D&D NEXT: Infinite Posts of the Abyss

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Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

mastershakeman posted:

whats so great about this spell? I legit don't understand why it's powerful

looks like it's only part of the spell, so dunno.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 21:19

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:59

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Rulebook Heavily posted:

It giveth, it taketh away. (See also Zak S, transphobe extraordinaire, in the credits of the book that has that Sex paragraph in it.)

Who is Zak S?

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 21:41

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

treeboy posted:

Thinking about how to control wizard scope and ability. I've long thought that Wizards should be forced to choose a specific school of study which would limit the overall availability of other schools (or in certain situations outright deny them)

I keep having thoughts like this and should start actually making a ttrpg

This is why the Beguiler and Dread Necromancer from 3.5 are great. I wish every school had it's own class.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2014 14:16

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

MonsterEnvy posted:

And most of those spell are not really that good for utility.

What?

Most of those spells are only good for utility.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2014 01:20

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

MonsterEnvy posted:

What I mean is that they don't cover a huge scope of utility.

I'm not sure I agree with that, but working under the assumption that it's true, I don't think it'll last once we start getting splatbooks.

Regardless, if I ever play Next, I will be a wizard and have an invisible butler following me at all times, ready to take my jacket or hand me a cold drink. Thanks, Unseen Servant.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2014 04:39

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

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.

I've got a DnD group who are 40 sessions deep into a 4e campaign - level 13 atm. The story is drawing to a close + combat is getting fairly bloated so we were going to try a new system after this.

I want something more focused on roleplay and not hideously slow combats like 4e. The basic ruleset seemed cool and fairly simple. However I saw people talking about Pathfinder - how easy is that to pick up seeming as me and my players have only ever played 4e? Is it cheaper/less complex/better supported?

We mainly play over Roll20 so that would factor in.

Does it have necromancer player characters...?

Pathfinder is 3.5 with the serial numbers filed off. If you've played one, then you've played the other, and that includes all of the problems inherent to the system.

You might like Legend. IIRC, it started off as 3.5 houserules before the guys doing it realized they had enough to make a book themselves. I've never had a chance to play it, but I read through it a couple years ago and liked what I saw. A lot of fiddly, complicated stuff got simplified, and casters aren't any more powerful than the other classes.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2014 12:44

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Littlefinger posted:

That sounds suspiciously like D&D Next. Are you saying that these guys just outnexted D&D Next in their free time, as a hobby project and without the help of a fabled Math Team and over 175,000 fans of D&D?

Pretty much. Although I think they started the project before DnD Next was a thing. When was Next announced?

# ¿ Jul 15, 2014 14:25

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

RPZip posted:

Yeah, I got it as a slightly belated birthday present in the mail today. I'm going to run it on the forums, I think, just not sure in what format or how I should do applications since I want to use the pregens.

Rock, Paper, Scissors?

# ¿ Jul 15, 2014 23:33

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

dichloroisocyanuric posted:

Secondly, I'm here because, like many others in this thread I'm sure, I want to play a D&D fantasy game because the system is fun and I want to relive the highlights of AD&D or 3.5e but 3.5e is a mess and AD&D didn't age well and Pathfinder managed to be just as horrible as 3.5e in less than half the time. D&D Next is literally my lesser evil at the moment. I really feel you on the "this is a bad game but that doesn't mean you can't like it for what it is." Anyway, my question is, what are games like DnD that I will enjoy? Aside from 13th Age and Numenera because those are already on my need-to-check-out and not-for-me lists respectively.

Quoting from earlier:

Nihilarian posted:

Pathfinder is 3.5 with the serial numbers filed off. If you've played one, then you've played the other, and that includes all of the problems inherent to the system.

You might like Legend. IIRC, it started off as 3.5 houserules before the guys doing it realized they had enough to make a book themselves. I've never had a chance to play it, but I read through it a couple years ago and liked what I saw. A lot of fiddly, complicated stuff got simplified, and casters aren't any more powerful than the other classes.

There's also 13th Age.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2014 01:54

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Kai Tave posted:

The obvious solution, and the solution that will never happen because of sacred cows, is to do away with +X magic items entirely. A flaming longsword could, instead of giving +X damage, simply A). give the user the option of dealing Fire damage on all his attacks instead of/in addition to slashing/piercing/gently caress you, playing into vulnerabilities, and B). give the character X/encounter style abilities.

Hell, if you really wanted to play into the whole "magic weapons are for Fighters" thing then you could make it so that magic weapons had special powers that required spending martial dice or whatever they're called to activate them, so the Rogue could pick up and use that flaming longsword but only the Fighter can really get the most out of it.

But "this weapon does +3 damage and gives you +3 to hit" is an inviolable part of the D&D Feel� no matter how much of a pain in the rear end it makes designing the game and so it will never, ever be gotten rid of.

Isn't that what 4e did? Well, they kept the +3 stuff, but everything had a unique ability, right?

# ¿ Jul 19, 2014 19:45

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

MonsterEnvy posted:

I don't get why this is a bad thing. I am serious because they leave some stuff up to interpretation it's bad?

Why should I pay this guy for a system that my DM is going to be rewriting anyway?

# ¿ Jul 22, 2014 02:40

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Gort posted:

The art looks good so far. I didn't much like the poser-esque stuff in the 4e PHB and thought it was often a step backwards from 3rd ed artwork.

Especially this stuff.

Does the artist do independent work? Because I like his art but don't want to support DnDNext.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2014 03:51

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Considering the paragraphs they had on sex before, could be a bit more complicated than that. I'd be surprised if they didn't have at least one character taking advantage of their inclusive attitude.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2014 20:32

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

FMguru posted:

One of the big issues with 3e was that it didn't really get broken until the supplement treadmill roared to life and filled shelves with tons of (official!) prestige classes and feats and spells and magic items. 5e may be slightly less burdensome and unbalanced that 3e now, but we'll see how it looks after a dozen or big meaty crunch books hit the shelves. It's nice that they made concentration a check against spellcasters going nuts with buffs; how long until you can bypass all that with an "Improved Concentration" feat?

The core rulebook contains both the Wizard and the Monk, and considers them equal. For balance purposes, banning core is more effective than banning everything but core (still not really balanced, though).

# ¿ Aug 5, 2014 19:08

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

treeboy posted:

Expecting a game to make you have fun with your friends is the wrong expectation to approach pretty much any game. You find people you enjoy playing with and you'll likely enjoy a bunch of different games, flawed or not. Calling out 5e for fitting the mold of every game ever created is not a knock against it (nor for it).

There's a difference between having fun with a game and having fun in spite of it.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2014 20:00

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

ritorix posted:

lol

It's ok, stealth will all be cleared up in the errata.

It's up to the DM.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2014 02:34

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

I wonder if ToB maneuvers could be ported to 5e? Maybe take advantage of some of the new mechanics, like Concentration.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2014 22:24

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

treeboy posted:

hey, i love Mint Chocolate chip, but let's be honest it's safe

It's safe because it's popular, it's popular because it's delicious. I wish 5e tasted like mint chocolate, but instead it's kind of bland.

Yes, we are going to sit here and argue until you get your similes in order. :colbert:

# ¿ Aug 9, 2014 23:10

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

I would have no trouble playing 5e if it were free. I already have an idea on what kind of character I'd want to play.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2014 23:15

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Daetrin posted:

Played absolutely straight that would be hilarious.

I would absolutely play this, and it would be fun.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2014 02:03

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

hito posted:

Yeah, I'm sure "outside of your reach" means "outside of a square within your reach". It's just that they wanted it to sound clean and avoid 'squares' and now we have ambiguity. Excited as I am about 5e, it's clearly going need a lot more discretionary reading than 4e...

Don't worry, that's a feature. It's up to the DM.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2014 21:12

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Mendrian posted:

So I had a crazy idea:

Given that the core ideas behind Next aren't totally stupid, but mostly the class implementation that leaves a lot to be desired... how hard would it be to just sort of... come up with a bunch of SA-approved home-cooked classes for Next? I realize that's a lot more work that most of the negative people are willing to put in, but what do you think would need the most work?

Fighter is clearly dull as hell and needs some actual class features.

The Wizard subclasses are all broken as poo poo. I think they should be broken out into their own thing and made into their own classes, and Wizards should probably just be banned.

Any other navel-gazing thoughts? I'm really tempted to do some rewrites.

There's nothing wrong with the idea, except in that it requires work. :effort:

Still, if you can find enough nerds with too much time on their hands it's certainly doable.

Get someone to redo monster math, too.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2014 21:56

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Honestly it would probably be easier to take the good ideas from and tack them onto a compatible systems. Do 13th Age or Legend have any use for Advantage/Disadvantage or Concentration?

# ¿ Aug 11, 2014 22:01

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

seebs posted:

All that said: Yeah, I agree that it's overpowered if you stipulate to all the freebies.

What are you even arguing about? You agree it's overpowered! If it's broken, it should be fixed, right?

quote:

But since then? No effect at all on actual gameplay. Pun-pun? Locate City nuke? Great stuff to talk about while unboxing the pizza.

tricks like Pun-Pun and Locate City Nuke require chains of feats, spells, class and/or racial abilities, and the occasional dubious rules interpretation, in order to function. The skeletons require you to use a single spell exactly as it's intended to be used, multiple times.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 23:51

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

neonchameleon posted:

Right on the nail. The three power point using classes hard banned for play experience, and Runepriest soft-banned unless you can tell me precisely what it does that a cleric wouldn't and convince me you can cope with all the fiddly crap. The monk is one of the best designed 4e classes IMO (I house rule that it's martial for about the two times it matters in the entire edition).

I had a "holy poo poo why didn't I ever think of that" moment when I found out they made the Monk Psionic. Ki is basically the same thing anyway. Too bad the other Psionic stuff seemed lackluster.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2014 00:31

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Finesse weapons are weapons that use Dexterity instead of Strength, right?

# ¿ Aug 18, 2014 04:15

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Heffer posted:

One of my favorite D&D blogs had this 5e "hack"
http://blogofholding.com/?p=6610

Wait wait wait they still want you to track ammunition?

# ¿ Aug 18, 2014 20:03

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

moths posted:

Untrue. Unless we assume all D&D happens on planets that the sun rotates around, (and good luck explaining seasons) we should read movement and place as relative to its immediate surroundings.

A book in the wizard's tower is fine, but mowed into his lawn would not be, since the planet's rotation is the nearest relative movement.

So a book in the trunk of the Wizard's car would be "in the place it was cast" regardless of where the car drives, but a mural on the side of his van wouldn't be.

Pop up books in the skeletons' hands would work, scrimshaw directly onto the skeleton would not.

Edit: Actually the wizard's lawn would be fine, but you couldn't inscribe one large enough to be seen from space.

I'm having flashbacks to discussions on immovable rods.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that it needs to be in a particular place relative to a point on the earth rather than relative to the wizards luggage.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2014 12:58

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

dwarf74 posted:

I saw it described best on another forum - 5e is the best version of 3e ever published.

It's a less-broken 3e.

The best official version, yeah, though 3.5 had a few cooler things*. Has anyone thought about importing Binders, or Incarnum, or ToB?

*Only because it's been around for longer, to be fair.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2014 02:08

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Reflavor goblins as mountains, let the fighter cleave them.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2014 03:18

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Ferrinus posted:

It's not, though. High-level 4e guys are legitimately legendarily powerful. There's a lot of bookkeeping involved, but "slow" isn't the same thing as "ineffectual".

Just straight up giving people epic destinies at level 1 is a really cute idea. Heck, you could have a super compressed 10-level 4e, where it's like:

Level 1: Heroic
Level 2: Paragon Path level 11 features
Level 3: Paragon Path level 11 power
Level 4: Paragon Path level 12 power
Level 5: Paragon Path level 16 features
Level 6: Paragon Path level 20 power
Level 7: Epic Destiny level 21 features
Level 8: Epic Destiny level 24 features
Level 9: Epic Destiny level 26 power
Level 10: Epic Destiny level 30 power

That could probably be pretty fun, though you'd have to rework encounters a bit.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2014 15:57

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Falcon2001 posted:

Mage Knights are a classic idea but they need some real buff spells to make them work out, I didn't see much flipping through to make the Eldritch Knight work in my opinion at least. I'll dig through when I get home and see if I could build something out.

Edit: http://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/2e2v36/5e_unlimited_cantrips_really/ looks like they fixed one thing at least, giving unlimited cantrips to wizards. So I guess they drug one thing over from 4e...and gave it to wizards.

There's a number of ways to do a magic fighter build. There's the buff based fighter like you mention, or the Duskblade version where you hit someone with a sword and a spell with the same action, or the Magus version that hits people with a sword and casts a spell at a reduced action cost, or the Swordsage type that has spells that do weapon based damage + other neat tricks (my favorite method).

The Eldritch Knight is limited to abjuration and evocation, right? Do they have a way to hit and evocate at the same time? Or cast spells as a swift action?

# ¿ Aug 20, 2014 20:54

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Jack the Lad posted:

Basically, if you want to deal the highest damage possible as a Fighter in D&D 5e, dual wield hand crossbows and go full gun kata.

Not gonna lie, I'm totally cool with this.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 12:53

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

OneThousandMonkeys posted:

This is probably a reference to 4E where you can be a bear with the bear theme who summons bears and rides a bear, IIRC.

This isn't unheard of in 3.5, either.

efb

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 03:30

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Rosalind posted:

I found the thread in question and jeeze these people are lame.

http://community.wizards.com/forum/product-and-general-dd-discussions/threads/4129726

How dare a monk be able to do something really cool? My realism in my dragon and elf game is ruined!

quote:

It trivializes the Tarrasque, though. Such a beast shouldn't be able to be subjected to treatment like that from a mere monk. I don't want to play whack-a-Tarrasque when I play D&D.

mere monk. A mere, almost epic level monk. :allears:

I'm enjoying reading this topic.

Edit: quoted wrong guy.

Nihilarian fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Aug 23, 2014

# ¿ Aug 23, 2014 02:07

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Is there a spell that heals exhaustion?

# ¿ Aug 24, 2014 15:56

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

dwarf74 posted:

Fortunately you don't have to Frenzy every time you rage. Still, the benefit seems small compared to the penalty.

Yeah, unless you play in a game where you take a long rest between every battle it seems impractical.

Is there any way to be immune or resistant to exhaustion?

# ¿ Aug 24, 2014 22:44

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

slydingdoor posted:

.
Death: Reincarnate probably will undo all the exhaustion, reckless attacking cancels out heavy weapon DA for small races.

Barbarians can reincarnate themselves?

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 03:36

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

slydingdoor posted:

Nah, friendly Druid could Reincarnate the barb though.

The fact that you have to die and be reincarnated in order to solve the problem of exhaustion in a timely manner greatly amuses me. If I were playing a barb in a game with a druid I would ask my DM to houserule it so that Frenzy kills me after every battle, so I can cycle through several different bodies per day.

Nihilarian fucked around with this message at 05:27 on Aug 25, 2014

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 05:24

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 02:59

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

thespaceinvader posted:

You know, like 4e.

Yeah, I see the problem too...

Dragonlance had the Krynn Minotaur, I believe. Can't remember if it's 3.0 or 3.5.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 19:54

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