been handled in another way by the game. Languages are a big "no." About the only thing that's worse are the micro-situational bonuses that appear in some race descriptions from earlier editions/Pathfinder. "As a Ysoki, I can shove a whole gun in my mouth!!!" "As a gnome, I can talk to normie animals (not influence or control) once a day!"
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Jul 16, 2019 22:46
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The ability score folding thing - treating Str/Con, Dex/Int, and Wis/Cha as interchangeable for some specific purposes - is yet another of the things 4E was right about that it's insane they didn't preserve. The "six saves" thing in 5E, for example, is bewildering. And that alone would make the "dump stats" more generically useful. The decision to dump Wis and have a +1 or +2 Cha bonus on a non-Cha primary character would be much easier for me if that was my will save. It's probably a good thing in the game as-is that Wizard is the only Int class, tho. It makes a lot of sense for Warlock to be one - the fictional archetype of the lock, imo, is a character with high Int and low Wis/Cha, the put-upon nerd or weirdo who takes the cheater's path to power - but then it's a lot easier for Wizards to get involved in the Sorclock Eldritch Blast Thing and gently caress all that.
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Jul 16, 2019 23:00
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