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fool of sound posted:Dungeon World is a terrible pbta game yes. 13th Age basically does what 5e wants to do but better; a snappy, evocative pick-up-and-play high fantasy system. I was checking out the 13th Age SRD just now and it looks better than I remember, for sure. I think last time I played it, it was still in the "we're doing 4e with some narrative elements" phase, and it was fine but not groundbreaking, but it looks like it has a lot more of its own unique flavour now.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:37
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Wittgen posted:You could even think really outside the box and play an actually good ttrpg. There are a lot of them out there. I made my own, because I wanted to play Birthright, but sane.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:40
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Android Blues posted:Where's your issue? 5e has less imbalance between classes than 3.5, but casters are still better than martials, especially outside of combat. And the 5e CR system is notoriously sloppy.
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Jul 25, 2023 15:43
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Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay? 
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Jul 25, 2023 15:45
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Silver2195 posted:5e has less imbalance between classes than 3.5, but casters are still better than martials, especially outside of combat. And the 5e CR system is notoriously sloppy. I think this is kinda true but honestly, not that much so. The only point of caster imbalance I think winds up being an actual potential problem is Eldritch Blast scaling on character level rather than warlock level, the existence of Silvery Barbs, and Conjure Woodland Beings - most of the summoning spells are reasonable and restrained compared to 3.5e, but that one is silly if a player knows how to exploit it. Even then, you could cut the pixies, and it would be fine. Most of the other utility spells are pretty restrained rules as written or only come into play at high spell levels, martial classes have access to full skill progression and don't worry much about MAD, and rogues especially are just very very good in both combat and roleplaying. A 5th level rogue with a +9 to Persuasion can solve problems in a way that's on par with a 5th level wizard casting Suggestion on people. The monk suffers from a lack of roleplay utility (unless your campaign is full of chase scenes) and the ranger needs to either pick a sourcebook subclass or use the revised rules, but fighter, rogue and barbarian are all really strong on the mechanics. As far as the CR system goes, the key thing for me is that there aren't really any monsters that are gratuitously over-statted for their challenge rating - which was a major problem in 3.5e and in Pathfinder 1e, where actually using the CR system as indicated would lead to you throwing monsters with ludicrous special abilities that weren't accounted for in the CR formula at your players. I'm pretty sure 5e's is all by hand and they just nixed the math entirely, but in practise it's carefully put together enough that you can drop in a monster from the books and trust that it isn't going to accidentally shellack your players with ghoul touch or banshee screams.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:06
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Giant crab begs to differ.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:20
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Silver2195 posted:What D&D-ish game would you consider "actually good"? Not 13th Age, I hope? Worlds Without Number is pretty cool.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:29
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Silver2195 posted:What D&D-ish game would you consider "actually good"? Not 13th Age, I hope? Ryuutama
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Jul 25, 2023 16:50
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Raenir Salazar posted:Giant crab begs to differ. On looking up Giant Crab (CR 1/8th) they have a +3 to hit, deal an average of 4.5 damage on a hit, and their big thing is grappling people, which (full circle, we're back at the start of the conversation!) actually doesn't do much in 5e. They have a lot of HP for a low CR monster, but against your average 1st level party they'll deal maybe 2 damage a round. Four 1st level characters could handle a bunch of these things without being optimised or playing all that smart, although it might be a bit of a grinder. Plus they're very stupid and have a passive Perception of 9, so I don't imagine it would be all that tough to laterally defuse the encounter.
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Jul 25, 2023 16:53
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Hrm, I had read somewhere it was actually really difficult for its Cr, but I can't find the write up as to what the argument was.
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Jul 25, 2023 17:09
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Raenir Salazar posted:Hrm, I had read somewhere it was actually really difficult for its Cr, but I can't find the write up as to what the argument was. They have high AC and HP - they're maybe a bit too bulky, but it's not an encounter that's gonna smash a low level party to bits in the same way as running into some ghouls in 3.5e or Pathfinder would. 1st level parties in 5e have enough healing resources to just put the fighter or barbarian in front of the crab wave and get whacking. If someone knows Burning Hands, it's a bad time for the crabs. Also, as a GM, I wouldn't tend to run Intelligence 1 animals as smart or co-ordinated in their tactics, so they're probably spreading damage on the party, not moving to surround or trying to focus damage on the healer, etc. You could probably defeat at least one crab by throwing a piece of jerky a ways down the beach.
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Jul 25, 2023 17:15
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The Intellect Devourer is a CR 2 creature that can kill a player in two turns, is resistant to non-magical weapons (why did this bring this back?!), and the way they kill you requires something more powerful than a Raise spell.
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Jul 25, 2023 18:27
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Maxwell Lord posted:The Intellect Devourer is a CR 2 creature that can kill a player in two turns, is resistant to non-magical weapons (why did this bring this back?!), and the way they kill you requires something more powerful than a Raise spell. Wow, yeah, that's a swingy monster. You do have to fail three checks for it to kill you, I guess? It feels like it would be appropriate enough as an added threat for a higher level party, but if you throw it at a 2nd level party it's just a weird casino. It dies to a couple of damage spells, but you can also get very unlucky and fail two Intelligence checks and the 3d6 roll before those damage spells go off. It only has a +1 to Int so it isn't actually super likely to win the contest even against a character who has a -1, but it's such a huge swing on three dice rolls. The fact that it's an Underdark monster and its lore snippet is about how illithids use them as minions makes me think it's meant to be part of a larger encounter for higher level characters, at which point it becomes reasonable - it just becomes a high priority target, you have access to Greater Restoration to deal with the Intelligence damage, and you can probably explode it in a single turn from one of your damage dealers. Still not a great design.
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Jul 25, 2023 18:57
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Android Blues posted:Wow, yeah, that's a swingy monster. You do have to fail three checks for it to kill you, I guess? It feels like it would be appropriate enough as an added threat for a higher level party, but if you throw it at a 2nd level party it's just a weird casino. It dies to a couple of damage spells, but you can also get very unlucky and fail two Intelligence checks and the 3d6 roll before those damage spells go off. It only has a +1 to Int so it isn't actually super likely to win the contest even against a character who has a -1, but it's such a huge swing on three dice rolls. I think this is the one that they infamously threw into a beginning level adventure book with no flags that might alert the (likely new) players they were facing something more dangerous than a swarm of rats or w/e.
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Jul 25, 2023 19:06
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Maxwell Lord posted:The Intellect Devourer is a CR 2 creature that can kill a player in two turns, is resistant to non-magical weapons (why did this bring this back?!), and the way they kill you requires something more powerful than a Raise spell.
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Jul 25, 2023 20:22
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Toplowtech posted:LOL the jackalwere is a cr 1/2 medium humanoid with pack tactic and damage immunity against non-magical weapons that aren't silvered and depending on your party composition they can easily cause a TPK. Who cares if their AC is only 12 and their HP is only 18 when your basic melee fighters can't damage them. That one's just a puzzle monster - there are jackalweres terrorising the town, find some silvered weapons, the classic D&D werewolf plot but for 1st level characters. They're not actually very dangerous beyond that.
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Jul 25, 2023 20:30
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Android Blues posted:That one's just a puzzle monster - there are jackalweres terrorising the town, find some silvered weapons, the classic D&D werewolf plot but for 1st level characters. They're not actually very dangerous beyond that.
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Jul 25, 2023 20:31
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Yeah, from how a lot of these are described, the low CR but deadly ones are designed to be something you make a big deal in a low-level campaign where the players have to plan around it, rather than something you randomly encounter on a road, which seems fine and perfectly in-flavor for that kind of thing. "This be a deadly beast, its cry can cause instant death, best not go in there adventurer" and then your party comes up with nine stupid ideas before someone considers earmuffs. They only sound bad if you're approaching them like a video game enemy which doesn't seem appropriate.
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Jul 25, 2023 20:39
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Toplowtech posted:Yes,, you only really need to make sure the players understand what's happening. They are good intro monster for were-creatures. I think with a lot of these monsters with highly specific strengths and weaknesses that winds up being key - you really need to actively be like, "you see a weird dog, make a Nature check," or, "on that Religion check, you know that this monster has a scary ability that can be protected against with <x> spell or mechanic". There needs to be a little drumroll before you fight the monster, or an encounter with it where you clearly indicate that the party should retreat and hunt for its weakness. Done well it can be really good, and it's a natural way of building plot out of mechanics - there's a quest and some buildup where the monster goes from an unbeatable foe to one you're ready for, which is a satisfying dramatic structure. If you just throw this stuff at your players out of nowhere, like you enter a room in a dungeon and there's six jackalweres in there, it sucks out loud.
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Jul 25, 2023 20:43
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4E is the only edition that lets me yell at people as a primary mechanic and use the Barbarian as my standard attack. As such, there is no competition in this debate. Edition wars are pretty eh. I find you can have fun with pretty much everything with the right group of people and if everyone's on board. 5E really lucked out that Critical Role and company reignited interest in TTRPGs, and as such I don't think it's success is tied too much to anything about 5E's design in particular. IE, if the whole thing got rolling a few years earlier, 4E would have gotten the light shined on it, and not for any reason of 4E's design either. And if you're trying to get new players in, you usually get them on the hook for the most well known game of the genre, which is D&D, for better or worse. It'd be like trying to get into MMOs - it's probably an easier sell with WoW or FF14, because people have heard of those, versus, I don't know, trying to sell people on playing on your City of Heroes private server.
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Jul 25, 2023 21:14
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ImpAtom posted:Yeah, from how a lot of these are described, the low CR but deadly ones are designed to be something you make a big deal in a low-level campaign where the players have to plan around it, rather than something you randomly encounter on a road, which seems fine and perfectly in-flavor for that kind of thing. Some video games like immersive sims or rogue likes encourage a certain "learn by dying" approach. 
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Jul 25, 2023 21:32
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Regardless of their 5e qualities, that Neverwinter nights boss fight against an intellect devourer forever soured me on them. It had DR/magic, a boatload of bonus HP, and extra lives you could only get rid of with a specific skill check, in your first dungeon in a game that had you playing a party of 1. If you were a monk, I hope you enjoy 20 solid minutes of the number 0 slowly floating up from a brain with legs.
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Jul 25, 2023 22:47
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ikanreed posted:Regardless of their 5e qualities, that Neverwinter nights boss fight against an intellect devourer forever soured me on them. The MMO or did you mean Baldur's Gate 3? Or way back in NWN1?
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Jul 25, 2023 23:57
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That's definitely NWN1. One of the four macguffins you had to find in Chapter 1 was an Intellect Devourer
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Jul 25, 2023 23:59
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Toplowtech posted:LOL the jackalwere is a cr 1/2 medium humanoid with pack tactic and damage immunity against non-magical weapons that aren't silvered and depending on your party composition they can easily cause a TPK. Who cares if their AC is only 12 and their HP is only 18 when your basic melee fighters can't damage them. A Barbarian in a game I ran actually fought one of these solo at level 2. He dunked it's head in a bath until it drowned, as it was not strong enough to force the barb off him, and the fact that it has no con mod meant it could only last one round out of breath before it dropped to 0 hp. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Jul 26, 2023 |
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Jul 26, 2023 00:08
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That's why there's supposed to be four!
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Jul 26, 2023 00:23
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MonsterEnvy posted:A Barbarian in a game I ran actually fought one of these solo at level 2. He dunked it's head in a bath until it drowned, as it was not strong enough to force the barb off him, and the fact that it has no con mod meant it could only last one round out of breath before it dropped to 0 hp. This rules, actually. Cup Runneth Over posted:That's why there's supposed to be four! CR is calculated for a party of four, so one 2nd level person vs. one CR 0.5 monster is actually a fair fight, ostensibly! (probably not in practise, I imagine a lot of things get weird if you try to balance their CR against solo players).
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Jul 26, 2023 00:38
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Android Blues posted:That one's just a puzzle monster - there are jackalweres terrorising the town, find some silvered weapons, the classic D&D werewolf plot but for 1st level characters. They're not actually very dangerous beyond that. I still despise Werewolf Island in Baldur's Gate 's 1 expansion because you get so few weapons in the game that can actually damage those things, and there's a big bad werewolf boss fight you have to do right after leaving or its an instant game over. The only pity you get is like a single silver dagger on that island, too. god forbid you're playing enhanced and trying to use rasaad as a damage dealer. 2.5e monks and were creatures don't mix
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Jul 26, 2023 01:22
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I just feel like puzzle monsters like that should at least have an asterisk next to their CR or some other indicator that you can just eyeball to see you have to design the encounter such that the PCs have resources to deal with them. 4e’s math had some HP bloat but mostly got rid of the save-or-suck attacks and broad defenses (when they introduced Inherent Bonuses it was like the first time it was viable not to give away magic items.) Basically though I’m not interested in any D&D unless they bring back Warlords and that’s not likely to happen from what I’ve seen.
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Jul 26, 2023 03:33
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They are planning on doing a big rebalance of monsters and encounter building for the remaster.
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Jul 26, 2023 05:27
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Maxwell Lord posted:I just feel like puzzle monsters like that should at least have an asterisk next to their CR or some other indicator that you can just eyeball to see you have to design the encounter such that the PCs have resources to deal with them. 4e’s math had some HP bloat but mostly got rid of the save-or-suck attacks and broad defenses (when they introduced Inherent Bonuses it was like the first time it was viable not to give away magic items.) I don't think D&D will ever entirely shake the "Dungeon masters are supposed to be cruel, vindictive greek gods" history.
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Jul 26, 2023 05:51
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ikanreed posted:I don't think D&D will ever entirely shake the "Dungeon masters are supposed to be cruel, vindictive greek gods" history. The point of this cr debate is they even took away the tools to achieve that*. If CR2 might mean "boss fight for a level 2 party that they have to carefully prepare for" or "standard enemy that attacks a level 6 party with some of its buddies" I can't even be reliably cruel and vindictive. * Those tools existed! 4e described enemies as Standard, Elite, or Solo to indicate whether they'd be fun to fight alone or as part of a big group. It took them a while to get the math for solos right but it's another thing that 5th pulled back from.
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Jul 26, 2023 07:02
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Maxwell Lord posted:I just feel like puzzle monsters like that should at least have an asterisk next to their CR or some other indicator that you can just eyeball to see you have to design the encounter such that the PCs have resources to deal with them. 4e’s math had some HP bloat but mostly got rid of the save-or-suck attacks and broad defenses (when they introduced Inherent Bonuses it was like the first time it was viable not to give away magic items.) I think that would probably be a good idea, yeah. I also miss the Warlord dearly - you can get partway there with the Battlemaster Fighter, which has Commander's Strike plus variations on Wolf Pack Tactics and Inspiring Word, but the 5e Inspiring Word only gives temporary HP so it can't pop people up from 0 or layer over itself effectively. Earlier in 5e's design life they had the Purple Dragon Knight, which is mechanically pretty dull and gets extremely sparse uses of Warlord-esque features on an incredibly stingy basis, but they seem to have re-oriented on that at some point. They added a few more Battlemaster options in a sourcebook that duplicate the warlord's utility/skill powers, as well, so I think their position is definitely "this is what you're getting if you want Warlord back". Battlemaster's fun but it's still kind of a bummer! I played like three different Warlords in 4e and they were easily my favourite class. It'd be cool to see a 5e variation where the utility/healing abilities were the primary focus and the being-a-fighter stuff was secondary. Whybird posted:The point of this cr debate is they even took away the tools to achieve that*. If CR2 might mean "boss fight for a level 2 party that they have to carefully prepare for" or "standard enemy that attacks a level 6 party with some of its buddies" I can't even be reliably cruel and vindictive. 5e kept solos, they're just tagged as legendary monsters now. A lot of 4e's systems actually made the jump relatively intact, they just got new names to avoid scandalising the people who were mortally offended by phrases like "the stalker slides three squares". Healing Surges are in there pretty much to the letter, a lot of iconic class abilities like Warlock's Curse and Hunter's Mark are in there, encounter powers are in there, etc. They just switched to legacy names for a bunch of that stuff and (almost depressingly) this neutralised the consternation about it.
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Jul 26, 2023 12:21
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5e nearly put me off GMing for good. The entire system felt inherently hostile to the concept of running a game. And also the idea that being the GM should be fun. CR never quite made sense, the party wizard was destroying every encounter, and the simplicity felt like a complete lie from my perspective. It soured me on DND pretty well, and while we’ve had a lot more fun with the move to PF2e there’s still a few bad habits that need breaking and cause the odd problem. I’ve still got some fond memories of 4th and pathfinder, though. I think 4th was the peak of when D&D could be considered “good”, while 3.5 was interesting and fun in a flawed way - same for pathfinder 1st edition.
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Jul 26, 2023 12:29
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Android Blues posted:5e kept solos, they're just tagged as legendary monsters now. Ah cool so the jackalwere and the intellect devourer mentioned above will be tagged as legendary monsters, right? Ah, well, maybe they'll have something else in their statblock indicating I shouldn't just plonk them down without warning, right? Well, never mind, maybe there are some other legendary monsters which are suitable for low-level parties, right?
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Jul 26, 2023 12:36
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MonsterEnvy posted:A Barbarian in a game I ran actually fought one of these solo at level 2. He dunked it's head in a bath until it drowned, as it was not strong enough to force the barb off him, and the fact that it has no con mod meant it could only last one round out of breath before it dropped to 0 hp.
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Jul 26, 2023 12:38
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Whybird posted:Ah cool so the jackalwere and the intellect devourer mentioned above will be tagged as legendary monsters, right? Ah, well, maybe they'll have something else in their statblock indicating I shouldn't just plonk them down without warning, right? Well, never mind, maybe there are some other legendary monsters which are suitable for low-level parties, right? you look at the words that say 'unaffected by non magic weapons' and don't put them as a challenge for your party without magic weapons, or let them know where they can find a magic weapon to get past them. Sounds like a fun adventure!
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Jul 26, 2023 12:45
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Whybird posted:Ah cool so the jackalwere and the intellect devourer mentioned above will be tagged as legendary monsters, right? Ah, well, maybe they'll have something else in their statblock indicating I shouldn't just plonk them down without warning, right? Well, never mind, maybe there are some other legendary monsters which are suitable for low-level parties, right? If you are a DM your job is to consider what is fun for your party, not just pick poo poo at random
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Jul 26, 2023 12:53
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Whybird posted:Ah cool so the jackalwere and the intellect devourer mentioned above will be tagged as legendary monsters, right? Ah, well, maybe they'll have something else in their statblock indicating I shouldn't just plonk them down without warning, right? Well, never mind, maybe there are some other legendary monsters which are suitable for low-level parties, right? There's no need to be weird about it. The intellect devourer's clearly a bad monster design, but it's really not the norm in 5e - and 4e had dumb over-statted things in its first Monster Manual too, in the era before inherent bonuses where it was impossible for players not to fall short of the wonky math as they levelled up. I remember everyone being deeply glad that Monster Manual II fixed this and sad that a large chunk of the MM1 monsters were unusable without numbers tweaks. The jackalwere is totally fine and not a major challenge - it isn't advanced DMing knowledge to read "immunity to x" and think, well, I should probably signal that to my party and include a way for them to get around it. Solos in 4e don't start existing until 3rd level onwards, which is also where 5e's legendary monsters start showing up. So yeah, that's the exact same in both editions!
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Jul 26, 2023 12:55
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Android Blues posted:Solos in 4e don't start existing until 3rd level onwards, which is also where 5e's legendary monsters start showing up. So yeah, that's the exact same in both editions! I never played 4e, so there was also 1 (one) level three solo, which was in a setting book? Then one more solo at fourth level, in an adventure named for that monster? One MM level 5 solo, which most parties are unlikely to want to fight (Unicorn in 5e)? Then zero level 6 or 7 solos, three level 8, zero level 9, and then from level 10 onwards there's a lot?
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Jul 26, 2023 13:49
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