D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

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Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) was the first roleplaying game. Over the years, it has seen many editions, supplements, and owners. While not always on top, it is the most well-known tabletop roleplaying game and is often people's first game. After three years in development, D&D is releasing its latest edition: D&D NEXT.

The fifth edition of the game is like its predecessors. In the sense that the game focuses on players exploring dangerous and mysterious dungeons and fighting horrid monsters like dragons. Just like in its predecessors, each player controls a single character (Player Characters) while one individual sets up the adventure and plays the monsters and non-player characters (The Game Master). As one might assume by dragons being in the title, D&D is a fantasy game. The default rules tend to assume a more high fantasy, germanic setting though many alternate settings are likely to be released.

~~The first book of this new edition launches tomorrow -- as of this posting -- on July 3rd.~~ Get the official, legal, free pdf here.

Gradenko gives a description of 5th edition and how it relates to 3.5 and 4th edition, mechanically.

gradenko_2000 posted:

quote:
It's a heavily modified version of 3.5e that gets rid of some of the jankiest aspects of that game like:

* tons and tons of CharOp/multiclassing/prestige-classing
* Touch Attacks and other BAB tomfoolery
* item wishlisting / Wealth-by-level
* buff stacking
* feat bloat (at least for now)
* small incremental bonus bloat (morale bonus vs reflex bonus vs untyped bonus, etc)
* Martials outside of Tome of Battle or multiclassing literally have nothing to do except full attack

You could almost call it Dungeons and Dragons: Mike Mearls' 3.5e Houserules Edition

1. Character building is easier - there's less stats to keep in mind, and more-or-less the only decisions characters need to make are their class progression tracks at level 3 and their spells.

2. Monster creation is theoretically easier since you have a chart of expected stats by CR (and goon Sanglorian has made it even easier), but how well this will translate into a fight against the players is up in the air because class design and math isn't as tight as it was in, say, 4E.

3. Combat is objectively quicker at low levels because of a sheer lack of options. As you progress past level 4 or so, everyone starts getting toys to play with. We don't really have a lot of in-depth insight to what happens - some people say combat remains quick, but only because rocket-tagging starts coming into play. Some people say combat starts getting slower as classes start getting more/as many powers as they would have in 4E, especially the casters having to pick through spells.

Basic concept - Attributes

You have 6 attributes, Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence, Charisma.

You have 6 attribute scores: 15/+2, 14/+2, 13/+1, 12/+1, 10/0 and 8/-1. The number to the right of the slash is the attribute modifier, and is the one thing you will have to remember 99% of the time.
Assign one score to each of the 6 attributes, keeping in mind the kind of character you want to be. A Fighter will have to be strong, a Rogue will have to be dexterous, a Wizard will have to be intelligent, and so on.

Basic concept - Proficiency

This is a bonus that starts out at +2 at level 1 and increases by 1 at levels 5, 9, 13 and 17. This is important because it will get added to just about everything you do

Non-combat task resolution

There are 18 different skills in the game, each of them tied to one of the six attributes. Selecting a Class will make you Proficient in 4 skills. Selecting a Background will make you Proficient in 2 more.
When you want to do a thing that is important and/or has a chance of failure and carries an element of risk, roll a d20, add the modifier for the most relevant attribute, and also add your Proficiency bonus if you are Proficient in the corresponding skill. Meet or beat a number set by the DM, known as the Difficulty Check or DC, to succeed.

For example, breaking down a door requires strength, so you would add your Strength attribute modifier. If you were a Fighter, you would be exceptionally skilled at breaking down doors, so you add your Proficiency bonus of +2 as well. If it's a weak door, maybe you only need to get a final result of 8 to break it down. If it's a steel door, maybe you'll need a 15.

Basic Combat Resolution

When you want to attack, roll a d20, add your STR or DEX modifier, and also your Proficiency bonus. Meet or beat the AC of the target to hit, then roll damage dice to deal damage.

Basic Spellcasting

If the spell description classifies it as a "spell attack", then it's actually like a physical/normal attack, except you add your spellcasting attribute (INT, WIS or CHA depending on class) instead of STR or DEX, but you're still aiming to beat the target's AC.

If the spell description refers to a saving throw, then you cast the spell with a DC of (8+Proficiency+Spellcasting Attribute Modifier). The target then has to make a saving throw of (d20+Attribute Modifier). If the target is Proficient in the saving throw for that attribute (every class is Proficient in two out of the six), then the target gets to add their Proficiency bonus to the saving throw as well. They need to meet or beat your DC.

That's basically it. The rest of the specifics are in the Basic Rules.

quote:
You get movement, a Normal Action, a Bonus Action, and a Reaction

A. x squares worth of movement, average is 6 squares (30 feet) - the big gimmick is that you don't have to take all your movement at once. It's like a meter you run down - you can move 2 squares, take a Normal Action, move another 2 squares, take a Bonus Action, and then move another 2 squares, as long your total movement for the turn doesn't exceed your Speed

B. Normal Action - things you can do with a Normal Action:

1. Attack - does what it says on the tin. If you're one of the classes that has Extra Attacks, this represents all of them. Note that some abilities either replace the whole Attack action, or just one of the attacks from it, or even are a rider on one of the attacks and doesn't replace any of them at all
2. Cast a Spell - self-explanatory
3. Dash - increases your movement by your Speed, effectively letting you move twice as far
4. Disengage - movement will not provoke Opportunity Attacks. Note that there is no "Shift" action in Next. In 4E, you could shift 1 square and then attack. In Next, you can move as far as your speed, but preventing OAs replaces being able to attack.
5. Dodge - Advantage on DEX saves. Attacks against you have Disadvantage on the attack roll.
6. Grapple - Make a STR(Athletics) check opposed by the target's STR(Athletics) or DEX(Acrobatics) check. If you roll higher, you Grapple the target
7. Escape Grapple - Make a STR(Athletics) or DEX(Acrobatics) check opposed by the target's STR(Athletics) check. If you roll higher, you are no longer Grappled
8.Help - Give Advantage to an ally's ability check or attack roll
9. Hide - Make a DEX(Stealth) check against a set DC. If you succeed, you become hidden
10. Shove - Make a STR(Athletics) check opposed by the target's STR(Athletics) or DEX(Acrobatics) check. If you roll higher, the target will either be knocked Prone or will have to move back 5 feet/1 square.
11. Ready Action - declare an action you want to take based on a trigger, and declare what the trigger will be. If the trigger happens on any other character's turn, you perform the action. This will consume your 1 Reaction per round
12. Most everything else as improvised by the player, such as searching an area, trying to heal an unconscious ally, using an object, etc.

C. Bonus Action - abilities specify if they are to be used as Bonus Actions. One example of a standard Bonus Action is attacking with your off-hand weapon if you are dual-wielding. Since you only have 1 Bonus Action, if you have multiple abilities that need to be used as Bonus Actions, you can only use one of them.

D. Reaction - abilities specify if they can be used as Reactions. One example of a standard Reaction is an Opportunity Attack, which is a basic melee attack roll whenever someone leaves your reach. The difference between this and a Normal Action to Ready an Action is that this can only be used with specific abilities that specify their usability as Reactions, whereas a Readied Action can be anything (at the expense of the player having to anticipate ahead of time what that action will be, and what will trigger it)

Relative to 4th Edition:

* Fast Monster creation and balanced encounter creation is pretty much objectively worse
* Some classes have significantly less options, others have significantly more. The entire AEDU model of 4E has been thrown out. It's like 3.5E with the martials classes getting crippled Tome of Battle handouts
* Skill checks are simpler
* Loot treadmill is pretty much completely gone, unless you choose to reimplement it
* Feat bloat is gone
* The movement and action mechanics of the game still heavily demands playing on a grid
* The math-tightness/balance of 4E's tactical combat is gone

On a budget? Use this handy guide by forum user by Gradenko

gradenko_2000 posted:

Guide to experiencing D&D Next on the cheap:

1. Get the player's basic rules: http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/PlayerDnDBasicRules_v0.2.pdf

2. Get the DM's basic rules: http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/DMBasicRulesv.0.3.pdf

3. Get Froggod Games' free adventure, The Wizard's Amulet: http://froggodgames.com/wizards-amulet
(no guarantee of quality as I've not run this myself, but it is free)

4.If you want to create your own monsters, use this guide by goon Sanglorian: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3647634&pagenumber=292&perpage=40#post439342954
I've also converted it to Google Docs form here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dK15yjLKN_8DakLsQeLxWAXrqKQjx5BaHsNJ4cUaRng/edit?usp=sharing
(this does not cover CR 1/8, 1/4 and 1/2 monsters, but you should be able to wing the stats using the Kobolds and whatnot from the Basic Rules)

5. You can use this: http://donjon.bin.sh/5e/random/#encounter as a reference for creating properly budgeted encounters, and then just using the monster creation guide from step 4 for monsters whose stats you don't have the MM for - just create something with identical CR
(that site also has treasure generators for Next as well. If it ever throws you an item that's just a description because you don't have the DMG, wing it or look at the d20 or Pathfinder SRD's as reference. It's probably going to work out to be the same)

That gets you to about 90% of what you need to play the game - you could even run a homebrewed campaign with just steps 1, 2, 4 and 5.

I also wrote a guide on quickly making level 1 characters: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1z3K_mfkfibJrCeClm2kczfOiA0sSuBIwf9ggBJ9b_Is/edit?usp=sharing , although I took some liberties with RAW for the sake of brevity

The Starter Set hopes to be an inexpensive gateaway into this new edition for players who prefer physical products. This set will only feature rules for PCs up to level 5. The Player's Handbook, which comes out in August, will give rules for players characters from first to max level. This will then be followed shortly by the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide.

This is the thread for the fifth edition of the game, as previously stated. We have other threads for 4th Edition, 3rd Edition, and OD&D, 1st, 2nd, and BECMI.

As the edition hasn't officially launched yet, there isn't much support to link to as of yet, but this will be updated as such things become available.

()A cheat sheet for NEXT created by forum poster, Ritorix
()D&D Adventurer's League: Play Organizers
()Official site for the digital game aid for 5e: Project Morningstar
()Hoard of the Dragon Queen

Our own forum members -- Wolfshirt, Panzer Skank, Gharbad, Ikks, and Medibot -- have been doing a let's play of D&D 5th edition for quite some time now. These are some of the same people who brought you the very popular Let's Play of D&D 4th Edition -- Heroic Tier, Let's Play D&D 4th Edition -- Paragon Tier and Let's Play 13th Age. If you wonder how 5th edition works out in play, this let's play is a good option for finding out.

Now, I suppose it's time to refer to the elephant in the room. This is not the place to have edition wars about D&D. Seriously, stop it. I don't like the game either, but no need to beat a dead horse and bring down the people who do.

Amended on 9/19/2016: New Rule Added: "No talking about other editions, espeically their relative merits, from this point onward. None what so ever. Do not break this rule."

:siren:

Important Disclaimer: Mike Mearls, Lead Dev, and Zak S, Consultant, Are Human Garbage :siren:

So, a lot of people here tend to have a largely negative view of 5e's writing staff and arguments have been starting up over it. Those arguments should stop and, in an effort to do so, let me just tell the entire story here so anyone can see and read it.

When 5e was coming out, they sought out the consultation of a man named Zak S. Zak S is a jerk who has managed to get banned from every RPG focused internet forum and has a major persecution complex because of it. He is known to love to argue and to attack people on social media. He is a giant pissbaby who can make Donald Trump seem well tempered, to put it mildly. But, for some reason, Mearls liked his blog so he asked him for playtesting advice.

Some forum members wanted to tell Mearls that pissbaby is bad and they didn't want pissbaby to be credited as a consultant alongside industry greats.

Pissbaby Whinypants response was to doxx a trans women who was a member of this forum and harass her until she went into hiding out of fear. Death threats, insults, etc., etc. The all too common routine uses by internet losers that has a very real effect on people but law enforcement does nothing to stop.

Naturally, a lot of forum users were pissed and tried to tell Mearls that this happened, it was a big controversy, and Mearls sided with Zak S. This made a lot of people think (rightfully so) that Mearls is a Pissbaby Neonazi Loser too.

So, basically, a lot of people hold a grudge against 5e's writing staff and, by extension, 5e and feel the need to tell people about Mike "Spineless Nazi Enabler" Mearls and Zak "Evil Baby" S and what they did and still do. Understandable, but it gets out of hand at times.

So, there, that's the story of how two assholes tormented a women over an internet disagreement and why the game's writing staff is hated here.

--

And I'm following this up with a new thread rule: No More Arguing Or Discussing These Events In This Thread. Take It To The Industry Thread Instead, Where Such Arguments Are Expected.

Covok fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Feb 13, 2017

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 02:42

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 16:13

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

dwarf74 posted:

Also, the "big" news, Basic D&D will be released to the general public, for free, via PDF, tomorrow or whenever WotC's servers stop choking from the added traffic.

It's going to be stripped-down, so while it will give us some idea about the game, it won't have everything and won't have much art.

It is going to have...
* The Big 4 classes, one "archetypal" build of each - Simple Fighter, Simple Rogue, Healer Cleric, and Blasty Wizard, going up to Level 20
* The Big 4 races, each with two subraces
* A selection of spells up to level 9
* Rules for the game

Eventually, it will also have
* Monsters up to Level 20
* Magic items
* Campaign advice

That's the theory anyway.

Added that in to the main post. I, for some reason, started talking about that then skipped it. Whoops. Thanks for pointing that out.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 03:09

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

P.d0t posted:

Because they couldn't just say your HP is [whatever you roll each level]+[level*CON mod]

This is easily the thing I hate the most about most rpgs in general. With some effort, one could make an easy to read stat block for nearly everything in the game. It could allow someone to just glance and obtain all relevant information with little involvement. Instead, we get a form of writing which was designed with the expectation of high reader involvement..

# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 00:06

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Sorry, wrong thread.

Edit: I guess since I already posted. I don't feel presenting information in a uniform manner makes the information uniform. I feel clarity in a rules book should come first. Since most rule books are used as reference books, I feel this becomes even more important.

Covok fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Jul 8, 2014

# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 00:37

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

zachol posted:

Also "can do math" is actually, you know, one of the various skills involved in being a game designer. You ~~don't~~ shouldn't need to bring in a "mathematician."

Well, judging from the industry as a whole, I feel that ability is not held to a high enough standard at times. I'm sure most people in the industry can perform basic and, to some degree, higher level mathematics, but I feel they struggle at times with statistical analysis. In trpgs, that can be a major problem. It is also possible that many designers don't examine their math intensely enough. It could be an indev thing (some numbers are going to change so examining too heavily can be a waste of resources) or, maybe, pressure from management (you need it out by X so we can't examine everything). Regardless, math in a lot of trpgs does not seems as if it was intensely tested.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2014 20:14

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

copy posted:

What if we combined these ideas? HP now represent how many henchman you have orbiting around you like a god drat electron cloud. "Oh man, Frank that orc just slashed like fifty of your henchmen down in one blow. We might want to think about retreating from this one."

The cascading effect this has on healing spells and second wind is phenomenal.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2014 23:50

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Countblanc posted:

Isn't HP not an abstraction in 5e? Like, I'm pretty sure it's literally how many liters of blood/unbroken bones/attached limbs you have. I thought that was the rationale for no martial healing; "You can't yell someone's blood back in their body," and whatnot.

I have to assume not as Fighters do get martial healing. Since fighters get second wind, it can't literally be wounds, but instead an abstraction of your characters will to fight, stamina, and injuries. Like in all the other editions.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2014 03:01

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

What exactly do you mean by "spells in stat blocks?" Are you referring to the monster simply having spells or how it's formatted?

# ¿ Jul 15, 2014 23:48

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

zachol posted:

Legend (the RoC one) is pretty great but suffers from rocket tag and relatively complex monster creation. It's pretty much just "what if the 3e charop guys got tired of 3e and decided to make their own game."

Well, that is literally what it is. RoC is made by former 3e charops people from OotS forums.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2014 02:20

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Old School Hack uses a system in the same vain as it.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2014 00:53

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Does anyone have anything they want added to the main post? I kind of haven't been following the thread much and I know how people like making cool player/GM game aids/custom classes/etc.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 00:20

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

MonsterEnvy posted:

Rename it to 5e and maybe feature the horde of the dragon queen supplement in the main post.

Only mods can edit thread titles. You can ask Ettin to change it, if you want. I'll add the supplement soon.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 00:57

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

I heard some people are working on custom classes for the system, if you want, I can link them in the OP.

Also, I forgot to tell Monsterenvy before, but I can't edit a topic title. Only a mod can so ask Ettin if you want that. I did, however, add that official adventure to the OP.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2014 19:37

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

neonchameleon posted:

Player's Handbook 3: The only book that contains classes I ban - and that's three hard bans and a soft ban out of six classes

Which ones? And why?

# ¿ Aug 17, 2014 20:08

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Generic Octopus posted:

The only problems I've ever observed with psionics is Dishearten and various Battlemind hybrids like Cirno mentioned. The issue with augmentations and the fact that keeping your early powers was better in almost all cases is a pretty big fault, yeah, but doesn't strike me as something to be banned out.

To bring this back around to Next/5e, how do y'all think they're going to handle psionics?

Unless I'm mistaken, hasn't D&D always handled psionics with a power point system? Considering this editions emphasis on tradition, we're likely going to see the main psonic classes return and likely see a few unique ones from 3.X since its this edition favorite previous edition.

I don't think they're going to try anything new on that front in this edition.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2014 21:09

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Babylon Astronaut posted:

It's a great rule, that as you said, is overlooked all the time. The other one I like a bunch is one from RC: you roll on a curve by using incremental d6's as ascending difficulty. That's actually in the book! Why that never took off I have no idea.

Can you elaborate on this?

# ¿ Sep 5, 2014 21:37

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Arivia posted:

1e psionics were interesting as laid out in the core rulebooks. They were just very unbalanced.

As someone who knows nothing of 1e, would it be rude to ask you to elaborate?

# ¿ Sep 8, 2014 03:48

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

What is everyone's guess for the first supplement after the PHB/DMG/MM are out? If that's already common knowledge, then does anyone know what it is?

# ¿ Sep 12, 2014 07:30

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

MonsterEnvy posted:

For fun the toys and their monsters and how they look now.

Holy hell, I owned that toy when I was kid. I distinctly remember playing with it when I was kid. I always thought it looked a little creepy as a kid. Who would think I was playing with a rust monster?

# ¿ Sep 17, 2014 06:13

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Libertad! posted:

If 4E is Communism and 3E/5E is Capitalism, then what economic ideology does the OSR adhere to?

If their creator's belief can be used as evidence: libertarian.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2014 05:55

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Babylon Astronaut posted:

No one will say that 5e can't work for a dungeon delve. 5e is one of the few editions that even works rules as written. The problem is it's boring and complicated in all the wrong places.

Are there editions that don't work rules as written? I'm interpreting that as saying the game simply doesn't work at all, not that it is just convoluted or unbalanced.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2014 07:44

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

goldjas posted:

Can you think of anyone who actually played 2nd or 3rd edition purely RAW? Anyone at all?

Once. A long time ago. Briefly mentioned by a player in a game I was running. Of course, the validity...is suspect.

Regardless, both those titles, to my very limited knowledge, functioned to a degree RAW. Maybe I'm just taking the statement too literally, but I assumed he meant the games didn't function on any level when he said that. Probably taking the statement too far.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2014 07:56

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

MonsterEnvy posted:

It has been released but the DMG is not out yet. And it says that the building encounters entry is a work in progress.

Also I need some help.

Does anyone know were I can get the full image of this.

Is that from Monster Hunter?

# ¿ Oct 6, 2014 05:13

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Sanglorian posted:

Alright folks, I decided to do something about finding 5E character creation such a slog:

The first draft of Microlite5E.

Partly, the aim is to reduce the complexity of the resulting characters, but it's mostly about narrowing the player's decisions during character creation to the most meaningful and dramatic. It keeps all class features, but simplifies weapon and armour choices, replaces skills with broader proficiencies, reduces races to a single feature, and uses ability modifiers (no scores). Also, proficiency in a save only makes a +2 difference at any level, rather than the potential +6 gap.

Please let me know what you think.

I don't see a list of backgrounds. Do they work like 13th Age backgrounds? As in, you make them up yourself?

# ¿ Oct 30, 2014 03:07

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Chronische posted:

They DID say they were going back to their roots, and if you have read the old 1 and 2e rulebooks they are pretty similarly messed up!

Not to be that guy, but that is a very poor excuse and a very poor design goal. Not to mention that that market is being satiated by the numerous OSR titles out at the moment.

# ¿ Nov 28, 2014 03:56

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Sooo uhh why is Warlord "healing" unrealistic, again?

Grognards think HP is meat despite all evidence to the contrary. I mean it says I hit, right? And then I do damage? So HP must be meat. Grognards also lack imagination, if that wasn't obvious.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2014 12:03

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

jodai posted:

There are a couple of good cheat sheets in the OP that you might want to print out or have a digital copy of for quick reference.

Speaking of, is there anything I should add to the OP? Some new fan made or official content to aid game play? Some homebrew that people think are good? Anything really.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2015 05:38

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

EvilElmo posted:

Can I DM without ever playing D&D?

It's a major pain finding online groups in Australia and even harder finding offline groups in my city!

Even though I've only played Next once before and don't own any of the books, I can say for certain this is possible. To be honest, getting to play a game first before running it could be argued as a "luxury."

You're going to want to familiarize yourself more with the "Running the Game" sections of the book instead of the "Character Creation" section. Try to get the basic rules for combat and checks down. Keep the basic rules pdf on your smartphone or laptop if you need a quick rules reference. If you feel referencing the rules might take too long, it's perfectly fine to make a quick ruling then and find the rule later for future reference. I'd highly suggest picking out a pre-made adventure and I'm sure someone else in the thread can give you some suggestions on that as I don't have any.

As some general GM tips, I'll say the following:
*Remember, your players are your friends. While antagonistic GMing was all the rage in the 80s, it's best to avoid.
*Don't muddy things with too many rolls.
*When a player asks if someone can be done, either allow them to do it or put it to chance.
*When someone comes up with something cool, especially if the rest of the group is into the idea, even if it doesn't necessarily match with your idea for the campaign, I find it better to say "yes." Generally, it maximizes overall entertainment.
*Try to keep encounters reasonably balanced. Difficulty is fine, but no one likes an unfair fight.
*Avoid "mature" subjects: they'll likely just make you seem creepy and make your players uncomfortable.
*Always remember your players are people and, if you have any problems with their actions, you can try to talk with them like reasonable adults.

There are always more players than GMs so you should quickly find some people willing to join your group. You can even recruit on our forum by posting a recruitment topic in the game room and either run it pbp on our forum or through online tools like roll20.net and skype.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2015 08:24

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

AlphaDog posted:

I kinda see what you're saying, but the "marginal changes at best" line I can only see applying between AD&D and 2nd edition (which admittedly can be pretty close to compatible in lots of places), and even then the implications about what you do in the game are fundamentally different.

If you're describing the 2e-3e or 3e-4e changes as "marginal differences", then

I'm also the guy who buys/runs RPGs and never gets to play them. I still haven't played in an offline Dungeon World game, although running it's so much fun I don't care.

What this part means to me is that I don't make them roll for everything, or even most things, and I don't make them roll ever if failure wouldn't be interesting.

Jumping over a low wall? You make it no problem. Climbing a rope? Sure, you get up there. Climbing a rope while bandits shoot burning arrows at you? Roll the dice or fall off and be in melee combat.

That's pretty much what I mean. I should have elaborated.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2015 08:43

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

AlphaDog posted:

You mean Str, Int, Wis, Dex, Con, Cha, right?

What is this from? I've seen it before in this order?

# ¿ Jan 13, 2015 06:01

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Is WotC doing a metaplot with 5e or am I misinterpreting their products line?

Also, I never heard of R.A. Salvatore before, but this thread and his wubba wubba story made me like him. When it comes to him as a person, atleast. Might try his books. I usually avoid tie-in fiction.

# ¿ May 8, 2015 00:29

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Selachian posted:

Gygax made so many statements about homebrew that it's hard to pin down what exactly his feelings about it were. You can find quotes from him about not being bound by the rules and making the game your own as easily as you can find him saying, "If you're not playing AD&D exactly by the rules, you're not playing REAL AD&D."

I think it comes down to what AD&D is supposed to be. If I recall correctly, Gygax made AD&D with the intent of unifying the game because, at the time, it was custom for people to carry characters over to different campaigns run by different people. As a result of this custom, houserules caused some friction so AD&D was supposed to fix this issue. It was also supposed to fix the issue of some GMs being too liberal with XP and magic items and others being too stingy. I bet it was also supposed to fix other issues caused by this custom. Obviously, it didn't work and this is likely why that gamer custom died off.

Chances are, outside of AD&D, he didn't mind houserules since those systems weren't supposed to be unified between tables.

Of course, I wasn't around then so this is all second-hand, partially-remembered information so I could be wrong.

# ¿ May 11, 2015 23:31

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

thespaceinvader posted:

Lol, since when did D&D chargen let you learn skills as you progress.

Technically, 3e with their skill points/level system did this.

# ¿ May 15, 2015 22:20

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Out of curiosity, how is 5e being taken? I know it started out as a financial success, but how well has that sustained? How well has it sustained otherwise like player response, critically, etc. ?

# ¿ Aug 21, 2015 04:54

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

gradenko_2000 posted:

I tend to find a lot of people make monsters that screw over non-casters because of the fallacy of "magic can do anything, but real-life stuff is limited." In other words, "it'd be weird if magic can't work on this thing, but it's scales are made of iron so iron swords can't work!"

Also, is there a template for that, out of general curiosity?

# ¿ Aug 24, 2015 08:01

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Am I wrong to think that the Tarrasque seems a bit of a wussy in this edition? He doesn't seem too hard to kill, honestly.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2015 18:11

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

This might be crap, but I took a stab at buffing up the Tarrasque:

# ¿ Aug 31, 2015 21:17

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Oh, the blingsight is a typo on my part. See, this was done off a template and the original monster had a blingsight of 60 and I just forgot to change it.

I was thinking of an anti-magic thing, but my friend said that disabling 1/2 the party was a bad idea so I removed it. However, stopping spells like flight -- continuous spells -- would work better, yeah.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2015 21:30

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Sage Genesis posted:

You forgot to add in saving throw bonuses, I think?

The reflective carapace is a bit weird. It walks into a bank of summoned fog and all of a sudden the whole fog cloud is reflected back towards a wizard? That could use some polish.

Yeah, I forgot add that line in. Whoops.

In regards to the later, I don't really see that as a problem.

Edit:

How about this version?

Covok fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Aug 31, 2015

# ¿ Aug 31, 2015 22:21

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 16:13

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Tunicate posted:

I'd say give it a fast burrow speed, and the ability to lunge out of the ground like an orca so it can hide from flying guys then eat them midair.

Well, Flying guys would lose the concentration to maintain flight the second they saw the Tarrasque so flying people are probably less likely.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2015 23:39

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