|
Sage Genesis posted:I don't think 5e even has enough feats for this to really work. Giving fighters more fighter-specific feats to choose from would be the obvious solution. Maybe some of them could even be stressful enough on the body that you'd need a breather and a chance to stretch before you'd want to try doing them again.
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 09:55
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 03:59 |
|
|
AlphaDog posted:Giving fighters more fighter-specific feats to choose from would be the obvious solution. Maybe some of them could even be stressful enough on the body that you'd need a breather and a chance to stretch before you'd want to try doing them again. I like the way you "natural language'd" your way into AEDU spellcaster Fighters.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 10:06
|
|
|
It's not even that hard to do! In seriousness though, you can sidestep the "realism!" thing with encounter powers super easily for martials. * Fighters have a pool of special abilities. They get more different stuff added to the pool as they level up * Fighters can use an ability from the pool X number of times per short rest. Used abilities go back into the pool. There, you now fight at your baseline (basic attack) effort and can do X especially taxing things before you gas out and are stuck at your baseline until you get a chance to chill for a bit. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Aug 8, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 10:17
|
|
|
Sage Genesis posted:One feat per Fighter level would get a bit crazy at higher levels. I don't think 5e even has enough feats for this to really work. Yeah, that's true; at higher levels it'd become a lot of bookkeeping; at that point it'd probably be better to just have some of the feats become permanent. The other idea I had was to base the number off STR or DEX mod, or else have it scale up on a par with the Warlock's slot level, or something..?
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 12:05
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:Giving fighters more fighter-specific feats to choose from would be the obvious solution. Maybe some of them could even be stressful enough on the body that you'd need a breather and a chance to stretch before you'd want to try doing them again. Okay, so check it: we could have feats that are specifically geared towards combat, and then the Fighter, since he's good at combat, will be able to pick additional feats on top of all the classes as a bonus, but only the ones classified as being for combat. We could call them bonus ... combat ... feats! Seriously though part of the problem is that a bunch of stuff that used to be 3.5 feats were siloed off into Battle Master maneuvers. You can't disarm or trip a dude without a Maneuver or a variant rule (that everyone can use) AlphaDog posted:It's not even that hard to do! This even resembles the old Fighter playtest: * Fighters start with a single d6 Expertise Die. This grows to a d8 by level 3, then two d8s by level 5 * All Expertise Dice regenerates at the start of the Fighter's turn * They know two Combat Maneuvers at level 1: Deadly Strike and Parry * Deadly Strike lets you roll the Expertise Die and add its result to your damage roll after a successful hit, and the die would be automatically maximized on a crit * Parry lets you roll the Expertise Die and use its result to reduce a damage roll against you after you were hit * At level 1 you know 1 Fighting Style. A Fighting Style lets you add a new Combat Maneuver to your repertoire. You learn two more Fighting Styles, at level 3 and 5 * Taking the Duelist Fighting Style at level 1, for example, gives you Tumble, which lets you spend an Expertise Die to move through an enemy's occupied space. * Taking the Duelist Fighting Style at level 3 would then give you Jab, which lets you make a single melee attack whenever you do anything else that isn't an attack. Instead of rolling your normal damage, you roll your Expertise Die and use that * Taking the Slayer Fighting Style at level 5 also gives you Jab, but taking the Slayer Fighting Style at level 1 gives you Glancing Blow, which lets you deal damage equal to a roll of the Expertise Die on a missed attack, provided the missed attack was at least a natural 10.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 17:06
|
|
|
I don't think giving Fighters more Feats is a good idea. I mean, I think giving Fighters anything is warranted but Feats aren't really the right answer. Part of the problem is that Fighters don't really do anything; they get bonuses to things other people can already do. Feats are much the same way. They rarely broaden a character's capability and often narrow it by pushing a character towards specialized behaviors. If I'm a Fighter who already has all the specialization I want, I'm just going to poach Feats for Saving Throw bonuses after a certain point. The reason for this is because Feats rarely enable wholly new capabilities. The Fighter already gets bonuses to attack and damage under particular circumstances; tacking more bonuses under increasingly narrow circumstances isn't going to 'fix' the class nor make them particularly interesting, it's just going to create a huge laundry list of circumstantial bonuses to stay aware of, even moreso than DnD usually demands. What Fighters need are unique abilities (Encounter-like powers or unique at-will capabilities) or behaviors. By 'behaviors' I mean things like the Rogue's sneak attack, only less lovely. Pushing a character towards a mode of play that other characters don't engage in is cool, because it means you approach fights differently. "Increasingly better at all fights, passively" is dull because it never changes the way you approach a fight.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 17:20
|
|
|
I disagree that feats rarely enable wholly new capabilities, or at least depending on the context. The 4e ones did not by virtue of the powers system filling the role of driving the character towards a certain playstyle, letting the feats act as small circumstantial bonuses The 5e ones do not by virtue of there being far too few of them, and those that exist are far too unambitious. The 3.5e/PF ones eventually did if you got enough of them, which is where the other problem rears its head: by the time you finally did, you were nearing the end of your character's leveling lifecycle (if you even got that far) and you were locked into this single build that did that one thing really well but may require an awful lot of things line up in your favor if it was ever to work right, and you were screwed if it didn't. Which is why I liked the concept of "Martial Flexibility" or gaining a whole package of feats on a limited basis: if it takes you 3-4 feats to be a masterful disarmer of weapons, then you trigger this special ability to gain those 4 feats temporarily, and then if you're facing a flying gargoyle or a triceratops, you trigger the ability again to instead gain accurate bowshooting for the former or masterful dinosaur wrestling for the latter. I mean, ideally being able to consistently disarm a dude would be just one power or one feat, so that the next feat you took would be accurate bowshooting to broaden your abilities 100% of the time, and so the whole "I temporarily gain a bunch of feats" is really just a stand-in for "I select a 4th Edition power"
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 17:50
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:I mean, ideally being able to consistently disarm a dude would be just one power or one feat, so that the next feat you took would be accurate bowshooting to broaden your abilities 100% of the time, and so the whole "I temporarily gain a bunch of feats" is really just a stand-in for "I select a 4th Edition power" I don't disagree with you. But I think it's telling that we've already constructed an elaborate hypothetical in which a.) 3.X-style Feat-chains are required to, say, trip someone, and b.) we're preparing ourselves to use it as a back-door to more flexible powers. For my part I'd rather just figure out what it is I want the Fighter to do and just give it to them, and let the grogs sort it out.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 17:59
|
|
|
Someone over on Reddit posted this intriguing Fighter redesign that doesn't go too far into the realm of homebrew features and whatnot. The synopsis is all the good stuff (maneuvers, extra fighting styles, relentless, survivor) is baked into the base class and the 4th attack is moved to level 17. The subclasses are now split into Paragon (offense-focused) and Sentinel (defense-focused). Paragon gets the crit abilities of the Champion, a third action surge use, and ability score increases at 6 and 10. The Sentinel gets Indomitable (moved out of the base class) starting at level 3 and a second wind that scales up to 4d10 + fighter level. Give them a few more superiority dice to work with, add some maneuvers equivalent to level 1-3 spells fueled by them, make maneuvers prepared rather than known, and we might be on to something.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 18:51
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:* Fighters have a pool of special abilities. They get more different stuff added to the pool as they level up Theres still a lot of preference-argument as to what kinds of narrative comes out of it, but as a starting point its good. It gets around the "you can only kick one time because somebody somewhere thinks tendons are tissue paper" idea people keep using to defend 4e methods.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 18:54
|
|
|
FRINGE posted:This seems like a good way to do things in general.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 19:14
|
|
|
Remove the fighters stats cap. Bow before your 30 dex overlords.
|
|
#
?
Aug 8, 2015 20:06
|
|
|
Tried to make yet another fighter redesign. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_cZeEmIfkN0HqIYumxXzQELptg5pwA5S5TQaKYbCDH0/edit?usp=sharing Still using the Bard as a baseline, this time...just give the fighter spells. Full casting. Sure. Why not? Just call the spells Martial Exploits. Charm Person is you being a charming motherfucker. Thunderwave is you swinging your weapon so hard you break the sound barrier and send dudes flying. Confusion is throwing a rock and hitting someone's head so hard that they're confused. Faerie fire is throwing a bag of glowing flour at dudes. And so on. That plus some "nice things" like a scaling second wind and a neat capstone.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 01:38
|
|
|
Splicer posted:If I recall alpha dog's previous posts correctly, those people are MMA fighters. The basic idea at play here applies to nearly every time two or more people are in direct athletic competition* for more than a couple of seconds. What I was going for was linking "martial encounter power" with the idea that a fighter isn't using 100% effort 100% of the time because that's literally impossible for an athlete to do outside of things like weightlifting. You have to use a baseline of effort except for short periods, and knowing when to use 100% effort is part of the strategy of most sports. e: adding more (and better) abilities as you level up is an obvious realistic thing too. e2: Just to be clear, I don't think that realism is an important goal in a game with wizards and dragons. I do think it's fun to try to use D&D-esque "natural language" to phrase game abstractions in ways that would be hard to object to on the basis of being not realistic. *ie, not things like weightlifting or gymnastics. goatface posted:Remove the fighters stats cap. Bow before your 30 dex overlords. Exceptional e: It's great how many of the things that you can do to fix fighters are based on stuff they used to have as baseline abilities. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Aug 9, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 01:41
|
|
|
Quadratic_Wizard posted:Tried to make yet another fighter redesign. You're doing the Lord's work. A Fighter redesign without a huge mechanics overhaul was always going to be "give the Fighter full spell progression, a paragraph explaining how the Fighter is able to do that, then go through the massive spell list and pick spells for the Fighter to cast", except step 3 is a bear because there are a LOT of spells.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 03:51
|
|
|
Mendrian posted:I don't think giving Fighters more Feats is a good idea. [...] Ehhh, i think 5e comes the closest to making feats do this though. Part of the whole problem is that Feats are a trade-off between ASIs when really a Fighter either needs both, or should just have had a bunch of these feats baked into their class, depending on the paradigm you're coming from. (Case in point: at level 1, aMonk gets like 90% of what Grappler + Tavern Brawler do, combined.) Variant Human sorta demonstrates this perfectly; if your choice is "a feat and only a feat" you pick up something cool and powerful that dramatically changes your character from level 1; Lucky and Sharpshooter come to mind, just from my PbP experience here on the forums. If it's a choice between a feat and +2 DEX, now the waters are muddied. That's the thing though, is Fighters are a MAD class, so getting the extra ASIs above other classes doesn't really cut the mustard, nor does it make them "best at fighting." Liberally giving out feats that they can swap in and out of generally does make them better able to fight, and in different ways and under various circumstances. It's also more interesting to me to polish the turd that is Feats, than to throw your hands up in the air and say "oh fuckit, just give everyone spells," even if that's probably the most correct solution. I mean, in all sincerity, I'd rather just make my own game than try to fix 5e fighters (much less completely rewrite the class from scratch.)
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 21:23
|
|
|
One problem with giving fighters extra feats instead of real abilities is that most feats can be picked at level 1, so you just end up with more abilities rather than better ones. Proper classes get better options to pick from as they level up, instead of just more of the things they could have chosen at level 1. Another issue is that feats are available to everyone, meaning that anyone else can cherry-pick the best fighter abilities. Proper classes have unique abilities to give you a reason to play them.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 22:04
|
|
|
Gort posted:One problem with giving fighters extra feats instead of real abilities is that most feats can be picked at level 1, so you just end up with more abilities rather than better ones. Battle master maneuvers have the same problem. You get the ones you really care about at level 3, then you start scraping the bottom of the barrel as you level up. Warlock invocations are better designed, with their pool of features to choose from steadily expanding as they level up.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 22:37
|
|
|
It's the basic problem of a single flat pool of options. It happened with ALL the e-Martial classes in 4e, it happens with most of the martial classes in 5e - whenever you pick options, if you always pick from the same list, you pick the best ones (for you) the first time, and every time after that you get sloppy seconds. There's no feeling of advancement when you keep using the same tricks you used last level because the ones you picked up this level are worse. But no-one in the design team seems to get that.
|
|
#
?
Aug 9, 2015 23:14
|
|
|
But more options is more versatile!
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2015 01:00
|
|
|
thespaceinvader posted:It's the basic problem of a single flat pool of options. It happened with ALL the e-Martial classes in 4e, it happens with most of the martial classes in 5e - whenever you pick options, if you always pick from the same list, you pick the best ones (for you) the first time, and every time after that you get sloppy seconds. There's no feeling of advancement when you keep using the same tricks you used last level because the ones you picked up this level are worse. I think it went a bit like this. "Okay, people didn't like feat chains in 3e. We should fix that for 5e." "What if we divided feats into tiers. More powerful feats get unlocked automatically as players enter different tiers of play." "Brilliant!" "Wait, isn't that what we...they did for 4e?" "poo poo!" "Okay, new idea. Let's just let them unlock EVERYTHING at the same time. They'll have all the options at once." "Mike, you're a loving genius."
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2015 01:06
|
|
|
That's putting way too much thought into it. "Hey here's some basic stuff a fighter can do" "Let's say this special fighter can do it AND do damage, but only using 'stamina'" "Cool. Done for the day?" "Yeah that's good enough." The answer to like 90% of 5e is "they got lazy"
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2015 01:15
|
|
|
ProfessorCirno posted:The answer to like 90% of 5e is "they got lazy" Not quite. I expect it was more like... "Keep it as simple and streamlined as possible. We can sell 'em the complicated stuff in supplements later."
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2015 02:49
|
|
|
Vanguard Warden posted:Battle master maneuvers have the same problem. You get the ones you really care about at level 3, then you start scraping the bottom of the barrel as you level up. Warlock invocations are better designed, with their pool of features to choose from steadily expanding as they level up. I was thinking this exact same thing. And when I read the Eldritch Blast descriptor and it says I can have up to four attacks per action, not just at sooner levels than a fighter, but at the same damage as a pole-arm at a range of 300 ft with an invocation (600 with Spell Sniper I guess?), I could only think "well gently caress fighters, I guess." I'm not sure this is the right thread, but my friends are doing a basic Forgotten Realms campaign now using a 5e module. What do I need to look to for info about the state of the setting at this point? I had the 3rd edition stuff and felt I had a fair handle on it, but I know stuff has changed now. I made a character who's supposed to know stuff, but I haven't kept up with anything since 3rd edition. marshmallow creep fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Aug 10, 2015 |
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2015 02:51
|
|
|
It's 3e, but the devs are also just inserting whatever the gently caress they want, so who even knows? Most of your 3e stuff is probably correct but the D&D team has more or less said they have no interest in actually making a campaign setting book for it, and it feels like each adventure is them just making something up and going "also it's totally in the Realms."
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2015 03:18
|
|
|
jng2058 posted:Not quite. I expect it was more like... Ah, yes, the now mythical "modules." Surely they will come and save this half-assed system. Someday...
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2015 03:22
|
|
|
Lotish posted:I was thinking this exact same thing. And when I read the Eldritch Blast descriptor and it says I can have up to four attacks per action, not just at sooner levels than a fighter, but at the same damage as a pole-arm at a range of 300 ft with an invocation (600 with Spell Sniper I guess?), I could only think "well gently caress fighters, I guess." Don't forget that each blast attack can knockback.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2015 04:39
|
|
|
Shadeoses posted:Don't forget that each blast attack can knockback. With no size restriction, unlike the puny fighter's knockback.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2015 18:50
|
|
|
Don't know if this was posted elsewhere, but Grim Portents made a Microlite5E a while back. I don't know how well it plays in practice, but it looks like it at least has some ideas to poach for a rewrite/homebrew.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2015 19:05
|
|
|
He's posted that here before and it's pretty good. I used it as a base for my own Oneshot Reference Guide
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2015 19:13
|
|
|
Pp
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2015 19:31
|
|
|
FRINGE posted:This seems like a good way to do things in general. The idea behind 4e style limitations on martial abilities isn't that you're just so exhausted so much as that the encounter / daily abilities are situational. The player declaring that attack impacts the narrative by giving the fighter the opening to use a more devastating attack. It's more of a cinematic idea, where rather than the climax being at the whim of the dice, the player gets to declare when the enemy drops their guard (or their character knocks the enemy off balance, etc.) and deliver a powerful blow.
|
|
#
?
Aug 10, 2015 19:49
|
|
|
Monte Cook, former lead designer on 5e, is doing an AMA on ENworld right now. Biggest regret of his career? Working on 5e. Will he ever create adventures/options for 5e? Hell no, repeated over and over as people keep asking the same question. Plus these golden nuggets.  
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 00:33
|
|
|
You know, I think Monte Cook might not be a very good game designer.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 00:45
|
|
|
When asked to explain why he regretted returning to work for WotC, his response:Monte Cook posted:Basically, I left WotC in 2001 for many reasons, but mainly because it had become very corporate and political. No big grudges or anything--it just wasn't for me. When WotC approached me to come back for 5e in 2011 (as a contractor), I was told everything was different. I was told that the environment was totally free of any of the corporate bs of the past and a great place for creativity. I was told we'd be revitalizing the whole game, and that this included amazingly cool things like bringing back Dragon magazine to print, reestablishing ties with the old guard (Zeb Cook, Tracy Hickman, Jeff Grubb, etc. maybe as consultants), beefing up the in-house staff (primarily with hiring back people with a lot of solid experience), and creating an aggressive initial release schedule with high-quality adventures and other products created by an in-house staff. In short, focusing specifically on the tabletop D&D experience, and not on licensing to video games, movies, and other things.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 00:59
|
|
|
Quadratic_Wizard posted:Monte Cook, former lead designer on 5e, is doing an AMA on ENworld right now. Unsurprising. It's long been suspected that things got really ugly between Cook and Meals in 5's development, and that Mearls did a lot to make Cook "voluntarily leave." The fact that he was harassed by Tarnowski with Mearls' quiet approval speaks volumes. That Mearls choose not to put Cook in 5e's credits likewise says plenty. His response also rather handily confirms what a few people in this thread have thought for awhile - D&D the ttg is on life support and more or less exists to ensure D&D the brand can keep going.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 01:00
|
|
|
I had assumed he left not because WOTC was looking for a fall guy for their gaffe (who believes that they're that savvy?) but because he had been working for himself for a decade and going back to a cube farm drove him insane. Even if it is the nerdiest cube farm in existance. I think that answer confirms my suspicions. ProfessorCirno posted:Unsurprising. It's long been suspected that things got really ugly between Cook and Meals in 5's development, But I guess I wouldn't be too surprised if there was a bit of bad blood there too. ProfessorCirno posted:His response also rather handily confirms what a few people in this thread have thought for awhile - D&D the ttg is on life support and more or less exists to ensure D&D the brand can keep going. I don't feel like this was in doubt. The Brand Manager revealed their hand pretty clearly when he wrote that article two years ago.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 01:12
|
|
|
Cooke has the Numenera/Strange train chugging along and Torment will be out soon to help him print money. He made a good choice for himself.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 02:10
|
|
|
Cook will pretty much never want for money. I think it was in this thread someone said it, but 3e's timing coinciding perfectly with the greater internet popularity turned lot o the 3.0 devs into whatever this hobby could have for superstars. At this point the existence or nonexistence of Cook's mechanical understanding is the least important thing. He's a brand.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 02:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 28, 2024 03:59 |
|
|
So uh.. what does (do you suppose) Cook mean when he calls the 5e development environment political? I feel like that word has massive rear end in a top hat quotes around it and I'm not clear on the context here.
|
|
#
?
Aug 11, 2015 04:53
|
|