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Quadratic_Wizard posted:That Witch Hunter is truly awful. I can't imagine that the designer is very familiar with 5e, because it seems more like they just slapped ribbon abilities from the movie onto a class and called it a day. Yeah but Vin Diesel was playing it. He lives his character a quarter-level at a time, so a lot of this stuff doesn't matter.
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Oct 14, 2015 18:50
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Ryuujin posted:I kind of like the Witch Hunter, though I kind of wish the limited True Sight was something the base class had, it would fit the theme. Just looking it over briefly it seems a little different than what I was looking for, but it could definitely still work if I don't find anything more in line. Thanks for the suggestion! We're starting at lvl2 so the rough lvl1 isn't a deal breaker for me.
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Oct 14, 2015 18:57
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I didn't see it mentioned but this month's survey is up, and it's about the new playtest ranger. They also have last month's results but unsurprisingly the answer is "Keep doing exactly what we're doing cause that's fine."
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Oct 14, 2015 19:23
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That Witch Hunter was just heavily updated apparently. https://twitter.com/matthewmercer/status/654351757972127744
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Oct 14, 2015 19:32
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That's the version I looked at, and it's all nerfs. Went from Wis/Dex save proficiency to Wis/Str. Went from d10 to d8. The "choose your damage type each day" to "choose one damage type and you're locked into it forever, sucks to be you". Basically, he just took all the advice from people who hate the idea of a class being good at anything when it's not a full-caster or a paladin.
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Oct 14, 2015 19:39
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Huh that is weird because it is not the version I looked at, and the version I looked at had Wis/Str and only went up to d8. Unless there were more than two versions? Though I am having trouble seeing what actually changed, a few things here and there but not nearly as much as people made it sound.
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Oct 14, 2015 19:47
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What's a 'ribbon ability'? Something that provides more flavor than actual mechanical benefit, but is treated as a mechanical benefit for purposes of wonky qualitative balance?
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Oct 14, 2015 20:16
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Jenny Angel posted:What's a 'ribbon ability'? Something that provides more flavor than actual mechanical benefit, but is treated as a mechanical benefit for purposes of wonky qualitative balance? yes
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Oct 14, 2015 20:43
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I'm trying to build a tank for a forgotten realms campaign I'll be playing in a few weeks. I've rolled a 17, 15, 12 and 10s for the rest. Our DM expects us to level up once per session until ~ lvl 4, and for the campaign to last until lvl 12 or so. Any suggestions on what to build? We're playing with variant race humans and feats.
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Oct 14, 2015 20:48
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With these stats i'd look at the following: Dwarf (+2 str/con) Barbarian (1h/Shield, Bear Totem) I'd run the stats: 12/15/17/10/10/10 After bumps it looks like 14/15/19/10/10/10 With Unarmored barbarians skill thats 15AC at level 1 and 17AC at level 4. Add a shield for +2ac respectively, with the giant rear end HP pool that barbarians have access too, add in rage/ dmg resistance and you're a giant raging meat truck. The STR might seem a bit low (+2 mod) but if your goal is to tank, its plenty. You could easily also do dwarf fighter, same stat blocks, cept make your first 3 stats 19/12/17 (after mods), fighters get a ton of ability points and at level 4 you'd have capped your strength mod, which for fighters is good as part of their tanking (battlemaster) is reliant on hitting the target (tripping, pushing, etc). If you did go human, you could also go variant: heavy armor master fighter: 18/12/16/10/10/10, take the chainmail to begin and every hit taken from 99% of mobs is going to be with a -3dmg modifier, this is excellent in the lower levels of the game where hits are frequent but weak, and isn't terrible going long. Orcs also have a great "oh poo poo" button in the orcish racial and at +2str/+1con are a great choice as well.
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Oct 14, 2015 21:12
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Struensee posted:I'm trying to build a tank for a forgotten realms campaign I'll be playing in a few weeks. I've rolled a 17, 15, 12 and 10s for the rest. Our DM expects us to level up once per session until ~ lvl 4, and for the campaign to last until lvl 12 or so. Any suggestions on what to build? We're playing with variant race humans and feats. > Variant human (+1 constitution / +1 charisma) > Paladin 1 > STR 12 / DEX 10 / CON 15+1 / INT 10 / WIS 10 / CHA 17+1 > A starting feat of inspiring leader (or healer, if you prefer). > Plan to pick up heavy armor mastery and/or the feat you didn't pick above at level 4, depending on how your party make-up looks and how your play style evolves. > Pick either protection or defense fighting style at level 2. > Equip a shield and a one-handed weapon. > Alternatively, take proficiency in athletics and grapple everything you can to prevent it from moving to hit your allies. > Multiclass out of paladin after level 8, ideally into bard, warlock, or fighter (this requires 13 strength, so need to pick it up from heavy armor mastery). You could also get by with half-elf (+2 charisma, +1 strength, +1 constitution), but the lack of a feat at first level is likely to make your experience much worse. The first two or three levels of the game are honestly terribly unplayable, particularly for melee characters, and having a buffer of 5 temporary hitpoints across the entire party will alleviate that significantly. You can refresh the hit points after every short rest so this will generally make you actually able to adventure a bit more reliably. You can get the same value out of the healer feat, instead of the inspiring leader feat, if you preferred to go that route. If you're more concerned about your own survivability, rather than the whole party (I guess if you expect them to play at range while you focus on tying things up in melee), you could also go fighter, which would probably look like this: > Variant human (+1 constitution / +1 strength) > Fighter 1 > Defense style (for +1 AC), using a shield (+2 AC) and a one-handed weapon (whatever you like). This should start you off with 19 or 20 AC. > STR 15+1 / DEX 10 / CON 17+1 / INT 10 / WIS 10 / CHA 10 > A starting feat of heavy armor mastery, for damage reduction of 3 vs. physical attacks. I've had good success surviving level 1 with both, but the paladin probably wins out as actually fun to play, since you end up with: > High charisma, and proficiencies in social skills, allowing you to participate in social encounters rather than waiting for the next thing to fight. > A good spread of spellcasting and class abilities that actually do well at the damage mitigation role. > Much, much better multiclassing options when you eventually leave the class. Paladin 8 / Warlock 2 and/or Paladin 8 / Bard 3 are exceptionally good at whatever they want to be good at.
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Oct 14, 2015 21:17
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In the end, the best argument against "DMs can just homebrew their game!" is to actually look at basically any homebrew.
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Oct 14, 2015 21:57
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Struensee posted:I'm trying to build a tank for a forgotten realms campaign I'll be playing in a few weeks. I've rolled a 17, 15, 12 and 10s for the rest. Our DM expects us to level up once per session until ~ lvl 4, and for the campaign to last until lvl 12 or so. Any suggestions on what to build? We're playing with variant race humans and feats. Moon Druid or War Cleric. Bard if you don't mind being less tough in exchange for being able to do everything.
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Oct 14, 2015 23:01
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Really Pants posted:Moon Druid or War Cleric. Bard if you don't mind being less tough in exchange for being able to do everything. By less tough he means literally one less point of AC if you go Valor Bard. And Valor Bards are p. Sweet. Sure, you don't get to poach spells at level 6, but you do get an extra attack. This is on top of medium armor and shield proficiency. Your major save is Dex, so you might as well give Strength the bird and use a finesse weapon, particularly the rapier. And if you ever feel like hanging back but not tossing spells, there's always the longbow. But to be fair you will be spending like 60-70% of your time slinging spells. Good news is you have access to some of the best. By level 8 you should be polymorphing into a T. Rex.
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Oct 14, 2015 23:34
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Yeah I didn't really post that Witch Hunter as an example of "good homebrew" so much as "Vin Diesel plays D&D and this is what he was working with"
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Oct 15, 2015 04:25
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It's annoying that he's the most famous d&d player yet his favorite character is named Melkor I mean come the gently caress on On the other hand basing a bunch of movies about cars on a d&d party is pretty amazing
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Oct 15, 2015 14:20
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I understand that D&D Next is aiming for simplification, but does it do so to the point where there are less character customization options? Is there a good description/comparison of D&D Next and 3.5 available?
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Oct 15, 2015 19:39
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Thanks everyone who made air boat chase suggestions. This should shape up to be a much more interesting encounter.
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Oct 15, 2015 19:54
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Massasoit posted:I understand that D&D Next is aiming for simplification, but does it do so to the point where there are less character customization options? You pick your class, your race, your stats if you're not rolling, and your background. You can take Feats instead of ability score increases if your table uses them. Within each class you get a choice of archetype at level 2 or 3 depending on the class, though some classes have fewer archetypes to choose from (cleric and wizard have a bunch, barbarian has only 2, for example). If you're a spellcaster, you choose your spells.
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Oct 15, 2015 19:55
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Yeah but Vin Diesel was playing it. He lives his character a quarter-level at a time, so a lot of this stuff doesn't matter. IIRC, Critical Role is really more a performance/rp oriented take on 5e, so I don't think they care too much about balance.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:53
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Massasoit posted:I understand that D&D Next is aiming for simplification, but does it do so to the point where there are less character customization options? Next has a Proficiency bonus that replaces most of the small fiddly modifiers, the Advantage/Disadvantage system also helps alleviate small fiddly modifiers and replaces Circumstance bonus and such, Base Attack Bonus was replaced by Proficiency and Iterative Attacks from BAB was turned into a class feature, Feats and Ability Score Increase share the same resource, Skills are fewer, and Prestige Classes have been integrated into the base classes. Next also give character backgrounds which are packages that give proficiency to certain skills and tools, some money, and some starting equipment. It's not too different from the d20 games beyond some of the math and absence of prestige classes. At character creation, Next players have the same amount of options as 3.5 players. I haven't played Next much. My group kind of liked 3.5/Pathfinder more.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:56
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GrizzlyCow posted:Prestige Classes have been integrated into the base classes...absence of prestige classes. Well, not quite...actual prestige classes are in the works for 5e.
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Oct 15, 2015 20:59
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I thought that was just going to be regulated to UA. Why are they reintroducing that bullshit? Their archetypes/traditions/schools/et cetera already cover that ground. There's literally no reason to have prestige classes in this game. Even Pathfinder RPG let the whole prestige class thing atrophy into nothing, focusing on their own version of archetypes.
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Oct 15, 2015 21:30
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GrizzlyCow posted:I thought that was just going to be regulated to UA. Why are they reintroducing that bullshit? Their archetypes/traditions/schools/et cetera already cover that ground. There's literally no reason to have prestige classes in this game. Even Pathfinder RPG let the whole prestige class thing atrophy into nothing, focusing on their own version of archetypes. Because D&D Next is basically the RPG version of a cover band, and they're gonna let their aging audience wallow in the hits.
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Oct 15, 2015 21:54
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Quadratic_Wizard posted:That Witch Hunter is truly awful. I can't imagine that the designer is very familiar with 5e, because it seems more like they just slapped ribbon abilities from the movie onto a class and called it a day. It was pretty much explicitly designed for Vin Diesel to be able to do things he can do in the movie. Radio Talmudist posted:IIRC, Critical Role is really more a performance/rp oriented take on 5e, so I don't think they care too much about balance. pseudodragon fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Oct 15, 2015 |
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Oct 15, 2015 23:04
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Massasoit posted:Is there a good description/comparison of D&D Next and 3.5 available? 5e is similar to a heavily house-ruled 3.5: The first big change is that a lot of numbers depend on your "Proficiency Bonus", which is essentially the same as "do you add your level to the d20 roll?", except the Proficiency Bonus does not increase by 1 with every level, so the designers can justify a smaller set of target values. The second big change is that many (but not all) roll modifiers have instead been converted into Advantage/Disadvantage. Whereas trying to Stealth across a guarded room might have warranted a -2 or -4 penalty to your skill roll in previous editions, in 5e you simply have Disadvantage, which is rolling your d20 twice and taking the lower result. Whereas attacking a prone target might have warranted a +2 bonus to your attack roll in previous editions, in 5e you simply have Advantage, which is rolling your d20 twice and taking the higher result. If you have multiple sources of Advantage, you still only roll a d20 twice and take the higher result, and vice-versa even if you have multiple sources of Disadvantage. If you have a source of both, they cancel out and you roll a single, "normal" d20. This simplifies play by cutting down on the number of small incremental bonuses you need to remember to add to your roll in favor of just a single rule you need to remember, while also giving the DM a similarly easy to remember rule for adjudicating off-the-cuff actions not specified in the rules: a character that creates an exceptionally advantageous situation for themselves, such as say standing on top of a bar during a bar-brawl, might have Advantage. Everyone has the same BAB progression, which means casters no longer need to rely on "touch attacks" since their d20 + proficiency bonus + INT bonus is always high enough to consistently hit a target's full AC value. Similarly, Rogues and similar partial-BAB classes don't need to rely on denying a target's AC bonus from DEX, nor incremental increases to their attack bonus. Skills are similarly simplified: if you know a skill, you add your Proficiency Bonus to it, otherwise you don't. This is effectively the same as in 3.5 where some skills you dumped all your skill ranks into, and others where you didn't, except there are fewer skills to work with, and as I said Proficiency does not go up by 1 per level, so your DCs are only ever 10 for Easy, 15 for Moderate, 20 for Hard. Vancian casting is simplified. You can "know" a spell, and you can "prepare" a spell. If you know a spell, you can make it one of your prepared spells. If you have a spell prepared, you can spend a spell slot on it. Wizard spell slots are no longer tied to specific spells, similar to Sorcerer spontaneous casting. Divine casters always know all possible spells of their level, they just have to pick a smaller subset that they can prepare. Wizards can eventually know all spells as they add them to their spellbook, but they don't know all spells starting out. Bards and Sorcerers will only have know a small subset of spells, but every spell they know, they always have prepared. No more iterative attacks. Any extra attacks martial classes earn are always at "full BAB", although you get fewer of them. Concentration is a new mechanic to rein in spellcaster power. Some spells require Concentration to maintain, a spellcaster can only concentrate on one spell at a time, and a spellcaster that takes damage can have their concentration broken (and accordingly lose the spell's effect). This puts a hard limit on how many effects a spellcaster can have running at any one time. Saving throws have been revamped. Instead of Fort, Reflex and Will, each of the 6 attributes is now its own saving throw. You still add your INT modifier to an INT saving throw, and your DEX modifier to a DEX saving throw, but where in 3.5 your Fighter would have a "Good saving throw progression" for Fort and a "Bad saving throw progression" for Reflex and Will, now you just have "The Fighter adds his Proficiency Bonus to STR and CON saving throws" (and does not add them for the 4 other saving throws) You only ever get one Reaction, and there is no Delay action. This speeds up combat by reducing the number of potential "interruptions" to combat. EDIT: Feats are no longer a default rule of the game. At certain levels, you earn an Ability Score Increase, which lets you increase an attribute score by 2 (or two attribute scores by 1). If your table enables feats as an optional rule, you can forego increasing your ability scores in exchange for gaining a feat. There is an element of 3.5-esque class balancing wherein Fighters get more ASIs than casters, such that if you were playing with feats, Fighters are effectively playing with "bonus feats" The "less mechanical, more naturalistic" language of 3.5 is also used here in 5e, for better or worse. Compare the Fireball of 3.5: quote:Fireball With the Fireball of 5e: quote:Fireball That said, and to editorialize a bit, there are far fewer instances where 5e strictly defines what any given series of rules interactions will produce, unlike 3.5e (and especially so compared to 4e). If you consider it a good thing that a ruleset is "light enough to be roleplayed easily", I suggest you take it to heart and do not constantly look at the rulebook: have the DM make a ruling that the whole table likes, and stick by it. Your play experience will be much smoother. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Oct 16, 2015 |
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Oct 16, 2015 07:03
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Some person on the internet has converted the 5th Ed Monster Manual art into roll20 tokens. Thought this would be worth a share since more monster tokens is always good, and 5th Ed's art is good.
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Oct 16, 2015 14:11
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Vanguard Warden posted:Someone in my group was playing a wisdom-based spellcaster and took observant. His passive perception is higher than 20. He just sees EVERYTHING, no rolls needed. In fact, if he has advantage on perception (which a handful of uncommon items grant all the time), he CAN'T get higher than his passive perception by actively rolling, because advantage gives you +5 to passive checks. Passive perception, I feel, is just there to see if something is up. Ie.- something doesnt seem right about this door knob, then they roll a perception check afterwards to determine if they follow through with the hunch or if they just neglect it as nothing of importance. If you turned over EVERY book that COULD be a switch a secret entrance then you will be there all day. Yeah sure, he might see one out of place but, upon further inspection doesnt see it is actually that out of the ordinary. Thats how I run passive perception fwiw otherwise why roll perception because with it being at 10+wis there is a 50/50 chance you will roll worse.
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Oct 16, 2015 18:16
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I'm going to be playing D&D with my room mates who have never played before. I have never dm'd before. I was going to do 3.5, because it's what I know and I have books for it. Would 5 be fairly easy to learn on the fly coming from 3.5? It seems to me like 3.5 tries to be a more accurate stimulation and 5 is going for a more abstract stimulation, which might be good for folks getting into a PnP RPG. Plus it seems like DMing would be easier.
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Oct 16, 2015 18:27
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Look at Pathfinder, Blue Rose, or Fantasy Craft first, if you really want a 3.5-alike. If your friends are completely new to elfgames and aren't set on playing the Dungeons and Dragons brand, skip it completely and look at something rules-light like FATE, Dungeon World, or Strike! Hwurmp fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Oct 16, 2015 |
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Oct 16, 2015 18:30
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Massasoit posted:I'm going to be playing D&D with my room mates who have never played before. I have never dm'd before. 3.5 is interchangeable with Pathfinder in terms of basic mechanics and 5 is a game that emulates 3.5 but isn't quite as rules-heavy (partially because it has less content). Smash it Smash hit posted:Passive perception, I feel, is just there to see if something is up. Ie.- something doesnt seem right about this door knob, then they roll a perception check afterwards to determine if they follow through with the hunch or if they just neglect it as nothing of importance. If you turned over EVERY book that COULD be a switch a secret entrance then you will be there all day. Yeah sure, he might see one out of place but, upon further inspection doesnt see it is actually that out of the ordinary. Passive Perception is there so you can roll against a player's Perception without telling him, as opposed to telling him to roll Perception and thus giving away that something is up. You don't really get to specify when it counts unless the character for some reason would be paying no attention whatsoever to his surroundings. If the game can't handle a character with gonzo Perception, that's the game's problem, and by extension still your problem.
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Oct 16, 2015 18:35
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Really Pants posted:If your friends are completely new to elfgames and aren't set on playing the Dungeons and Dragons brand, skip it completely and look at something rules-light like FATE, Dungeon World, or Strike! Massasoit: Do not attempt to get people new to elfgames to play FATE or DungeonWorld. In my experience, new players (and even players who have limited experience) are badly intimidated by games without fairly concrete rulesets. 5e is easy enough to learn and teach, but combat is boring and slow. Strike! is good though, as is 13th Age if you want something more DnD-y without needing to bother with a grid or too much modifier math. e: Oh, and you've never DMed before or have much experience outside of 3.5? Yeah don't run FATE or DungeonWorld. It's an entirely different approach and mindset, and it's very easy to do badly if you aren't ready for it. fool of sound fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Oct 16, 2015 |
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Oct 16, 2015 19:07
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To pile on to this topic, I cut my teeth on D&D-esque games with Microlite20, which is 3.5 cut down to its core. http://donjon.bin.sh/m20/Microlite20.pdf
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Oct 16, 2015 19:31
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I've played a ton of 3.5 and a bit of Mage. I've never dm'd, and the choice is between 3.5 - which I am familiar with and have resource books - or trying out 5. I think if I introduce concepts slowly and add in more complex stuff 3.5 will go okay.
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Oct 16, 2015 21:09
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I found a big box set of the old 4e Gamma World poo poo and I busted out the cards and origin tables for a game where the overarching campaign has the players picking up scraps of defeated god organs scattered around the world, as a result of a kind of deity civil war. The shredded god parts raw celestial power is spilling out into the world (which can't handle it) and affecting the mortal world, while the players rush to clean up the damage and influence the war to come to a close. It's basically an excuse to go "Pelor's pancreas contaminates your essence, roll on the chart and draw a card." It absolutely rules and the constant shifting of thematic character make up (You're a swarm of weird little hawkmen with a singular mind! You're a gravity controlling Yeti!) or crazy tech (You drew a cracked ray gun... let's uh... just say it's a huge celestially radiated wand bursting with newly absorbed power) or awesome mutations has been making the games dynamic as hell. I'd highly recommended it.
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Oct 16, 2015 21:28
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Massasoit posted:I'm going to be playing D&D with my room mates who have never played before. I have never dm'd before. 5th would be fairly easy to learn coming from 3.5. They're not all that dissimilar. In my opinion, and this is admitedly damning with faint praise, a new DM or player should find that 5th ed it easier to learn than 3.5. Since you're set on D&D, and you've decided that your options are 3.5 or 5, it'd be a good idea to check the free 5th ed rules out and see how they compare to what you already know. You can get a free "basic" PDF of the 5th ed rules here and check it out for yourself: https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules Although it says "basic rules", most of the game rules are actually there - it's mostly made "basic" by removing some of the options for classes etc. fool_of_sound posted:Massasoit: My experience running and playing DW has been the exact opposite. The people who have the most trouble are the people who have played RPGs before, and when asked "what do you do next?" think that they need to look on their sheet to see what their options are.
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Oct 17, 2015 00:07
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gradenko_2000 posted:To pile on to this topic, I cut my teeth on D&D-esque games with Microlite20, which is 3.5 cut down to its core. Thanks for pointing this out, by the way. It's pretty cool.
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Oct 17, 2015 02:37
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fool_of_sound posted:Thanks for pointing this out, by the way. It's pretty cool. It is, I feel, a good example of "a game that's rules-light and isn't as fiddly as 3.5e is good as a goal, but it's been done better and cheaper than by 5th Ed specifically", and especially when people have added on to this basic framework to create spin-offs that are more complex/detailed or even less complex/detailed.
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Oct 17, 2015 03:49
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Vanguard Warden posted:Death Cleric is fantastic at what it does (blasting things with necrotic damage at close range), and even better under certain conditions. Pick up two levels of necromancer wizard and you become nigh impossible to kill, as killing things with necromancy spells (a primary focus of the death cleric) starts filling your HP back up. Make your death cleric evil and spirit guardians deals necrotic damage instead of radiant. That sounds brutal. I was aiming for a Lawful Evil law enforcement official (who captures, interrogates, judges and executes all in the same day) but taking Necromancer levels sounds amazing. Skellybones fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Oct 17, 2015 |
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Oct 17, 2015 04:14
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Two levels of wizard is amazing for most clerics anyway. You don't need more than 13 intelligence to benefit from access to a lot of the cantrips (mage hand, message) and first level spells (shield, find familiar, a pile of handy rituals) wizards get.
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Oct 17, 2015 05:17
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