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mastershakeman posted:Right, but that's only become an issue due to 4e's setup, correct? Or were people complaining in 1e/2e/3e/3.5e about fighters not being able to draw in all attacks to themselves? I just think you're making mountains out of molehills with the loss of 4e powers w/r/t fighters. Not only did people complain about it in 3e, 5e fighters are less sticky then the 3e fighters, who were in turn less sticky then AD&D fighters!
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Sep 22, 2014 00:53
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mastershakeman posted:I honestly think the best way to solve things is to make all melee classes skill monkeys. How does that fix the problem?
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Sep 22, 2014 01:50
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mastershakeman posted:Right, but that's only become an issue due to 4e's setup, correct? Or were people complaining in 1e/2e/3e/3.5e about fighters not being able to draw in all attacks to themselves? I just think you're making mountains out of molehills with the loss of 4e powers w/r/t fighters. People were ABSOLUTELY complaining back in previous editions about fighters lacking the capacity to meaningfully do their stated role, and impose themselves between enemies and allies. In the run of 3.5, you saw a number of attempts to provide this ability, most notably the proto-4e Knight's Challenge. It, along with the entirety of The Book Of Nine Swords, was universally decried by grogs who felt that "Melee Characters being able to do things like jump, or hit foes without missing, or destroy castle gates" was too "Anime" to be allowed in a game alongside "Guy who flies around firing instant-killing beams of energy from their hands." Bassetking fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Sep 22, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 01:59
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AlphaDog posted:How does that fix the problem? "By giving them lots of arbitrary skills, fighters become far more useful in a variety of delightful non-combat oriented situations" I think?
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Sep 22, 2014 02:08
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Grimpond posted:"By giving them lots of arbitrary skills, fighters become far more useful in a variety of delightful non-combat oriented situations" To make the fighter better at his titular role, let's give him a bunch of stuff that doesn't really help with fighting.
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Sep 22, 2014 02:11
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Thinking of adding my friend's weapon specialization rules for OSR, which let melee characters inflict a whole bunch of different status effects.
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Sep 22, 2014 02:14
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djw175 posted:To make the fighter better at his titular role, let's give him a bunch of stuff that doesn't really help with fighting. There was a time when fight-dude and skill-dude were not two different classes, and some trace the beginning of caster superiority to the invention of the thief class.
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Sep 22, 2014 02:17
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djw175 posted:To make the fighter better at his titular role, let's give him a bunch of stuff that doesn't really help with fighting. Yeah, the fight dude's job is to fight, it's right in the name. If you want to participate in non-combat then you shouldn't play the fight dude.
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Sep 22, 2014 02:21
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NachtSieger posted:Yeah, the fight dude's job is to fight, it's right in the name. If you want to participate in non-combat then you shouldn't play the fight dude. Clearly what I meant. It's definitely not like we were talking about improving the fighter's ability to fight and the dude suggested giving them more skills.
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Sep 22, 2014 02:22
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Rework the superiority dice to actually be combat superiority. Make it a resource that builds up over the combat, and use it up on turning misses into hits, smacking down more than one rear end in a top hat that tries to run by you, and ripping the wings off of dragons. The tool is right there, just make it into something useful. Don't just waffle around with wussy 'chance to trip' nonsense, either. The fighter is SUPERIOR. Inferior combatants have to roll to see if they disarm the enemy; the fighter just DOES IT. WHILE doing damage. AND eating a sandwich. As the fighter levels, give them more ways to gain superiority, more ways to use up superiority, AND ways to improve their superiority, so that later levels aren't just backfilling the poo poo options you passed up on at early levels.
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Sep 22, 2014 02:24
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djw175 posted:Clearly what I meant. It's definitely not like we were talking about improving the fighter's ability to fight and the dude suggested giving them more skills. Yeah I could have written my scathing sarcasm better, my point is that the fighter's problems aren't just in combat, but "skill-monkey" has extra connotations beyond just having a lot of skills to throw around, or skills, period. "Don't give the fighter skills because it doesn't help with fighting" is about a step and a half removed from policing how fighters actually participate in combat, and arbitrarily declaring certain things Not Fighter Stuff and others Fighter Stuff. For instance, you can leverage being a skill-monkey in combat, but 5e isn't really built for it unless you really want to get in-depth homebrewing. Alternately, burn down the "fighter" class. It's a brick around the dog neck of rules design.
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Sep 22, 2014 02:31
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Tendales posted:The fighter is SUPERIOR. NachtSieger posted:Alternately, burn down the "fighter" class. Pretty much. Either make the fighter the absolute loving best class at fighting, bar none (particularly if we're going with "everyone contributes in combat") or get rid of it entirely and let Bards/Paladins/Rangers/etc. fill the "fightman who does skills and/or spells to round out his activities" template.
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Sep 22, 2014 02:38
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P.d0t posted:Pretty much. Either make the fighter the absolute loving best class at fighting, bar none (particularly if we're going with "everyone contributes in combat") or get rid of it entirely and let Bards/Paladins/Rangers/etc. fill the "fightman who does skills and/or spells to round out his activities" template. But if there's no fighter class what will Chad play inbetween texting on his phone and watching football on TV?
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Sep 22, 2014 03:21
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Rannos22 posted:But if there's no fighter class what will Chad play inbetween texting on his phone and watching football on TV? He can play the game of being shown the door. Once that is done we can play the minigame of grilling the GM and group about why they keep inattentive, rude douchebags around, and then finish off with the sequel called 'making a new group that doesn't suck'.
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Sep 22, 2014 04:46
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Strength of Many posted:He can play the game of being shown the door. Once that is done we can play the minigame of grilling the GM and group about why they keep inattentive, rude douchebags around, and then finish off with the sequel called 'making a new group that doesn't suck'. Maybe the followup should be a roundtable on playing games so dull that people would rather text or watch TV than play them.
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Sep 22, 2014 05:27
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Strength of Many posted:He can play the game of being shown the door. Once that is done we can play the minigame of grilling the GM and group about why they keep inattentive, rude douchebags around, and then finish off with the sequel called 'making a new group that doesn't suck'. I'm sorry the joke was that they're forcing the jock, Chad, to play the boring jock/"newbie" class and he's distracted because the class is boring, that may have been unclear and I apologize for that.
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Sep 22, 2014 05:59
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gtrmp posted:By not reading them, duh. Same reason they hate 4e's healing surges: they never read the rules so they think that surges work the exact opposite of how they actually work.
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Sep 22, 2014 06:47
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I'm that guy. I don't dislike 4e, but I've never played it, so I hear about these mechanics and can only relate them to 13 Age. I've had to ask what mechanics are influenced by 4e, and the ones that have been are fine. I'm not a huge fan of recovery dice, but healing surges sound better. As a 13th Age barbarian, they were just extra hps. As I understand it, 4e uses them as a pacing mechanic to control the amount of healing you can receive. -edit- Oh wait, I might be misremembering it. I only got to use the dice because I was raging or something?
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Sep 22, 2014 07:01
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Pretty sure 13th age recoveries are 4e healing surges.
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Sep 22, 2014 07:10
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For sure. The point is, people in my position don't know poo poo about 4e.
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Sep 22, 2014 07:11
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Babylon Astronaut posted:As I understand it, 4e uses them as a pacing mechanic to control the amount of healing you can receive. Essentially yes. 4E did a few clever and somewhat innovative things with how hitpoint recovery worked: 1). Each healing surge is a fractional value based on your hitpoint total, one quarter of your max HP to be precise. As your max HP goes up when you level, so does the value of your healing surges. The fundamental unit of hitpoint restoration is "spend a healing surge" regardless of what's granting it, which means that instead of healing spells and abilities being outpaced by hitpoint growth and needing to be periodically replaced by higher-level versions, a healing spell or ability will remain useful no matter what level characters are. 2). Every character has only a finite number of surges every long rest and surges can't be freely spent in combat. The only ways to spend a surge in combat are to either use a 1/encounter second wind which consumes your Standard Action (unless you're a dwarf), use an item of some sort (like a potion), or be allowed to spend a surge via abilities or powers like those commonly granted to Leaders (Clerics, Warlords, etc.). 3). But even Leaders can only grant so many surges per fight which means you can't just spam the equivalent of Cure Light Wounds the whole time. Healing becomes a tactical consideration measured on a fight-by-fight basis...who to grant it to, whether to spent it early or save it for more desperate moments, etc. 4). Out of combat players can spend surges freely, which means that they can enter each new fight starting at full HP or close to it. This gives you a clear default baseline to work from when trying to measure and adjust the difficulty of combat encounters. 5). And once you run out of healing surges then you can't regain any more hitpoints outside of rather uncommon surgeless healing, which means that you can't just strap on a Camelbak full of healing potions and fight forever. Eventually (after about four encounters or so give or take) several party members are expected to be dry on healing surges which is the cue for a long rest. On the other hand if the players are clever and skillful enough (or the enemies roll like trash) then they can make their surges last longer and thus press on without having to stop if they want.
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Sep 22, 2014 07:32
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Kai Tave posted:5). And once you run out of healing surges then you can't regain any more hitpoints outside of rather uncommon surgeless healing To add onto this, page 295 of the PHB says if you're dying and out of surges and get the chance to spend a surge from a healing effect, you're restored to 1 HP.
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Sep 22, 2014 08:42
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Grimpond posted:did Jack or anyone do a a chart comparing fighter damage at high levels to monster HP? I want to say he did, but I can't check at the moment I did, but with the playtest math which it seems is kinda different from what we've ended up with. My next big analysis thing is going to be looking at the Monster Manual once I get a copy, and I'll redo the charts then. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Sep 22, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 08:45
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Rannos22 posted:Pretty sure 13th age recoveries are 4e healing surges.
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Sep 22, 2014 12:48
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MadScientistWorking posted:They have some slight differences with one of the major ones being that you can still spend a recovery if you don't have them by taking a -1 penalty to attack rolls. It's a little more severe than that: the penalty is to attack rolls AND defenses, is cumulative each time you spend a recovery you do not have, and these phantom recoveries only grant half hp.
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Sep 22, 2014 13:04
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Jack the Lad posted:My next big analysis thing is going to be looking at the Monster Manual once I get a copy, and I'll redo the charts then. Got it! I'll do some first draft analysis this evening.
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Sep 22, 2014 14:03
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Earthorn posted:It's a little more severe than that: the penalty is to attack rolls AND defenses, is cumulative each time you spend a recovery you do not have, and these phantom recoveries only grant half hp. And I think you have to make a save to be able to use them after the first in an encounter? I don't remember.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:34
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moths posted:Was there a good reason to gut the Fighter's tanking toolbox? There's a broad perception that a lot of players want to be able to just say "I attack" and that's it. To be sure at least some of these people do exist and there's a perception that D&D needed to be simplified overall. And since the basic class was built on that and given stats based on "just hits things really hard", the subclasses can't fully replace it, but instead just get a few extra things bolted on. (Theoretically you could create a subclass with proper at-will maneuvers and so on but that's more work than the designers are willing to do.) And specifically the fighter's mark seems to have been neutered in deference to simplifying the action economy so you can't literally AoO anyone who tries to sneak by.
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Sep 22, 2014 17:50
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ProfessorCirno posted:Not only did people complain about it in 3e, 5e fighters are less sticky then the 3e fighters, who were in turn less sticky then AD&D fighters! The only thing that made fighters sticky in AD&D was the Wizardry mindset. There was nothing a fighter could do to a monster that wanted to attack someone else than just attack it.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:02
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:The only thing that made fighters sticky in AD&D was the Wizardry mindset. There was nothing a fighter could do to a monster that wanted to attack someone else than just attack it. Did you ever see the withdrawing from combat rules? Once something got within reach it was fairly stuck because the way backwards was to withdraw.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:22
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Remember how we were all "well dragons are actually pretty cool now that they're not all scaly wizards"? Fear not! quote:Variant: Dragons as Innate Spellcasters Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Sep 22, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 18:41
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:The only thing that made fighters sticky in AD&D was the Wizardry mindset. There was nothing a fighter could do to a monster that wanted to attack someone else than just attack it. In AD&D when you disengaged you had to 'fall back' which meant that you could also use a Parry to help your chances of getting away without being slammed into (giving your opponent a negative to-hit bonus equal to your Strength to-hit bonus to help prevent being attacked). The issue for the monster trying to fall back from the Fighter is the Fighter, if not engaged with another target, can actually follow them while they fall back. Even fleeing, the character or monster being fled from can get their full attacks in if they can match their speed (or go faster than them) meaning that they still follow them across the board. Shaking off a Fighter in AD&D was tough business for monsters, double so because Fighters also always struck first at least once in a melee if they have multiple attacks unless against another Fighter (in which case initiative is compared). More related to D&D Next though, played in a one shot this past Saturday as a Crossbow expert with hand crossbows. Hitting at a +7 dealing 2d6+6 possible damage in a round was amazing. Mixed with our Sentinel'd Cleric to hold the line with me, and the Druid in the back pulling things closer with Thorn Whip so we could keep in doorways to help stifle movement, the DM was impressed and we rolled through the massive dungeon with zero casualties. A lot of cracks in the system still, but I at least enjoyed what I could thanks to everyone at the table. Most of my issues have been addressed here so no need to echo chamber it, but I will say that for not being 4th I at least enjoyed it enough I would play it again, but not run it. 4th and B/X or AD&D are still my D&D go to systems. Dr. Doji Suave fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Sep 22, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 18:41
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Jack the Lad posted:Remember how we were all "well dragons are actually pretty cool now that they're not all scaly wizards"? Don't worry though, they're worse wizards than wizards.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:49
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There are 462 statblocks in this thing, including 40 dragons (4 ages of 10 colours) which together span 34 pages and are almost completely identical except for their breath weapons. I like that when they were agonising over what to do in order to squeeze the extra 32 pages of "Camel, Frog, Toad (see Frog), Bandit, Pirate (see Bandit)" into the book the idea of combining the dragon statblocks to some degree apparently never occurred to them. e: We have an HP formula! Kind of. Not really. Monsters have seemingly random Con scores and numbers of hit dice (the first monster in the book, the Aarakocra, is CR 1/4 and has 3d8). They do seem to stick to these values by size at first glance, but they then use as many hitdice as it takes to reach the desired/tummyfeel HP total.  Nihilarian posted:They're probably worse dragons than wizards, too. Distinctly so, at least with Shapechange. e: This is going to take a long time to type up into a spreadsheet. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Sep 22, 2014 |
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Sep 22, 2014 18:52
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Gort posted:Don't worry though, they're worse wizards than wizards.
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Sep 22, 2014 18:59
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How does Shapechange work if it creates a better dragon than the dragon itself?
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Sep 22, 2014 19:02
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ProfessorProf posted:How does Shapechange work if it creates a better dragon than the dragon itself? You turn into a dragon but also have your Wizard spellcasting.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:03
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Jack the Lad posted:You turn into a dragon but also have your Wizard spellcasting.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:17
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Jack the Lad posted:You turn into a dragon but also have your Wizard spellcasting. And now you're a dragon, with a giant horde of skeletal minions. How far can we take the Dracolich? How long until the players realize that all the foes being sent against them are adventuring parties trying to take down their terrible cabal? The Cleric of the mad god of slaughter, the Ursine Hivemind, and the final boss, the Dracolich himself, all foes the good and upstanding citizens are desperate to stop, before their world is unmade. Oh god, I'm making 5e interesting. Help.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:23
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ascendance posted:To which I'm going to add, literally reshaping the world is what makes RPGs awesome. This quote is a couple of days old, but I'm just catching up to the thread and I think this is still relevant. To those who are unexperienced with 4E, here's a 46 session 4E campaign recorded by the nice folks at Role Playing Public Radio, DMed by friendly local goon Clockwork Joe. It's called The New World, and just listening to the first few sessions caused me circa 2010 to completely come 180 degrees from my prior uninformed hatred of 4E to understanding how RPGs could be so much more than just a simple hack and slash. The campaign runs all the way from heroic to epic tier and the actions of the players define the fate of their colony, their continent, and eventually their world. I'm much more tuned into news and actual gameplay for 5E than I was in 2008 with 4E, and what I've seen concerns me in a different way then my prior defensive resistance to change. Honestly, I'm really ready for another company to find some way to succeed D&D as the gateway into RPGs - it can be used for a lot of things in a lot of ways, but the limitations that are ingrained into so much of the player base (and the writers!  ) is absolutely choking any possibility of innovation.
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