D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

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homullus: Mar 27, 2009

ascendance posted:

Who else feels Pillars of Eternity is the 4e video game we never got?

The lack of a grid makes it not-quite 4e, but so far so good. The classes feel balanced so far, which is nice.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2015 14:57

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# ¿ May 14, 2024 21:25

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Gort posted:

There was never anything wrong with X-COM.

I would have wanted more forced-movement powers to make X-COM more 4e-y.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2015 15:08

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

PurpleXVI posted:

It's not very good, honestly.

See, it tries to copy the Infinity Engine atmosphere, but they never bothered to clear out any of the warts that the Infinity Engine games had(aside from the crashes). The move to their own system rather than D&D also, somehow, made the mechanics LESS comprehensible. Good luck figuring out what half the status effects you can inflict do until you see them visited against yourself. The fights are also really unsatisfying, the balance is wonky as poo poo...

It feels like it direly needs a good three or four months of testing(or devs who actually listen to the testers, maybe)... or maybe just realizing that the Infinity Engine games actually had really terrible combat and just to take some cues from Divinity: Original Sin instead.

Writing's reasonably solid, but if you've been keeping up with Black Isle and Obsidian's games in general, you're going to start feeling like you've read half this story before.

The main balance issue I've found is that some classes will struggle until you have a full complement of characters in the party, while you could possibly solo the game as a rogue.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2015 16:46

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Rosalind posted:

Part of me wonders if off-turn actions are even necessary. There has to be other ways for fighters and others to be sticky or to punish people who move away from them.

A genuine mark (-2 to attack targets that are not the fighter still would work in 5e) and instant flat damage or status effects for moving away from the fighter would do it.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2015 20:06

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Jimmeeee posted:

According to that article the Monk has more unique features than any other class. Are they counting all of the elemental abilities as separate features or something? drat D&D and its Kung Fu supremacy!

The elemental abilities, which are themselves a tiny subset of a wizard's spells.

Edit: sorry, missed the unique part. It's probably true -- they do get a lot of things that nobody else gets.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2015 23:24

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Lemniscate Blue posted:

5e is finally getting online support tools.

Through Fantasy Grounds.

Check out that pricing scheme. A basic subscription payment to be able to use it at all, then on top of that you have to purchase the D&D module, and an additional module to make characters, plus a specific module for whatever class you want to play - the price of which varies from $3 to $6 depending on the class. And the DM must purchase monster packs to give you things to fight.

What the gently caress.

You can get all the classes for less than a year of Insider, though. Assuming that's permanent, that seems ok.

Edit: and get a lifetime site license, for grand total less than two years of Insider.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2015 21:10

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

mirthdefect posted:

On a related note, does anybody actually use the macro poo poo on sites like Roll20? I had a look the other week and it really seems like it'd just be easier to use it just as a literal virtual tabletop, record stuff in spreadsheets/paper in front of you and make people roll the e-dice or actual dice instead of loving about with javascript.

The value of macros is that you can put text with the roll automatically, so you can track what roll went with what thing. It also makes it easier to teach the game and for players to learn the other PCs' powers when there's text to go with them. As for monsters, in MapTool I kept some basic macros around on a select few monster tokens and just copied them over onto new monsters, changing a bit of the text and the damage expressions. I enjoyed doing it and enjoyed the effect in play, but YMMV.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2015 02:32

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Kurieg posted:

I love the implication that if you play a spellcaster you are then somehow incapable of roleplaying.

And it's the players of spellcasters who get to make far more game-affecting decisions "as the character would," the much-vaunted goal of true roleplayers.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2015 18:14

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

mastershakeman posted:

Don't you end up coming full circle on this and creating skills that model ability scores? What's the point?

Giving people the ability to function in their class and then a set of skills that do NOT model ability scores is the goal. You would not have a skill "is strong." You would have a skill "climbing walls" that does not automatically also make you an arrow-dodging ninja who is also really good with a bow.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2015 17:00

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Dr. Tough posted:

Well you'll be pleased to know that neither of those are reasons cited. The most frequent were "it's a board game with light roleplaying elements attached", "it's a rollplaying game", "all the classes are the same/too similar".

"Light roleplaying" and "all classes the same" are really common complaints from people who played in bad faith or (even more commonly) never played at all. It has the exact same amount of roleplaying as every D&D ever. It's true that classes looked more the same, since you had roughly the same number of pages for what each character could do, as opposed to one page for the fighter and most of the PHB for the casters. They didn't play the same, though, which is why I made the comment about playing in bad faith or not playing at all.

# ¿ May 5, 2015 17:50

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

CON should just be renamed "luck." You survive the disease or poison, or have more HP, because of luck.

# ¿ May 15, 2015 17:23

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Master Twig posted:

My character is practically invisible. Moves in and out of shadows and only the most trained eye can see him.

But he's louder than a freight train doing this.

Coincidentally, he's a lightning rail thief.

# ¿ May 15, 2015 17:59

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

theironjef posted:

That's rough, those things are heavy.

Lightning rail cars weigh far less than traditional rail cars, because their entire locomotive system is pretty light.

# ¿ May 15, 2015 20:08

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

Selachian posted:

(check out this pdf of all the NWPs that appeared in various 2E products)

The table of contents alone is 9 pages long. I am kind of glad I skipped 2e.

# ¿ May 15, 2015 21:08

homullus: Mar 27, 2009

mastershakeman posted:

Even if your solution to martials is to give them vancian powers ala 4e dailies, you still haven't solved the noncombat issues with spell casters. Really the only way to do that is via chance of horrific failure on spells (roll a d100 on every teleport, if it's a 100 you teleport into a rock) and through a social system built into the fantasy world that restricts casters (ex: your spell components require you to be horribly evil). Both are hard to do.

The way to make the game less about wizards is absolutely, positively not make the game even more about wizards, which is exactly what your solutions do.

# ¿ May 22, 2015 15:44