D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

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Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

I just now found out the basic rules are free so only have one question.

Is this game an improvement on 3.5/Pathfinder?

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 20:10

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 09:36

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Right... saw this on Facebook, but I don't know anyone there that looks at this stuff critically. What's this 'advantage system' then?

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 20:17

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

seebs posted:

If you have only advantage or disadvantage on a roll, roll twice, take highest or lowest respectively.

Oh that sounds sorta neat.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 20:28

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Is every 5E DM expected to be a game dev math wizard with there being so many optional rules?

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 07:43

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

PeterWeller posted:

Ao is rewriting the Tablets of Fate and FR looks like it will turn into a "best of" version of itself. Details are still sparse at this point, as the Sundering novels only really covered the beginning of the event, it's still happening, and they are not (yet) working on a 5E campaign guide. What we know is most of the dead gods are/will be back, including Bhaal, and some bits of 4E FR will survive because of novel concerns.

Hmm, clearly the 'best' version of Forgotten Realms would resurrect a god of murder :downs:

Good thinking, Ao

# ¿ Sep 1, 2014 19:14

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Vorpal Cat posted:

One of the nice changes in 4th edition that isn't talked about is how the AC bonus for light armor was changed from dex, to highest of dex or int which meant that almost everyone could get a least passable AC an classes like wizards didn't have the excuse of weak armor to justify having game breaking powers and instead forced the designer to give the wizard an actual role to fulfill. Which led to the creation of the controller archetype and with it new classes who could fill that role as well as a wizard like the Invoker.

From what I remember of the Controller its powers were more suited to a computer game than tabletop.

4E combat was slow enough as-is.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2014 03:36

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Vorpal Cat posted:

Please don't remind me that we live in a universe were the world never got to see a video game version of the of 4th edition. Life's hard enough without focusing on the tragedy of what could have been but won't.

I know man. All we got was that lovely Neverwinter mmo that only borrowed the names. At least give us a 4E TBS...

:negative:

# ¿ Sep 2, 2014 03:52

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Kai Tave posted:

Diablo was AD&D2E and WoW was 3E though. (No, seriously.)

Blizzard, you know what to do.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2014 04:24

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

AlphaDog posted:

If you are an orc who chooses to be good, you will struggle with your inherently evil nature for your whole life,

Ha ha, goddrat.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2014 06:46

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

seebs posted:

Clerics and wizards are relatively similar, but look at the huge gap between the play style of fighters and wizards in every edition other than 4e, and then look at how relatively-similar they are in 4e.

This just sounds really ignorant.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2014 19:13

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

seebs posted:

I am not at all seeing this as "unrelated play mechanics". That they are all using the marking mechanic to begin with makes me think of them as structurally similar to each other, and everyone's got that same basic mechanic for how they use their powers, what resource management they have...

So far as I can tell, and I admit I could be missing something, there's no gap between any two classes in 4e remotely comparable to the 1e/2e/3e gap between "casters can nova but are basically useless when they have used up their spells" and "martials have no novas but can go forever". In 4e, everyone has (by a couple levels in, at least) a mix of abilities such that they can be low on their Good Stuff, after a few encounters, but will still have decent options up for any new encounter, because they can use up dailies and still have encounter powers left. In 3e, a fighter has exactly the same options after 20 encounters and down to 1hp that they did when they started out.

So that strikes me as a much larger difference.

Okay, time for the car analogy. Well, the car analogy analogy.

The claim I'm making is that in 3e, class difference is roughly comparable to the diffferences between cars and horses, and in 4e, it's more like the differences between breeds of horses. And you're pointing out how ridiculously large the variance between breeds of horses is, and I totally agree that it is a huge variance. But it's not, to my mind, even close to being as large as the difference between cars and horses.

Two players with the same noncaster class. In 3E they are identical. 4E they can play out very differently.

Your comparison is meaningless

# ¿ Sep 2, 2014 21:09

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Dude is basically saying "these classes all use a d20, they are more samey than another game where classes use different colored attack dice"

# ¿ Sep 2, 2014 22:57

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

MonsterEnvy posted:

Everyone you do know that a Level 1 Fighter is considered pretty impresive to a normal person with a lot of training and stuff.

In theory but in practice level one characters in general die to a sneeze.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2014 03:38

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Harrow posted:

Ever play SaGa Frontier 2? It takes place in a world where drat near every functioning adult uses magic, and anyone who can't is basically considered disabled. It goes so far that, because metal dulls magical abilities, nobody uses metal for anything, not even weapons. Weapons are only as good as their ability to conduct magic. And people use magic for everything in their lives, from cooking to farming to building to... well, everything.

This isn't a game but are you familiar with the comic 'Broken Blade' http://www.mangareader.net/1049/break-blade.html

quote:

The Continent of Cruzon, a world where people are born with magic. Lygatto, one of the rare people without magic in this world, is getting swallowed up in the whirlpool of a massive war. With Lygatto as the core, four close friends are connected by cruel fate in a spectacular war tale!!!

In the continent of Cruzon, an impending war between the Kingdom of Krishna and the nation of Athens is brimming. The people of this land are able to wield the crystals from the ground for whatever purpose they desire. Yet one person, Lygatto Arrow, is not. He is an un-sorcerer, a person unable to wield the crystals. But this characteristic will enable him to pilot an ancient mecha, one strong enough to put up a fight against the invading army of Athens.

It reminds me of [earlygame] Xenogears.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2014 03:44

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

LowellDND posted:

Sounds a lot like the Darksword trilogy, by Hickman and Weis

Ah yea I remember that one too. It was really weird, they had some kind of chessboard war going on.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2014 03:59

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Vorpal Cat posted:

The question isn't how many magic users the game says there are, the question is how many magic users would there be if society in D&D developed around the existence of magic in the first place instead of just being a copy of medieval Europe with elfs and orcs. Because at moment there's a major disconnect between how the games setting wants magic to be, and how rare magic is in the rest of game rules.

How many NPC classes have access to magic

# ¿ Sep 3, 2014 07:23

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Wait what setting are we talking about?

3e Forgotten Realms describes magic as incredibly commonplace and used for convenience; 4e Realms and any Eberron takes that even further

# ¿ Sep 3, 2014 07:32

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

AlphaDog posted:

How is it more convenient?

Hides the numbers in a dark place where they won't frighten him.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2014 02:10

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Get to flip through the pages every time I need a crucial bit of information. Mm. That new book smell. Smells like.. convenience.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2014 02:26

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

You wouldn't have to 'flip through the book to look up monster stats' because they are right there.

quote:

On the 90s statblocks. That looks lame, boring and hard to read.

Numbers, away with ye! trouble me no more.

Jackard fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Sep 5, 2014

# ¿ Sep 5, 2014 02:47

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

ascendance posted:

I don't think they are forced to do what the fanbase wants. They WANT to create what the fanbase wants, since the whole goal of 5e was to cut down on the splintering of the fanbase.

Good job with that eh? 5E focus on optional content means even its foundation is splintered

# ¿ Sep 8, 2014 01:23

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

When not consulting your DM, cast Wish to change how the rules work.

# ¿ Sep 10, 2014 04:43

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Kai Tave posted:

Even in 4E though the big list of weapons was mostly wasted space. Show of hands, who ever used a katar? Or a broadsword? Some weapons you could get some utility out of if you went with a weird edge case build...like combining the Avenger feat that turned any weapon damage die result that came up a 1 or a 2 into a 3 with the 2d4 damage falchion, even though you'd almost always want something like an executioner axe or a fullblade anyway...but for the most part it would have been a lot more useful and space-efficient to simply cut the weapon list down to the weapon everybody actually picked and used and chuck the rest.

I gave all of my warlords the khopesh, fantastic weapon

# ¿ Sep 11, 2014 14:00

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

NachtSieger posted:

Greatspears 4ever.

Was that option available from the start? I don't remember it at all.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2014 17:43

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Kaza42 posted:

That would actually make a great slightly-meta Big Bad for a campaign. An ancient Intellect Devourer who has consumed dozens of powerful adventurers, obtaining their knowledge and skills over the centuries. It's why the villain performs highly visible evil acts: to draw out new adventurers to devour. The Devourer would then goad them into gaining in strength at the rapid pace that heroes tend to do, until they're worth eating.
So the villain still performs simplistic evil actions, threatens the heroes enough to motivate them but doesn't just massacre them all while it still has a 15 level advantage, and provides steadily increasing challenges. The only difference is this time it actually makes sense! The Intellect Devourer just accidentally explained one of the oldest gaming cliches!

Oh my god, bookmarked.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2014 21:55

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Infinite Karma posted:

How does Kyle, the hypothetical tanky character accomplish these things narratively? Brute strength? Weapon mastery? Intimidation? Tactical genius? Self-sacrifice (aka jumping in front of attacks)? Most of those concepts are already another class's niche.

Hmm yes! When you set aside all of these qualities typically attributed to 'fighters' they do indeed seem flavorless!

:shepface:

# ¿ Sep 13, 2014 01:16

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

ProfessorCirno posted:

The problem is that there's only immunities to BPS, never bonuses. Fighters are never rewarded. They're only "not punished."

BPS is just not that interesting. Ok so undead may traditionally have crush/fire vulnerability. But what would even get slash vulnerability? What seems "extra cuttable" aside from something like kraken tentacles?

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 08:19

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

crime fighting hog posted:

Serious post: how many of you ever encountered a rust monster while playing? I've been doing this poo poo since 2004 and never ever EVER dealt with a goddamn rust monster, as a player or as a DM in search of poo poo to throw at my players.

I seem to remember it showing up in NWN1 somewhere.

Also rust monsters were fairly common in the original Rogue, where they went by the name "Aquator"

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 04:25

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

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.

I know some folks that dislike 4e but don't seem to recognize the same mechanics in 13th Age

# ¿ Sep 22, 2014 06:47

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

homullus posted:

"You should play the new edition of D&D because it's kind of like Dragon Age except this time you can have sex with everything."

5E campaign set in Xanth.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2014 18:20

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

ProfessorCirno posted:

This thread really is a helpful reminder as to how 4e fans were different from the 5e trash. 4e fans are more then ready to talk about 4e's flaws. There's far too much chaff in feats and powers. Numbers and skill gaps get too high at higher levels. Some classes lack needed support, others have too much. The focus on status effects in later levels leads to unintuitive defensive needs. High paragon and epic gets bogged down by choice paralysis. Certain group combos destroy the game balance. Attribute scores, despite being one of the first things you choose on your character, have extreme long term effects that can screw over players. The overall design leads to heavy usage of "builds." These are all flaws that 4e fans talk about at length.

Also, "combat takes too loving long" and "god i wish this was a video game"

e: ugh feat taxes. i forgot about those.

Jackard fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Sep 24, 2014

# ¿ Sep 24, 2014 01:10

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

greatn posted:

I guess everyone wasn't using encounter and daily powers to do 5d4 sonic damage to a 15 foot square and mark two enemies at a -2 penalty or whatever so it must have actually been boring.

Put more

into your roleplay maybe?

# ¿ Sep 24, 2014 02:06

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

greatn posted:

4e doesn't have classes. There's one class.

"what are roles? we just don't know"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh0Y2hVe_bw

# ¿ Sep 24, 2014 02:43

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

ProfessorCirno posted:

Oh no I have disadvantage time to roll literally twice the number of rolls.

Uh oh, is that a big group of rats coming...?! Whew, good thing in 5e there aren't tons and tons and tons of fiddly dice rolling!

It's okay -- your group of four adventurers will be fighting two orcs at most

# ¿ Sep 24, 2014 02:46

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

The Bee posted:

I don't know if 4E would be better as a video game, but autotracking software would massively improve it. If you could drag Power onto Monster and have all the fiddly effects and damage calcs automatically update you'd eliminate almost every problem with combat length.

MapTools had a framework that attempted this but ultimately fell short. Better than nothing, though.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2014 02:53

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

AlphaDog posted:

loving DBZ anime bullshit in my D&D

You know you're talking to a kid when anime is their only basis for comparison.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2014 04:30

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

neonchameleon posted:

Seriously, forting up in the dungeon is a Darwin Award. Especially in older versions of D&D - no one wanted to face 48 wandering monster rolls in order to grab 8 hours worth of sleep. The "day" was the entire dungeon delve - and when you ran out of spells you left for somewhere safe. Searching every 10ft of the dungeon in detail didn't happen because dungeon crawling was deliberately a race against time and resources with wandering monster checks and the fact the monsters knew the dungeons better than you did and your only real advantage was that you were on the offensive. 3.0 of course accidentally removed the balancing factors here with the Rope Trick spell.

Reason #45 to never sleep in a dungeon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XnjK_M7-HA

# ¿ Sep 25, 2014 01:08

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

Tactical Bonnet posted:

Also, I'm a fan of the game being harder without a healer. In what story does a character who gets stabbed twice just get to carry on with his day if he doesn't get magical healing? If you don't have a healer then you'd better make sure you use good tactics and act as a group to minimize damage and spread it evenly among members of the group so everyone can survive the day.

who says "losing hit points" equals "stabwounds of such severity that they require magical healing to proceed"

Maybe stop painting yourself into a corner with your tongue..?!?

Jackard fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Sep 26, 2014

# ¿ Sep 26, 2014 22:01

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

djw175 posted:

I enjoy the assumption that wounds heal at the same speed in our world as they do in a world where where people throw giant balls of fire around.

Or that heroic figures recover from injuries at the same rate that commoners might, instead of something more appropriate for a folktale or an action movie!!

Jackard fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Sep 27, 2014

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 01:26

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 09:36

Jackard: Oct 28, 2007; We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It

spoon daddy posted:

Where is this crit table from? A friend had this in college and I havent seen it since then.

Dunno about that one but I remember MERP (Middle Earth Roleplaying) having similar crit tables

E: which according to wikipedia is a streamlined version of Rolemaster, welp

Jackard fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Sep 27, 2014

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 02:58

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