|
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. A perfect example is the Holy Aura someone was complaining about earlier. Yea, the spell is pretty crazy good, it also is level 8 and requires "a tiny reliquary worth at least 1000gp containing a sacred relic". How many tiny reliquaries is the guy hauling around, and how is he getting all the sacred relics? Or the knock spell, take a minute to reread the text and think about a 300ft loud knocking sound. Maybe a thief is still useful if you need to be quiet or don't want to fight several groups of monsters at once. Otto's is still bullshit, I agree with that.
|
#
¿
Jul 4, 2014 10:10
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 7, 2024 13:49 |
|
|
Turtlicious posted:I'm the GM, my group wants to switch from Dungeon World to DnD, they want something more structured and crunchy, with defined turns, grids, and all that. That means I have to learn DnD 5e, (They saw it on "Critical Roll" w/e that is and are in love.) I've never run a pre-genned adventure before, and normally just "wing it" what's some good resources for a guy like me? Like someone said, you can go watch a bunch of episodes that they've streamed on geek and sundry, and the first set are up on the youtube channel as well. Things to remember are they're all like voice actors and have been playing as a group for a long time, so they have good chemistry and characterization. The main reason they're actually playing 5th ed (actually quite a few houserules and poo poo like that going on) is for flow of combat with a large group while people are watching. They were playing pathfinder before that. They're just around the levels where you start to really see caster supremacy (9th/10th or so). If you watch some episodes, you can really see that the casters (druid, bard, sorc, cleric) kind of lay down solutions to all sorts of things, the rogue and ranger tend to do stealth stuff, and the barbarian mostly yells and distracts enemies. The rogue has a class option for big alpha strike damage (with circumstances), the ranger consistently hits but not for impressive amounts similar to the barbarian. There's another guy that plays a converted gunslinger, whom I literally forgot about while typing this up. He does some consistent damage in fights but mostly creates/modifies/etc to things out of fighting. The DM does a pretty good job of giving situations where the non-casters can have a big impact, but also the other players leave that space open, even though they realistically could have spells and crap to cover it. Basically, they're a fun group to watch and have strong characters, and have a good time watching other people in the group do stuff as well as doing stuff themselves. The advantage mechanic works well with how they play it, and a lot of the other poo poo I think gets played a bit loose or house-ruled. I'd really say to watch multiple episodes, because I'm pretty sure just going through the books and playing RAW is going to give a different game than what they want. If you have a solid group you're going to be able to have fun with most any system. D&D problems tend to be non-casters have limited combat options, and are able to solve (in general) 1 out of combat situation. Casters have a plethora of combat options, and tend to have a spell that can solve almost any out of combat situation. 4E uses a system called AEDU (at-will, encounter, daily, utility) for abilities for classes which gives a more uniform amount of "stuff" any given class can do and how frequently. The math side is a lot tighter, in regards to stuff like how fast defenses/attack go up, how much damage abilities do, monster stats, and the like. It has its own problems, which I'm sure other people can give in better detail. Coming from Dungeon World be prepared to ignore basically everything non-combat from the books, and in general be on the lookout after low levels for the spellcasters getting all the fun. It doesn't happen automatically, but if you took Wizard's ritual from dungeon world and took away the part where you get to set conditions, that is the sort of playbook available to full spellcasters in general. Chances are your players won't always do this, and some people legit don't care that they can't do half as much as someone else, but it'll help the health of your group if you keep an eye on it. There isn't a nice fail-forward mechanic built in, but there are a lot of chances for you to apply DM'ing techniques from DW to D&D, and those can only help. In fact, I'd consider pulling things like group-based world building, intra-party bonds, campaign front stuff, and DM moves and finding a way to work those in. Probably be prepared to have a harder time controlling tension in combat, as others have said it can be annoyingly difficult to judge how dangerous something is based on the challenge rating. It'll probably take a few sessions, and a bit of elbow grease, and your guys will have a lot more fun than most people playing 5E.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 17, 2015 02:09
|
|
|
I meant to mention in my too-many-words post that I really enjoy watching critical role, to the point that I felt interested in 5E. I then went and reconfirmed why I don't play 5E. About the only things that I find myself liking are advantage and a pile of spells requiring concentration, which now that I think about it I have no idea of if they're running house ruled versions of those at all. The DM does a pretty interesting job of letting the casters do crazy poo poo if they describe it well, but also puts in a lot of drawbacks that skip mechanical effects as well, and it works out fairly cinematically. I don't think by RAW a 30 damage fireball can destroy a 5-foot diameter stone pillar, but it sure worked out fairly amusingly. He also does the same for the non-casters, as a single attack from a great-axe probably can't create a 10-ft diameter hole in a wooden floor, but he let the barbarian do so to drop from the ceiling into a fight.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 17, 2015 02:40
|
|
|
Well technically you also retain alignment and personality, so while you wouldn't eat your friends (in most campaigns), you should take advantage of low int/wis to make hilarious decisions.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2015 23:06
|
|
|
captain innocuous posted:You keep your metal stats when you polymorph, which probably makes for potential abuse on its own. Unless there is errata, according to the 5E spell list it specifically mentions including mental stats. 5E handbook posted:POLYMORPH
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2015 01:53
|
|
|
Jesus christ cr 2? Average 10 damage on a hit with +6 to hit, you can't run from it, it is immune to one physical type and takes half damage from the other 2. That'll 1-shot most classes at level 1, 2-shot mostly everything that is level 2, and is going to live through a bunch of hits. Also has darkvision.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2015 07:21
|
|
|
Really seems like the best way to enjoy 5E.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 30, 2015 01:13
|
|
|
The thing is, unless the monster is a spellcaster or has spell-like abilities they don't get anything but attacking to do, just like your party non-casters. If you want other things for them to do, put in environment stuff for them to do, like working a trap system that hit a random square within a 3x3 grid around their target, ignoring each missed square once they've missed it before (so if they've missed to the left once, and you roll it again, reroll). I'm sure other people can come up with better poo poo than me, but the same idea for things that you'd put in to make stuff more interesting for the party you can do for the monsters. Also be prepared for them to take over whatever and use it themselves, which is fine too!
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2015 07:33
|
|
|
Kurieg posted:I wonder how much money they're paying Kurtz and the PA guys to keep on shilling 5e at this point, even though I'm pretty sure that Kurtz is still running 4e in his own personal game. I haven't actually listened to any of their 5e stuff, are they actually playing it straight rules or is it like every other one I've seen where they house-rule out half the retarded poo poo?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 11, 2015 01:25
|
|
|
Give them a calculator too. It is pretty easy to punch in the numbers while you slide the dice to the side.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 11, 2015 10:18
|
|
|
I'm pretty sure most players feel somewhat special. Even if they aren't that unique snowflake, they are a member of a special class. When you see a big strong NPC, he isn't someone with a pile of NPC adept/expert/whatever levels, he is an NPC who has PC levels. The big important people are basically <class> level X. Dungeon World is a good example of the unique, because the player is the only person who is exactly that, which was fun to play/dm. However, there is still a huge gap between shitfarmer and NPC with class levels. If you're going to give serious consideration to magic effecting the setting, you're going to have to start with serious homebrew changes to spells with huge impact, and be open to changing setting/spells when you or the players spot a giant inconsistency. For example, consider teleport combined with bags of holding and the effect that could have on trade. Powerful wizards should likely be able to fund themselves in major cities based on just moving some goods/people once a day for less than an hour of work in some sort of arrangement with a guild, or maybe a smuggling guild works with or has a wizard that moves their contraband goods. A bag of holding is something like 500 lbs, if that was heroin IRL, how much profit would they make? How would that change how the authorities act/etc? These sort of thought experiments can be a lot of fun if people are in for it, and can make a world feel a lot more immersive. If your group doesn't like that then having magic have no impact is fine, and just have fun with it. Not every book series is going to be wheel of time or stormlight archive, sometimes they're gonna be conan the barbarian, and that is OK.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2015 07:58
|
|
|
I was literally going to come post about playing dungeon crawl classic instead, and you beat me by a green mile. There is an interesting thing to be said about playing a game where the system is not balanced and random death can lurk around the corners, but everyone needs to be on board with the idea before it launches.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2015 10:59
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 7, 2024 13:49 |
|
|
Advantage/disadvantage works really well as a thing to sum up how combat is, and as a player it is pretty fun to roll 2 dice and take the better, and stressful to roll 2 and take the worse. Concentration for spell casters to only maintain 1 spell at a time goes a long way to keep a spell caster in check defensively, however if you're playing 5e there are several spells that should require concentration that don't for no realistic reason. Apart from that, the books artistically look pretty great, but honestly I've liked d&d books for a long time. How well the rules in there actually support what the book invokes in my head as I read and look at it is disparate.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 14, 2015 09:52
|
|