|
Magil Zeal posted:If you're referring to mine, it's a bit of a toned-down version of the material that was posted by gradenko: here. I basically reworked most of the exploit concepts into battle master maneuvers. That's it, thank you.
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2017 15:10
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 16:18 |
|
|
Could we possibly have two 5e threads? A "5e is bad and you should feel bad" thread and a thread about actually playing and modding 5e, rather than trying to cram both topics of conversation into the same thread? It's loving tedious and not much use when someone has a 5e question and gets told to play 2nd/4th/SotDL/a PbtA game instead, and the vehemence with which those stances are put forwards is frankly, alienating. I like the games listed above, but it's probably fair to say that someone in the 5e thread has decided on 5e for any one of a number of reasons that being shrieked at won't change.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 31, 2017 12:32
|
|
|
Splicer posted:The flaw in your plan is the posters with the best homebrews and advice are also the ones with the harshest criticisms. Sure, but perhaps the posts that do nothing but complain about the game and tell people to stop being so stupid could go somewhere else? Just like Monsterenvys unrelenting sycophantic praise isn't much use either. There's a difference between useful criticism and "LOL THIS IS BAD" being posted ad - infinitum.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 31, 2017 14:32
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:I'm going to complain that nobody's discussing the game instead of interacting with any of the effortposts from the last few pages. Oh you know they can be read and then people can think "What's the point in commenting because anything said will just be lost in the ongoing hatefest"
|
|
#
¿
Oct 31, 2017 14:36
|
|
|
Admiral Joeslop posted:Your sole contribution the last month has been a question then several posts whining about and exaggerating what other people have posted. Or you could look a bit further back and see that I have contributed answers and suggestions in the past. The thing is I feel that if I posted anything to the thread that I'd spent effort on you'd all laugh because I did something other than hate the game.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 31, 2017 15:02
|
|
|
Before 3rd edition, the difficulty of a save was based soley on your character's level, not the level of the attack causing the save. Additionally, whilst you can see the underpinnings of why they might have moved to the F/R/W system - e.g the Paralzation/Poison/Death magic save is described as being able to be substituded whenever you might need an extraordinary level of Will or physical fortitue, and Breath Weapon is a combo Dex/Con save, the remaining three - Rod, Staff or Wand; Petrification or Polymorph; Spell - are mapped to situayions rather than stats, and thus got thrown out when the saves were reduced to F/W/R in 3rd. The progression varies across classes too - Warriors start with rubbish saves, but they progress on every 3rd level, and when they cap out at 17+ they're universally good, where other classes start a bit better, but don't progress as fast, and have a few glaring holes in their defences when they stop save progression. From 3rd onwards, you effectively stop progression in everything except your Good or Proficient saves (I know technically your bad save still progresses in 3rd, but vs. the ever increasing DCs it's not really worth talking about). I think that this is another instance where a streamlining move had unintended balance destroying mechanics. I'd be tempted to move the save system back to a 2nd edition style one, or be more generous with proficiencies; All of them for Fighters and Barbarians. 4 for Rogues and Monks. 3 for the various fighty-casters, and the normal 2 for the pure casters.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 3, 2017 07:47
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:There's something to be said about how TSR-era saving throws were better because they didn't care about how you saved against them, only that you did. Yes, that's what I was trying to put my finger on in my head before I posted. The narrative presentation of saves flipped in 3+ gradenko_2000 posted:The other aspect to TSR-era saving throws is that they weren't really tied to stats, only to class, and that the level of the caster wasn't always factored into the roll, so a high-level Fighter would: In fact, the Fighter's spell save at 17 is 6, same as a Wizard's at 16. First level saves look like this across the classes (Paralyzation, Poison, Death magic; Rod, staff, or wand; Petrification or Polymorph; Breath Weapon; Spell) Priests: 10, 14, 13,16, 15 Rogues: 13, 14, 12, 16, 15 Warriors: 14, 16, 15, 17, 17 (Paladins get a +2 bonus to all saves) Wizards: 14, 11, 13, 15, 12 When normal progression caps out (at levels 19, 17, 17, and 16 respecitively, though some classes list for 21+) Priests: 2, 6, 5, 8, 7 Rogues: 9, 6, 8, 12, 7 Warriors: 3, 5, 4, 4, 6 Wizards: 10, 5, 7, 9, 6 Warriors get a save increase every 3rd level, the others have fewer steps - e.g. Wizard saves increase at 6, 11 and 16
|
|
#
¿
Nov 3, 2017 08:35
|
|
|
I've been thinking about the problem with martial characters having a lack of hard narrative control compared to casters, and why a lot of players are resistant to the idea; I realise that these are almost certainly not new thoughts (in fact, I suspect that they're just a poorly articulated version of GMS theory), but I'd like to run them past people anyway. I think the problem that people have with giving Martial characters hard narrative control is a conflict between Physical Simulation (what D&D tends to try and do) and Narrative Simulation. If you look at D&D through the PhysSim sense, Magic allows specific breaking of the rules of reality, and the spell slots are representative of Effort in the same way that a Thief or Fighter's diced based attempt to Do a Thing is, with the balance being that the mundane method can be tried lots of times. Take a 3rd level Wizard and the Knock spell. They can cast it twice, and get through any door twice. Whereas the mundane characters can attempt to get through as many doors as they want, but might not always make it. From a Narrative sense the wizard's player is saying, "Getting through this door is important enough to spend a resource on." The martial characters have no equivalent way to flag to the GM that getting through that door is really loving important to them too. So let's say we give our fighter an ability called Gatecrasher - for all intents and purposes, it acts as the Knock spell. And we'll say they can use it twice a day. At this point the PhysSim crowd go, "Why? Why can this only be used twice a day, it's not like our fighter is channelling arcane energy." If you say something like, "Well, maybe you bruised your shoulder slamming that last door open", the grog says, "Shouldn't other physical activities be penalised too then?". That's the mindset that needs to be overcome to get the more trad-crowd interested in giving non-casters hard narrative control. Most people probably don't even see that spells are allowing that hard narrative control in the first place. There are even attempts to take away some of the Hard options that non-casting classes get; e.g. the Assassin's ability to spend 25gp and a week to produce a fake ID - some people want the character to roll for it, or to have spent time making local contacts etc, whereas the rules are quite straight forwards - spend 25gp and a week, get ID. You can't justify Gamist or Narrativist rules choices under a Simulationist lens without tying yourself into knots. We need to be clear that we aren't trying to simulate a physical reality, but a narrative one (or maybe as 4th ed did, we're trying to make a balanced game). Next is deciding what we want things to look like - what do we think non-casters should be able to do at certain levels; what can casters do that they can't? Do we care about niche protection? How do we want to balance things? For instance, a high level fighter and a high level wizard can both knock a castle down; the fighter does it by means of an army and siege engines; the wizard throws magic, the fighter throws money and time. One of the dangers IMO is just reskinning spells; that's boring, and pretty easy to spot for someone with even a modicum of system knowledge - going the other way, take AlphaDog's Channeller - it's obviously a Champion fighter with different fluff; the concept is good, but it does an injustice to people wanting to play that sort of character to just rebrand the fighter. Just as it does an injustice to someone wanting a complex martial character to just re-fluff a bunch of spells as 'A small army' or 'I'm really good with a sword' depending on scale. On another note, some thoughts on a couple of the caster classes compared to 2nd Edition. Firstly, Wizards Speciality Wizards couldn't cast spells from their opposition school. Illusion - Necromancy Enchantment - Evocation Conjuration - Divination Abjuration - Alteration. They did get a free spell from their chosen school when levelling up, so I'd say that one of their two level up spells should be from their school. And personally I'd bring back the Chance to learn rule from 2nd too, probably as an Arcana check vs 8 or 10+spell level (Not sure which - 8 brings it in line with casting DCs more or less), with Advantage for school spells. Would need to make some sort of generalist wizard archetype for people who don't want to be dedicated to a single school. Secondly, Clerics In 2nd edition, Clerical spells were split up into spheres, and gods granted minor (3rd level or less) or majour access (all spells) to the spheres depending on their portfolio; for example a generic Sun god would grant their followers access to the following Spheres: Major Access to All, Divination, Healing, Necromantic, Sun. (All is a Sphere that has a few basic spells - Bless, Combine (a spell that lets a group of clerics boost the power of one of them temporarily), Detect Evil, Purify Food and Drink, and Atonement) Minor Access to Charm, Elemental (the priest can only use spells with the words fire, flame, heat, and pyrotechnics in the names), Plant, Protection. Later editions gave priests extra spells for their domains rather than restricting the ones that they had access to; again, I can't see any reason not to give 5e cleric spells the same treatment.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 4, 2017 22:26
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:It was far more restrictive than that. Except if you chose divination, you had opposition schools. Plural. There's that diagram I think you were thinking of, but there's also a table of requirements that lists the opposition schools for specialists. AlphaDog posted:Abjurarion - Alteration and illusion. quote:I posted a homebrew class "Channeler" a few pages ago. If you did an archetype for it that drew from EK instead of Champion, you'd have about what I think a "generalist" caster should be able to do.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2017 00:09
|
|
|
I'd go with putting that level up point in Con to get rid of the penalty. Get out of the front line - swop to missiles. Longer term, try and persuade your GM to allow taking average HP, or if she's wedded to rolling, suggest to her the HP rule from Stars Without Number - you reroll your HP at each level and take the highest result. That way you're not permanently screwed by a bad roll.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2017 08:14
|
|
|
gandhichan posted:Just to clarify, taking the ASI to offset the negative con would be better than Tough? I guess I figured the argument in Tough's favor was that your HP maximum increases by 2 for every level up that follows, but I could also be misunderstanding how the feat works. You get more HP from the feat, but your Con saving throw is still at a penalty, though if you make it to level 6, your Aura of Protection ability will kick in and assuming you have a good Charisma bonus cover for that. I'm not going to suggest getting your guy killed asap and hoping for better luck next time as you probably enjoy playing the dude (and if you weren't hopefully the GM wouldn't be against you just saying, "Hey, can I change character, this one isn't fun." rather than making you jump though the hoop of character death). Would multiclassing into something that works better at range work for you? Could one of the people with a better con score take up the tank role? Could you just ask your GM if you could swop your Con score with another one as you didn't realise what a big impact it would have? In the long run though I'd try and get her to loosen up on the HP rolling method.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2017 09:29
|
|
|
FRINGE posted:Ive done both, and the players almost always get more of sense of investment when they roll. That combined with the table excitement of everyone "rolling up characters" makes it worth it, even if its rigged to end up avg-high with some constraints. I think this is true. Also they don't seem to resent a poorly rolled score as much as they resent that 8 that the standard array forces you to use. Back to wizard talk Since you pick up your school archetype at level two, there's even an argument for level one spells being the only ones which are simple enough/don't require contradictory modes of thinking enough for any wizard to learn. A fluff thing for spells is that they're secrets that break the world. The human mind can't comprehend too many of these at the same time without breaking. They're the principle of "Everything is true, even false things." taken to their logical extreme. Therefore, for instance, doing the mental gymnastics to specialise in Abjuration (and get the bonus abilities) means you can't understand how Illusion and Alteration spells work; the things that you need to believe for them to work can't be reconciled with the truths you've learnt from being an Abjurer without going mad. No dining at the restaurant at the end of the universe for specialist wizards. Generalists can learn higher level spells from opposing schools than a specialist can because they haven't committed to the thoughts required. Their higher level spells must be in ritual form because that's a way of taking on the modes of thought required to cast them without permanently altering your paradigm. (to get all Mage:tA in here for a moment). Fighter thoughts In my games I just roll the Champion fighter up into the base class. I've just had a thought about Battle masters (and any other archetype that get superiority dice). The change I'd make is this: A battle master (or character with the feat that gives manoeuvrers) doesn't need to spend dice to use their abilities. Spending the dice makes it so that the effect just works. Your opponent doesn't get a save against being pushed, your Allies' attack that you activate with Commander's Strike hits automatically and so on.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2017 09:58
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:So they can use the abilities any time with a roll, or they can spend a resource and make sure it happens? Yeah, that sounds real good. AlphaDog posted:As far as rolling Champion into the base, that's what one of my groups has been doing since forever, and it's ok I guess. Makes the numbers bigger on a battlemaster, but doesn't really make the battlemaster do anyhting any more interesting. HAven't seen what'd happen with EK, but I guess it'd be the same thing. Thinking about it, I've never seen anyone play an EK. 
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2017 13:08
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:And I dunno, that sounds like it's a kinda lovely situation. Before anyone decides I'm telling them that they're a horrible awful person for playing the game wrong, consider the repetition of "a new player" in this post. Even in a game that values randomness and character continuity, there should be some leeway for the new person who's unintentionally made a mistake. This is almost entirely on the GM* IMO - they let the player make a lovely choice without knowing the consequences, and originally doubled down on options to make that choice even worse. (Does sound like they've relented following discussions, so that's a good thing) I've been making a bunch of 2e characters for a Fatal and Friends project, and for the most part low scores really didn't matter there unless they were really low**. I wonder if the move towards tighter bonus ranges came from a desire to make attribute scores less 'boring'? There are all sorts of changes that happened in the 2nd to 3rd switch over that I'd really like to know why they happened. * And on the game for not spelling out that if you want to play a front line character you should at the least not have a penalty in Con. Combining that with random HP and really bad dice rolls... ** Oddly enough, casters were most penalised for having low scores in their prime attribute, but otherwise an average to low score wouldn't slow a character down too much. Angrymog fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Nov 5, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2017 23:22
|
|
|
ProfessorCirno posted:It is very interesting and noteworthy that, for many big time D&D-fans, roleplaying is defined as "what you do outside of the mechanics." Fights aren't roleplaying. And in fact, the more you actually use the mechanics, the less you're roleplaying. Personally, I like RPGs rather than freeform RPing, because if I the player, gently caress up a RP interaction or don't know what to say, my character can probably save things with a good roll. When I run I don't let people just blag their way past a RP encounter - we don't give the person who does fencing or medieval re-enactment a free pass in fight scenes, why do we give the more socially adept* people a free pass in RP situations? * Or the people who can just bully their way around a gaming group, I've seen both over the years.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2017 23:34
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:Yep. Same - there's a big difference between making choices you know are bad, and not understanding that the choices you're making are bad.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 5, 2017 23:36
|
|
|
Talking about Wizards and poo poo, how does the 5e Middle Earth rpg handle that type of character? Are they more a knowledge character than a magic one?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 7, 2017 21:45
|
|
|
ProfessorCirno posted:Seriously, just play The One Ring. Unless you specifically want "D&D, but in Middle Earth!" play The One Ring. I don't want middle earth at all, I was just wondering how they did it. Can't stand the setting.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 8, 2017 08:16
|
|
|
Or those little revision notebooks? I've got one with several different coloured sections and grid paper
|
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2017 16:36
|
|
|
Splicer posted:Mage Guisarme
|
|
#
¿
Nov 10, 2017 21:21
|
|
|
Philthy posted:I was looking over the spell Catapult in Xanathars. It seems pretty OP if I'm reading this right. You know what comedy spell is still missing AFAIK? Pebble to Boulder from Tome of Magic.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 14, 2017 07:18
|
|
|
AlphaDog posted:Here's the text Yeah, that is bad. I wasn't trying to do a MonsterEnvy and imply that it wasn't bad, just trying to make sense of it.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 14, 2017 07:52
|
|
|
Crain posted:Just some ideas I've been throwing around to add fluff to my guy.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 17, 2017 01:46
|
|
|
So have the second printings actually hit the shelf?
|
|
#
¿
Nov 19, 2017 10:37
|
|
|
Soylent Pudding posted:Misread that. I guess my current GM did too because he let our barbarian get an admantine ax that crit against enemies. So what use is only crits against objects? I guess breaking doors and windows but how often does that come up? My party bought a miniature ram (door breaker, not sheep), just so they could break open doors more efficiently.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2017 07:45
|
|
|
What was the Last Stand ability and thresholds for the auto kill of low HP creatures?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 18, 2017 16:44
|
|
|
Was that 20 max HP or 20 current HP?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 18, 2017 17:13
|
|
|
Regards solo d&d, the method of reading damage dice from Scarlet Heroes and Godbound works regardless of edition. SH also has a sort of generic get past otherwise insurmountable obstacles/avoid death type save built in.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 19, 2018 11:43
|
|
|
With this thing of naming books after NPCs, are there any female characters who could front a book? The only one I can think of is Aurora of Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue
|
|
#
¿
Apr 20, 2018 06:26
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:BECMI / Rules Cyclopedia: no - initiative is handled differently: Morale -> Movement -> Missile Combat -> Magic -> Melee, all for entire side (players v monsters), then for an entire other side, so there's no chance to "interrupt".
|
|
#
¿
Apr 30, 2018 19:06
|
|
|
Nickoten posted:I went to check on this, and found this in the spellcasting chapter: Yep. Which is another way that 3e+ inadvertently powered up casters because there's usually no delay between declaration and effect.
|
|
#
¿
May 1, 2018 00:54
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:I stand corrected Huh. I might be slightly wrong, because the RC doesn't have a declare before initiative. Maybe an earlier version does? The intention based on the snippet above seems to be that damage equals no casting, so I'd probably say that if you took damage in the round you don't get to cast (in 3+ make a concentration check as if maintaining a spell)
|
|
#
¿
May 1, 2018 20:32
|
|
|
re: Settings, I liked Basic D&D's known world. It's got the human culture analogue thing going with most of its nations, but it never got the mass popularity so the setting isn't overwhelmed by high level NPCs who're having all the fun.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 5, 2018 09:22
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 16:18 |
|
|
A brief overview of each of the 1st party sourcebooks and adventures?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2018 07:05
|
|