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Absurd Alhazred posted:The honesty of Basic et al that just had non-humans as classes is in retrospect quite refreshing. "Yes, we can't really be hosed to think of them having meaningful societies with several archetypes, but we're really eager to have humans but short and drunk and gold-loving or humans but skinny and of the woods and pointy-eared, somehow separate from regular humans, so we're just going to make Elfing a kind of life calling you can have the same as fighting or magicking."
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Jun 28, 2020 13:14
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I think some of the racial level limit stuff also makes more sense in an assumed setup where a) campaigns continue forever and will always get to very high level and b) all players get to have a roster of PCs they take out and use as desired rather than just one. a) Means that the level limit is actually meaningful, whereas actually in most campaigns if you start off from low level odds are you'll be done before the non-humans hit their level limits anyway. (That Aasimar 14th level limit, for instance, is a particularly ludicrous example). Designing a game or doing character op based around the 20 level (or 36 level in some versions of Basic) budget arguably makes you spend a lot of energy planning for a stretch of the game which you almost certainly won't actually play. b) Means that it's less of a burden for, say, Halflings to be restricted to level 4 in OD&D, because they're meant to be endearing sidekick characters anyway and nobody is stuck playing them because you only bring out your halfling PC when you specifically want to do the sidekick thing, or when your main PC has hired your Halfling to carry their bags or something. Up to 2E, D&D/AD&D was weighed down by assuming that you'd run the game like it was run in Gygax's original playtests, even when that isn't how the format shook out in the wild. Then in 3.XE was weighed down by assuming you'd run it like the 3.0 design team assumed you'd run it, rather than doing one-level dips and whatnot. Then 4E actually designed a game which simultaneously clearly communicated the way it was intended to be played and had a system optimised to support that. And then it split the fanbase between those who were cool with the new direction, those who were not interested but were sensible enough to go play other RPGs did so, those who were not interested and were very interested in the Big Tent model of D&D fought the edition war with viciousness unparalleled. Then 5E was designed around a philosophy of "I don't care how you play but pleeeeeease come back and stop fighting with each other!" D&D has had problems with "assumed mode of play" since the beginning. The now-customary "1 ref, average 3-5 players, 1 PC per player" format is something the fanbase largely inferred for itself rather than reflecting the original design intention. It is better than the original design intention in many ways (vastly less bookkeeping for one thing), but Gygax had his grand chance to reconfigure the game for the way it actually plays in the wild with AD&D and instead he decided to add more polearm details, explicitly declare some races "evil" rather than merely "chaotic", and put in racial ability adjustments and gender-based strength limits.
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Jun 28, 2020 13:37
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Warthur posted:Then 5E was designed around a philosophy of "I don't care how you play but pleeeeeease come back and stop fighting with each other!" That's some revisionist bullshit. Pretty sure the driving philosophy behind 5e was "only AD&D and 3.5 are the True D&D and we will be pretending everything else never existed, please stop playing Pathfinder and come back." 5e never made any attempts to appeal to any other demographic. e; vv Elector_Nerdlingen posted:It's "Only 3.5 is the true D&D but we recognise that people who want exactly that because they never played anything else will nevertheless whine endlessly unless we say AD&D a lot". Fair. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Jun 28, 2020 |
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Jun 28, 2020 13:52
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Lemon-Lime posted:Pretty sure the driving philosophy behind 5e was "only AD&D and 3.5 are the True D&D and we will be pretending everything else never existed, please stop playing Pathfinder and come back." 5e never made any attempts to appeal to any other demographic. It's "Only 3.5 is the true D&D but we recognise that people who want exactly that because they never played anything else will nevertheless whine endlessly unless we say AD&D a lot".
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Jun 28, 2020 13:56
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Dawgstar posted:I've been trying to parse that so it makes sense for the last few minutes and it's just not happening. It's a very dumb and bad argument, but what it's basically saying is that if nobody is "inherently evil", then that means everyone is uniformly not-evil, and uniformity is the opposite of diversity, so therefore you liberals and your constant calls for diversity are getting owned, because you're actually trying to impose uniformity now, and that makes you a hypocrite. Warthur posted:Then 5E was designed around a philosophy of "I don't care how you play but pleeeeeease come back and stop fighting with each other!" 5e wasn't trying to "unify" the various playerbases at all. Mearls had already decided that he was going to pander the grognard crowd when he used 4e Essentials to try and turn 4e into a 3e spin-off as much as he possibly could, but since that didn't work, 5e went in even harder than that. Hiring Zak and RPGPundit as consultants was basically him signaling to these types that he was continuing the trend of reversing 4e and agreeing with all the dumb poo poo-stirring about it, and especially since we know now that they barely had any input into the game, so it was all just about getting them into the credits.
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Jun 28, 2020 14:01
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Meals himself is the source of the "shouting hands back on" quote. He has a terrible need to be liked, and that wasn't happening while 4e existed.
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Jun 28, 2020 14:13
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The "shouting arms back on" thing is stupid since 5E even has a box in the PHB saying that HP isn't "meat" it's stamina and fighting spirit and you only get seriously hurt by the blow that knocks you down to 0.
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Jun 28, 2020 14:18
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The other thing about 4e is that, while It still had ability scores, the extremely modular nature of Powers, the choice on the 2nd ability score, and the emphasis on reflavoring meant that even if playing a dragonborn Wizard was suboptimal, you could play a sorcerer or warlock and call it a wizard. And no one had a penalty to any ability score.
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Jun 28, 2020 14:39
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A pity the stress of getting something interesting each level was too high for Mike to bear and that he decided people needed more levels where they could chill out and just get hit points.
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Jun 28, 2020 14:44
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I should run a Mearlsian game where every hit the PCs take is described as some grievous wound. And then they go to sleep and wake up 8 hours later with their lung unpunctured, their severed arm reattached, and their skull uncrushed.
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Jun 28, 2020 15:17
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Jimbozig posted:I should run a Mearlsian game where every hit the PCs take is described as some grievous wound. isn't this literally iron heroes
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Jun 28, 2020 15:21
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Arivia posted:isn't this literally iron heroes Iron Heroes uses D&D-style hit points.
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Jun 28, 2020 15:24
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gradenko_2000 posted:Iron Heroes uses D&D-style hit points. That doesn't disprove the point though - the argument Mearls makes is that D&D hit points represent grevious wounds still, so it would make sense for that to be the case in his own gritty low-magic D&D-alike.
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Jun 28, 2020 15:27
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Arivia posted:That doesn't disprove the point though - the argument Mearls makes is that D&D hit points represent grevious wounds still, so it would make sense for that to be the case in his own gritty low-magic D&D-alike. Interesting point. I checked the rules. quote:A Constitution bonus increases a character’s hit points—a measurement of his or her physical condition—so this ability is important for all classes. Oh, it's body cohesion? Seven chapters later... quote:Hit points measure your toughness, endurance, and tenacity. They are an abstract measure, one put in place to enable heroic action in a roleplaying game. They are not supposed to be realistic—no matter how many hit points you lose, your character isn’t hindered in any way until your hit points drop to 0 or lower. You might be blinded or deafened, but those effects don’t take away from your hit points, nor are they caused by the loss of hit points Oh, it's NOT body cohesion? Anyway Hit Points get mentioned hundreds of times, but these are the only two quotes that say what they actually are, because Iron Heroes is a system for people who already play D&D. Also the game has Temporary Hit Points and Reserve Hit Points, which are different. Reserve Hit Points are your pool of spare Hit Points you can use to heal your Main Hit Points between combats, while Temporary Hit Points sit on top of your existing Hit Points like a hat. There's no explanation of what either is in setting. In conclusion, Iron Heroes is a land of contrasts.
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Jun 28, 2020 15:46
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LatwPIAT posted:Racial Stocks in AD&D (1978) I hate this way of showing stat ranges, do elves roll 6d3 for con? This is nonsense
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Jun 28, 2020 15:55
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as seen on this table:
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Pocky In My Pocket posted:I hate this way of showing stat ranges, do elves roll 6d3 for con? This is nonsense It's the allowed range, not how the roll is made. You always roll 3d6 (or 4d6 drop lowest, or whatever, there's like four different methods in the DMG) for each Ability and then pick a race you're not outside the range of. Roll 15 Dexterity? Well now you can't be a Half-Orc. Rolled 8 Constitution? Sorry, no Halfling for you. Rolled 18/87 Strength? You can be a male human but not a female one.
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Jun 28, 2020 16:07
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So, Iron Heroes Reserve Points are a mechanic where you have as many Reserve Points as you have Hit Points, and when you're not in combat and resting (the idea of a "Short Rest" had not been well defined yet), you can convert Reserve Points into Hit Points on a 1-to-1 basis. This basically gives people more HP over the length of the entire adventuring day, but without increasing how much HP they have within an individual combat encounter. Mearls didn't invent this - it's a variant rule from 3rd Editions Unearthed Arcana, and he just imported it into IH as a default mechanic. It makes sense in a game where there's no magic and there's no healers and there's no Wands of Cure Light Wounds. Where the Mearlsian bad design rears its ugly head is that he also imports this design into 5th Edition in the form of Hit Dice healing - it still kinda makes sense since you still can't craft Wands of CLW by default in 5e, but by converting the mechanic into dice rolls instead of discrete points, you run into the problem of having to worry about wasting healing (roll 1d8+CON for healing when you're only down 5 HP?), or having to worry about getting less healing than you think you should (roll 1d8+CON for healing when you're down 10 HP, and you get a final result of... 3) ___ Iron Heroes also has an Archer class with class abilities that are less powerful than simply taking the default 3e-era Rapid Shot feats and spamming full-round attacks. ___ Iron Heroes also has an Armiger class that needs "Armor tokens" to activate its class abilities, but the tokens are earned by getting hit and/or taking and absorbing damage from enemy attacks, but the abilities that can compel enemies to attack the Armiger... need tokens to be activated. ___ Iron Heroes also has an Assassin class that needs tokens to activate its class abilities, but the tokens generated are specific to the enemy being targeted by the Assassin, so by the time that the Assassin has created enough tokens on an enemy to do anything interesting, the target has already died, so they have to start all over again with zero tokens on a new target. And this bad design is something that Mearls would do all over again, in almost exactly the same flawed fashion, when he designed the Assassin class for 4e Essentials. (and for all the comparisons that 4e had to WoW, this is actually something that WoW fixed with regards to Rogue combo points, by having the combo points be earned on the Rogue themselves, such that if the target dies, the Rogue keeps their points, and if the Rogue needs to switch to a different target, the Rogue keeps their points)
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Jun 28, 2020 16:32
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LatwPIAT posted:It's the allowed range, not how the roll is made. You always roll 3d6 (or 4d6 drop lowest, or whatever, there's like four different methods in the DMG) for each Ability and then pick a race you're not outside the range of. Roll 15 Dexterity? Well now you can't be a Half-Orc. Rolled 8 Constitution? Sorry, no Halfling for you. Rolled 18/87 Strength? You can be a male human but not a female one. First, believe it or not, 4d6 keep 3 was the default for AD&D 1e. Second, if you had a score that was too high you just dropped your stat to its max. But iirc if you didn't have a high enough stat, pre-modifiers, you just didn't qualify.
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Jun 28, 2020 16:33
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dwarf74 posted:I don't think this is quite right. You're right that you're allowed to reduce a stat to meet a maximum. And you check for qualification after bonuses (with no word on penalties) - so actually I should have expanded some of the ranges. Elves can even go to 19 Dexterity, and Dwarves and Half-Orcs to 19 Constitution. Half-Orcs, however, cannot go to 19 Strength because gently caress 'em I guess. Rolling 4d6 keep 3 was not the default method, merely the first of four alternatives: 4d6k3 arrange as desired, roll 3d6 12 times and arrange the highest 6 as desired, roll 3d6 six times for each Ability and pick the highest for each, or roll 3d6 in order for each Ability 12 times and pick the ordered set you like. (Unearthed Arcana would add method 5, where each you rolled 9d6k3, 8d6k3, 7d6k3, ..., 3d6 in order, with the order determined by your class, and the ability score always adjusted up to the minimum requirement for the class if necessary.)
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Jun 28, 2020 17:05
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I'm not seeing the best part about AD&D stat class interaction there, which is some stats when super low actually force a player to be one class. I think was like a Wisdom of less that 5 forces a character to be a Fighter, something like that?
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Jun 28, 2020 17:08
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theironjef posted:I'm not seeing the best part about AD&D stat class interaction there, which is some stats when super low actually force a player to be one class. I think was like a Wisdom of less that 5 forces a character to be a Fighter, something like that?
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Jun 28, 2020 17:15
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Zereth posted:I don't think that exists, but if all your stats are low you can only get into, like, Thief or something. Had to go and check and it for sure exists. From the Strength Table 1 on page 9: "5: Here or lower the character can only be a magic-user" This is then repeated for Wisdom (5 or less forces you into Thief), Dexterity (Cleric), Constitution (Illusionist), and Charisma (Assassin). That last one is interesting because it also means a low roll on Charisma forces your character to be evil.
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Jun 28, 2020 17:22
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theironjef posted:I'm not seeing the best part about AD&D stat class interaction there, which is some stats when super low actually force a player to be one class. I think was like a Wisdom of less that 5 forces a character to be a Fighter, something like that? It wasn't relevant to the horrid racism, but for your pleasure: STR 3-5: Magic-User only INT 3-5: Fighter only WIS 3-5: Thief only DEX 3-5: Cleric only CON 3-5: Illusionist only CHA 3-5: Assassin only This obviously causes certainly problems for a character with more than two Abilities at 5 or below. You can probably get away with Strength and Constitution (by arguing Illusionist is a Magic-User subclass) or Wisdom and Charisma (by arguing Assassin is a Thief subclass), but any other combinations make it impossible to pick a legal class.
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Jun 28, 2020 17:24
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jun 28, 2020 17:27
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Absurd Alhazred posted:What page(s) of the PHB are all these specific exclusions? Or is this derived from the ability requirements? Or is it contradictory to what's implied by the ability requirements, in classic Gygaxian fashion? They're in the stat tables. First one on page 9 for strength, as cited above.
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Jun 28, 2020 17:33
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jun 28, 2020 17:40
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I see! It pretty clearly isn't, for example if you have 5 int and 8 str you can't legally be a fighter, unless I'm thinking of a different edition that had minimum 9 str to qualify. In any case, if your stats were that bad, it'd probably be a mercy to be forced to reroll due to inability to pick a class, not that that makes the whole situation any less dumb.
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Jun 28, 2020 17:48
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but I wonder if it's consistent with the minimal requirements listed with the classes.
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jun 28, 2020 17:52
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Absurd Alhazred posted:What page(s) of the PHB are all these specific exclusions? Or is this derived from the ability requirements? Or is it contradictory to what's implied by the ability requirements, in classic Gygaxian fashion? It starts at page 9 with 'Strength Table I.' These are distinct from the ability requirements for the classes, also found on the tables. In effect: Fighter: STR 9-18/00, INT 3-18, WIS 6-18, DEX 6-18, CON 7-18, CHA 6-18 Paladin: STR 12-18/00, INT 9-18, WIS 13-18, DEX 6-18, CON 9-18, CHA 17-18 Ranger: STR 13-18, INT 13-18, WIS 14-18, DEX 6-18, CON 14-18, CHA 6-18 Monk: STR 15-18, INT 6-18, WIS 15-18, DEX 15-18, CON 11-18, CHA 6-18 Cleric: STR 6-18, INT 6-18, WIS 9-18, DEX 3-18, CHA 6-18 Druid: STR 6-18, INT 6-18, WIS 12-18, DEX 3(6?)-18, CHA 15-18 Magic-User: STR 3-18, INT 9-18, WIS 6-18, DEX 6-18, CHA 6-18 Illusionist: STR 3(6?)-18, INT 15-18, WIS 6-18, DEX 16-18, CON 3-18, CHA 6-18 Thief: STR 6-18, INT 6-18, WIS 3-18, DEX 9-18, CON 6-18, CHA 6-18, Assassin: STR 12-18, INT 11-18, WIS 3(6?)-18, DEX 12-18, CHA 3-18 Half-Elf Cleric/Other: STR 6-18/90, INT 6-18, WIS 13-18, DEX 6-18, CON 6-18, CHA 6-18 In true Gygaxian fashion, note how the Illusionist has ridiculous requirements (15 Intelligence and 16 Dexterity) while also being the only class allowed at Constitution 3-5. The assassin is not quite as bad, but still requires STR 12, INT 11, and DEX 11. Similarly, since each class has a 9-18 requirement for its prime requisite at least any 3-5 score in one Ability places a specific 9-18 demand on another ability, which there's a non-zero chance you simply won't have: STR 5, INT 8 cannot legally pick any class!
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Jun 28, 2020 17:55
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Some characters being forced into certain classes as the result of a "bad" roll that they're forced into is how Gygax envisioned the organic/diegetic creation of a world with his intended distribution of classes. Ergo, there are lots of Fighters because that's what a lot of people only ever qualify for.
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Jun 28, 2020 17:55
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jun 28, 2020 17:59
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Gee, it's almost like Gygax didn't have any kind of master plan and just kinda made poo poo up as it came up, and then tried to retcon it into some coherent set of rules with AD&D...
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Jun 28, 2020 18:00
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The fact that those 5 or under restrictions are only in the tables, receiving no explanations or clarification just contributes directly to how half assed the roots of d&d actually are. AD&D is completely stuffed with poo poo like that.
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Jun 28, 2020 18:03
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jun 28, 2020 18:04
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Absurd Alhazred posted:What if I just collated my house rules with bad editing into a book and published it? Silver seller on Dmsguild?
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Jun 28, 2020 18:07
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Absurd Alhazred posted:What if I just collated my house rules with bad editing into a book and published it? That would truly be Fantasy Wargaming. The highest level of all.
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Jun 28, 2020 18:09
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gradenko_2000 posted:5e wasn't trying to "unify" the various playerbases at all. I would say it was, actually, but with the underlying assumption that - as proved by Pathfinder's success and the preponderance of online argument - the 3.5E faction was the biggest and most important part of the playerbase and had to determine the baseline of the game, and that people who liked 4E could be satisfied by the inclusion of such things as the Thunderwave spell, the Battlemaster subclass, and slightly-to-moderately cleaned up game math and action economy balance. If you're looking for them you can actually find a ton of nods to 4E throughout 5th edition, but, as I - a genius - predicted years ahead of 5E's release, it's mostly QoL innovations repurposed to benefit spellcasters.
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Jun 28, 2020 18:12
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Nothing about 5e really spoke to unity though, it was primarily tossing red meat at howling grogs. Part of that might have been because 4e players wanted a fine-tuned rules engine and that's just not a thing Mearls was in a position to deliver. So as noted, you ended up with an edition that made a weird compromise between 3.x and what people imagined D&D was like earlier.
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Jun 28, 2020 23:30
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e: nm
Absurd Alhazred fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Jul 22, 2020 |
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Jun 28, 2020 23:40
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5E is like if someone described 3.5 to a really lazy person and then had them create what they imagined 3.5 to be
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