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DalaranJ posted:There are multiple types of play which I am enjoy GMing, but I just can't reach any of them from where Next sits. That's very frustrating to me. "I'm looking and actively probing on, under, atop, inside, behind, beside, between, and around every object in the room. I'm also looking at and actively probing the floor, walls, ceiling, and any other surfaces in the room." Think the DM will let me make my perception roll now?
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Jul 4, 2014 15:13
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Jimbozig posted:"I'm looking and actively probing on, under, atop, inside, behind, beside, between, and around every object in the room. I'm also looking at and actively probing the floor, walls, ceiling, and any other surfaces in the room." It doesn't matter. You'll never find something that's not there.
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Jul 4, 2014 15:35
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Of course then at that point you spend too much time searching the room and a wandering monster shows up. Clearly you need to start getting through this dungeon faster!
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Jul 4, 2014 15:45
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ZypherIM posted:While I'm not a fan of wizard supremacy, one big balancing factor that I see almost everyone ignore is to actually put in the material costs and hold the players to them. Spells have always been balanced with factors that render casters utterly useless, encouraging players to ignore them. Who isn't going to let a player access his abilities because he didn't write how many bat eyelashes were in his pouch? Anal no fun DMs who hate the story, lack imagination, and nobody wants to play with. The social component really can't be ignored either. Ted put SO MUCH work into his spell list and now you're making him play a regular dude because a gnoll wanted into camp last night? You're a lovely DM. What do you have against Ted, anyway? Unless you want to deal with Ted's passive aggressively barbs over his laptop all night, he's going to get his stupid spells.
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Jul 4, 2014 15:50
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moths posted:The social component really can't be ignored either. Ted put SO MUCH work into his spell list and now you're making him play a regular dude because a gnoll wanted into camp last night? You're a lovely DM. What do you have against Ted, anyway? Don't blame Ted, blame the lovely way the game handles spellcasting.
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Jul 4, 2014 16:08
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I think it is kind of weird how when a fighter wants to do something neat but not in the rules that's "mother may I," but when a wizard just ignores explicit parts of the rules that's business as usual.
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Jul 4, 2014 16:17
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Oh definitely, the expectation that you should get to play is totally reasonable. My point is that Ted's stuff is all "balanced" against the chance he won't get it, and that's not realistic in the least. The balance is that one set of classes is just better because of built-in kill switches, but you can never use those regulatory mechanics to keep things fun for everybody - it's either ruin Ted's night or let him show everybody else up constantly.
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Jul 4, 2014 16:24
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So do people actually roll for wandering monsters? I've run plenty of dnd over the years and i've never rolled for wandering monsters in my life. Had monsters coming from neighboring areas when their attention was drawn sure, or even when the party first go down x they'll encounter y certainly. But well that's another turn gone, better roll for wandering monsters, never. I've DM'd more Dnd than i've played, but i can't recall ever having seen another DM do it either. It just seems a literal waste of time to me to throw in a pointless random fight. Is it just me or is this one of those things that persist in the meta, but almost nobody ever bothers with. Material components being another good example of this.
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Jul 4, 2014 17:41
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Deptfordx posted:So do people actually roll for wandering monsters? Yes. I roll for wandering monsters whenever I'm running a system and adventure designed to support it. To be clear, no version of D&D released by Wizards, apparently including Next, has done this.
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Jul 4, 2014 18:01
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DalaranJ posted:Yes. I roll for wandering monsters whenever I'm running a system and adventure designed to support it. To be clear, no version of D&D released by Wizards, apparently including Next, has done this. What systems and adventures are designed to support wandering monster rolls?
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Jul 4, 2014 18:08
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LFK posted:
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Jul 4, 2014 18:08
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Not that I think any edition of DnD has ever had particularly well-described mechanics for Wandering Monsters (well, 2e had a very well described system, it was dull) but I gotta defend the mechanics. I don't think it has a place in every game since it can add unplanned, long combat encounters to a game that's not about long combats, but it's very much at the heart of the Original DnD Experience(TM). The entire point is to put constant resource pressure on the PCs and discourage the resource-recharge minigame. A lot of people no longer use DnD for dungeon-delve-resource-management-extravaganza, and that's fine, but it's important to remember that it had a place and the vestiges of oldschool still in the game reflect that.
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Jul 4, 2014 18:13
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Gort posted:What systems and adventures are designed to support wandering monster rolls? That's probably outside of the scope of this discussion, but feel free to join us in the older D&D and retroclones thread if you are interested in this sort of play.
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Jul 4, 2014 18:23
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moths posted:Oh definitely, the expectation that you should get to play is totally reasonable. My point is that Ted's stuff is all "balanced" against the chance he won't get it, and that's not realistic in the least. My DM has a pretty good approach to this, usually making sure we have specific components of "big spells" like resurrection, or identify, but making sure that, on occasion when visiting a town, that the casters invest some money into a generic reagents supply which covers things like "small pinches of ash" or whatever. For the most part it doesn't come up, but occasionally has required a small side quest to obtain the component and the other people will get some magic items out of it too. Which come to think of it, with the exception of the bracers there hasn't been a lot of talk about magic items, they seemed really beefy for martial characters in 5e
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Jul 4, 2014 18:31
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goldjas posted:More balanced then 4E? I disagree entirely, and I consider 4E to be extremely unbalanced. The fact that spells like Otto's Irresistible Dance and Death Ward(and the SoDs requiring it)exist again alone puts implications on 5Es balance that are pretty much impossible to even figure out. Never said it was as balanced as 4e. Just more then 3e and 2e. Otto's Dance is a fairly high level spell that locks down one enemy until they make a save or until the Wizard stops concentrating on it. (At the level he can cast it almost any monster will be able to knock him out of it with a hit.) Death Ward is to keep you from dying there does not appear to be too many save or dies. Fighter will still be useful at high levels at Wizards still have very few high level spells along with the fact that Wizards have no real way to stop the fact they are really squishy. (Unless they use a concentration spell meaning they can't use another concentration spell while using it.) Wizards needs people like the Fighter to protect them in this Edition. The CR system seems to work fine. The Wizard is less of a threat to a level 1 party then a Bugbear is. People can also save against Hold person along with the fact that the Wizard can only use Hold Person on one target at a time. The Bugbear meanwhile hits hard and is a threat to every party member at level one due to it's large amount of damage.
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Jul 4, 2014 18:39
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It would be nice if the fighter had a way to actually protect the wizard, of course.
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Jul 4, 2014 18:41
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S.J. posted:It would be nice if the fighter had a way to actually protect the wizard, of course. I'm withholding judgment in this particular issue until I see all the fighter archetypes, they clearly list a defense/protection archetype in the fluff intro to Fighter but we haven't see anything about it yet
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Jul 4, 2014 18:45
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The fighter can always use Protection Style on the cleric who has cast Warding Bond on the Wizard. You can only use it to force disadvantage on an attack on someone other than yourself now, and you need a shield instead of just a melee weapon, so hope you didn't want to deal damage. I don't really get how the fighter's supposed to be resilient when all the nukes got such big damage buffs. Like at level 5 you have 45-55 hp, and one fireball does 28 damage. If evokers didn't get sculpt spell you'd be in trouble. I could see the rogue's uncanny dodge and evasion abilities making them actually outlast the fighter in fights with mages. Oh also all the wizard spell ranges got buffed, so they can now comfortably kill everyone from outside of charge range terrain permitting. Actually, with the Thief path now letting cunning action allow the Use Item action, the rogue might be better at defending the wizard than the fighter, since they can drop oil, ball bearings, hunting traps and caltrops all over the place to help them kite. Or be the wizard's healing potion water boy.
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Jul 4, 2014 19:34
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Gort posted:What systems and adventures are designed to support wandering monster rolls? It works really well with systems with short combat times, attrition, and a sandboxy dungeon-crawl focus. Wandering monsters are basically the answer to the whole 'spending a literal hour discussing how to open a door' problem with dungeon crawls--it makes it so that unfun and slow 'safe' behavior ends up being less safe than just playing in a more daring and fun way. I would never roll a wandering monster check in 4e and would only maybe think of it in 3e under level 6, but they're great for Basic and AD&D and so on. Basically, in most dungeon crawls there's lots of treasure that you're more or less expected to miss. Maybe it's behind a secret door, maybe it's hidden in a drawer of a dresser, whatever. Wandering monsters make it so that you don't feel compelled to check literally the entire dungeon for completion's sake and just pursue avenues that seem interesting or suspicious to you. Use them if your game is about exploration at the players' paces and features lots of optional content, and absolutely do not use them otherwise.
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Jul 4, 2014 19:35
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OtspIII posted:It works really well with systems with short combat times, attrition, and a sandboxy dungeon-crawl focus. Wandering monsters are basically the answer to the whole 'spending a literal hour discussing how to open a door' problem with dungeon crawls--it makes it so that unfun and slow 'safe' behavior ends up being less safe than just playing in a more daring and fun way. I would never roll a wandering monster check in 4e and would only maybe think of it in 3e under level 6, but they're great for Basic and AD&D and so on. This is perfect, yes. If you use Wandering Monsters tables (or Random Encounters) in your game of political intrigue or nation-running, then it's going to grind poo poo to a halt. If, however, your game is about delving into dungeons and fighting the occasional dragon, they're good. It's weird that DnD hasn't always been designed for that, given what's on the tin, but here we are.
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Jul 4, 2014 20:35
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Jack the Lad posted:A free third party 5e Adventure Path is already out, apparently: omg the doobies dogs of rpgs is on sale
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Jul 4, 2014 21:33
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oh wait frog god not frog dog poo poo
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Jul 4, 2014 21:33
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moths posted:Oh definitely, the expectation that you should get to play is totally reasonable. My point is that Ted's stuff is all "balanced" against the chance he won't get it, and that's not realistic in the least. If Ted's completely out of spells, then not letting him recharge anything is obviously not going to work as a balance. If he's used up his highest level spells but has a bunch of the lower level spells remaining, then not letting him prepare more of those spells one night isn't going to ruin things for him. The game was designed (at least the editions before 3e) around him not being at 100% of his potential all of the time, or for that matter most of the time. The idea is also that (at least historically) the limitation works in concert with other limitations so that it's not just one hard limit like the lack of sleep that's affecting the wizard's ability to recover spells. Even when they do get hit by the limitations, tools like wands should let them still contribute. The spellbook is a massive vulnerability but the wizard isn't required to drag it into danger every single time and honestly they shouldn't. The traveling spellbook (I think that was a 2e thing) was made to be dragged into danger while the main spellbook stays safely at home. However with only 50 pages, it's limited in its spell capacity. If spells take 1 page per level to inscribe in a spellbook, then most of the wizard's selection isn't available once used in the field. So if a wizard goes with all levels 1-9, they've got one spell per level. If they ignore any level above 5, then they can carry on average 3 spells per level. That lets them use the lower level spells routinely but they need to save the big guns for when they're really needed. Memorizing spells takes time based on the number of spells and the level of the spells being memorized. I think it was 1 turn (10 minutes) per level to memorize a spell in 1e and 2e. A high level wizard takes days to actually rememorize their entire selection going by old school rules. That's not something that they can really do out in the wilderness very easily and it's intentionally more or less impossible in a dungeon with random encounters. 3-4 hours of memorization at least nets the wizard an assortment of low-mid level spells. Finally material spell components even if abstracted away can still provide some limitations. Rather than tracking every single niggling detail, just assume that the wizard has enough components to cast all their memorized spells plus enough components to cast all the spells from their relatively limited traveling spellbook a couple of times. Beyond that, the wizard just has to use spells that don't require such components. Taken together, losing a (traveling) spellbook sucks but the wizard's still got his library back at base. In any case even with the spellbook he wouldn't be able to rememorize any of the more special purpose spells. The time cost when taken into account with resource expenditures over the time period makes sitting around all day both risky and expensive in terms of food, water, torches and the like. Even then keeping it up for long periods of time is still limited by the wizard's remaining spell components. They're not at 100% after sleeping for the night and they're not intended to be in a traditional resource limited dungeon crawl because it's a battle of attrition.
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Jul 4, 2014 21:55
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slydingdoor posted:The fighter can always use Protection Style on the cleric who has cast Warding Bond on the Wizard. You can only use it to force disadvantage on an attack on someone other than yourself now, and you need a shield instead of just a melee weapon, so hope you didn't want to deal damage. based on what we've seen the Champion archetype (in Basics) is very different than the Warmaster (i think? cant remember the name, the one with maneuvers) and the Magic/Stormlord/Fighterguy or whatever his name is. I'm assuming that if someone wants to make a legitimately tanky protection Fighter who can, for lack of a better term, pull aggro and taunt, mitigate damage and otherwise force enemies to attack him then that will be somewhat of an actual option. I'm basically assuming that the Champion is the worst Fighter you can be because so far all the other options look way more interesting. edit: also completely unrelated, i do like the custom clickable buttons in their form-fillable character sheet for skills/saving throws. I need to figure out how they did that. Also its clear nobody bothered to setup a logical tab order for the boxes. treeboy fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Jul 4, 2014 |
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Jul 4, 2014 22:11
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The maneuvers are pretty bad, though. Most importantly, they are the same from 1 to 20:
  
Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jul 4, 2014 |
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Jul 4, 2014 22:29
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Gort posted:What systems and adventures are designed to support wandering monster rolls? Mendrian posted:This is perfect, yes. If you use Wandering Monsters tables (or Random Encounters) in your game of political intrigue or nation-running, then it's going to grind poo poo to a halt. If, however, your game is about delving into dungeons and fighting the occasional dragon, they're good. In a politics game maybe the random roll is "a would-be politician who is a fishmonger approaches the PCs with an offer to ______" or whatever.
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Jul 4, 2014 22:45
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I don't disagree that they're [maneuvers] a bit lackluster, but they're at least interesting and unique and could very well change based on feats (if things like additional reactions, cleave, etc are available) The basic characters are kinda meh in general but there's a ton we're not seeing for alternate builds and options. I don't think the game is looking amazing by any means, but I'm not quite convinced it's horrible either. treeboy fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Jul 4, 2014 |
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Jul 4, 2014 22:45
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Jack the Lad posted:The maneuvers are pretty bad, though. Most importantly, they are the same from 1 to 20: Also I think it looks pretty cool myself. MonsterEnvy fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Jul 4, 2014 |
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Jul 4, 2014 22:57
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MonsterEnvy posted:Wait how did you get these? They're okay, but not good enough to be the only things you get for 20 levels. e: Like, if those were the options you picked from while going from levels 1 to 5, and you could do them at-will instead of twice per encounter, and the ones with a save didn't have a save (so that they didn't have to both hit and then have the enemy fail it), and the choices you got between levels 5 and 20 scaled up in terms of scope and power, they would be actively good. Jack the Lad fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jul 4, 2014 |
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Jul 4, 2014 23:02
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Jack the Lad posted:Closed February playtest. Well they might have changed in the months since then. But even if they did not It's still pretty good in my eyes..
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Jul 4, 2014 23:23
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These look like really fun abilities to do in a fight to me and useful. It's a shame some of them have that hit/check/save design as that's just too many ways for it to fail. Also if we're only able to do them 2 or 3 times per short rest, that's just way too low for something as interesting, involving and maybe even important as these. Using your dice to lock down enemies or protect others by forcing disadvantage could be a way to keep monster attention without using a shield. But I do like that you get all of 'em at level 1 instead of having to wait at some arbitrary level to push a man. Maybe more elaborate actions can come into play in higher levels.
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Jul 4, 2014 23:29
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Lothire posted:But I do like that you get all of 'em at level 1 instead of having to wait at some arbitrary level to push a man. Maybe more elaborate actions can come into play in higher levels. You get 3 of them at level 1, just to be clear. And you will basically never pick push a man.
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Jul 4, 2014 23:40
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MonsterEnvy posted:Well they might have changed in the months since then. But even if they did not It's still pretty good in my eyes.. After the way they nerfed the base fighter from the public playtest version, I'm not holding out hope for anything improving for the fighter. Compared to Eldritch Knight or multiclassing wizard (basically, compared to spells) these techniques are kinda lame...maybe if they were sure-fire and/or at-will, but only having 3-5 per fight that might do nothing is kinda bad. Jack the Lad posted:You get 3 of them at level 1, just to be clear. And you will basically never pick push a man. Fighters only get their archetypes at level 3 though? Says in the pages you posted they start at 3 anyway.
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Jul 5, 2014 01:21
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Generic Octopus posted:Fighters only get their archetypes at level 3 though? Says in the pages you posted they start at 3 anyway. Right, my bad. 3 at level 3, going up to 9 at level 17. But all from the same pool.
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Jul 5, 2014 01:29
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It's like the designers have this weird design blindness where Fighters have to either do more things, or get better at doing things, while full casters get to do both. Like it doesn't occur to them that some techniques are harder for a fighter to master in the same way that a level one Wizard is not going to be comprehending a 20th Level spell.Rexides posted:I wonder what they 10-year plan is. Are they even planning to release another version after this? Dropping the edition version from the name and saying that the whole point is to try and get all players on board makes it seem as if they want to create the edition to end all editions. In that case, what are they going to do, business wise, to keep making money out of it? Just licensing?  (By which I mean an edition that that actually builds on 4th Edition and refines the D&D game along a set of design goals, rather than the DDN method of deciding that design goals are for babies.) Chaltab fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Jul 5, 2014 |
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Jul 5, 2014 02:19
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edit: drat double post
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Jul 5, 2014 02:24
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Jack the Lad posted:A free third party 5e Adventure Path is already out, apparently: 
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Jul 5, 2014 03:06
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Fighter maneuvers are cool, just like a wizard that got advanced spell slots but could only ever prepare level one spells such that all they ever got was the ability to fling more magic missiles at once would be cool.
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Jul 5, 2014 03:31
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Jack the Lad posted:Update: It's pretty great. It's an update of a free adventure they (Necromancer->Frog God) put out for 3e. It was pretty good then too, as it had hooks for Rappan Athuk and Barakus (or was it Abysthor?) built in, iirc. Pretty much anything Bill or Clark did for 3e was fantastic. shoplifter fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Jul 5, 2014 |
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Jul 5, 2014 04:36
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Gort posted:What systems and adventures are designed to support wandering monster rolls? OtspIII posted:It works really well with systems with short combat times, attrition, and a sandboxy dungeon-crawl focus. Wandering monsters are basically the answer to the whole 'spending a literal hour discussing how to open a door' problem with dungeon crawls--it makes it so that unfun and slow 'safe' behavior ends up being less safe than just playing in a more daring and fun way. I would never roll a wandering monster check in 4e and would only maybe think of it in 3e under level 6, but they're great for Basic and AD&D and so on. To elaborate on the design of BECMI: The game is all about beating the DM's dungeon and taking its stuff. Gold coins give 1 EXP each, and all treasure has GP value; monsters give a little EXP, mostly as consolation prize if you had to run away before you could loot them. Timekeeping and logistics are incredibly important: torches have specified duration, rations and encumbrance are a big deal (weight is measured in units of coins!), spells only recover after an hour of rest per spell per spell level, HP recovers at 1d4 per day of bed rest, turns (i.e. actions outside of combat) are 10 minutes long, and wandering monsters are checked every hour. An adventuring party was basically an army in miniature, not surprising considering D&D's roots. Wandering monsters provide a buffer against the slowly-creep-forward-checking-each-square-for-traps-and-secret-doors-and-hidden-treasure type of play. But when the purpose of the game is no longer dungeon delving, wandering monsters are less than pointless. Fuschia tude fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Jul 5, 2014 |
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