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I'd say "Okay, the rules of this game are written badly and confusingly and it makes determining which things interact with which a matter of pure guesswork. If the DM is giving out a custom-made item, then the DM should be able to decide when it applies without having to take a course in technical writing. So let's just leave that sort of thing up to the DM."
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Sep 1, 2015 21:58
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Bhaal posted:Yeah I think you're right, I was wondering as well if those feats only gave 1 attack, but really can't remember their specifics. I figured the guy asking Mearls who clocked it as 6 had worked it all out, and it got a "Yes" response, so maybe they all overlooked it. If you want crunchier, your best bets are 4e, 13th Age, and Strike! You can check out the thread for Strike! here on SA if you want to know more. As for where to hear about things, I read the monthly chat thread and the kickstarter thread here and that's where I get most of my gaming news. I also read a couple of blogs but the games they talk about I mostly hear about here first.
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Sep 10, 2015 00:31
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gradenko_2000 posted:I think what P.d0t is saying is that even if you make monster construction quick and easy, 4e still/also demands that you use "interesting" terrain, and that's also a bunch of additional work, even if you use DM tricks and shortcuts like asking the players to fill in details for you. I never found that 4e needed interesting terrain. I would make interesting terrain once in a while, but usually I'd just draw some blobs on my dry-erase grid and go with it. I do the same with Strike now. 4e became grindy at higher levels, yes, but good terrain would just take your mind off the grind, not really prevent it. If you want gridless D&D with more crunch than a PbtA game, I think 13th Age is probably the best thing out there right now. (And if you like the grid, do Strike! Nothing does the grid better. Says me, the totally unbiased author.) Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Sep 10, 2015 |
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Sep 10, 2015 19:22
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gradenko_2000 posted:Okay. If that works, perhaps I'm overthinking it. I'll have to try that. Yeah, the thing with 4e is that when things start to really slow down at later levels, and you're spending over an hour playing out one fight, it makes sense to put in more effort and planning to make that one fight the best it can be. If your fights are quicker and you can get in a few per session, then you won't feel bad about half-assing it a bit. I'm a big proponent of systems that support DMs who want to half-rear end things sometimes (or all the time).
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Sep 10, 2015 20:27
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Operant posted:Wow, I'm reading the moves for Intellect Devourer and it can just reduce someone's intellect permanently to 0 without any given way to recover it (and then potentially crawl inside their head and instantly kill them) We covered this one a while back and yup. Definitely is brutal. Although you should be surrounded by your army of brainless skeletons if you're playing right, and the intellect devourer can't do poo poo to them. Or play a caster and turn yourself into an ettin so even if it eats your brain you have a spare.
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Sep 24, 2015 07:03
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Kurieg posted:I was re-reading the last rules Q&A thing, and realized something stupid. What gets me most about that is that part about recovery. They are still sticking to their story that it makes sense to recover from serious injury with 8 hours rest. And yet warlords are unrealistic because...? Honestly, when I've been injured playing sports, I am in better shape to continue playing right away with the right motivation (playoffs or whatever) than I would be trying to play the next day. When I got bruised ribs playing ball hockey I kept playing and literally didn't know I was hurt. Then the next day I felt it and I couldn't lift anything heavy for 2 full weeks. Warlords inspiring people to fight through injury is SO MUCH more realistic than the idea that you can lie down and feel better in the morning. No, the next morning is the time when you realize the full extent of your injury.
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Oct 1, 2015 18:59
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gradenko_2000 posted:Ditto Athletics and jumping everywhere and being at a constant run. People do that poo poo anyway in video games without any mechanical rewards for it. Who didn't long-jump or triple-jump everywhere in Mario 64? Who didn't somersault their way across Hyrule Field in Ocarina?
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Oct 1, 2015 19:06
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EvanSchenck posted:The DM and I agreed that sometimes being surprised by things and having to use strategy to overcome unexpected difficulties can sometimes be fun and interesting. Huh? How can you use strategy until you get some information? Strategy is what happens after you notice or find out something. Which is what perception let's you do. For example, if you notice a pit trap, you can use strategy to decide whether to avoid it, disarm it, or throw an enemy into it. If you don't notice the trap, you fall in the pit and take damage, and then either break out the rope or use your climb skill.
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Oct 7, 2015 22:43
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Recommending Dungeon World to newbies seems weird to me since it seems to me like its greatest strength is appealing to nostalgia for old school D&D. So many parts of the game are the way they are in order to evoke old school gaming. It would be like recommending Mega Man 9 to someone new to gaming. Mega Man 9 is a very good game, and it's accessible enough to newbies, too. But its raison d'etre is nostalgia and its target market is people who loved Mega Man 2.
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Oct 29, 2015 17:42
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Ixjuvin posted:also ability scores. burn it all down! Now you're talking! Throw it all on the BBQ!
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Nov 10, 2015 21:24
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mastershakeman posted:So don't fight goblins at the edge of a cliff. DM: Okay, I made this awesome set-piece encounter! I drew this cool map, there are fire jets and a cliff and I'm using this old ork battlewagon mini I found from when I used to play Gorkamorka. Players: Gee, that doesn't sound safe. Let's see if we can lure them into fighting on a featureless plane instead. So yeah, D&D has changed. It's been the 21st century for FIFTEEN YEARS. If you want to try to participate in discussions of current gaming culture, you should make an attempt to get current. Otherwise you're just going into a discussion of Iran talking about the Ayatollah and the Shah. Knowing about the Ayatollah and the Shah is useful for understanding Iran today, but not if you've neglected to learn anything about its development post-2000.
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Nov 14, 2015 15:55
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mastershakeman posted:Because most of this thread pretends that d&d began in 2000 and only discusses 3rd edition and onwards, as if the genre wasn't 25 years old at that point. I think the over the top fetishism of 4e (which is in fact an excellent game but delivers much different gameplay than the others) annoys me in a thread devoted to 5e. At least some guys reference red box a lot and I really like reading those posts and ideas. That did not answer the question. Why be disingenuous all the time? Why just come in here and throw up straw men in literally every post you make? "Some people like a thing too much, so I'll be an rear end in a top hat to everyone" is not an answer, it's an excuse.
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Nov 15, 2015 07:04
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This is good - talking about actual designs instead of absurd hyphz-otheticals. If you want to see a system that uses streamlined XP and rewards players for taking on longer and more ambitious challenges, you should get Strike! and check out the Dangerous Delves rules that Ratpick is referencing. It's not the be-all-end-all, but it's one implementation. I definitely fall into the "XP tracking is a tedious waste" camp as it is normally implemented because players have almost no control over how much they get and generally no control over how it is used and the DM is required to fudge it with "quest xp" anyway. Dangerous Delves turns that on its head by telling players in advance which delves are more dangerous or longer or higher level, and they can decide how much XP they want to shoot for, at the risk of taking on too much and having to retreat (or worse). Combine that with the "town assault" mechanic putting pressure on the players to keep leveling up and you get a system where XP isn't so pointless. The players decide how much XP to (try to) get, not the DM. Less-crunchy games have a lot more freedom about this sort of thing. The Shadow of Yesterday's "Keys" come to mind as the sort of thing that work well there but wouldn't work for D&D or Strike! (You can see Keys for free in John Harper's Lady Blackbird).
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Nov 25, 2015 22:55
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thespaceinvader posted:A LOT of it isn't original to this edition, they re-used a tonne of older art assets. True, but I agree it is good. The new stuff is good and they also get to pick and choose the best of the old stuff to re-use. Art is one area where lazily copy-pasting the things they liked from older books works fine.
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Dec 4, 2015 20:27
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Kaysette posted:I'm not one to delve into dice probability very often, but part of my brain has a seizure when people talk about a single d20 roll being higher than average. The consequences of a linear 1d20 system are some of the most frustrating parts of D&D for me. I know of some 3d6 systems but I haven't played any of them. Has anyone tried applying this to recent editions of D&D as some variant rules suggest or, better yet, tried using 2d10 instead? What problem are you hoping to solve? If you want to make static bonuses count for substantially more than they do now some of the time and substantially less other times, then that's a good way to do it. If you want to make players succeed on easy checks more reliably and fail hard checks more reliably, it's also good for that. Using 3d6 doesn't do what most people think it does. The rolls are still binary, which means that the probabilities given by any weirdo set of dice can be approximated to within 2.5% by 1d20 - and nobody is up in arms about the probabilities being off by 2%. 1d20 also has the advantage of being transparent and easy to calculate, even with bonuses. It's simply not the case that it's a uniform vs. bell curve thing because on any given roll there is literally zero difference between a 17 and an 18. In D&D a d20 only has 2 outcomes (critical hits notwithstanding).
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Dec 13, 2015 06:15
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I just meant that people talk about dice rolls with 3d6 following a bell curve. But in D&D they really don't. Any given roll's distribution is just X% failure and Y% success. It looks like this: ________------------- Where you do see an actual bell curve in D&D is damage. Talking about a 3d6 vs a 1d20 in those terms is correct. Yet people talk about skill rolls the same way even though they are not the same. Who cares if you are more likely to roll close to the average if your chance of success is the same? If you need to roll an 8 to succeed, then an 8 is as good as a 20. Changing a d20 to 3d6 for skill rolls also happens to exacerbate my biggest peeve about D&D - setting reasonable target numbers. As a DM, I often set what seemed like a reasonable number, only to be told by my players that they didn't need to bother rolling - sometimes because of automatic success, other times because of automatic failure. Narrowing the range on the dice by going to 3d6 makes that worse. Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Dec 14, 2015 |
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Dec 14, 2015 02:38
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gradenko_2000 posted:I generally agree that the whole +modifiers vs DC thing is difficult to pull off in actual gameplay as far as judging what an appropriate DC is on the fly, but that's really more a problem with the sheer number of moving parts to the equation rather than the die roll mechanic used.
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Dec 14, 2015 06:37
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Bleu posted:I have a copy of Robin's Laws, but is there anything else along that line if I wanted to start GMing? 4e's DMG2.
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Dec 30, 2015 17:19
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So who is writing Ravenloft? Is it actually in-house or is it contracted out like the other stuff has been lately. If it's in-house, I think we can expect a lot of copy-pasting from earlier edition versions.
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Jan 18, 2016 16:44
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Radio Talmudist posted:Is there a replacement for the grognards.txt thread? I can't seem to find anything quite in that vein when I look through traditional games. Turns out that people don't always agree on which opinions are bad opinions and then they want to have childish fights about it until the thread gets gassed.
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Jan 23, 2016 02:56
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Mij's Everyday Charms for the Unadventurous Magic User Crease (indispensable for drycleaning wizards) Litterdust (send away that cloud that fills the room when you change the cat box) Charm Parson (this one is somewhat situational, but not as situational as Enlarge Parson) Dime Stop (for when some change falls out of your pocket getting dressed and it's about to roll under the bed) Featherfull (for plumping pillows) Alter Shelf Fry Speak With Pants Pragmatic Spray Power Word: Kilt
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Jan 26, 2016 03:06
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Power Player posted:Please God no. "Of those of you who played third edition D&D..." Reading between the lines here: Those of you who didn't play third edition D&D can go Edit: the D&D team's answers become so much better if you just replace all instances of "ask your DM" with "go gently caress yourself".
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Feb 8, 2016 21:08
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Vengarr posted:The books were decently well-written at first, but I really despised Kvothe by the time I stopped reading. Yep, this. His only real struggles come from him just inexplicably doing nothing to help himself as poo poo gets worse. The first book promises an epic tale, but then never even bothers starting it - instead it just does wizard school - with all the implausibility of Hogwarts but without any charm or whimsy whatsoever. It even has a Snape and a Dumbledore and a Hagrid and a Draco. But instead of a Hermione, his two friends are both guys... because all the girls are potential love interests and want to sleep with Harry. So the second book is where it pays off, right? Nope. Kvothe at least tries to investigate the main mystery this time, but doesn't really find anything out that we didn't know halfway through the first book. There are a handful of half-baked mini-adventures in various locations. Whoever called it a bunch of filler is right on. I wouldn't have finished it if I'd been actually reading, but I was listening to it as an audiobook while doing chores, and I actually like my audiobooks to be a bit trashy so I don't have to worry if I miss a few seconds or minutes while the sink runs or whatever. I'll probably listen to the third book when it comes out because I am a sucker and don't know when to quit. Edit: I've never read a book that got so much buy-in from me and then completely squandered it by refusing to engage with the story I bought in for.
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Dec 1, 2016 02:59
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ProfessorCirno posted:The author himself is also creepy as gently caress and has some major issues surrounding women. Link or summary? If it's bad enough, I will reconsider getting the next audiobook when it comes out. I'm usually pretty forgiving of creators having sketchy stuff in their past, but there are limits to how much I'll overlook, and since I don't particularly like these books, those limits are lower than they might otherwise be.
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Dec 1, 2016 05:43
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I think the ranger having a chance to hit if he fires into melee is fine so long as it works both ways. The Paladin worships Kord and so occasionally when she misses a melee attack, Kord will smite that cowardly ranger for not having the guts to get into the melee. And when the barbarian misses, sometimes her axe goes flying out of her hands, right at the ranger for some weird reason (it's Kord, having a laugh). But seriously, all this stuff is missing the point. D&D is fun combat with powers and Aitch Pees, not realistic. If you want a system that has that sort of realism about shooting into a melee, you have to think through how this sort of thing should work. Why have anyone go into melee at all if it's just a downside to the team to do so? Why would anyone have done it in real life? Well, in real life when you are trying to reload your crossbow and a dude with an axe closes with you, you just surrender because you are basically turbofucked if you don't. So there, now we have a legit house rule to match the shooting in melee one: when a melee character closes with a ranged-weapon using enemy, they can take them out of the fight with one hit (they still have to roll to hit). Now you have some genuinely interesting interactions and having an effective front line is actually important instead of pointless. You probably have to beef up opportunity attacks or something to make it so you can't just run straight for the ranger, but the basic idea is sound. And I know that this can work if you make the right adjustments because it works in XCOM when chryssalids and berserkers try to gently caress up your poo poo.
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Dec 2, 2016 04:18
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Sage Genesis posted:
Tenzin: "No! gently caress! Goddammit, Spellric. Okay who speaks orcish? Tell the orcs not to hurt the bunny... No! Bunny! Bunny noooooo!"
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Dec 13, 2016 01:15
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Ratpick posted:These are actually pretty good until you get to the part about characters being part of the mass combat, where the advice on adjudicating spells is basically "resolve the spell with the normal rules and then snap back to the mass combat rules to apply casualties." I wish they'd come up with a more elegant way to deal with PCs using their abilities in mass combat. While the Wizard uses wall of ice to affect 30 enemies within a unit, you the fighter can decide which one enemy you wish to attack, and if you are lucky you might even manage to deal enough HP damage to take out that one enemy. Also, using these rules, there are some immediate issues... It never makes sense to split up your forces. If two units of 200 creatures have surrounded a single unit of 400 creatures (assuming CR 1 or 1/2 on all sides), the result will be that the two units can never damage the one and will always lose the maximum and need to make a morale check. This is in part because advantage doesn't actually add to your rolls but just gives you two chances at an unmakable roll. Assuming you have two units of near-equal strength, adding a single CR 13 creature all but guarantees victory. So if 399 pit fiends go up against 399 pit fiends and one vampire, the side with the vampire cannot lose. Because units are capped at 400, one strong unit will inevitably beat any number of weaker units. E.g. One vampire and 399 ghouls can beat literally any number of ghouls. E.g. 400 elk can defeat any number of bandits. I know, it's just supposed to be a stupid thing you plug in while the players do the actual important stuff, but it just isn't good. Good enough? Maybe - they aren't actually that important. But still, this is the sort of thing you come up with if you are just winging it for an afternoon and putting together a first draft without actually checking to see if the rules work or are fun. If it was somebody's homebrew they slapped together in a few hours to get ready for their game later that night, I wouldn't criticize, but these are ostensibly people who work a full time at this poo poo. Or are they just copied and pasted from some 3.5 supplement?
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Feb 21, 2017 21:52
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Nehru the Damaja posted:Has anyone playtested the homebrewed Oath of the Common Man communist paladin? I totally want to allow it in a setting I'm making but the thought of a level 3 paladin skipping one action to give himself advantage on the next 3 rounds seems insane, and only getting worse when you get to level 5 and the following 5 rounds have him attacking with advantage twice a round. Assuming they hit 2/3rds of the time (typical rate for every recent edition of D&D), attacking for 4 rounds in a row will yield 4 x 2/3 = 2.667 hits on average. Giving up an action one round and then attacking the next three with advantage will yield 3 x 8/9 = 2.667. The exact same! So it's not actually good - in fact, it's basically a trap at that point because you are giving up some other channel divinity option for a spell that yields no improvement. Not only no overall improvement over time, but it back-loads your damage when the optimum would be front-loading it. It's always better to get the damage out faster and give the enemies less time to mess with you. The one good use for it would be if you are not in a position to get off a good attack that round - then that spell would allow you to make up for that. Let's do the same math on giving up 2 attacks to get 5 rounds of advantage on 2 attacks per round.... 6 rounds of 2 attacks per round yields 12 x 2/3 = 8 hits on average. 5 rounds of 2 attacks per round with advantage yields 10 x 8/9 = 8.89 hits on average. So that's a mild 10% improvement on your damage over 6 rounds, but again it back-loads the damage when you would want to front-load it. For the first 3 rounds of the fight your damage output will be below what it would have been with no spell, and you'll catch up in the fourth round (by which point the outcome of the fight may already be decided). Overall, not a particularly strong spell if your goal is to hit the bad guys a lot. There may be some synergies with other abilities that I haven't considered here, but purely in terms of increasing how often you hit, it's not great. It also has obvious anti-synergies with any other features or abilities or situations that grant advantage, since there is no stacking of advantages.
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Mar 5, 2017 06:27
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Zarick posted:I'd also wager it works pretty well in situations where you're likely to remain disadvantaged, like fighting underwater without a swim speed, or being repeatedly restrained by one of the many monsters that does so. Yeah, any situation that lowers your hit rate significantly below 2/3rds makes that spell more appealing.
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Mar 5, 2017 16:14
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I totally see the appeal of random ability scores if you are playing like a string of one-shots. Playing an octogenarian with Parkinson's and Alzheimer's one week and then playing supergenius Brock Lesnar the next week sounds fun. Rolling stats and then playing a long campaign with whatever you get? That's the stupidest idea.
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May 9, 2017 16:06
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ProfessorCirno posted:You can have long chargen that isn't poo poo, just make it long because there's a group element to it, or because you're doing something creative as part of chargen. I agree with your post entirely, though your example is not for me. I hate making FATE characters. It's too open for me - I like more structure. Burning Wheel characters, though... now that game is like character building crack for me. More decision points, but each one is constrained. I've never had more fun making characters. I think it's part of how I look at games. FATE wants me to think of a concept and then pick the mechanical bits to make that work, whereas I like looking at the mechanical bits, seeing a cool combination and then working out "how can I make that combination happen within the constraints of the rules?" Burning Wheel does that very well, and so does D&D to some extent. It's a shame that making D&D characters without a character builder is just a chore (even with the builder, picking items in 4e was a disgusting garbage task).
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Jul 22, 2017 16:59
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