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Quadratic_Wizard posted:Second, mind-bogglingly, opportunity attacks are still a reaction. This is a big problem, because classes need their Reactions for other things, like the rogue's Uncanny Dodge or the Fighter's Protection feature. Since you're limited to 1/round, you can't do both in the same round. If you're holding off three goblins, you can't make any OAs after the first one. Say what you want about the 13th Age Fighter at least it still has its oportunity attacks.
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Jul 3, 2014 19:04
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dwarf74 posted:Repost from that other thread: This is AWESOME! Why must the system be lovely, WHY?!
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Jul 3, 2014 20:53
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Thalantos posted:good player skill Reading the DM's mind +5 (+8 if, during the past week, I watched the same movie/TV show the DM has; +10 if I'm currently reading the same fantasy novel series the DM is crazy about) Bribing the DM with pizza +4 Telling the DM how ~*creative~* their LotR-esque railroad-y pile of clichιs is +2
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Jul 9, 2014 22:12
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Lord Twisted posted:Wow this thread is more negative than I thought it would be! I wanted to ask for a recommendation from people who've done the plastering and stuff for this. Are you familiar with 13th Age? It's quite story/roleplay-oriented (as far as d20 games go at least), and although it shares similarities with 4e, combats tend to run faster. There is a player Necromancer class it's not in the core book, but in the 13 True Ways supplement. There's a 13th Age thread here http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3634000 , take a look, ask some questions and see if it suits you.
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Jul 15, 2014 12:31
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Jack the Lad posted:Nope, there is definitely a 267 page alpha PHB floating around (107 pages or 40% of which is spells). That document is interesting, to say the least. I thought that Whizzards had eight builds as an attempt to tone down their obscene versatility. Like, the School of Necromancy build is actually a Dread Necromancer under a different name, while School of Enchantment was like the Beguiler, and each of these builds would have their own spell list and poo poo. Of course not. Wizards aren't real wizards unless they have access to more powers than anyone else because
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Jul 16, 2014 20:58
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Misandu posted:
Because the feat that did the same thing in 3e was Dex based http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#combatReflexes
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Jul 18, 2014 14:33
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MonsterEnvy posted:What if you don't know you are going to fight a dragon. Now I remeber why I hate 3e so much. Everytime a glaring system hole is pointed, its defenders go "oh, it's only a problem when the DM doesn't do X, Y or Z".
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Jul 19, 2014 20:40
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Jack the Lad posted:To be fair the "Yes that is how the rule is written, but here is how I would houserule it" thing is pretty baffling/frustrating. The essence of D&D is back! Rules shouldn't exist to enable fun gameplay they must be vague in order to enable passive agressive male teen pecking order bullshit.
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Jul 21, 2014 17:30
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treeboy posted:are you responding to my post? im just talking about a buddy of mine who kinda typifies 4e hate, not Mearls To be fair, given Mearls' recent history, it's hard to tell them apart.
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Jul 24, 2014 15:53
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Jack the Lad posted:This pretty much sums up my thoughts on all of 5e so far.  "Natural language" why convey information practically when you can beat around the bush forever?
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Jul 28, 2014 16:06
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have it your weigh posted:The Barbarian Preview is out. I like that they used art that doesn't look like the stereotypical Conan type barbarian. It makes me want to play one for the fist time. Meh. In "related topics" for all the talk about 5e's "progressive art", the ranger (according to the website illustration) is a scantily clad conventionally pretty young woman. One would think the barbarian might be used to balance things and offer players a hot scantily clad dude but no, they had to go with a fugly midde-aged man.
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Jul 30, 2014 22:42
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ProfessorCirno posted:Mearls hates the warlord. Is there any professional RPG designer who currently doesn't hate 4e? Even Rob Heinsoo*, who's on record saying he had to fight against caster supremacy during 4e design, seems to have some regrets his treatment of martial classes in 13th Age is clearly a step back in relation to their glory in 4e. *I won't say Heinsoo hates 4e because his Commander class (i.e. 13th Age's Warlord) is a thing of beauty. But he's clearly been damaged by grog criticism of 4e 13th Age is full of grog-appeasing compromises. It's... frustrating instead of going forward, d20 designers got grog-scared and ran away back to the year 2000.
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Jul 31, 2014 12:48
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That's true. If I recall correctly, when the Commander class was being designed (it was still called "Battle Captain" at the time), Heinsoo mentioned that Tweet complained that the class design was "more miniatures game than RPG". Sorry for the 13th Age derail back to 5e. What really bothers me is that a lot of accumulated knowledge was simply banished from D&D's design space. gently caress, 4e was able to turn class into a style choice character creation ceased to be a hidden mini-game that you lose by writing "fighter" instead of "wizard" on your character sheet. 4e was honest the majority of D&D's system, through all the editions, was devoted to combat, so 4e made combat itself interesting. But no, D&D must pretend it's a deep game about *~story*~, and anything that makes combat or martial classes fun must be burned (presumably so the healing can begin).
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Jul 31, 2014 15:13
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Classes with a high level of differentiation. Sorcerers in 4e aren't just Wizards with a less varied repertoire (like they were in 3rd edition and are once again in 5th). Rangers are very different from Fighters without the need to leech Druid spells (like they did in in 3rd edition and do once again in 5th). drat, even classes that, fluff-wise, are very similar Fighter and Warlord are both armored fighty dudes play very differently from one another. Even classes of the same role are very different in actual play although an archery Ranger and a Warlock are both ranged strikers, their toolbox and playing style are wildly different. A Swordmage isn't some lazy hack job of gluing some Wizard on a Fighter chassis it's its own thing, and different from both Fighter and Wizard. And those are all AEDU classes. By grog logic, they "should" be the same. And yet they clearly aren't. I just imagine the 5th edition that good* designers would be able to build with all the system knowledge accumulated during the 4e cycle (like how to balance classes outside the AEDU frame). *It excludes Mearls, of course. Mearls was there to build non-AEDU classes and Essentials** turned out to be a less than awesome (although much better than 3rd edition or 5th). **Essentials sort of makes the same mistake that 13th Age does the assumption that if classes are differentiated, non-casters must be low complexity because Nancy_Noxious fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Jul 31, 2014 |
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Jul 31, 2014 20:24
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Jimbozig posted:drat right! I'll have full preview material ready very soon, like this week. Until then, have Ferrinus' latest. 
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Aug 1, 2014 20:04
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A Catastrophe posted:No doubt there are plenty of professional devs who like 4e. In fact IIRC Ethan Skemp commented on my 4e monster designs when I was doing one a day for a month, back before 5e was announced. That's actually good to know. Now we only need a company willing to pay them to develop 4e-like games. Which I think isn't happening anytime soon. Best case scenario the nostalgia trend* we see today will, like everything in fashion, come to pass: maybe 6e will be closer to 4e. Worst case scenario this hobby is a nostalgia latrine through and through, and so we'll get 4e returned when it's old enough to be groggy (and therefore irrelevant design-wise, and plagued by cargo cult mentality instead of the desire for innovation that gave us 4e in the first place). *Pillar of Eternity, like 13th Age and 5e, has this "let's take the 'best' parts from 'classic' D&D editions and do something that seems modern but really isn't" vibe that reeks of grog tax. Regressive is the new progressive.
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Aug 3, 2014 17:04
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Fuschia tude posted:Exactly; I get the feeling some of the people talking about it in this thread haven't read a word about the design. I'm not talking about the graphics, I'm talking about the gameplay. No. I went to their site and felt 13th-aged all over again I was get pretty pumped up "Wow, this game looks super cool, I think I'll like it a lot!" only to be splashed with a bucket of cold water when I went to read the Fighter's abilities. PoE's Fighter is just the same kind of boring compromise that we see in 5e or 13A "it should be on the simple side" (because grog tax, I presume), lots of boring passive crap, and (this is the deal-breaker for me) crappy defender mechanics. The PoE Fighter does have a faux defender aura without any punishment ability to make it respectable! (I'll be vulgar here: a marking mechanic without punishment is like a soft cock it's cute, but it doesn't do much.) Jack the Lad posted:Flexible Attacks (13th Age) are really, really boring/weak/uninspiring. Like, the effects are most definitely not so strong that it would be overpowered to allow the player to decide when to use them. This is basically what's wrong with the 13th Age Fighter, and I think it's because the same underlying principles that makes both the 5e and PoE fighters quite unimpressive: "Fighters must be the 'I attack class' in case the fighter gets special attacks, it must be minor/passive stuff on top of said basic attacks" and "If fighters get some defender mechanic, it must be bland/minor enough so people won't associate it with 1) MMORPGs and 2) D&D 4e" As long as the grog tax is paid, fighters will remain unimpressive.
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Aug 4, 2014 16:22
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Jack the Lad posted:The Battle Master's level 15 feature, Relentless, has been heavily nerfed. "According to the leaked alpha PH, the 'Battle Master' fighter is pretty underwhelming." "The leaked alpha PH is outdated, you can't criticize the system based on it! Wait for the final PH, it will probably surprise you!" 
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Aug 6, 2014 11:28
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Also, your DM can fix the parts you dislike!
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Aug 6, 2014 18:55
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Because of its combat engine and great class design, 4e is distinctive. For years D&D had (IMO) nothing but brand recognition going on for it lots of games could deliver a similar experience with better focused design. It is specially true for 3rd edition stuff like Arcana Evolved, FantasyCraft, Iron Heroes, Blue Rose, etc. How many 4e knock-offs are available right now? If you know of any, please tell me I'd be very interested in trying it. 5e goes back to where 3e was there is competition. Take three of 5e's selling points: "draws inspiration from earlier versions of D&D", "TotM" and "it's about *~story*~" 13th Age and Dungeon World do those three things much better. Why would I waste my time with 5e when there are games that can deliver a similar experience for a much lower grog tax?
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Aug 6, 2014 20:35
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Gharbad the Weak posted:Do you see everyone calming down? Might be the Stockholm syndrome setting in... There are nice things in Next advantage/disadvantage in place is small granular boni and "bigger" feats are things I'd love to see in the 4.5e WotC will never do... , but let's not forget that Next: 1. Remains messy. I downloaded the Hoard of the Dragon Queen document the first creature in the bestiary session has PC spells. Martial classes are crap in Next, so I decided to build a Bard* (which is my second favorite class), to see how it would go in the unfortunate case my group picks Next up. While it's nice that the adv/dis mechanic made Vicious Mockery very controller-y, the fact that spells are a) separated from the class write-up and b) (dis)organized alphabetically made the whole thing quite unpleasant. (And reminded me why I no longer like 3.x) *Using the alpha, of course. 2. It's still caster supremacy edition. Fighters no longer get their defender abilities because aggro MMO videogame babbies whatever. Meanwhile, enchanters can force an enemy to attack someone else and it's all okay. Minor actions got shafted because too time consuming! and yet spellcasters get obfuscated minor actions. I see no compeling reason to play Next instead of 13th Age a game that does real TotM combat instead of "gridless TotM disclaimer: requires you to imagine a grid in the theatre of the mind". It's a mediocre system that wouldn't have such devoted defenders if it didn't bear the "Dungeons & Dragons" name in the cover. (Just to balance the optimism a little.) edit: Some questions: Does casting a spell in melee (i.e. adjacent to a foe) provoke oportunity attacks? Do wizards still get the class feature that let's them cast spells for free as rituals? Nancy_Noxious fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Aug 10, 2014 |
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Aug 9, 2014 23:56
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ProfessorCirno posted:I guess it's up to me to be relentlessly negative~! Thanks for posting that. People seem very quick to forget* that 4e existed. "Next is a good game" only holds in a reality in which 4e never existed. *Well, a significant part of Next's edit: Another good thing about Next the art/aesthetics. Although I love 4e's color-coded layout for its ease of use, the sans serif font used for powers and other rules-bits gives it a "modern* look" that seems at odds with the game's atmosphere, and while I love William O'Connor's class iconics, the rest of the art is pretty meh. Next's art is really evocative, and really wish 4e could benefit from the same flavorful presentation. *I think modern mechanics and minimalist/"dry" visuals aren't inextricable clear, easy to use layout and modern mechanics can be perfectly coupled with more baroque/"fantasy-esque" art and visuals. Nancy_Noxious fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Aug 10, 2014 |
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Aug 10, 2014 14:13
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Zombies' Downfall posted:Summoners are the worst thing to have in a party and people who play them in tabletop games, especially large group games, are royal assholes. How about we stop blaming the user? If the rules are bad, then the designers are the real assholes.
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Aug 11, 2014 16:44
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re: Apocalypse World and natural language We shouldn't forget that the natural language used on the moves is very economical. If one follows the development of a *World hack, they will certainly notice que effort put in the way the moves are phrased. Moves use natural language but (for the most part) tend to be crystal clear. Also, in the case of Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts, further elaboration and/or examples of how a given move works isn't part of the move it's in a separate section. It's good because it keeps the rules text itself (i.e. moves) brief and clean. (In this respect I find moves similar to 4e powers.) Now contrast it with Next/3e rules stuff is over-written and vague, it's the antithesis of the economical and clear phrasing of moves. Next uses natural language in order to obfuscate the system's workings and make rules text as ambiguous as possible.
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Aug 11, 2014 18:48
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ritorix posted:In non-skeleton news, Morningstar had been renamed to Dungeon Scape. http://dnddungeonscape.com Does it have a dedicated skeleton tracker?
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Aug 14, 2014 02:18
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No, see, this time cards are okay because
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Aug 28, 2014 22:14
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mastershakeman posted:At that point, why even allow monsters to have critical hits at all? "Why should the Laws of Physics work differently for monsters? You just ruined my immersion."
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Sep 7, 2014 15:39
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Dahbadu posted:I like how attacks of opportunity are handled. So you really dislike defender fighters, is that correct?
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Oct 13, 2014 16:59
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slydingdoor posted:What I know as playing the game is called out as "asking for permission" around here like it's the worst poo poo. Why aren't spells handled the same way? It would make for a leaner and less expensive rulebook.
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Oct 13, 2014 19:24
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Dahbadu posted:I also felt the mechanics surrounding them were convoluted and in general directed the action away from the tabletop and more towards the books for rules lawyering. Spells don't have this problem because
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Oct 13, 2014 19:33
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ascendance posted:You get way less of them. Given that people are supposed to get through 6-8 encounters in a day, wizards are basically supposed to pull out 1-3 game changing spells each encounter. It's not (only) about quantity. Spells in Next are meta-gamey as gently caress. "High Con save? Luckly I have something that calls fora Wis save! Oh, no bad saves? Well, I'll just use something that calls for an attack roll then!" and so on. If opportunity attacks "detract from the fiction and turn the game into dry rules-lawyering", so can spells.
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Oct 13, 2014 19:43
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Talmonis posted:I'm a stupid grognard, hurr hurr
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Oct 13, 2014 21:24
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Dahbadu posted:I actually think 5e is a more progressive system than 13th Age
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Oct 15, 2014 19:50
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Andrast posted:Well, it's not like 13th age is a paragon of progressiveness either. It sure isn't. At least it isn't aggressively retrograde as Next. Encounter math works, the system actually supports TotM combat it's like an intellectually honest version of Next made by non-poo poo designers.
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Oct 15, 2014 20:02
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Froghammer posted:So I'm running 5e, it's only been a few sessions and I can already feel myself burning out. Like, actually running the game is fine and smooth and all that good stuff, but planning out each session ahead of time is a slog and a half. I'm fighting the system every step of the way in order to come up with interesting monsters that do more than cast spells X number of times per day or swing with shortswords over and over. My group loves it, but behind the scenes 5e's lack of structure means I'm having to fill the void myself and it's taking its toll. Don't you like being EMPOWERED?
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Nov 8, 2014 20:39
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thespaceinvader posted:what's the loving point in wasting money and trees reprinting it? Because then the current edition of D&D can be recognizably D&D so the healing can begin.
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Nov 18, 2014 21:53
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re: carousingquote:Carouse Just play Dungeon World. Really. Still uses natural language (1) and leaves plenty of stuff up to the DM (2), but was designed by people much smarter than the nostalgia addicts that "designed" Next. 1- but doesn't waste as much space as a bloody d100 table 2- by design because the AW engine is built that way (i.e. GM will use a hard move guided by the game's agenda and principles), not because the GM is in constant need to correct blatant design mistakes (that wouldn't be in the game had the designers done their bloody job) Also note how DW's carousing is more "interesting things happen" and less "you're arbitrarily hosed LOL".
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Nov 26, 2014 12:54
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Or 13th Age. It has (much) shorter power lists than 4E and uses abstracted distances (that in practice function like) Fate zones instead of a squared grid. (The freeform background system that takes the place of 3E/4E skills is also somewhat similar to Fate aspects.) Nancy_Noxious fucked around with this message at 18:14 on Dec 19, 2014 |
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Dec 19, 2014 18:10
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moths posted:Whose fault is it that D&D has the potential for players to never actually find a dungeon because of binary pass/fail? "The user should always be blamed D&D games happen in a verisimilitudinous milieu, therefore common sense. If the DM lacks that, they aren't the kind of όbernerd this hobby needs. What is 'usability' and why should we dumb our Imagination Tomes (only a Phylistine would describe RPG books as 'instruction books') in order to pander to the mundanes/dirty casuals?"
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Feb 9, 2015 16:49
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ScaryJen posted:I'd be more likely to use it for a story-heavy game than 4th (at least with new players). Oh, please do tell how Next's system supports ~HIGH STORY~ in a way that 4E doesn't. I find that rather bizarre there's tons of systems there aren't only simpler to learn (since we're talking about new players) but also REALLY designed to support story/narration heavy games. If one's focus was REALLY all ~~story and roleplay~~. Fate would be a better match, since Next's only parts that directly deal with roleplay/story/naration bits (Inspiration + Backgrounds + those flavourless, generic pseudo-aspects backgrounds are composed of) work in a way that very much resembles Fate's mechanics (only worse, since Next lacks something like a Fate point economy, so, much like Cook with Numenera, it seems Mearls is unable to really get post-2005 game design). ScaryJen posted:Especially if they restructured resting mechanics as giving you penalties on rolls/requiring checks to go on after being active so many hours vs. the "do x thing y times per day" mindset, but that's just me. IMO this really sums up what Next is all about the simulationist wank. Does it enhance gameplay? Who cares! I just want the game to become an elf trance simulator! That's why ENWorld had the huge damage-on-a-miss-dedicated-sub-forums fiasco, and that's why we got bloody ONE HOUR "short" rests and no Warlord class a fun game isn't really as important as a "realistic" elf trance simulator.
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Jan 24, 2016 12:42
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